Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Temptation

For many people, temptation is the last station before sin. People who are scrupulous may even regard temptation as identical with sin. In the New Testament, even though the word for temptation is used twenty-one times, only once does it mean temptation to sin. So what else can it mean then?

In the Bible, temptation refers to a testing of the human heart by God. According to the Book of Proverbs ‘the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tries hearts (17.3). The Book of Sirach says, ‘My son, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation. Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be hasty in time of calamity’ (2.1-2). In the acts of King Hezekiah recorded in the second book of the Chronicles, we read that God left Hezekiah to himself in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart (32.31).

 

God weighs human hearts and tests them to see what they are made of. Why would God do this? In order, it seems, to purify our hearts so that we can love with greater integrity; in order also, it seems, to make human hearts grow bigger so that we can love more.

If this is true, then temptation is inevitable and a necessary part of life with God. Temptation is not a bad thing, and can even be seen as something useful for us. Indeed, Saint Luke pointed out that it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the not-so-holy spirit.

Temptation helps us to know what we really stand for. Only by facing options and making decisions do we come to know what it is we really value and where our hearts are really given. The struggle with temptation brings about a growth in self-knowledge. In fact, and in practice, it is only through temptation that we come to distinguish what we really value from what we think we value. The struggle with temptation helps to clarify this difference for us.

It is easy to be virtuous when we have no choice. Faced with the choices that temptation offers we can, by choosing wisely and well, grow in virtue. Saint Teresa of Avila says that love is seen, not if it is kept hidden in corners but ‘in the midst of the occasions of falling’. Temptation then helps us to set our hearts right and to purify our loving by giving ourselves clearly and decisively to what is of real value.

Temptation sometimes involves struggle, difficulty, sweat, and tears, but through such suffering we grow. Rather than shrinking us by limiting our options, our survival of temptation helps us to become greater and bigger than we were. The experience of struggling with temptation will mean that we will not be hasty in time of temptation but will grow in that calm wisdom which is a hallmark of holiness. Temptation hones the spirit and moral character of the human being.

Temptation is, therefore, a useful thing although the outcome of our struggle is not guaranteed. Through temptation we learn about our weaknesses and blind spots, about the depth of our commitments, about the extent to which we are ready to serve God. During Lent it is as if we consciously invite this kind of testing, place ourselves in the firing line, as it were, as we hold our lives up to the scrutiny of God. Paul invites the Corinthians to do exactly this in his second letter to them: ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!’ (13.5)

The season of Lent is a time for testing and training, for honestly facing up to what we value, and for growing (even with some pain) in the faith and love of the Lord.

The forty days we observe is in memory of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism by John and before his public ministry. There he was tested. Although in his case the outcome was guaranteed, it was still a real experience of temptation as God probed his integrity. Was he really serious about the mission to which he was called? Did he love the Father with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his strength? Was he, at heart, the servant for whom Israel longed, ready to serve God with all of himself? The testing of Jesus in the wilderness was to see whether he loved the Father and was ready to serve him through and through. The texts he quotes in response to Satan’s urgings all belong to that part of Deuteronomy where God’s people are commanded to love God with all their heart, all their mind, and all their strength. This gives shape to the threefold testing he endured as it gives shape to the testing we will inevitably endure.

The value of the temptations of Jesus for us is in the knowledge that what we go through, he has gone through already. We have not only the example of Jesus to guide us but also his company and the help of his grace as we seek to return to God with all our hearts. The letter to the Hebrews says ‘[i]t was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. … Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested’ (2.10,18).

Ash Wednesday - 'To starve thy sin, not bin'

Readings: Joel 2:12-18; Ps 50/51; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

Lent is best known as a time for fasting, when people ‘give up something’. The point of the fasting can, however, easily be lost to sight. One year I gave up chocolate but decided I was still entitled to my share of whatever chocolate was going. On Easter Sunday I had a drawer full of chocolate which sustained a week of self-indulgence in honour of the Lord’s resurrection. The letter of Lent may have been observed in some sense but there was no sign there of its spirit.

Abstaining from the good things of life — food, drink, entertainment — is not an end in itself. For the Christian the purpose of such abstinence is to help concentrate the mind and heart on more important things: faith, prayer, the needs of our neighbour, the place of Jesus Christ in our lives. I often met people preparing to run the London marathon. It requires dedicated training and the foregoing of some pleasures in order to be ready for the challenge. Fasting and other spiritual discipline is like the preparation of an athlete for a contest. We are trying to get in shape, to become fit as believers, to prepare ourselves spiritually for the celebration of Easter and for a renewal of Christian living.

Besides fasting there are two other classical Lenten works, prayer and alms-giving. These are more positive than fasting. They are concerned with another (God) or with others (the poor) and it may be that they are the more difficult of the Lenten practices.

Prayer is rarely an easy task. It is difficult to know whether it is something we do or something we allow to happen, something God does within us. I suppose it is both. Prayer is our attempt to remain in conscious contact with God, to open our minds and hearts to God’s wisdom and love. It also means receiving God’s gifts by bringing ourselves into God’s presence, and allowing God to work through us and to transform our lives, to bring about the changes we desire.

The line which forms the title of this homily is taken from Robert Herrick’s poem To Keep a True Lent. The poem is inspired by the great passage in Isaiah 58, 'Is this the sort of fast that pleases me, a truly penitential day for human beings? Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me, says the Lord, to break unjust fetters, to let the oppressed go free, to share your bread with the hungry, to shelter the homeless poor?'

True fasting, the prophet says, is not some kind of endurance test for the human body about which we can then boast, but a fasting from sin, from injustice, corruption, and deceit. To keep Lent truly means to live our religion truly and true religion for Isaiah is very practical. It means ‘taking care of widows and orphans in their need’. Recognising injustice, protesting about it and supporting its victims, is another traditional Lenten work.

These are the tasks of Lent then: fasting, prayer, alms-giving. The forty days we observe is in memory of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism by John and before his public ministry. There he was tested. His integrity and sincerity were probed by God. Was he really serious about the mission to which he was called? Did he love the Father with all his heart, all his mind, all his strength? Was he, at heart, the servant for whom Israel longed, serious about serving God fully? The testing of Jesus in the wilderness was to see whether he loved the Father and was ready to serve him through and through.

We are tested in this way by life. Through temptation we learn about our weaknesses and blind spots, about the depth of our commitments, about the extent to which we are ready to serve God. During Lent it is as if we consciously invite this kind of testing, place ourselves in the firing line, as it were, as we hold our lives up to the scrutiny of God. We have the example of Jesus to guide us but we also have his company and the help of his grace as we seek to return to God with all our hearts.

Week 6 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: James 1.12-18; Psalm 94; Mark 8.14-21

Yesterday we heard of Pharisees looking for a sign, today we hear about the disciples failing to understand the signs Jesus has already given. When he speaks of leaven they think of bread and wonder whether he is asking them about food supplies for their journey. Instead he is speaking figuratively, symbolically, poetically if you like, for the leaven of which he speaks is not that used in making bread but that which corrupts the teaching of the Pharisees.

It is easy to sense his frustration. Do they not yet understand? Are their hearts hardened? Do they not see, hear and remember? The teacher is exasperated, and these are supposed to be his better students, the ones closest to him! But just like the Pharisees yesterday they fail to appreciate the signs he has already given. They think literally, mechanically, whereas he is trying to lift them through the signs he has given to an understanding of God's presence, power and goodness.

The first reading teaches that temptation comes not from God but from desires which are leading us to sin and so to death. Our desires are so often immediate, insistent, demanding, blinding us and distracting us, preventing us from understanding. But Lent begins tomorrow, a time when we consciously expose ourselves to temptation, driven to do so by the Spirit and taught to do so by the Church. It is a time for checking once again about the truth and reality of our commitment, of our desire: where is my heart leading me? is it a hardened heart, blind and deaf to God's presence and God's call? is it a heart of stone that needs to be replaced with a heart of flesh? what is it I truly desire?

Today is called Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, a day on which people traditionally feed themselves full, often with pancakes, before moving into the desert of Lent, the time of fasting and prayer and alms-giving. The point of the exercise is not to see who can be more athletic spiritually but rather to focus once again on the threefold relationship in which the great commandment of love establishes us: loving God with heart and mind and strength, loving neighbour as myself. It is a time to be spent in the company of Jesus in his word, listening to him once again and seeking to understand his teaching in the way in which he intends it.

We ask Our Lord in this season to open our minds, to soften our hearts, to enable us to see more clearly and to listen more carefully, to remember his love and his sacrifice. We ask him to help us understand the height and depth and length and breadth of his love which surpasses knowledge so that we might, by Easter, be filled with the fulness of God.

Week 6 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: James 1.1-11; Psalm 119; Mark 8.11-13

No sign for you, says Jesus. Perhaps the problem is the motivation of the people asking him for a sign. He has been working miracles, and so giving signs, for weeks at this stage and he might well have said that to them: 'what do you think I've been up to this past while?' But it is as if they regard his miracles as tricks, bits of magic, and they are asking him to do a trick for them. But the miracles are never tricks, they are always in response to human need, ways of healing, helping, feeding, teaching, casting out demons.

We often express a similar desire: would it not be of great help if God were to give just one convincing, unambiguous sign that would be undeniable, transforming, compelling? Jesus might say to us something like 'but my heavenly Father is shouting at you with the signs he gives you every day, in creation, in people, in the gifts of grace, in the sacraments, in the goodness of genuinely holy people'.

Think of the wonders of the world, the extraordinary sophistication of the human body or of any animal body - each one is a kind of miracle. Think of the trees and bushes waiting now for a first stimulus to set them off once again in the process of budding, growing leaves, blossoming and bearing fruit - each one is a kind of miracle. There are so many signs all through creation of the goodness and care of God. Water into wine? St Augustine says God is doing this every day, sending the rain and the sun to enable the vines to grow, the grapes then gathered and through the intelligence and ingenuity of human beings, turned into wine - a daily miracle, water becoming wine.

We have begun to read the Letter of James, a reading that will be interrupted by Lent and Easter, but we will return to it thereafter. It is a wonderful presentation of another great sign of God's presence and that is a community of people living together in faith and hope and love. Where there is such a community there is a compelling witness to the goodness and grace of God.

James describes the recipients of his letter as people 'of two minds'. We are like that often enough: we waver and doubt and wonder. Lent, beginning in two days time, is a season in which we strive to be single-minded again, focusing clearly and simply on what our faith and vocation ask of us. We have received so many signs already, so many testimonies to the power and goodness of God. They are there, all through creation, and especially in the people the Lord entrusts to our care. It is over to us now, we might say, to submit our hearts and minds to the testing of Lent so that we will be more effective signs in the world of his power and goodness.

The Irish poet Joseph Mary Plunkett expresses very beautifully our faith that in all things God is revealing his creative and redemptive power:

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice - and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.

Week 6 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Sirach 15:15-20: Psalm 119; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37

The opening verses of today's gospel reading have been described as the most controversial in the New Testament. Jesus says that he has come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. Not an iota or dot of the law will pass from it until it is accomplished. But Paul - and Jesus elsewhere - speak and act as if the law has, very definitely, been surpassed to be replaced by faith and grace.

Jesus teaches that there is at least continuity between the first covenant and the new covenant, between the law given to Moses on Sinai and the law taught by Him in the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus presents the fullness of the law once given to the Hebrews at Mount Sinai. Give full weight to the term 'presents': he presents it in the sense of teaching it and expounding it, but he also presents it in the sense of making it present to those who are listening at the present moment of their encounter with Him.

There is continuity between the old law and the new law. In a series of illustrations Jesus, an excellent teacher, points out how the Law is to be fulfilled: 'you have heard that it was said ... but I say to you'. He does this for killing, adultery, divorce, oath taking, vengeance, and love for others. These are the central commandments of the Mosaic law (as well as being the primary precepts of the natural law). These commandments remain but they are to be observed in a particular way. They are to be interiorized, lived not simply as a matter of external obedience or out of fear, but as a matter of internal conviction and out of love.

Just as there is no new commandment in the Sermon so there is nothing that is not found already in the prophets, especially in Jeremiah, Hosea and Ezekiel. We might be tempted to say that Jesus here turns the religion of Israel into a religion of the heart whereas before it was a religion of 'rules and regulations'. This is a profound misunderstanding (and has been one of the roots of anti-Judaism in Christian history). Read these prophets and you will find already everything Jesus says about observing the Law from one's heart. What's the point of circumcising your flesh if you do not circumcise your heart? That's Jeremiah. What you need is a new heart and a new spirit (implication: not new laws, you already have all you need): that's Ezekiel. The problem is that you have forgotten the law God has already given you, you have no real understanding of it, or of the divine love and mercy in which it originates: that's Hosea.

So what does the fulfillment of the law mean? If Jesus adds nothing to the commandments of the law and adds nothing to what the prophets had already taught about its spiritual character, is there anything new here? Of course there is. The new thing here is the teacher. This teacher of the law is also the one who observes it fully; in his own person he perfects it, he fulfills it, he accomplishes it.

The term 'pleroma' means completion or fullness. Jesus says that the law stands until it reaches its fullness, its end. And what is the end of the Law? It is the manifestation of the holiness of God, and a communion established on that holiness between God and God's people. So the Law is not fulfilled until that holiness is manifested and that communion is established, things to be done precisely by one who observes the Law ('salvation is from the Jews'). In giving the Law to His people God revealed His mind and heart, He shared with them His words and His love, His wisdom and His truth. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ: we know this from the prologue to John's gospel. Wisdom and teaching were already given through Moses, Jesus Christ is the one who enables a life according to that wisdom and teaching. He is the Spirit-filled One who gives the Spirit, poured into our hearts as love, so that we can observe the Law in the ways in which he asks us to do it - not just in our words but from the depths of our hearts.

'Love is the fullness of the law': so Paul says in his letter to the Romans (13:10) and once again the term 'pleroma' is used. In other words Jesus Christ is the fullness of the law. Not a dot or iota will pass away 'until all things have taken place', 'until all is accomplished'. In the moment in which Jesus breathes forth the Spirit he says 'it is accomplished' (John 19:30). Then everything is finished, perfected, fulfilled.

The Sermon on the Mount is a wonderful text, often taken to be the finest summary of the specifically 'Christian' moral teaching. It can be a bit of a shock to realize that there is nothing in it that is not already in what Christians call the 'Old Testament'. If we go looking in it for a new teaching, a new doctrine, a new commandment, or even a new reason for observing the law, we are barking up the wrong tree. We have not listened to Jesus: 'I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them before which not a dot or iota will pass away'.

The great, extraordinary, mysterious fulfillment of the Law which is given in the Sermon is not in the teaching but in the Teacher. This is where the law is fulfilled and this is where it is accomplished. Here is the obedient One who lives completely from the love of the Father, manifesting the holiness of God in everything he says or does, establishing between the Father and humanity the communion that was God's intention from the beginning. God gave the law to Moses, to help the people to live in communion with God. The Father sends his Son into the world, full of grace and truth (the divine attributes of steadfast love and faithfulness), so that all who live in His presence might be children of God. Jesus comes not just to help us but to enable us to live according to God's law.

You have heard that it was said 'observe the commandments of the law and you will live'. But I say to you, 'all who believe in Him will live the kind of life He lived, will be set free by the truth, and they will never die'.

SS Cyril and Methodius -- 14 February

Readings: Acts 13:46-49; Psalm 116; Luke 10:1-9

Whenever I attend a big event at St Peter's in Rome I end up thinking about that moment in the gospel where James and John asked Jesus for the best seats in the kingdom. At St Peter's everybody wants to get to one of the best seats and will be very happy to tell you when they do get a good place. It means a place in front of everybody else. One year for Ash Wednesday I had a ticket which not only guaranteed me a very good seat but allowed me to receive ashes from the Pope. I found myself becoming quite jealous of this entitlement, wondering what would happen if by some misfortune somebody else took my place. I wondered whether I should make an early Lenten sacrifice and offer my ticket to somebody else. In the end I held on to it, accepted the privilege, promising that if I am offered such a ticket next year I will offer it to someone else. Although it might be a new Pope ...

I don't know how the brothers James and John got along for the rest of their lives. Paul and Barnabas are mentioned in the first reading, brothers in the faith working together, but it was not to continue like that forever. Paul was not easy to get along with. The gospel reading tells us that the disciples were sent out in pairs. The readings are chosen for the feast: we celebrate Cyril and Methodius, blood brothers and brothers in the faith who worked together in the preaching of the gospel.

We should not underestimate what an achievement of grace it is where brothers manage to work together. René Girard's analysis of the origins of civilization is well known: so many cities are founded on the blood that flows from fratricide. Cain, the first murderer, was a builder of cities. Jacob and Esau, Romulus and Remus: Augustine already talks about this in his City of God. Perhaps Girard pushes a valuable insight too far. But it is true that the vision of brothers dwelling in unity is realised only where grace triumphs over the egoism that nibbles away in each of us. Inevitably we compare ourselves with others, what they've received, how they are treated, whether they are being preferred to us. Melanie Klein identified envy as the most fundamental truth about human relations, their primary motor. Girard sees it in what he calls 'mimetic rivalry', envy in other words. Am I my brother's keeper? The one I admire, who shares my bread, very easily, and almost inevitably, becomes my rival.

Some are suggesting that Pope Benedict, at the moment of announcing his resignation, was speaking about this fact of life when he referred to a disunity that mars the face of the Church. This is what he said, thinking about difficulties facing the Church:  'Penso in particolare alle colpe contro l’unità della Chiesa, alle divisioni nel corpo ecclesiale' (I think particularly of attacks against the unity of the Church, of divisions in the ecclesial body). Is it the reason for his resignation, some asked, that he became tired of tedious infighting, bickering and jockeying among people who are supposed to be brothers serving the same Lord, preachers of the same gospel. I have no idea whether that is what he was hinting at. I took it to be a more general comment about the scandal of division among Christians that weakens our testimony to the gospel. But we all know the potential of envy and rivalry to disturb and distort human relations. We all know it in the first place in ourselves. We know how we need to work, with God's help, to cope with feelings of envy and rivalry.

Cyril and Methodius were brothers preaching the same gospel, co-workers in the Lord's vineyard. Celebrating their feast as we do each year close to the beginning of Lent reminds us that what we are invited to do in this season is not just to be reconciled with God, but to be reconciled with our brothers, and with ourselves.

Week 5 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 11.4-13; Psalm 106; Mark 7.24-30

It might seem strange to read that King David's heart was 'entirely with the Lord'. His sins were many and serious - murder and adultery that we know of - and yet he never turned aside to other gods. He comes across as what we might call an honest sinner. He 'owns up' and repents without delay when the prophet Nathan confronts him concerning his sins towards Uriah and Bathsheba. He does not try to blame anybody else which is a more familiar tactic in the scriptures (and in life generally). We are told that in spite of those sins, David followed the Lord 'unreservedly'. We see his devotion, his constant awareness of God's presence and prerogatives, when he spares Saul who is at his mercy and yet he does not kill him because he is the Lord's anointed. For David, the Lord and what is the Lord's must always be respected.

Solomon is no saint either but is in a more serious situation because he allows his sins to lead him away from his relationship with the Lord. The Lord's anger expresses itself in the future destiny of David's dynasty, a response which is however restrained by the memory of David's devotion and the Lord's promise to him.

There is a refreshing honesty also in the Syrophoenician woman whom we meet once again in today's gospel reading. It is an intriguing moment in which Jesus seems tired and cranky, telling her that it is not right to share the children's food with dogs. Her witty response, that even the dogs can eat the scraps that fall from the table, earns her the same reward as those who had revealed their faith to Jesus and so her daughter is healed.

It seems as if the fresh air of honest dealing is fundamental in the relationship with the Lord, the God of Israel, and with Jesus, the Lord Incarnate. Because God is truth as well as love, we might say, the atmosphere of his kingdom, its culture, is honesty, trust, plain dealing. At base, that is what faith means: living in the truth, trusting the one who is the source of all truth, being humble in turning to him for help.

'The prayer of the humble person pierces the clouds and will not rest until it reaches its goal, until the Most High responds (Sirach 35.21).' This text, from the Book of Sirach, describes well the honest prayer of the Syrophoenician woman, of David in his repentance, of Job in his distress, of the widow of Luke 18 in her persistence, of Jesus in his agony, of Monica in her prayers for Augustine ... of ourselves too, perhaps, or at least those of us who can persevere in it.