Second Sunday of Lent – February 28, 2021
Sunday of Abraham, this second stage of our Lent is also Transfiguration Sunday. “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will. These words from Psalm 39, we could put them in the mouths of Abraham, but also of Isaac, Moses, Elijah or even Jesus. Because ultimately their fate is the same. This account of the great trial of Abraham, invited to sacrifice his son, is often frowned upon, even by Christians committed to the faith. Reacting as parents, reading the scene from a psychological point of view, they find it intolerable and unworthy of God. The conviction that the God of the Gospel (Father) has little to do with that of the Old Testament (cruel God) is reinforced in them, as does the questioning of the reading of the Old Testament in the Liturgy.
The text is to be understood as a “test” of the one who is to become the father of believers. Jesus himself, in temptation in the wilderness will be tested and challenged to a decisive choice. Who is this God who asks Abraham to sacrifice his son to him, who is moreover his only son who is late in his old age? Neither he nor his wife believed it and then one day God’s promise came true. (Gn. 17, 19). This story takes place on the mountain. This is where God is seen not as the God of death but the God of life. God asks Abraham to sacrifice, to sacrifice his son to him, and finally the story ends with God’s promise: “Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand by the sea.”
What a strange God! He is the one who promises and the one who gives life, not without having tested the confidence of Abraham. God says who he is, not an absolute master who would make his children do anything. He is the God of life, the God of the living. The psalm will sing: “It costs the Lord to see his own die. ” Then, this is the logic of the Covenant: the gesture of Abraham “who did not refuse his son” is followed by the gesture of God who fills Abraham with his blessing and ensures him innumerable offspring. The gift gives rise to another superabundant gift. In the text of the Romans, Saint Paul declares that in his turn, God did not refuse his only begotten Son: would he have such a love for men? “Who is God to love us like this?” “
The Church Fathers emphasized that Isaac was the figure of Jesus. Isaac escapes death, by the will and grace of God. Likewise in the Resurrection, Jesus is torn from death, by the love of the Father and the action of the quickening Spirit. Will the gospel tell us anything else? We are also on the mountain, the cloud is present as in the theophanies of the Old Testament. The evocation of the great biblical figures is strong: Moses to whom God revealed himself on Sinai, the persecuted Elijah takes refuge on the mountain to receive the revelation of God, both are witnesses of the old covenant.
Jesus also invited the Apostles of the New Covenant: Pierre, Jacques and Jean. And the center of this communion is Christ. And they saw Jesus, dressed in white and light, “a white whiter than white!” Then the astonished disciples discovered another Jesus. Jesus reveals himself to them, transfigured. From the cloud, a voice confided in them unheard of: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!” ” It is in patient listening to the Son of God that we allow our lives to be transformed by his light. He, and now Peter, James and John share the secret of Jesus: he is the beloved Son. They are the only ones who know this revelation. The three Apostles must have kept the memory of the beautiful face of Jesus. The glory of God is best revealed when Jesus is disfigured. This is why Saint Mark places the transfiguration between two announcements of the Passion and Saint John speaks of the cross as the moment of Glory. The events that follow will no longer have the same meaning for them. They will oscillate between enthusiasm and fear, between confidence and doubt. Isn’t this our daily experience as a believer? We too have been taken aside today as we are at each Eucharist. We have listened to the Word of God, we have been initiated into the mystery of God. We are among those who know “the secret of God” and yet every day we doubt, we are discouraged. We do not find in God the longed-for answer to what we would like now. But our history with God is lived over time, and especially day after day. Yes, God is for us! And nothing and no one will be able to break this relationship in the most intimate part of our being. This time of Lent is a privileged time that we have been given to live. It is a time when we are invited to return to the innermost part of ourselves. To convert our gaze and our listening. Who am I really? What is inside me? What is my relationship with those who are by my side, those that I know, but also those that I do not know? Lent is the time each of us takes to say to ourselves: shouldn’t I die to something in order to live a new life? By what, by whom, am I going to let myself be transfigured? We know that if we allow ourselves to be enveloped and inhabited by Christ’s own light, we gradually become carriers of his light and radiance of his clarity. And we will live in the love of our brothers and sisters, radiating life with joy, peace. “As long as you have the light, believe in the light and you will become children of the light” Jn 12:36. “You will shine like foci of light. »Ph. 2.15. May the Eucharist of this Sunday revive in us the light which enables us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, with Peter, James and John and all our believing brothers and sisters on the paths of our everyday life. P. Philippe Muller
First Sunday of Lent – February 21, 2021
Here is the time of Lent and the Sunday of temptation in the desert. It is impossible to be shorter than Saint Mark in today’s Gospel to tell us about Jesus in the desert. He situates this episode between his baptism and the arrest of John the Baptist. He notes the presence of the Spirit, wild beasts and angels. Marc’s account is not a report on what happened. It’s not a journalist speaking, but a witness to a burgeoning community. The forty days recall the forty years in the wilderness of the people of the Covenant, formed by God in faithfulness. The desert: a place of loneliness and discomfort, a place of truth where we cannot cheat, a blessed place where God gives himself to meet.
Jesus is pushed, “driven”, “thrown” into the desert by the Holy Spirit, who is not here the light breeze that calms, but the wind that blows in a tornado and jostles. Jesus personally relives the spiritual stages which were those of the people of God: after his baptism which recalls the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, here he is put to the test as in the past Israel was in the desert of Sinai The desert is in biblical language the place of spiritual warfare. Saint Mark gives us no details about the different forms of Jesus’ confrontation with the Evil One. This is a test that Jesus submits to.
The desert scene illustrates the victory over temptation: Jesus will therefore be the Messiah “according to the heart of God”. He is now ready to bring the Gospel of God to the world, to formulate the “message of happiness” (Gospel) which is certainly paradoxical, but which will make the saints and the Apostles of the Church. Our stay in the desert during Lent is also a qualifying test for us. The Holy Spirit needs to shake us up, to spur us on, to push us, to propel us like a turbo.
The Holy Spirit blows in a storm to wake us up from our sleep, to tear us away from the comfortable chair of our habits. In what spirit do we approach this Lent? Each, each of us, each Christian, on certain days, knows temptation. We are invited to choose God over the offer of the Tempter, the Divider (devil). Lent suggests cleaning up our relationship with God, relationships that are soiled by the idea that he does not want our good. To wash away this idea, the Church has the words of God read to Noah: “I establish my covenant with you. ” Whether we are prisoners of an evil inclination, crushed by a heavy worry, embroiled in a dead end … God is on our side, irrevocably.
The proof is that Christ cares so much for us that he dies for us. Lent also allows us to clean up our relationship with the land. Pope Francis gives the advocacy of ecological movements a divine basis When God speaks to Noah, he expands his covenant to all created. “I establish my covenant with all living beings: birds, cattle, all beasts …” Seven more days – time for God to recreate the face of the earth – and the dove will bring back the olive branch, the peace restored. Because forever, God had deposited his bow in the sky, a bow of peace and not of war. It will be placed in the firmament as a luminous sign of the Covenant. A sign that invites us to “remember”.
Saint Mark expresses the right relationship with all living by writing that Jesus “lives among all wild beasts”. The new and eternal covenant of which the Eucharist commemorates not only goes beyond the field of Christians (since it embraces the multitude) but even goes beyond the field of humans. While human contracts – including marriage – are based on reciprocity, one must admire God who commits to humanity without asking humanity to commit to him. Saint John writes: “It is not we who have loved God, it is he who has loved us” (1 Jn 4:10), even when we are sinners. (RM 5.8). How not to admire God? God is for us, writes Saint Paul (Rom 8:31). That is, he only wants our good. However, all our temptations seek to make us believe the contrary. Following Jesus, we have to let ourselves be molded by the Spirit who comes to tell us who we are, what we are invited to become. When God says to me “You will be happy if you think of others first”, I am tempted to answer “you are wrong, I am happier if I live according to myself”. When God says to me: “You are a slave to everything you keep for yourself: you will be happy if you share”, I am tempted to answer: “you are lying to me, my happiness is having everything for me “. Jesus said “convert and believe in the Gospel” because conversion consists in believing that God does not lie, that he is the Ally: this is the Gospel, the Good News.
The bride and groom are in an alliance. One of their temptations is not to be poor of heart in front of your spouse … not to admit your limits … not to be patient or merciful when the spouse has disappointed … Lent invites them to believe that love in truth, without lying, is the best guide. The reign of God erupts when Jesus, a man like us, harassed by Satan like us – was faithful to the covenant. Like him, let us agree to go to the desert to listen to God and not the Tempter. Let us make desert to learn to be silent, to be silence, to listen to the silence. Silence installs us in God. So make this flower that comes from elsewhere and is called: silence! Happy are the believers who consent to God revealing Himself as much by His silence as by His Word. Even if, with realism, the life of God does not really rule our life and our conversion is modest, we will be able to find that we will have said little yes to God. We will have said this essential yes: Yes, it is you, Jesus, you have marked our humanity by your fidelity to the Covenant. You are leading us towards Easter. P. Philippe Muller
Ash Wednesday – February 17, 2021
So here is the beginning of Lent. Forty days, that is, six six-day weeks – Sunday does not count: one does not fast on the day of the resurrection! – plus the four days from Ash Wednesday to Saturday: the count is good.
Forty days is the great forty for Christians. A quarantine is a isolation. But apart from what? And why ?
To get back to basics. To set aside what is secondary, accessory, bulky. To attach ourselves to what is the heart of our faith and our life: Jesus Christ.
Keeping your eyes on him, following him and imitating him is demanding. It requires choosing between the life of love offered by Christ and our petty selfishness.
We have the same rule of life as God, the law of love. God has the initiative to give us this law. And because we are quick to forget him, he has the initiative to remind us of it. For our good, so that we get to Easter.
This is what pleases God. Nothing pleases a father more than getting the child back on the right track.
On a thousand occasions, humanity sees its weaknesses. Has she developed the most sophisticated techniques, a microscopic virus interrupts all activity on the planet.
Does she want to be intelligent, she persists in doing acts that she knows will generate sadness or violence … and that she
will have to regret it.
Truly humanity is dust. In addition, the fire of love that makes the beauty of our souls, of our lives, we let go out. The heart burning with filial piety and fraternal attention becomes lukewarm, indifferent.
In the heart that obeys all that seduces us, the fire lowers, and when the fire is extinguished, only ashes remain. If our heart is unloved, it is no better than ashes.
“The glory of God is that man is alive” wrote Saint Irenaeus. That is why our God, creator of life, prays man to find life again, to become fervent, burning again. He urges us: “change your heart, come back to me, live according to my covenant”.
The Church made up of sinners does not lecture; it relays the prayer of God: “We are the ambassadors of God: allow yourselves to be reconciled with God”. As if she were saying: “consent to an unimaginable love being offered to you”.
” Do you love me ? Is the fundamental question. It is not easy to answer them because the love of God can be polluted by our pride.
Also, Jesus who had said: “let your light shine before men”, must specify: “avoid making yourselves noticed by men”. Let us understand that what is bad is not to be seen, but to act to be seen and for people to have a good opinion of yourself.
The main thing for Jesus is what happens in the heart of the human being, in the secret of conscience. That’s why he says, don’t stand out … don’t show off. “
For him, it’s not the outdoor practice that matters, it’s what happens in our most intimate areas.
Lent is a time of spiritual renewal.
It is a deeper commitment, a time of meditation and conversion of the heart, a time of listening to the Word of God.
To pray is to have a bit of conversation with God, to speak to Christ to entrust to him our life, the life of those who are dear to you, the life of the world.
Talk to God to thank him, beg him, ask him for forgiveness. Concretely, during this Lent, let us take prayer appointments seriously, whether personal or community.
The purpose of fasting is to make you thirst and hunger for God and his Word. Fasting in Lent is not only a gesture of penance, it is also a gesture of solidarity with the poorest and an invitation to sharing and giving alms.
“The Holy Spirit will make you free”, says Jesus in the Gospel according to Saint John. If the purpose of the Good News is to free us, Lent is a privileged place “to await the feast of Easter with the joy of desire inspired by the Spirit of God” in the words of Saint Benedict.
Who would have bet that God would spurt water out of the rock? Who could bet, that from our ashes God would cause the Easter fire to spring up.
God’s gift exceeds everything! May we also live Lent as a gift from God!
Father Philippe Muller
Translated from Source: http://visitationannecy.org/offices-celebrations/homelies/