St. Joseph’s dream of having a typical and happy family was turned into a nightmare when he found out what no husband-to-be would want to find out. The gospel tells us that he awoke, took Mary and her son from their home, then fled to Egypt.
How many times did we perceive God’s intrusion in our lives as nightmares rather than the fulfilment of our little dreams? Will we dare to have the humility of the quiet St. Joseph, to just accept and let God be God?
There is a difference between living and just surviving. If someone asks us how we are and our answer is, “I am just surviving”, we know that something is wrong. In other words, we need more than mere sustenance to feel fully alive, to be happy. But what is that something?
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In many of the healings of Jesus, the sick person asked Jesus for healing and Jesus took pity on him, healed him and a response of faith was usually followed. The healing in today’s gospel was totally different.
Firstly, Jesus decided who was going to be healed, someone with a clear disadvantage. Secondly, the response of this person was not faith but accusation. After being accused of violating the Sabbath, he excused himself by going to report Jesus to the Jews. What Jesus got in return for his favour was a death sentence.
This is the story of God and the people of Israel. The story of God and us. What does He get for His favour of revealing His love to us? The death sentence of his Son.
What is interesting is that in this – Jesus managed to reveal himself as He really is, God himself. God who rested on the Sabbath is the only one who can continue to work on the Sabbath. Jesus was working the work of God, completing His creation. He was persecuted for making Himself equal to God, which was revealed in his working on the Sabbath.
The difference between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday is that while Jews imitate God in His resting on the Sabbath day, Christians join God in His work of redemption every Sunday as partakers of the Eucharist which is the memorial of the supreme work of God.
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What is the best method of prayer? Jesus did not start a workshop on prayer when the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray. Simplicity continues to be the first rule: “do not use many words,” as if God depended on our words to listen. Moreover, we don’t really pray to change God’s mind, but to change our hearts.
Prayer is, before anything else, asking God for what we need. But, as St. Paul said, we do not know how to pray. We do not know what is good for us. But it is in asking for what we think is good for us, that we learn what is really good for us. And Jesus knew that.
Indeed we don’t really need many things. Only this, that His kingdom come, that His will be done, our basic needs for the day, forgiveness, for which, we in turn need the capacity to forgive, and that we will never be tempted beyond our strength.
However, no matter how many times we recite the Lord’s prayer, our prayers still seem to be cluttered with so many words regarding things we still think we need. We continue to pray to change our hearts, to make our hearts good — a heart that truly desires good things.
Prayer is therefore a crucial Lenten practice because it is more about hearts transforming than about making God comply to our shortsighted interests.
“Each year You give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery.” This is how the first preface of Lent prepares for this special liturgical time. However we are not used to associating Lent with joy. Can we put on sackcloth and ashes and still be exultant with joy? To answer that question, we need to ask ourselves what the real meaning of Lent is. We need to push ourselves beyond the meaning of penance understood as a self-inflicted suffering pleasing to God. What mother would be pleased at her child’s self-inflicted suffering to please her?
When I was learning to ride the bicycle, I always had my father supporting me with his strong hand, making sure I kept my balance. This went on for a few days, until one day, I’m not sure if it was because my father got tired or because it was time for me to move on, my father decided to check if I could keep my balance on my own. There was only one way to know: letting me go without his support. When Satan told God that Job was only faithful to him because he had many blessings, there was only one way to find out: letting all those blessings go. Sure enough, Job, without family, without riches, without friends and in total confusion was tested to see where the real limits of his fidelity were.
Lenten observances are, before anything else, a test, a way to know. Did the people of Israel love God because God liberated them, or because they genuinely loved Him? There was only one way to know: 40 years in the desert proved that every time the blessings from God fell short, the people of Israel murmured. Did Jesus love the Father above everything else? 40 days in the desert proved that his love for the Father could resist the temptations of the devil.
The difference between traditional Jewish penance and the penance that Jesus advised is reward. We like to be liked. We like to be appreciated and admired. But what if we did not get that reward? Would we do things without any reward at all? Just because we like to do them? There is only one way to find out. The church invites us to do that for 40 days in solidarity with all those who have not enough (alms) to test ourselves (fast) and our how genuine our love for God is (prayer). We give up the little pleasures of life, not because they are bad, but unless we give them up, we will never know if they are the ones that fill our lives and bring us happiness, or if the happiness in our lives is grounded only in God.
Lent is then a period of testing, not for approval or failure, but just to know better where exactly we are standing before God. If this is the case, there is some joy in finding the truth about our hearts so that we can do something about it. Lent should then be a joyful season indeed. Is there a way of finding some agreement between the joy of Lent and the joy of the Lunar New Year? Do we need to revise our misconceptions of Lent?
Happy Ash Wednesday!!!
