Homily
for February 6, 2008
Liturgical Year A- Cycle II
Ash Wednesday
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
Understanding Lent
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We all know that there are forty days
in Lent, but if you
look at a calendar and you count the number of days from today until
Easter
Sunday, its fifty days or so, for Lent.
The explanation, I think, is that Lent actually begins on Sunday and it
goes until Holy Thursday. Then, the
sacred three days of the Triduum begins.
We also don’t count the Sundays of Lent.
If you do it that way, it comes out to be forty days. Now the
question some of you will ask, “Does
that mean I can give up my Lenten penance on Sundays?” I don’t
know.
You made the deal with God; you keep it.
Lent is a time of prayer, of fasting, and of alms giving.
Actually, there are only two days that we
fast, that is today and Good Friday and then we do not eat meat today
and the
Fridays of Lent. We do that as a
Catholic family. We all make those
sacrifices together, to have solidarity. I don’t know about you but I need
Lent, I really do and I
need it every year. It kind of slaps me
in the face. It tells me to wake up
because this could be my last Lent. It
could be your last Lent so we want to do it right. Your presence
here says that you agree with
that. I want to call attention to the
structure of Lent. Really, to understand
Lent, you need to do the daily readings.
One of the great treasures of the Church is that we have daily readings
for all 365 days of the year. You know
if you go to Mass occasionally during the week, you hear the daily
readings of
the church. I encourage you to read them
in Lent. Many of you have a missalette
at home or a missal. If you have a
computer just go to the Catholic Bishops web site and you’ll see the
daily
readings. There is also a link to it on our own IHM web site. I
want to try to explain the structure of the
readings for Lent because it says a lot to us; its material that we
need to
know. There are two periods within Lent.
From now, until the Saturday before the
fourth Sunday of Lent, is period one.
The fourth Sunday of Lent until Holy Thursday is period two. The
readings are from the daily readings and
also from the Liturgy of the Office of Readings for the church.
This first period are taken from the synoptic
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and they are catechetical in nature.
They are instructive and by and large, they
are constantly chewing us out. They’re
telling us what God demands of us and that is: perfection. God
not only demands we follow the
commandments, we’ll hear Jesus say, “You have heard you cannot kill, I
tell you,
you cannot be angry with your brother.
He who is angry with his brother commits murder.” Listen to this
one: “You have heard you shall
not commit adultery. I tell you if you
lust after someone you have committed adultery.” Uh oh, you’re in
trouble now. Jesus not only takes the commandments;
he calls us to
holiness and to perfection. “Be perfect
as my heavenly Father is perfect.” Among
these readings we hear, “Deny yourself everyday and pick up your cross.”
“Leave what you have and follow me. Give everything up for me.”
“Love your enemy. Pray for those who persecute you. Love
those who hate you.” “The greatest among you shall be the person
who is last and the last shall be first.” “You will not be released
from prison
until you pay the last penny.” That’s
tough stuff. That’s the first
period. Now, the second period we hear not
from the synoptic
Gospels but the Gospel of John and we don’t get chewed out. It’s
not catechetical. It’s Christological in nature. That last
period of Lent, we’ll see Jesus
present it to us as the Son of God, the Holy One, Our Savior.
Those who believe in him will have eternal
life. Jesus is presented as the healer
and the life giver. Now, it’s important to understand this
shift from period
one to period two because the purpose of this first part of Lent is to
get up
on the ropes. It’s to get us to realize
how simple we are, how weak we are, how imperfect we are and then we’re
ready
for that second message which is “I know you are imperfect but I will
make you
perfect if you follow me.” The purpose
of this first period of Lent is to bring us to what is known as
compunction. The dictionary defines that
word as: “a strong uneasiness caused by a sense of guilt; a sting of
conscience
or a pang of doubt aroused by wrong-doing or the prospect of
wrong-doing.” The word compuncture has the same root as the
word puncture. This period deflates our
inflated egos and challenges any self-deceit about our discipleship by
hitting
us again and again with demands that we not only fail to obey but which
we come
to recognize as being beyond us. These
scriptures are meant to trouble us and to make us confront any illusion
about
ourselves. We hear the words today, “Remember you
are dust and unto
dust you will return.” It’s ironic. I hope you have a
Lenten penance. By the way, I always suggest don’t give up
smoking or drinking in Lent. You need to
give up those things if they’re problems.
Smoking is always a problem and drinking often is but if you give them
up in Lent, you’re just going to drive everyone else crazy. You
might be holier at the end of Lent but
everyone who loves you, won’t be. You
know what I mean. It’s ironic but our
Lenten penances might be more effective if we fail because the purpose
of penance
is not to confirm our sense of virtue but to bring home to us our
radical need
to change. We see that Jesus is our only
hope. He calls us to perfection and it
is only possible in and through him. He
is The Way, The Light and The Truth. But there’s a little problem with
these two phases. You know, more people come to church today
than on Easter Sunday to get the ashes?
That’s why we don’t give the ashes out until the end of mass. We
make you suffer with us. It’s like people get that first part.
They know they are a mess but oftentimes they
leave it there and that’s no good. Jesus
Christ cannot save you unless you cooperate with him. You have to
say “yes” to him. You have to say, “I want to change. I need to
change.” Then he’ll help you change. We are off to a good start today as we
begin Lent. But don’t quit the race until it’s over. For
heaven’s sake, be in church on Easter Sunday.