LENT I 2008

Read the Exhortation on page 88.

On Friday mornings, after we sing Mattins, several of us go for coffee at the Bagel Shop on Wellington Street. As I was waiting near the cash, Vince Piazza, the owner of the establishment saw me standing in front of the dessert case, next to the cash. He came over and asked me if he could serve me. Recoiling in mock horror I commented that I was just resisting temptation, especially as we are now in Lent. His response? “Yes, Father, but we must remember that there are sins both of commission and omission.”

I asked him if he would like to preach today, at which point he revealed that he had been the religion teacher at D’Arcy McGee Elementary School some years ago.

So there I was, standing in front of the dessert case, having gone without for a whole two days – 38 more to go. How paltry in comparison to our Lord’s 40 days, not only without dessert – without food or sustenance of any kind, and exposed to the elements all the while.

In pondering the beginning of Lent last year, using St. Paul’s words quoted in the exhortation we just heard read,“diligently to try and examine” ourselves, coupled with our Lord having undergone his 40-day fast in the wilderness entirely for our sakes, we thought of how the three temptations that followed His fast are related to our Baptism. In our Baptism we, or our Godparents on our behalf, promise to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil. We contemplated how the three temptations could be associated with the Baptismal promises: the bread representing the flesh, tempting God representing the world, and the last offer of those many things that would usurp the primacy of God in our lives and affections is the devil.

As the keeping of a truly devout, prayerful Lent becomes ever more challenging as our world fills up with more and more distractions far worse than a piece of mudslide cake at the Bagel Shop, let us ponder our Lord’s temptations again; but, this year, with a slightly different focus, hopefully even more personal, and therefore of greater encouragement for each of us, if we have not already, to engage in “diligently examining ourselves”. Having then done so, perhaps each of us may be encouraged to greater penitence and faith as we look ahead to Holy Week and Easter.

Turning stones into bread. If any of us was in that situation, quite literally starved and then confronted with some round stones that looked very much like loaves of bread, it might be very difficult to think that anything else mattered, other than some food to eat. Are we, have we, how often have we been in situations where things material were the only things that mattered – not only when we were very hungry, but also when contemplating a different job, a new house, a new car? Which is to say, in terms of the immediate plan for our lives, was there any place for God, or were those things material the only things that mattered? This is not to say, of course that we should ignore our daily needs, after all we pray for the same every day, “Give us this day our daily bread”. And there are enough other passages in Scripture that assume that it is not wrong to have sufficient for ourselves, offset by equally as many passages that exhort us, not only to proper stewardship of our material resources, but more especially to share those resources with those who are in need. Stones into bread; “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” As consuming as our material needs might appear to be at stressful or trying moments, we must resist the temptation to let our world revolve around them rather than God.

Casting Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple to prove that God was with Him and would uphold Him. There is a tendency among some Christians, not so much among us – in fact we might tend to be at the opposite extreme – a tendency to believe that any feeling that might occur to us must be God’s will for us. “God will back me up in this venture, won’t He?” The devil in the case of Jesus used a passage of Scripture to support the idea. Christian history, especially of the last 400 years or so has been plagued by those who twist Scripture, either to justify a preconceived position, or to support a “feeling” that they have. Perhaps the most spectacularly public example of just how far off the rails the idea that a warm and fuzzy feeling, strong emotions, or chills up one’s spine can be wrongly attributed to God the Holy Spirit and His will for us is the recent case of the US bishop who was convinced that it was God’s will for him that he leave his wife of many decades, and his children, and enter into a same-sex relationship. But we see many examples much closer to home. Frequently people are motivated to want to change something based on envy of someone else, and even though it is obvious to everyone around them that they are already pursing that which most closely suits their God-given talents, and that they do not have the inherent talents and abilities to change what they are doing, they convince themselves that God will make them succeed. On a different note, Nicky Gumble relates a depressingly humorous example in the Alpha course of a woman who wouldn’t get out of bed until she felt that God had told her to; that she might wear one green and one brown sock, or only one sock because she was convinced that God told her to do so.

This is just as self-centred as the first temptation. “My material needs come first.” “This idea of success, money, status, even what to wear or whether to go to work today has popped into my mind; it must be from God.” Against this second temptation, and our Lord’s response, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” we see encouraging things like the Opus Dei movement in the Roman Church. Of course, it is not a new idea at all: Scripture tells us to be content with what we have and to do all to the glory of God in whatever station in life we find ourselves.

“All these things will I give thee.” The third temptation is the most self-centred of all: the desire to have the world under our control, to have things revolve around us, to insist on our way or nothing, to believe that we are the centre of the universe. The devil’s temptation to fall down and worship him was wrapped up in this most selfish of desires – to have the whole world in subjection to our whims. This desire to have everything revolve around self is so very easy to see in others: children throwing fits or whining to get attention or their way; equally adults who seem content only when they control others. Tragically, it is not so easy to see in ourselves. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” If that is our desire, our intention, to be worshippers of God, then we no longer are driven by a desire to have others bow down to us.

To be focussed on worshipping God and serving Him is the crowning antidote to all three temptations. With Him as the centre of all that we do or desire, our lust for material comforts, our subconscious convictions that every idea that pops into our head, especially those that clearly have motives that point us away from the Kingdom, and our seemingly inbred need to be the centre of the universe – the flesh, the world and the devil, can most assuredly be overcome.

Lastly, if we undertook some kind of Lenten discipline Wednesday past, being Ash Wednesday, whether it was to give up something, or whether it was to take up something that hopefully would assist our spiritual growth, and we have already fallen off the cart, that is not an excuse to spend the rest of Lent believing that we have failed and we just might as well have that piece of mudslide cake. Only our Lord was, is, perfect. For us, through His merits, encouraged and supported by the comfort and strength of His Spirit, we stand up again, dust off ourselves, and resume our devotions and discipline. Similarly, perhaps Lent has snuck up on us unawares, and we didn’t begin special devotions or discipline on Wednesday. Again, not a good excuse to shrug and say, “Oh well, next year.”

“O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace...”

ANNUNCIATION OTTAWA 2008 +CR