Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Let us begin the fast with joy! Let us prepare ourselves for spiritual efforts! Let us cleanse our soul and cleanse our flesh! Let us abstain from every passion as we abstain from food! Let us rejoice in the virtues of the Spirit and fulfill them in love, that we all may see the Passion of Christ our God,and rejoice in spirit at the holy Pascha!

This is the chant that the Orthodox church sings at the beginning of Lent. These words can set the stage for us this year as we do Lent.

Begin the fast with joy

Lent is hard work, but a work that makes us better disciples of Jesus.  Today is an invitation to each of us from God……Jesus stands in front of us and says “Commit your life to me”….our yes to this invitation is one of the most joyful things we can experience and one of the most challenging.

Prepare ourselves with spiritual efforts

Lent is a time to pray better.  Prayer is opening your heart to God which is why Jesus tell us to “But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.”  Lent is the time to go into the secret room of our hearts and allow God to talk to us.  In this secret room, God will show us who we are:  his Beloved Child.

Let us cleanse our souls and abstain

Lent gives us a harsh reality:  we are not perfect, and we are sinners.  Admitting that we are sinners is not saying we are bad.  Admitting and naming our sins during Lent means own that we are not perfect disciples and need Jesus’s forgiveness and grace to change …just like the 12 and the disciples needed in the beginning of the Church.  The ashes placed on our heads to day is the outward sign of our sinfulness.  They are an empty sign if we are not ready to admit our failings and change our hearts.  Our fasting forces us to be in solidarity with the poverty of most of the world.  Our fasting also forces us to realize that we can fill up our lives with so much that there is no room for God.  Doing without feeds the poor and opens up a space for God

Rejoice in the virtues of the Spirit

Lent is the time to pray for a virtue……and to ask God to show you and me what virtue we need.  If we work on just one virtue and ask God to help us, then Lent will be so much fruit we will be amazed.  I would suggest we all pray for the virtue of discipleship

See the Passion of Christ and celebrate the Holy Pascha…. holy Easter

We enter into a spiritual retreat today to prepare for the celebration of the most important event of Christianity.  Our God loved us so much he embraced the Cross and rose again.  Lent is about refocusing on that mystery and rededicating ourselves to the Jesus who embraced a Cross because he loved you and he loved me.

 

I have never worked with a family or individual who has told me that an addiction was an opportunity for blessedness. This disease untreated is not to blessed.  I have heard it said in 12 step groups that addiction is the easiest disease to cure… and the hardest.  Easiest because the answer is don’t use; hardest because the struggle is don’t use. The feelings associated with addiction…hurt, guilt, self-loathing, pain, anger, sadness…are hardly a blessing.  A person dealing with an addiction has only one thing in mind…when and how do I get a fix?  A person caught in the chains of addiction does not see God or blessedness; only the need to use.

If we look at with the eyes of faith we don’t deny the reality of the pain and devastation that addiction inflicts, but we can see where God is…..He stands in solidarity with the addict calling him/her to sobriety , freedom  and peace; he stands in solidarity with the family members in their worry, their struggle and the need to practice tough love.  Blessedness is the awareness of a God who can free a person from the entanglement of an illness that affects everything.   Giving one’s life over to God or a Higher Power is to accept that you are blessed and always have been…. even if you have been high or drunk. Blessedness is the awareness of the God who walks with us in the darkest valleys with his rod and staff to protect us; even from our own selves and desires.  Before we can accept Jesus into our lives, we need to know we need him.  We all have parts of our lives that are unmanageable …. not just someone with dealing with addiction.  By giving over our lives to God we rely only Him, not a substance, not a behavior. 

 For an addict, the freedom from a drug is to carry a cross that no one who is not an addict or alcoholic will ever understand.  Sobriety is hard work and can never be done in isolation.  The Christian community must stand in solidarity with these, our brothers and sisters, who need us.  This is not enablement; our solidarity is to help the person to heal and find their way, without judgement.  Our solidarity is to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.  We need to speak to the people in power who can provide the resources to treat and help the addict and the family.  We need to speak with one voice for those who society looks down or forgets about.  Our blessedness as God’s people is when we do what Jesus did….to challenge the structures of our day which contribute to the problem and not the solution.  If we, the Christian community, speak together, we will not be ignored.  It is not helpful to make criminals out of the person who is addicted; yes, there needs to be accountability, but to put someone in jail and offer no treatment is not a solution.  We, the Christian community, need to work for treatment programs that will address not just the issue of addiction, but the underlying issues that addiction hides…. poverty, hopelessness, depression, mental health issues.  An addiction is not limited to a certain race or socioeconomic grouop….it can affect anyone. The opioid issue is not new; but, now that it is affecting the suburbs too, there is an outcry.  The Church, you and I, needs to be the voice for those addicted in the suburbs, but also in the poorer sections of our cities and in the rural towns.

There is no blessing in an addiction; if it not treated.  There is blessedness in the sweat equity of recovery because God is the source of the person’s power.   There is blessedness when a family can heal from the effects of the addiction.  There is blessed when the Church speaks out loudly to the people in power and demands more resources for treatment, to call for structural changes to give people more opportunities once they are clean and sober,  to demand more resources to treat the mental health issues under the addiction, to see the addicted person as a brother or sister in pain, not a criminal or someone to be ignored or hidden.

Our blessedness will only flower in its fullness when we accept the call of Jesus to stand arm and arm with one another, no matter who the person is standing next to us.  Our blessedness will be when we can see in the other person the source of all blessedness…Jesus.

 

I don’t know anyone who would say no to something free.  You walk into the store and see buy one and get one free.  We all bring the two things up the checkout; proud of ourselves because we saved a few bucks……but, how many times do we read the fine print or get to the register and find out….yes it is free…after filling out the paper work to get a rebate we will have to wait for for two three weeks….So, in reality, it was not free.  We have to work for the rebate.  At that moment, I have a discussion in my own head….Do I really want to put the time and energy into saving a few cents?

St Paul in in the second reason comes to the conclusion that he has received freely the grace of God won by the Cross of Christ; but, it was a gift that held a responsibility.  “I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!”  Paul, by saying yes to the Lord, had the responsibility to tell others about Jesus.  Being a disciple was not to keep the gift to himself, but a mandate to share it with others.

We also see this in the story of the healing of Simon’s mother in law.  You would think that that since she was sick, they would have waited on her.  Yet, she got up and waited on them.  The writer of the Gospel is driving home the point that there is a mandate to serve if we accept Jesus into our hearts and commit ourselves to him.  I think too often in the Church there is a mistake, like seeing a sign for something free.  Yes, the grace of God is free; the gift of faith is free; but, it is given to us with responsibility.  The responsibility to worship; the responsibility to serve; the responsibility to share what we have received so more can become disciples of Jesus.

We have an example of the 21 Coptic young men from Libya who were martyred for the Faith in 2015; three years ago.  Their average age was 21 or so.  When asked to deny Christ; to deny that they were disciples, they all refused.  They knew the responsibility and the risk.  However, like St. Paul, they did not shirk the responsibility even if their service to the rest of us would be to be witnesses; to be martyrs. The free gift of their faith was tested in a way that most of us will never know; and they won the crown of victory and stand before us today as a sign that to be Christian has responsibilities.

My brothers and sister, Lent will begin a week from this coming Wednesday.  This time of inward reflection is a time to reflect on how well we live as disciples.   The reason we exist as a Church and a parish is to be disciples and invite others to our way of life.  Yes, the gift of our faith is free.  The grace of the cross is free.  But, the gift demands a response.  The gift requires a mission. 

 

 Pray with me

Lord Jesus,

Like Paul and our ancestors in faith, you have freely given us the gift of our faith and the gift of discipleship.  May we realize that like Paul that we have the obligation to proclaim you to the world.  May we realize that if we accept you into our life’s we have the mandate of Simon’s mother in law to serve.  May we like the Coptic martyrs stand firm in our faith; no matter what.  May the upcoming season of Lent offer us the grace to recommit ourselves to the mandate of the Gospel:  to go and make disciples of all the nations in your Name and to serve the world as your disciples.

Amen

Lent is quickly approaching.  In this coming week’s bulletin, I gave a short reflection on what we can do for Lent.  In the daily lectionary, we read the Gospel of Ash Wednesday every other year, in the middle of the summer.  It always reminds me that the three traditional practices of Lent are spiritual practices we need to incorporate into our spiritual life all year round.  If we give something up for Lent, like candy or desserts and do not connect it those who go without, then our fasting is only a diet to loose weight.  The result of the practice is to bring up closer to the Lord and to a more authentic practice of the faith.

When I was retreat last week, I took myself off the web.  I was amazed the difference.  To get off the grid was an opportunity to refocus on the Lord only and to re awaken with me the beauty of the world around.  I would highly encourage this for every Christian.  To regularly practice this type of fasting, I believe will create a space for God to speak to us.  My prayer for the parish is that the growth we begin this Lent will be the beginning of a relationship with the Lord that continues beyond Easter

Who introduced you to Jesus?  Not who taught you the prayers or  taught the doctrine, but who introduced you to the living person Jesus Christ?  John the Baptist shows Andrew who Jesus is, Andrew got to know Jesus, and then he introduces Jesus to Peter, and it was a snowball effect.  One person has introduced Jesus to another, that person forms a relationship with him, and then introduces Jesus to someone else.  Sometimes, the introduction begins with witness.  I bet for most of us how we began to know Jesus was done by example.  Someone we knew or know lives so close to Jesus which is reflected in their attitude and actions, that we are attracted and want to know the person who enables them to be like that.  Other times, someone gives a witness talk and introduces Jesus on a whole new level.  Once the introduction is done, then it is up to us to put the time and effort into making it work, just like any other relationship.

Jesus wants to be in a life giving intimate relationship with us; but, he won’t force us.  The other thing is that our relationship with Christ must seep into the very depths of who we are and be the source of all our decisions and attitudes.  For example, the very first principle of Catholic Social teaching it to recognize and honor the dignity of the human person.  Jesus certainly lived that out.  From the lepers he cured, the sinners he forgave, even the good thief on the cross, Jesus said to each person he or she is a beloved Child of God.  Even when he dealt with the Pharisees and those who were against him, he still treated them with dignity.  Name calling and stereotypes, racism and prejudice, any label that puts a person down or in a box is against the this is principle.  How can anyone say they know Jesus and yet treat others like this?  Jesus worked to change society and introduced us to the Kingdom of heaven; only be being in an intimate relationship with Him can we work to make the Kingdom come.

Catholic social teaching teaches us to be in solidarity with all humanity.  Jesus stood with the poor and the needy, he was a refugee when he fled into Egypt to avoid Herod, he was crucified as a criminal, and the examples continue.  To know Jesus in an intimate way is to realize that we must stand with him in these very same principles.  We stand shoulder to shoulder with our friend by embracing him in all those who society puts down, sees as a throw away, or not worthy of our love.  Standing shoulder to shoulder with Jesus is our acknowledgement that we are interconnected with every person in the world.  We saw this in the Magi who came to worship him or the centurion who asked for healing for his servant.

I would like today to introduce you to me friend and if you permit me, to echo the words of John the Baptist:  Behold the Lamb of God.  Behold my Friend Jesus who wants to know you? Behold my friend how says to you “Come and spend your life with me”.  My prayer for you and for me is that we keep repeating the words of Samuel and the psalmist:  Here I am Lord, I will do your will.