Month: February 2024

The Sunday liturgies in Lent always begin with Jesus’s sojourn in the wilderness. Notice that, in Mark’s Gospel, it is the Spirit that leads Jesus alone into the desert. Thus, this 40-day retreat is a good thing! In his humanity, Jesus will have to deal with all the same temptations that you and I deal with. In the Bible, the Devil’s purpose is always to order our desires away from God. And so, the Devil confronts Jesus with three temptations. The first one is to “make bodily pleasures the central focus of your life”. Like others, we Catholics enjoy the sensations of food, drink, sex, and other pleasures as good and God-given. But when the satisfaction of these things becomes primary, then we lose our focus on God. Jesus says in response: “We do not live by bread (pleasures) alone, but also by heavenly things”. We are not just animals. The second temptation is to be honored and esteemed. Everyone, even priests, have a desire to be loved and acknowledged. But this, too, can be sinful when it becomes our primary motive for our actions. The final temptation is for power. It might be easy to blame politicians and corporate executives to be guilty of seeking power and control. But don’t we also seek to manipulate others around us? Don’t we seek control over the various forces in our lives? The process of dying is to finally realize that control is merely an illusion. In Lent, we must take special notice of these same temptations in our lives. Do we give too much importance to our satisfaction of bodily pleasures? Do we seek affirmation beyond what is sufficient? Do we pretend to exercise complete control in our lives? Only when we let go of these things can we become truly free to do God’s work in the world. – – – Fr. Jim

We are told that Saint Catherine was very devoted to the verse from Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart”, and one day she had a strange experience in which it seemed that the Lord came to her and removed her physical heart! Later he inserted his own heart into her, saying “I am giving you my heart so that you can go on living with it forever.” Now whatever we think of this story, it is at least a dramatic representation of the teaching of St Paul, “I live now not I but Christ lives in me.” (Galatian 2, 20).  Our deepest identity is Christ. The age and culture in which we live is very conscious of identity. This is, unfortunately, what gives rise to new forms of tribalism and nationalism across the globe. Our identity, however, has only one source, our Creator. Each of us is made in God’s image. To have a pure heart then is to have a heart that is rooted in the mystery of God, that is continually being created and sustained by the newness of the life of God. Purity of heart clarifies things, so that we can be humble in our view of others, finding whatever is good within them. We can even see misfortune in the context of a whole vision of God’s providence and his creation. If our life is rooted in God, we shall see as God sees. God does not see lines drawn on a map. God does not see color of skin, nor does God favor any particular language or creed. To have a pure heart means that wherever you look, you are seeing an enchanted world. You are seeing God. – – – Fr. Jim (with help from a good friend, Fr. Tom Boyer)