Repent and Believe in the Gospel - 1st Sunday of Lent Year B

Graduation day is ordinarily a happy one, but it was not for Joseph, a student of mine some years back in Pennsylvania. While taking a walk on the campus I found him in the middle of the soccer field sitting down, looking dejected. I approached Joseph and asked him why he was so glum. He replied that he regretted not getting more involved in activities and making more friends while in high school. He focused so much on academics, and Joseph was an excellent student, but he wished he had taken advantage of the other opportunities in high school. My advice to him was simple: you can't go back and change what has happened. You can only learn from it and make sure you don't have the same regret in college. Joseph took my advice: he had a great college career and he is now a successful teacher at a prestigious academy in Washington, D.C.

Sin is ultimately the greatest regret we can have - failing to do what we ought, or doing what we ought not to have done. Repentance and renewal can transform our spiritual regrets into great deeds for the greater glory of God, as the readings today suggest.

In the first reading we find God's covenant with Noah. The time in the ark was a period of great transition and trial. The flood occurred because of human sin, and Noah and his family had the opportunity to reflect on how the world might be different once this period of tribulation was over. The time in the ark was no picnic: being cramped with the same people and all those animals for forty days was certainly a trial. At the end, God did not promise Noah there would not be storms - only that God would be present in the midst of our storms and keep us safe. Noah came out of ark with resolutions to help future generations avoid the sins of the past.

Jesus himself is not exempt from the trials of the devil, as the Gospel text relates in brief detail the temptations he suffered in the wilderness. Again we find God showing that we are not alone in the midst of our own trials, for angels came to minister to Jesus while in the midst of his time in the desert. That time in the desert is Jesus' preparation for public ministry, a ministry that begins with the message of repentance and renewal. Our sins have caused us great harm, both personally and collectively, and yet we have the opportunity to turn away from those sins and to participate in the ministry of Jesus so that we might do great things for God and others.

St. Paul provides us with the spiritual sense of these two events of Noah and Jesus in relating them both to baptism. The waters of the flood are a foreshadowing of the waters of baptism that cleanse us from sin, and the time of temptation in the desert followed after Jesus was baptized by John. Lent is our time to recommit ourselves to our baptismal vows, which we will renew at Easter. Baptism, however, is not a magic ritual - it is a ritual whereby we continually seek a clear conscience by reliving the death and resurrection of Jesus repeatedly in our lives. The Paschal mystery is the ultimate test and promise of God: the trials of Noah and the temptation of Jesus foreshadowed the ultimate test and promise of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now is the time. We no longer wait for the fulfillment of the promise of God. The kingdom of God is now and baptism brings us into the kingdom now. There is an apostolic dimension to Jesus' words, too. We should not wait to begin that new apostolic venture - let's do it now. Many people need to hear the good news, to be relieved of poverty and injustice, and to be raised up to the light of God's loving presence. Now we can transform the regrets of our sinful past into new ventures of fruitful activity for the kingdom of God.

As we begin our Lenten disciplines, we seek to repent and to be renewed in order to serve God and others with greater love. We therefore seek God's help: Let us pray at the beginning of Lent for the spirit of repentance. Lord our God, you formed man from the clay of the earth and breathed into him the spirit of life, but he turned from your face and sinned. In this time of repentance we call out for your mercy. Bring us back to you and to the life your Son won for us by his death on the cross, for he lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen."

Something New - 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Growing up in Buffalo, NY during the 1970's and 80's meant one thing: you were accustomed to long, hard winters and your sports teams were predictably horrid. Year after year brought the same news: snow in the weather forecast, losing in the sports broadcast. Nothing ever changed and there is a certain comfort in predicability, unless of course the status quo is nothing but misery. How happy we Buffalonians were when the Bills became very good and made it to the Super Bowl: this was something new! And boy did we like it. The readings for today's liturgy present the theme of God doing something new, something the people embraced with great joy.

Israel was one of the greatest prophets in the history of Israel, and like most prophets his message to the people was initially dire. God remembers your sins and he will punish the nation for those sins. That message was the standard boilerplate message of prophets in Israel. And the usual way to atone for sin was for the people to repent and offer sacrifice to God. However, the passage for today's liturgy represents a shift: God comes to the people and initiates the reconciliation. God announces forgiveness to the people without the usual conditions of repentance and ritual sacrifice. The initiative on God's part would hopefully lead to a profound response on the part of the people of Israel. For a time the message was successful, but like anything else on this earth we people grow accustomed to the "new" thing God has done and we fall back into our wayward paths.

Paul's message to the Corinthians in today's second reading carries a similar message as the prophet Isaiah. For Paul, ritual observance of the law could in no way atone for sins. Only the redemptive act of Jesus and our faith in this redemptive act can take away sins. No work of the law can accomplish what only God can bring about. Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God who brings to us the definitive message of God's forgiveness. Jesus is the yes that overcomes the no we continually make in our lives through sin. Only by faith in the yes of Jesus can we overcome the no of our sins.

In the Gospel text we find Jesus proclaiming the forgiveness of God through an unusual set of circumstances. Four friends help their crippled friend see Jesus by removing the tiles of roof so that they might lower him down to Jesus. What astonishing faith did these men have! Immediately Jesus announces forgiveness of sins to the crippled man, although the original intent of the men was to have Jesus heal the man of his physical infirmity. Ritual action was not a prerequisite for Jesus to announce forgiveness to the man. Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven" - there was no condition to the forgiveness.

In celebrating the sacraments it is important for the Christian community to know that the ritual action of the sacramental celebration does not affect forgiveness of sins. That forgiveness is already present in the heart of God. The celebration of Mass is the one sacrifice of Christ that restored friendship between God and humankind. We make present to our minds the reality that is Christ's forgiveness that comes to us in the sacrifice of the cross. As St. Augustine taught, sacraments are visible signs of an invisible reality. The invisible reality is the love of God and the forgiveness extended to humanity through Jesus the Lord. The visible sacraments merely bring to our minds the reality of that unseen love.

We must also continually remind ourselves that the Christian vocation is to carry on the reconciliation of Christ to the whole world. Thus, we must forgive as Jesus did: not in setting preconditions upon the forgiveness, not in holding to the mistaken idea that ritual brings forgiveness, but rather in loving without limit all whom God has brought into our lives. God has extended his hand of friendship to us - how will we respond in our lives? To whom do we need to extend the hand of friendship and forgiveness - the convicted felon in prison, the politician or business owner who has broken our trust, the priest or prelate who has failed in their vocation, the spouse or family member who has hurt us?

As we reflect upon these challenging questions, we seek God's help in being faithful to our Christian vocation of carrying out Jesus' ministry of reconciliation. "Let us pray to the God of power and might, for his mercy is our hope. Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, faith in your word is the way to wisdom, and to ponder your divine plan is to grow in the truth. Open our eyes to your deeds, our ears to the sound of your call, so that our every act may increase our sharing in the life you have offered us. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Be Made Clean - 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Everyone remembers being a child and taking part in the first ritual of excluding and labeling another group of people as unclean. If you were a little girl your line was, "Icky, boy germs." The refrain of the boys was similar, "Ew, girl germs." While seemingly harmless play of children can in no way compare with segregation or other institutional forms of labeling and exclusion, it serves as a reminder to us that great crimes begin as innocent fun and banter. In the Western world we find the Hindu caste system as harsh and out of date, until our own caste systems are exposed and revealed to us. The readings today highlight this point very effectively.

In the first reading we are presented with the law of Moses regarding those with infectious skin diseases. The Mosaic code left little hope for the person suffering from such an affliction. The person so afflicted was an outcast from the community, unfit to be in the midst of the clean. This precept has had two interrelated connections. The literal sense of the text is plain enough: we naturally do not want those afflicted with infectious diseases to be in the midst of the healthy for fear that othes may become infected. However, ancient peoples regarded such conditions as a sign that the person so afflicted was a horrid sinner, and that the physical malady was a punishment or recognition of the person's uncleanness. Thus, we develop the mentality that we do not want a sinner in the midst of the "clean" community for fear that their sin may infect those without sin.

The ministry of Paul had as a fundamental theme that all sin and fall short of the calling of God. Hence, any distinction between sinners and those without sin has no basis for a Christian anthropology. All sin and require the mercy of God. The kingdom of God, then, is not about eating or drinking, nor about the clean and unclean. It is rather about serving others and finding ways to reach all people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul will use the law to preach Jesus the Lord if certain people need that message, while to Gentiles he used the cross of Christ and the ministry of Jesus to affect connection to the one true God.

In the Gospel text we find the ministry of Jesus as being parabolic and a reversal of the Mosaic code of the first reading. While Jesus is faithful to the Mosaic code in prescribing the requisite actions to the man he cured (note that iwas Jesus and not the priest who declares the man clean), nevertheless we do not find a low key response to Jesus' cure. In spite of the fact that Jesus ordered him not to publicize the matter, the man becomes an evangelist, proclaiming the good news of Jesus' salvific work in his life. Jesus commanded the man to remain quiet about the healing because he knew people would misunderstand his mission and not fully realize his identity. Only at Jesus' death and resurrection - the ultimate salvific act for every human person - can we become truly witnesses to the Good News of Jesus the Lord.

The ministry of Jesus was about making clean that which was previously unclean. As disciples of Jesus we are called to the same ministry. Who among us needs to be clean? What structures need cleaning? What things in our own life do we need to have washed clean? In order to answer these questions we must end our childish games of making people unclean by our words and attitudes. The physically unclean do not become well unless they are helped by those who are clean. Sinners cannot be cleanses unless they come to the clean seeking forgiveness and learn to be clean by those who are so cleansed. Only Jesus is completely clean. If he has cleansed us who are so undeserving of such a gift, then we must imitate his example and reach out to all with the invitation to be cleansed by the ministry of Jesus. We, therefore, cannot be exclusionary in our ministry and reject others who do not meet our criteria for cleanliness, for we must be in the midst of the world transforming all areas of society.

As we strive to serve all without condition, let us be united in prayer and mission. "Let us pray for the wisdom that is greater than human words. Father in heaven, the loving plan of your wisdom took flesh in Jesus Christ, and changed mankind's history by his command of perfect love. May our fulfillment of his command reflect your wisdom and bring your salvation to the ends of the earth. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen."