Dear St. Anne's Parishioners, on behalf of St. Anne's Parish, I wish you and your family a
Happy Easter 2024
This is the day which was made by the Lord: let us rejoice and be glad, Alleluia.
Fr. Paulus Waris SANTOSO, O.Carm
Parish Priest
Dear St. Anne's Parishioners, on behalf of St. Anne's Parish, I wish you and your family a
Happy Easter 2024
This is the day which was made by the Lord: let us rejoice and be glad, Alleluia.
Fr. Paulus Waris SANTOSO, O.Carm
Parish Priest
My dear brothers and sisters, on the first day of the week, the third day of his Passion, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Today is his day. Happy Easter. Many great historical figures have led exemplary lives, taught wise doctrines, and even died for the truth. But only one has risen again.
Jesus Christ from Nazareth.
Joy Amidst Suffering - The Paradox of Palm Sunday
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Today we celebrate the Palm Sunday, and we are in the middle of a paradox. On the one hand, we are filled with joy. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, throngs of people rejoice. The promised Savior has finally come! The Messiah is here! Redemption is at hand!
But then, on the other hand, we turn towards the sorrowful narrative of our Lord's rejection, suffering, and death - with his passion. Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday. It is a solemn, silent moment.
How can a day of triumph be filled with both joy and sorrow? Because what seems to be Christ's defeat is actually his victory, the victory of everlasting love."A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
That's what Jesus taught, and that's what he did in his passion, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that his love for us has no limits. The angels sang "Glory to God in the Highest" when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and now the people sing, "Hosanna in the Highest" as Jesus enters Jerusalem.
Both entrances were motivated by God's love, the same love that led him to be obedient to the Father even to the point of death, so as to reverse the disobedience of Adam, pay the price of our sins, and rescue fallen mankind from hopelessness and injustice.
We have solved our paradox. The source of our sorrow is sin, our sins, the cause of Christ's suffering. But the source of our joy is Christ's love, the very reason Jesus was willing to suffer, and the very power that, through his sacrifice on the cross, conquers our sins.
And so Christians can always live inside the paradox of Palm Sunday, can always find joy, the joy of Christ's limitless love, even amidst the profoundest sorrows.
St Polycarp's Victory
In Christian art, the martyrs are almost always shown holding palm branches as symbols of victory over temptation and suffering. These martyrs are our older brothers and sisters in the faith - God wants us to learn from and be encouraged by them.
Take the example of St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. In the year 155, Polycarp was condemned to death for refusing to give idolatrous worship to the Roman Emperor. As he was a well-known Christian leader, and so, even though he was already in his 80s, his execution was made into a large public spectacle. He was burned to death in the city stadium.
Normally, criminals executed that way were actually fastened to the pile of wood, so that they wouldn't climb out of the fire. But not Polycarp. He told his guards: "He who gives me strength to endure the fire will also grant me to stay on the pyre unflinching even without your making sure of it with nails."
According to eyewitnesses, his last words were a prayer of blessing and thanksgiving to God for giving him the honour of sharing Christ's cup of suffering.
Those same eyewitnesses tell us that when the fire was lit, a great flame blazed up, but instead of burning Polycarp right away, it surrounded him like a fiery force field; his face was serene and his body glowed like gold being refined in a furnace. As he peacefully breathed his last, the onlookers perceived a fragrant smell, as if incense were being offered.
This is the paradox of Palm Sunday, which God wants us all to experience: that Christ's limitless love can strengthen us to resist even the greatest temptations, and fill us with interior peace and joy even amidst the flames of suffering that torment us here on earth.
Bringing Christ's Victory to Others
During these days, the Holy Spirit wants to teach how to live this paradox more deeply. He will do so as we spend more time with Christ in personal prayer and come together for the special liturgies during the week.
If we live this week well, seven days from now we will know Christ's love for us better, and so we will be better able to experience true Christian joy, even in the midst of life's trials.
We should be grateful for the freedom we have in this country to celebrate Holy Week, a freedom not all Catholics enjoy, and we should also be grateful for our faith, that precious gift which is the key to living these days fruitfully.
But there are many people around us who do not have this faith. Each of us knows some of them: neighbours, colleagues, even family members. Maybe no one ever told them about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer.
Maybe life's challenges made them fall into temptation, trading in their true Christian faith for some other, more fashionable world view. Whatever the reason, the fact remains: they don't have palm branches in their hands today.
They are not sharing in Christ's victory, not even a little bit. They are like the people in the Gospel who came up to the rejoicing crowds and asked, "Who is this? What's going on?"
Is there any better way for us to celebrate this holiest week of the year than by answering that question? By telling them who Jesus is and who he wants to be for them?
Pope John Paul II used to say that the best way to grow in our own faith was by giving it away to others. This week, strengthened by our celebration today, let's put that theory to the test. Christ's victory is too precious to keep to ourselves.
Palms are historically a symbol of victory and peace and were plentiful in Jerusalem during the lifetime of Jesus. Palms have a rich history. It was a customary practice in the ancient world to welcome home a king by placing palm branches on the ground for him to walk or ride on. Palms have also been recognized as a symbol of peace, victory, and eternal life.
Palms are in the Bible
Palms are referenced in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. The palm tree was used as an important symbol during holy assemblies. In Leviticus, the Israelites celebrated the feast of Tabernacles honoring the freedom they received from the hands of the Egyptians. "On the first day, you shall gather foliage from majestic trees, branches of palms..." (Lev 23:40)
Again, for the feast of Tabernacles, the gathering of palms is referenced in Nehemiah: "Go out into the hill country and bring in branches of olive trees, oleanders, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees, to make booths." (Nem 8:15)
King Solomon, understanding the significance of palms, had images carved into the walls of the temple. "The walls on all sides of both the inner and the outer rooms had carved figures of cherubim, palm trees and open flowers." (1 King 6:29)
When Simon Maccabees liberated the citadel from the enemies of Israel, "... the Jews entered the citadel with shouts of jubilation, waving of palm branches.... because a great enemy of Israel had been destroyed." (1 Mac 13:51)
Palms and Christianity
The Gospel of John recounts how he was welcomed into the city by a crowd waving palming branches: "When the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, (even) the king of Israel'" (12:12-13).
The palm branch represents victory and peace during the Lenten journey and frequently serves two liturgical functions in more than one physical form. The palm is a prominent holy object that helps Catholics prepare for the death and resurrection of our Savior.
In the beginnings of Christianity, the palm represented the victory of martyrs - the victory of the spirit over the flesh. In the fourth Century AD, coins issued under the Emperor Constantine continued to display the palm leaves of victory. In 1688 the Church decided that when they found the palm image carved on tombs discovered in the Roman catacombs, it was to be understood that a martyr had been buried there.
Today we use palm leaves on Palm Sunday to commemorate Christ's sacrifice: we remember His death on the cross and continually praise Him for our salvation. And, we anticipate His Resurrection a week later at Easter: His victory over death holds out to us the hope of eternal life.
But it's not always a palm branch that is used in these Lenten liturgies. In some regions, Catholics use olive branches in their Palm Sunday processions as a sign of peace, victory, and reconciliation during the last Sunday of Lent, marking the beginning of Holy Week. But the green branches of the palm tree are the traditional props Catholics wave on Palm Sunday to commemorate Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem and our faith as we welcome him into our lives as our Messiah.
The Crucifix Reveals the Heart of God
My dear brothers and sisters, in today's Gospel there are some Greek-speaking visitors who had come to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to celebrate the Passover, the most important Jewish holy day. And when they hear about Jesus, they give us one of the most beautiful prayers in the whole Bible. So simple, and so powerful. They come up to St Philip and say, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus."
Jesus' response to this request is kind of confusing. Instead of just saying, "OK, show them in," he gives a long explanation of "his hour," his coming sacrifice on the cross.
At first glance, this seems like a denial. But his last statement shows that actually, he is granting their request. "And when I am lifted up from the earth," he explains, "I will draw everyone to myself."
By his crucifixion, Jesus reveals himself to everyone, including these Greek visitors included.Christ wants everyone to find him, to see him, to learn to know and love him - that's why he became man in the first place. And so he allows himself to be crucified, which showing us both his outer self, and his inner self.
The crucifixion exposes his heart for all to see - a heart blazing with so much love that it is willing to die for our sake, to suffer unspeakable pain and humiliation in order to reopen to us the gates of heaven. The crucifix is the great revelation of the heart of God.
If we want to "see Christ," to see and know God, we have only to raise our eyes to behold him dying on the cross to give us true life. There Christ is most attractive to us - and we should always remember that we are no less attractive to him when we bend under the weight of our own cross and weakness.
St Marguerite Bourgeoys Saves the Day
God also reveals this dynamic, energetic love through his saints. In fact, every one of us is called to be a mirror of God's goodness and God's love. When we live that calling faithfully, we become saints. Sometimes we think that saints are pious and passive - but since God's love is dynamic, authentic saints are also dynamic.
St Marguerite Bourgeoys is a good example of this. She was born in France in 1630, but her heart to serve God and his people brought her to the newfound French colony of Montreal, Canada in 1652.
She came in response to an invitation issued by the colony's governor, who was looking for teachers. She came to the rough settlement and immediately began her work of teaching and training young colonial and Native American girls.
Soon she saw that the progress of the settlement depended on a morally sound and capable class of women who could form and maintain solid home lives. So, she returned to France to gather some fellow workers, and then expanded her efforts back in Montreal by starting a new kind of religious order. And that's where she reflected so brilliantly the passionate, tireless, dynamic love of the heart of the crucified Christ.
At that time, religious congregations of women were all cloistered. But St Marguerite recognized that the specific characteristics of colonial life needed the help of sisters who were allowed to work outside the convent: promoting Christian charity, education, and everything else a new settlement required.
She insisted on moving forward with this radical new vision, even though it entailed an endless round of arguments and discussions to win official approval from civil and Church authorities. She spent her whole lifetime pioneering this new form of religious consecration against all odds - because that's the kind of thing true, Christ-like love does.
Giving His Heart a Chance to Show Its Love
We only have a couple more weeks of Lent. Nothing would please the heart of Christ more than if we made a real effort to spend more time with him in prayer during these weeks, to give him a chance to show us how much he loves us.
True prayer is much more than just saying prayers. It is a heart-to-heart conversation with God, with the God who loves us so much that even while we were still sinners, he climbed up onto a cross and suffered in his own body and soul the consequences and penalty of our sins.
There are special graces in the air during Lent, but we will miss them unless we take time to sit close to the Lord and talk with him. We are all busy, and it may not be easy to make time to spend in prayer.
God understands that. But if we try, I am sure we can find ways. Maybe it is just a matter of saying an extra decade of the Rosary while you're driving to the store or to work.
Maybe it's just a matter of going to bed fifteen minutes earlier than usual, so that you can get up fifteen minutes earlier and spend that time reading a chapter of the Bible or of a good spiritual book and speaking to the Lord about what you read.
Maybe it could be skipping your favorite TV show or Drama series for the next two or three weeks and coming to the parish to do a Holy Hour (or a Holy Half-Hour) in front of the Eucharist instead - praying for yourself and for all your loved ones.
God will never let himself be outdone in generosity. If we give him a bit more time, he will shower us with a lot more grace - that's just how he is: his heart never gets tired of giving. We just need to give his heart a chance. As he comes to us again in this Holy Mass, let's promise him that we will.
During Lent, the Church asks us to prepare for Christ's passion and resurrection by making small sacrifices, traditionally in the form of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But why do we sacrifice? What is a sacrifice, anyway?
St. Thomas Aquinas observes that "sacrifice" comes from the Latin word: Sacrificium.Sacrificium comes from sacer (holy) and facere (do or make). A sacrifice is a making-holy. Not only that, but St. Thomas' discussion of sacrifice reveals so much about our nature and our relationship to God. He describes a sacrifice as a bodily act of offering to God a gift that is broken or transformed so that we might return to God.
A bodily act
Sacrifice is fundamentally a religious act of offering a gift to God. But isn't this a bit strange? If God is all spirit, how could he possibly need our physical offerings?
St. Thomas explains that our physical offerings are not really for God's benefit, but for us. As a unity of body and soul, the human person experiences reality through the physical senses. Even God presents himself to us through the sensible things of creation. It is fitting, then, that we present ourselves to God through sensible things as well. Think of the Sacraments: all are visible signs of invisible grace. Lenten fasting and sacrifices are tiny sacramental signs of the true gift we give God: ourselves, body, and soul.
A gift is broken or transformed
However, a sacrifice is not just any gift. St. Thomas explains that an offering only becomes a sacrifice when it is changed: the goat is slaughtered, the bread is broken, and the grain is consumed by fire. In being transformed, the offering is set apart and made holy. Christ himself, the consummate sacrifice, was mutilated, pierced, and subjected to death.
But for these to be real sacrifices, something must be broken and transformed. Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving break little cracks in the brittle illusion of our self-sufficiency. They invite us to acknowledge our brokenness, susceptible as we all are to the corrupting effects of sin. And they invite God's grace to transform us and make us holy. "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17).
Return to God
Why, then, do we sacrifice? We do it to return to God, and this return happens in two distinct ways. First, through sacrifice, we "return to God" in the sense of giving back what we owe him. Of course, we can't possibly repay God for his gifts with an equal return—he is the source of our very existence! We owe him everything. Nevertheless, we can do our part: our small personal sacrifices signify our return to God. And thankfully, Christ lovingly repaid our dues in full through his perfect self-sacrifice, which we too can offer to God every time we participate in the Mass.
Second, through sacrifice, we "return to God" in the sense of turning back towards him over and over again. Like the Israelites, we are constantly turning away from God and towards sin. As God called Israel to repentance through the prophets, he still calls us: "Return to me with all your heart" (Joel 2:12).
Lenten practices help us shed bad habits and self-love. St. Thomas says these religious acts purify us to orient ourselves more single-mindedly toward God. When we respond thus to the divine call—when we offer ourselves up, body and soul, to be broken and transformed by his merciful love—we are made holy.
The Meaning of the Love of God
My dear brother and sisters in Christ. In today's first reading we heard that God allow the ancient Jews to return to Jerusalem after their exile. Why did God allow that happened?
They were the ones who had been unfaithful to his friendship. They had started worshipping other gods, breaking the commandments, and disobeying God's prophets. They "mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets."
That's ungrateful. And because of their sin, they suffered the consequences - they were conquered and exiled by the Babylonians; sin always does damage, both to us and to those around us. And while they were in exile, many of them completely forgot about God and his promises - as today's Psalm implies.
But even in the face of this colossal ingratitude, God still didn't give up on them. He sent them more prophets to give them hope. He promised to restore them. And when the time was right, he did restore them. He brought his unworthy people back to Jerusalem and allowed them to rebuild the Temple, a sign of lasting peace and prosperity.
Why? Why would he be so unreasonable? Because God's love, God's fidelity, God's mercy doesn't depend on our worthiness. He doesn't love us because we are perfect; he perfects us because he loves us.
This is the Good News of today's Gospel: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life." St Paul gets even more explicit in today's Second Reading.
He points out that our salvation is a "grace" - the Greek word refers to a lovely gift, not something we earn or deserve. He writes: "God ... because of the great love he had for us ... even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ." We are too used to this word, "love." Today, let's refresh our appreciation for what it really means.
The First Two Loves: Natural Affection and Eros
The New Testament was written in Greek, not English. And Greek has at least four different words for the single English word "love." They all imply some kind of bond, connection, attraction, and appreciation between someone who loves and something or someone that is loved, but each one has a different shade of meaning.
The first and most basic word for love in ancient Greek is "storge" [STORE-gay]. It means natural affection, the bond that we feel because of some natural connection.
This affection can be sweet and superficial, as in the affection we feel for a favourite ice cream or for a favourite pet. Or it can go very deep, as in the bond we feel naturally with members of our family. Even when siblings, for example, are estranged from each other for many years, there is still a unique bond between them, a natural connection or affection. This type of natural affection doesn't really come up very much in the Bible.
The second Ancient Greek word for love is "eros" [AIR-ohss]. This is the kind of love we talk about when we say that someone has "fallen in love." This is the kind of passionate feeling that carries us away and fills us with intense and seemingly uncontrollable emotions. It can refer to the passion that leads two people to become romantically involved. Or it can refer to the passion that artists feel for their art or even that diehard sportsmen feel for their sport.
The common denominator here is that the passionate feeling tends to carry us away, even leading us to become unreasonable and imprudent. It doesn't have to, but in a fallen world it tends to. We need God's grace to help us channel and govern these passions in a fruitful, beautiful way. This word only appears twice in the Bible, both times in the Old Testament.
Love #3 - Friendship
The third ancient Greek word for love is "philia" [FEEL-ee-yuh]. This word was used to describe a bond formed when two people share a common interest or ideal. It was used most often to refer to friendship.
Instead of being based on instinctual affection or passionate intoxication, it was based on a conscious awareness and decision to share one's interests with another person. The key characteristic here is that the two friends who share this kind of love are equals.
"Philia" was not usually used to describe the relationship between a father and son, for example, or between a master and a beloved slave - they were not equals. This word does appear in the New Testament. It is used when Jesus says to his disciples at the Last Supper: "I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father" (John 15:15).
God's grace not only forgives our sins, but it elevates us; it makes us like him. Imagine if we could give our favorite pet the ability to talk, laugh, and interact with us on a human level.
Well, God has done that with us. Dog nature is inferior to human nature, and human nature is inferior to divine nature. But God in his goodness and through his grace has elevated our human nature and made us partakers in the divine nature. We are friends of Christ.
And so, the infused theological virtues (faith, hope, and love), when we develop them, enable us to see ourselves, the world, and others as Christ does, to think of them as he does.
Love #4: Self-forgetfulness
The fourth word for love in ancient Greek is used far more frequently in the Bible than all the others combined. It is "agape" [ah-GAH-pay], sometimes translated as "charity." Perhaps a better translation is "Christ-like love," since he revealed its meaning to us by his life, death, and resurrection. This is the word used in today's Readings: "God so loved the world... because of the great love he had for us." This is also the word used when Jesus gives his New Commandment at the Last Supper: "love one another as I have loved you."
What is the core meaning of Self-forgetfulness? This is the love that focuses on doing good to others, serving them, helping them in their needs, regardless of how I feel about them or what I might get in return.
This is generous love, sacrificial love, self-giving love. This is the love of Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem, in the desert, and on the cross.... pouring out his life not because doing so filled him with ecstasy, but because we needed him to do it, because he wanted to restore hope to our sinful hearts and lead us back from our sinful exile into the Father's house.
When St John in his First Letter writes, "God is love," this is the word he uses. God is completely self-forgetful, completely focused on our good, happiness, and fulfillment. That's why he created us: not for his happiness, but for ours.
That's why he forgives us as often as we need to be forgiven. That's why he feeds us with the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. That's why he carries our crosses with us, never leaving us to suffer alone. And since we were created in God's image, this God who is love, we will find the fulfillment we yearn for as we gradually learn to love in this same self-forgetful, Christ-like way.
Conclusion: Spreading the Sunrise
God's love for each of us is personal, active, unconditional and unlimited, and the crucifix proves it. And today the Church is reminding us of that. After three weeks of Lenten penance, when we have been reminded of our sins and selfishness (the bad news), it is time to remember that it is precisely because of those sins and selfishness that Christ came to earth to save us (the Good News).
That's the reason this Sunday is called "Laetare Sunday," the Sunday of Rejoicing ["Laetare" is the first word of the entrance antiphon in Latin]. That's the reason we wear rose-coloured vestments today. Just as the horizon begins to brighten and turn a pale pink as the sun starts to rise after a long, dark night, so the love of God in Christ pierces the darkness of sin and sends the shadows of evil fleeing the bright light of eternal day.
Today as Christ renews his unconditional love for us in this holy Mass, and especially as we receive him in Holy Communion, let's thank him for these gifts. And let's ask him for the grace not only to experience his love, but to share that experience with others, especially those who are still living in darkness.
This week, may our active, Christ-like love be like a sunrise in their hearts, giving them hope and drawing them towards the saving fountain God's grace.
I think this is a good time to start trying to understand the paradox of the cross: It is beyond human understanding, yet contains a divine purpose and profound supernatural love. Through Jesus' death on the cross, he has saved us from a similarly horrible death.
The Crucifixion is a horror method of execution. It was specifically designed to intensify and prolong agony, but to be the ultimate insult to personal dignity, the last word in humiliating and dehumanizing treatment."
And yet, for love of us, Jesus chose to suffer this unimaginably painful, degrading death, because "no other mode of execution would have been commensurate with the extremity of humanity's condition under Sin."
To understand why Christ's passion and death on the cross were necessary for our salvation, we have to understand the idea of sacrifice and atonement in the Old Testament. According to the old Mosaic covenant, priests would offer animal sacrifices to God for the sins of the people, substituting the death of the animal for the death punishment deserved by the people for their sins and disobedience. This "substitution" brought an individual or a community back into a right relationship with God.
The Letter to the Hebrews shows how Christ took the place of the Mosaic priestly sacrifices once and for all. Just as in the Old Covenant the high priest would offer animal sacrifices on behalf of the people, so Christ became the new high priest who offered himself as the sacrificial offering for the sins of the people for all time. While the Old Covenant required ongoing sacrifices, Jesus' was once and for all, never to be repeated: "he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:12)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that "Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God's plan." (CCC 599) This is where the sense of paradox comes in: How could a loving and merciful God condemn his Son to such a fate? The only answer is love. God took the initiative to offer his Son on the cross in order to do something we could never do: save ourselves. Jesus took the punishment we deserved and became the instrument of atonement for our guilt to the Father. We are forgiven because of his suffering and death. This is why, for Catholics, the crucifix, in all its brutality, is the most powerful image of God's love and concern for each of us.
Satiating our true thirst
My dear brothers and sisters, for the Third Sunday of Lent we pause briefly on our pilgrimage toward Jerusalem in order to contemplate Our Lord's encounter with the Samaritan Woman. It's a good opportunity to recall our own encounters with the Lord. Ultimately, we are thirsting for God and his love, and Lent is a time to return to the well in order to satisfy that thirst again, accepting no substitutes.
In today's First Reading the Israelites are thirsty and fed up. They rebel against Moses, who is afraid they'll kill him, and almost rebel against the Lord. They question whether God is even there. That shows the thirst they really have: for God. His presence, his attention, his aid.
They don't perceive his presence, just their need, and their hearts have become hardened by their experiences and frustration. Sometimes we thirst for something more, but we seek to slake our thirst in the wrong way. That is a recipe for dissatisfaction and a hardened heart.
St. Paul in today's Second Reading reminds us that our true thirst goes beyond just seeking the fulfillment of material needs. The Holy Spirit pours God's love into our hearts. It is God's love that satisfies our true thirst. When we're filled with his love and his grace, we're at peace. No grumbling.
Everyone thirsts for love, but not everyone realizes that the love for which they thirst is the love of God. Yet, if there is an issue the problem is us, not him: Our Lord offered his love for us even when he had no idea or desire for his love, while we were still "enemies" due to sin.
In today's Gospel the Samaritan woman epitomizes someone who was looking for love in all the wrong places. Yet love came to meet her unexpectedly. The Samaritan woman knew the religious traditions of her people, so she had an idea of the importance of God in her life, yet something had not clicked. She knew her religion, but she also experienced rebellion in her heart against God's will regarding marriage, which is why she starts to give Our Lord some attitude. Where does this Jew, and a Jewish man no less, get off talking to her and asking for a drink?
Today's Psalm reminds us that if today we hear the voice of the Lord we must not harden our hearts like the Israelites did. The Samaritan woman's experiences have hardened her.
In today's Gospel we see two thirsts seeking each other out. Each one seeks the other in order to satisfy its thirst. The Lord has a great thirst for our faith and our love. The Samaritan woman has a thirst for real love.
Our Lord today knows he is dealing with a hardened heart frustrated after a long time looking for love in all the wrong places. Therefore, he knows when to be tactful, addressing her true thirst, but also blunt, telling her the mistaken ways she tried to slake her thirst.
He comes to meet her at her level. The Lord often avoids the Messianic titles of his time because his contemporaries see the Messiah as someone simply social and political, but when the Samaritan woman asks him if he is the Messiah, he responds without hesitation: "I am he, the one speaking with you." The Samaritan woman has found that for which she was truly thirsting and has to share the news.
Sometimes you just need water
Society at large has insisted a lot on being sure to drink lots of water daily for good health. Many people tote a bottle with them now wherever they go. In the past, it was because people had no better option. Today people have so many beverages—sodas, coffees, teas, juices—that they neglect something as essential and vital as water.
Many individuals in the world today don't have a reliable source of water. Water is vital to life. Eliminate a community's water supply, and you eliminate that community.
Meditate on the Samaritan Woman
In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: "It is impossible to give a brief explanation of the wealth of this Gospel passage. One must read and meditate on it personally, identifying oneself with that woman who, one day like so many other days, went to draw water from the well and found Jesus there, sitting next to it, 'tired from the journey' in the midday heat" (Angelus, 2/24/2008).
Through meditating on this passage you can open your heart so that the Holy Spirit can refill it with God's love: "like the Samaritan woman, let us also open our hearts to listen trustingly to God's Word in order to encounter Jesus who reveals his love to us and tells us: 'I who speak to you am he' (Jn 4: 26), the Messiah, your Savior" (Angelus, 2/24/2008).
Wells are not meant to be used just once. Like the kitchen faucet, we go to them over and over, because our thirst for God is continuous in this life. If we neglect that thirst our spiritual life will shrivel up.
Pray for catechumens
Today catechumens preparing to receive the sacraments at Easter are doing what's called the First Scrutiny. Catechumens are preparing to receive the sacraments of Christian Initiation, and the scrutinies are to "to uncover, then heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the elect; to bring out, then strengthen all that is upright, strong, and good". Each one has had an encounter with the Lord that is changing their life, which is why today's Gospel is so appropriate and useful for them. Throughout Lent, we pray for our catechumens. Let's also scrutinize our own Christian living as a way to teach them how Christians are truly meant to live.
A woman came. She is a symbol of the Church not yet made righteous. Righteousness follows from the conversation. She came in ignorance, she found Christ, and he enters into conversation with her. Let us see what it is about, let us see why a Samaritan woman came to draw water. The Samaritans did not form part of the Jewish people: they were foreigners. The fact that she came from a foreign people is part of the symbolic meaning, for she is a symbol of the Church. The Church was to come from the Gentiles, of a different race from the Jews.
We must then recognise ourselves in her words and in her person, and with her give our own thanks to God. She was a symbol, not the reality; she foreshadowed the reality, and the reality came to be. She found faith in Christ, who was using her as a symbol to teach us what was to come. She came then to draw water. She had simply come to draw water; in the normal way of man or woman.Jesus says to her: Give me water to drink. For his disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore says to him: How is it that you, though a Jew, ask me for water to drink, though I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.
The Samaritans were foreigners; Jews never used their utensils. The woman was carrying a pail for drawing water. She was astonished that a Jew should ask her for a drink of water, a thing that Jews would not do. But the one who was asking for a drink of water was thirsting for her faith. Listen now and learn who it is that asks for a drink. Jesus answered her and said: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," perhaps you might have asked him and he would have given you living water.
He asks for a drink, and he promises a drink. He is in need, as one hoping to receive, yet he is rich, as one about to satisfy the thirst of others. He says: If you knew the gift of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. But he is still using veiled language as he speaks to the woman and gradually enters into her heart. Or is he already teaching her? What could be more gentle and kind than the encouragement he gave? If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," perhaps you might ask and he would give you living water.
What is this water that he will give if not the water spoken of in Scripture: With you is the fountain of life? How can those feel thirst who will drink deeply from the abundance in your house?
He was promising the Holy Spirit in satisfying abundance. She did not yet understand. In her failure to grasp his meaning, what was her reply? The woman says to him: Master, give me this drink, so that I may feel no thirst or come here to draw water. Her need forced her to this labour, her weakness shrank from it. If only she could hear those words: Come to me, all who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Jesus was saying this to her, so that her labours might be at an end; but she was not yet able to understand.
Lent is the penitential season in the Church's liturgical year; it begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with the celebration of the Paschal Mystery (Easter Triduum). During Lent, the Church reflects the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert in fasting and prayer (CCC 540, 1095, 1438). So on this occasion we learn from Saint Teresa of Avila how we pray.
At the beginning of her reform of the Carmelites, St Teresa of Jesus was asked by the nuns of her first foundation – the monastery St Joseph in Avila – to teach them how to pray. In her response, she chose the spirit of Lent as her guide; she chose the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 6. Her answer to the cloistered nun's request was The Way of Perfection, her first book of teachings. In it, she presents her meditations on the Our Father, the prayer of the Lord – the core of chapter 6 of the Gospel of Matthew.
At the beginning of her book (Ch. 4) St Teresa lays out the proper foundations for a life of prayer: "I shall enlarge on only three things, which are from our constitutions, for it is very important that we understand how much these three things help us to possess inwardly and outwardly the peace our Lord recommended so highly to us.
"The first of these is love of one another; the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all others" (W4, 4).
St. Teresa's connection to the spirituality of Lent is now clear: love of one another relates to alms giving; detachment points to fasting; and, the essence of prayer is rooted in humility. This is Teresa's masterful insight to a life of prayer for her nuns and to all of us today.
Humility is a relational word that acknowledges that God is the creator and man is indeed the creature. The virtue of humility shows that God is the author of all Good and humanity recognizes their total dependence on God and on His goodness and mercy. In the words of the Church, humility avoids inordinate ambition of pride, reveals a contrite heart, and provides the foundation for turning to God in prayer (Cf. CCC 2559).
St. Teresa by highlighting humility solves the situation presented by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them" (Mt 6,1); piety to be seen by men is pride; and the antidote of pride is the virtue of humility, as Teresa rightly points out.
Therefore, to obtain the inner and outward peace that the Lord promises, St. Teresa's counsels, for a fulfilling life of prayer, is to be centered in humility – for it embraces fully both almsgiving and fasting; in her words, it embraces both love of neighbor and detachment of all things. Thus, immersed in the virtue of humility, our prayer life will flourish and the spirituality of Lent will always present in your life.
The Cross Is Always Linked to the Resurrection
We are still at the beginning of Lent, this season of repentance and penitence, but today the Church is already talking to us about the Resurrection. In the transfiguration of Jesus in today's Gospel, Peter, James, and John get a glimpse of Christ's eternal glory, the glory he claimed fully after the resurrection.
St Paul, in today's Second Reading, writes passionately about God's power and faithfulness as revealed in Christ. And he changes his emphasis mid-sentence to take the spotlight off Christ's death on the cross and let it shine on his glorious resurrection. And in the passage about Abraham and Isaac, which narrates events that took place almost 2000 years before Christ, the release of Isaac from his bonds gives him new life - this too is a symbol of Christ's resurrection.
Even today's Psalm, when it speaks about walking with the Lord in the Land of the living and God "loosening the bonds" of his servant, is pointing our attention towards Christ's glorious resurrection. And yet, Easter is still more than a month away! What's going on here? It's very simple, really.
Lent is indeed meant to be a time of repentance and penitence, a time of sacrifice and reflection in which we acknowledge the weight of suffering in the world and in our lives, suffering that always has its roots in sin. This suffering is always part of the story of every human life, with or without Christ; but with Christ, it is not the end of the story. Crosses purify us of selfishness, if we allow them to, teaching us to lean more on Christ and to have a greater experience of his wisdom and joy - his resurrection.
In our Catholic faith, the cross and resurrection are two sides of the same coin; we must never allow ourselves to think of one without thinking of the others.
Running Marathons with Christ
Ryan Hall, the professional marathon runner who competed for the United States in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, understands this concept well. Ryan is a Christian, and his running career has always been linked to his faith. While in eighth grade and doing a 15-mile run in his hometown of Big Bear Lake, California, he suddenly felt a calling to compete in running at the highest levels: "I felt God had blessed me with this talent," he said in an interview years later. Since then, Ryan has been trying to glorify God by developing his running talent and bearing witness to his faith. His wild success in high school and college enabled him to launch a professional career.
While training for the Olympics, his daily schedule was like this: rise at 7am, eat breakfast, run 10 to 12 miles; eat lunch, have a massage or an ice bath to ease the muscles; take an afternoon nap to recover from the morning workout; run another five to six miles, go to the gym for strength and flexibility exercises; eat dinner, go to bed. That schedule is like most professional marathon runners. But on the night before a big race, Ryan's schedule breaks the mold. Instead of relaxing or listening to music, he watches Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, to get mentally prepared.
The example of Christ's suffering and resurrection helps him manage his pain during the race. He recalled being in agony in the final two miles of the London Marathon in April 2007, where his top performance shocked his competitors. His body was being stifled by a combination of 70-degree heat and a suffocating pace he had set earlier in the race. How was able to keep up his pace? Here's how he explained it: "I actually saw visions of the scarred body of Jesus, and it made me able to go on."
If we bear our crosses with Christ, we will also experience the power of Christ's resurrection - the two always go together.
Keeping the Balance of Christian Wisdom
A healthy, balanced Christian has to always keep these two things in view. By thinking of the resurrection, we find strength to carry our crosses. By not running away from our crosses, we make sure we're on the path to the resurrection. This is the Christian wisdom that keeps us joyful amid suffering, and reasonable amid success.
Two things can help us cultivate this wisdom during Lent. First, we should use the crucifix. It used to be common practice for Catholic families to have crucifixes on the walls of their houses, especially in their bedrooms and wherever the family would pray together. This practice has fallen off recently, but there's no reason we can't start it up again. We can also wear a crucifix necklace or pin or carry a holy card with an image of the crucifixion or put a picture of the suffering Christ on our cell phone screen. This helps us keep in mind what Christ suffered for our salvation. If we do that, the crosses that come our way will never surprise or derail us. We will learn to recognize more quickly God's hand in them.
And second, we should pray the Rosary. The Rosary is a simple prayer that gives us a tour of all the events of Christ's life, including his passion and resurrection. Even if we only pray one decade a day, which takes a few minutes, this tried-and-true prayer will help us avoid tunnel vision in our spiritual lives. In a few moments we will receive Jesus in the Eucharist, the marvellous fruit of his passion and resurrection. When we do, let's talk to him about our crosses and those of our loved ones, asking him to teach us to find hope in his resurrection even when we share in the pain of his passion.
We Live in the "Time of Fulfillment"
My dear brothers and sisters, Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Mark are mysterious: "This is the time of fulfillment." What does he mean? With these words, Jesus is summing up the entire history of humanity, the fulcrum points of which is his own passion, death, and resurrection, as St Peter reminds us in the Second Reading.
With these words, Jesus Christ ushers in the third and final age in this history. First there was the age of creation when mankind lived in the unbroken communion with God. This ended with original sin, which drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and into the desert of fallen human nature.
Thus began the second age, the age of the promise. God promised Adam and Eve that he would send a savior, a holy king, to free the human family from domination by the devil that their sin had caused. In this second age, God gradually prepared the world, through the education of his chosen people Israel, for the arrival of that savior and king, Jesus Christ.
When Christ finally arrived, it was the "time of fulfilment," the fulfilment of God's promise to send that savior. In this third and final period of human history, God enters into time and space in order to rescue it from sin and destruction.
He does this through his incarnation, which is extended through all time and space through the life of his Church. The end of this third age will yield the new heavens and the new earth, the end of the Kingdom's beginning, and the beginning of its maturity.
Lent is a time to focus on essentials, and nothing is more essential, in a world obsessed with stock markets, political polls, and movie stars, than remembering where we came from and where we're going.
The Multiplication of the Goldfish
One advantage of living in the time of fulfilment is that we have the possibility of storing up our treasures in heaven. Because God's grace has made us his adopted children, all of our prayers and good actions have eternal value. Jesus has promised that he will reward them all, not forgetting even the smallest act of kindness done in his name.
It's like a family that suffered during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. This story I took from "Hot Illustrations," copyright Youth Specialties, Inc., 2001. Before the war, the Malkoc family lived next to a small lake in the village of Jezero. One day in 1990, the dad returned from a trip to Austria with an unusual gift for his teenage sons: an aquarium with two goldfish.
Two years passed and then Serb forces advanced on Jezero. The women and children fled, the men stayed back to fight, and the dad, Samjo, was killed. Later, his wife sneaked back into the destroyed village to bury her husband and rescue what belongings she could.
She let the two goldfish out into the nearby lake, saying to herself, "Maybe they'll be luckier than us." Five years later she and her sons returned. Nothing but ruins remained of their home and their village. Through misty eyes she looked toward the lake.
Glimpsing something strange, she walked over to the shore. "The whole lake was shining from the thousands of golden fish in it," she said. "It made me immediately think of my husband. This was something he left me that I never hoped for." During the war, life underwater had flourished. After their return, the Malkoc family began caring for and selling the goldfish, and soon it became a thriving, lucrative family business.
Christ's grace makes all of our prayers and good deeds alive, like those goldfish; it makes them multiply and spread beneath the surface of life's struggles and battles. Only when we come home to heaven will we see how much good even the smallest one produced.
Repenting and Believing
"This is the time of fulfilment." Through this history lesson, Jesus is reminding us of where we came from and, more importantly, where we're going: to eternal life with him in heaven. And his next sentence tells us how to get there: "Repent and believe in the gospel."
These two things should characterize our spiritual lives during Lent. First, repent; turn away from self-centered and selfish habits; break them! Jesus eagerly invites us to repent, and he also gives us the perfect way to do so: the sacrament of confession.
Jesus invented confession because he knew we would need it. The same devil that tempted Jesus in the desert is still in business, tempting us in the desert of our consumerist and relativistic culture. Repentance and confession give God a chance to pour his unconditional mercy into our thirsty souls.
Our second Lenten exercise is to "believe in the gospel." Believing in the gospel means trusting Jesus enough to do his will; it means saying with our decisions, not just our words: "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done."
We find his will in the Ten Commandments, the beatitudes, the teachings of his Church, and dictates of our conscience. Greed, lust, laziness, impatience, dishonesty - these are anti-gospel values. Believing in the gospel means leaving them aside in favor of generosity, faithfulness, responsibility, sincerity, and patient kindness. This is Christ's vision for our lives, one that he will help us live out if we give him the chance.
In this Mass he is coming among us to fill our hearts with the very strength that filled his heart, the strength which gave him the definitive victory over temptation, sin, and evil. As we continue with this Mass, then, let's thank him for allowing us to live in the time of fulfilment, and let's ask him to help us repent and believe in the gospel.
The season of Lent is upon us, and we Catholics begin preparing to commemorate the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church begins our preparation to join him on his journey to Calvary. The church scene becomes somber and more intense, and such terms as contrition, conversion, penance, almsgiving, fasting, and abstinence dominate the liturgy.
Fasting is a biblical discipline that can be defended from both the Old and the New Testament. In the Old Testament Moses and Elijah fasted forty days before going into God's presence (Exodus 34:28, 1 Kings 19:8). Anna the Prophetess fasted to prepare herself for the coming of the Messiah (Luke 2:37). They all wanted to see God, and they considered fasting a basic prerequisite. We, too, wish to enter God's presence, so we fast.
In the New Testament, Jesus himself fasted (Matthew 4:2). And Jesus expected his disciples to fast (Mt 9:14-15) and issued instructions for how they should do so (Mt 6:16-18). And since he needed no purification, He surely did this to set an example for us. In fact, he assumed that all Christians would follow his example. "When you fast," he said, "do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting" (Matthew 6:16). Note that he did not say, "If you fast," but "when." The Apostles continued to fast, long after Jesus' resurrection and Ascension (see Acts 13:2-3 and 14:23).
Fasting and abstinence are Church-imposed penitential practices that deny us food and drink during certain seasons and on certain days. These acts of self-denial dispose us to free ourselves from worldly distractions, to express our longing for Jesus, to somehow imitate his suffering.
Abstinence traditionally has meant not eating meat and, for centuries but no longer, included meat by-products. Catholics never have been compelled to eat fish on days of abstinence, but rather, to avoid meat. While abstinence refers to the kind or quality of food we eat, fasting refers to the amount or quantity of food consumed. It is contrary to the spirit of abstinence and fasting if we avoid steak but pile our plate high with fish.
Pope Clement XIII in 1759 said that "penance also demands that we satisfy divine justice with fasting, almsgiving and prayer and other works of the spiritual." The purpose of our fast is to not become physically weak or lose weight but to create a hunger, a spiritual void that only Christ can fill; in fasting from the heart, we express our love of God and acknowledge our sinfulness. Though unworthy, we pray our sacrifices will be acceptable to the one who suffered and gave his life and blood for us.
The Bible spells out specific spiritual benefits of fasting. It produces humility (Psalm 69:10). It shows our sorrow for our sins (1 Samuel 7:6). It clears a path to God (Daniel 9:3). It is a means of discerning God's will (Ezra 8:21) and a powerful method of prayer (8:23). It's a mark of true conversion (Joel 2:12).
Fasting does not only consist in avoiding or limiting our intake of food and drink. Rather it should lead us to a firm rejection of sin and selfishness. Pope Francis urges us to do this. He said:
We fast, that is, we voluntarily endure hunger, so that we may also feel the pains and sufferings of our poor brethren who do not have enough food to eat. In this way we become more compassionate towards them and do something substantial to help them. We eat less so that the poor can eat more.
Fasting helps us to be detached from the things of this world. We fast, not because earthly things are evil, but precisely because they're good. They're God's gifts to us. But they're so good that we sometimes prefer the gifts to the Giver. We tend to eat and drink to the point where we forget God. St. Paul said of certain people, "their god is the belly … with minds set on earthly things" (Philippians 3:19). We want to be able to enjoy God's gifts without ever forgetting the Giver. Fasting is a good way to start.
LESSON: Confidence and Humility Strengthen Our Prayer Life
In today's world, we can all use help with our prayer life, and the leper in today's Gospel passage gives it to us. He reminds us of two key elements in a healthy life of prayer: confidence and humility.
The first thing to note is that this leper has no doubt that Christ can cure him. He says to the Lord, "If you wish, you can make me clean." It's hard for us to have so much confidence.
Our secular culture is constantly sidelining God. This tends to make us think that we can solve all our problems ourselves, through science, technology, or hard work. But if we think that, then we don't really have faith in God; if God is irrelevant, he's not much of a God, after all.
But the leper didn't live in a secular culture; he lived in a religious culture, one that recognized the reality of sin and evil, and the need of God's grace to overcome them. And so, he came out of his isolated and self-destructive bubble of self-sufficiency and exercised his faith.
The second thing to note is that the leper also recognizes that he has no right to demand a cure. He doesn't act like a spoiled child and say, "Cure me!" he says, "If you wish..." It's as if he were saying, "You know what's best; if curing me will give you glory, please do so, but if not, I will still believe and trust in you."
Only the humble heart can tap into the roaring stream of mercy that flows from Christ's Sacred Heart, mercy which not only cured the leprosy, but touched the leper, something no one else had done since the disease began.
If our prayer weaves together confidence and humility, God will be able to do wonders in us as well.
Drawing on God's Bank Account
One thing that can drain our confidence in God is our tendency to fall into sin. We are weak and selfish and find it hard to resist the many temptations that surround us. And when we fall, the devil works overtime to keep us from going back to God to ask forgiveness and start over.
The devil says: "Look at you! Look at what a miserable creature you are! Look at how weak you are! "So many times God has given you his help, grace, and forgiveness, and still you keep on messing up. "God's mercy is for better souls than yours. Don't even bother him with your pitiful prayers and tears. Forget about it. You're not worth it."
But all of that is a lie, a big, fat lie. God's mercy and love doesn't depend on our being perfect - if it did, we wouldn't need it! On the contrary! Our growth as Christians depends on God's mercy.
Imagine a wealthy man with a lot of money in the bank. Now imagine that this man falls seriously ill. He is confined to bed. One day his accountant comes to him and tells him that he needs to sign a large check to pay off some of his expenses.
But the man says, "How can I sign a check? I'm sick!" Is that logical? Not at all! His sickness and his bank account are completely unrelated.
Well, the same goes for our sins and God's mercy. God's mercy is the bank account that was filled by the infinite love of Christ when he died on the cross.
Three Ways to Grow in Confidence and Humility
We cannot have a mature and effective life of prayer without growing in these key areas of confidence in God and humility.
How can we do that?
Here are three ways to exercise humility and confidence in God; let's each choose one of them to focus on this week.
First, the sacrament of confession.
Second, writing a thank-you note to God at the end of every day.
Third, by being the first one to say we're sorry.
Whichever exercise we choose for this week, Jesus will help us with it - that's why he is coming among us again through the sacrifice of this Mass.
From a letter by Saint Marie Bernadette Soubirous, virgin
I had gone down one day with two other girls to the bank of the river Gave when suddenly I heard a kind of rustling sound. I turned my head towards the field by the side of the river but the trees seemed quite still and the noise was evidently not from them. Then I looked up and caught sight of the cave where I saw a lady wearing a lovely white dress with a bright belt. On top of each of her feet was a pale yellow rose, the same colour as her rosary beads.
At this I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was seeing things, and I put my hands into the fold of my dress where my rosary was. I wanted to make the sign of the cross but for the life of me I couldn't manage it and my hand just fell down. Then the lady made the sign of the cross herself and at the second attempt I managed to do the same, though my hands were trembling. Then I began to say the rosary while the lady let her beads slip through her fingers, without moving her lips. When I stopped saying the Hail Mary, she immediately vanished.
I asked my two companions if they had noticed anything, but they said no. Of course they wanted to know what I was doing and I told them that I had seen a lady wearing a nice white dress, though I didn't know who she was. I told them not to say anything about it, and they said I was silly to have anything to do with it. I said they were wrong and I came back next Sunday, feeling myself drawn to the place....
The third time I went the lady spoke to me and asked me to come every day for fifteen days. I said I would and then she said that she wanted me to tell the priests to build a chapel there. She also told me to drink from the stream. I went to the Gave [de Pau], the only stream I could see. Then she made me realise she was not speaking of the Gave and she indicated a little trickle of water close by. When I got to it I could only find a few drops, mostly mud. I cupped my hands to catch some liquid without success and then I started to scrape the ground. I managed to find a few drops of water but only at the fourth attempt was there a sufficient amount for any kind of drink. The lady then vanished and I went back home.
I went back each day for two weeks and each time, except one Monday and one Friday, the lady appeared and told me to look for a stream and wash in it and to see that the priests build a chapel there. I must also pray, she said, for the conversion of sinners. I asked her many times what she meant by that, but she only smiled. Finally with outstretched arms and eyes looking up to heaven she told me she was the Immaculate Conception.
During the two weeks she told me three secrets but I was not to speak about them to anyone and so far I have not.
From a commentary on the Diatessaron by Saint Ephraem, deacon
Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words? We lose more of it than we grasp, like those who drink from a living spring. For God's word offers different facets according to the capacity of the listener, and the Lord has portrayed his message in many colours, so that whoever gazes upon it can see in it what suits him. Within it he has buried manifold treasures, so that each of us might grow rich in seeking them out.
The word of God is a tree of life that offers us blessed fruit from each of its branches. It is like that rock which was struck open in the wilderness, from which all were offered spiritual drink. As the Apostle says: They ate spiritual food and they drank spiritual drink.
And so, whenever anyone discovers some part of the treasure, he should not think that he has exhausted God's word. Instead, he should feel that this is all that he was able to find of the wealth contained in it. Nor should he say that the word is weak and sterile or look down on it simply because this portion was all that he happened to find. But precisely because he could not capture it all he should give thanks for its riches.
Be glad then that you are overwhelmed, and do not be saddened because he has overcome you. A thirsty man is happy when he is drinking, and he is not depressed because he cannot exhaust the spring. So let this spring quench your thirst, and not your thirst the spring. For if you can satisfy your thirst without exhausting the spring, then when you thirst again you can drink from it once more; but if when your thirst is sated the spring is also dried up, then your victory would turn to harm.
Be thankful then for what you have received, and do not be saddened at all that such an abundance still remains. What you have received and attained is your present share, while what is left will be your heritage. For what you could not take at one time because of your weakness, you will be able to grasp at another if you only persevere. So do not foolishly try to drain in one draught what cannot be consumed all at once, and do not cease out of faintheartedness from what you will be able to absorb as time goes on.
Daily Prayer Is an Essential Ingredient in the Life of Every Christian
My dear brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ was God-become-man to enable the fallen human race to find its way back to God. His human nature was infused with the power of his divine person.
We see this, for example, in his miraculous cure of Simon Peter's mother-in-law, and in his many other miracles and casting out of demons. Jesus was true man, but his humanity was perfect, sinless, without any tendencies to selfishness, laziness, or pride.
His character was balanced and flawless, firm as the mountains and gentle as a mother's caress. His mind was beyond brilliant, filled with the radiance of divine light and understanding. He had no emotional scars from a difficult family upbringing (Mary was without sin too, and Joseph was a saint), no personality disorders or imbalanced self-esteem - no lacks, no wounds, no imperfections at all.
And yet, despite all that, over and over again in the Gospels we see him go off to be alone in prayer, just as he did in today's Gospel passage. Christ was perfect, God from God and light from light, and yet he still needed to reserve time just to be alone with his Father.
He needed to go off and pray. He even had to get up early to make time for it. Some-times he had to stay up late to make time for it. But he always did it, even on the very eve of his crucifixion, in the Garden of Gethsemane.
If he, who was perfect, needed prayer in order to fulfill his life's mission, what does that imply for us, who are so imperfect, so weak, so vulnerable to every sort of temptation and wounded by every kind of sin? If disciplined, daily prayer was essential for Christ, it must be even more essential for Christ's less-than-perfect followers.
Cardinal Van Thuan's Prayerful Endurance
The late Cardinal Francis van Thuan gives a good example of this. As coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon, Vietnam, he was arrested on August 15, 1975, soon after South Vietnam fell to the Communist regime.
He spent the next 13 years in prison, moving between forced residences, reorientation camps, and nine years of solitary confinement. As a prisoner, he not only maintained his faith and his sanity, but he also secretly wrote and distributed three books, converted a series of prison guards, and gave millions of Catholics in Vietnam something to hope for.
How did he do it? How did he find the strength, the love, the power? By being a man of prayer. For months at a time he was confined to a prison cell too short to stand up in and too narrow to lie down fully extended in. It had no windows and the only ventilation was a rusty, centipede-infested drain in the floor.
At times the cell was so stifling that he had to put his face against the drain to breathe, despite the crawling vermin. Throughout his ordeal, prayer was his light and his strength. His prayer became very simple. He would just repeat short phrases from the Bible repeatedly.
Some of his favourites were:
He would feed his soul on these inspired words, mulling them over, letting them sink in, using them to make sense out of his sufferings, letting God speak to him through them. He explained later: "I who am weak and mediocre, I love these short prayers... The more I repeat them, the more I am penetrated by them. I am close to You, Lord." Prayer was his lifeline, as it was for Christ, and as it should be for us.
Overcoming the Fear That Stifles Prayer
We have all at some point made a personal commitment to a more disciplined and deeper prayer life. And so, we all know how hard it is to keep that commitment. One thing that makes it so hard is fear. Because of our fallen human nature, we have difficulty trusting God. Subconsciously, part of us is suspicious of God; we are afraid that if we agree to follow him more closely, he will make us miserable.
We are afraid that if we let Christ be the King of our hearts, he will take all the fun out of life. We are afraid that we will end up like Job in today's First Reading: oppressed, depressed, and distressed. That fear holds back our prayer life, because prayer involves an attitude of docility, saying to God, "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done." Developing a mature prayer life involves facing and overcoming the fear that inhibits us from saying that with our lips and with our hearts.
Jesus can melt that fear away if we let him. Just contemplate the crucifix; it is a guarantee of Christ's love for us. Look at the Eucharist, another proof of his love - he is always with us, always giving himself to us. If he loves us that much, that selflessly, he is trustworthy; whatever he asks of us will always be what is best for us. There is no need to be afraid; the Good Shepherd is on our side.
And Job didn't end up in suffering and misery. He passed through some temporary suffering and misery on his way to a deeper, wiser, more glorious and everlastingly joyful relationship with his Creator and Redeemer. Jesus wants to lead us to the same goal; daily, disciplined prayer is necessary food for the journey.
St. Anne's Church
1 Tung Tau Wan Road
Stanley, Hong Kong
Office Hours:
Sunday 8:30-1:30
Tue-Fri 9:00-12:00, 1:00-6:30
Closed on Statutory Holidays
Tel: +852 2813 0206
Fax: +852 2813 6908
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