1st Week of Lent 2026 - Wednesday - Get serious about repenting

 

A week ago, we gathered on Ash Wednesday. We received Ashes on our foreheads as a sign that during this season we will seek to turn away from sin and turn toward God.

Well, just one week into Lent now, our readings today are about one of the grandest examples of turning away from sin in the entire old testament.

Jonah preached for forty days that unless the city of Nineveh repented, it would be destroyed. And what happened? Well, they weren’t destroyed were they? Just the opposite. And it was really amazing. The entire city of Ninevah, which was so big that it took a person three days to cross, the entire city-- the nobility, the peasantry, everyone—marked themselves with ashes, they fasted, and prayed, in order to turned away from sin and turn to God.

What a great story. I love this story. And apparently, Jesus loves this story too. For as we heard in our Gospel Jesus tells the people of his generation that they need to be more like the people of Nineveh. In fact, Jesus used more serious language than that didn’t he?

He said the failure to turn away from sin—the refusal to turn away from sin—will result in condemnation.

What’s Jesus talking about here? I think some of you know. Jesus is talking about hell. Condemnation to hell. Serious stuff.

God doesn’t want any of us to go to hell. God doesn’t want any one of us to be excluded from heaven. Which is why Jesus tells people to turn away from sin and turn toward God. Because that’s what it takes. That’s the choice we must make.

Will you turn away from sin or not? This is a serious message isn’t it? For lent is a serious time. It’s okay to be serious during serious times.

During Lent we get serious about sin and turning away from sin and doing penance for sin—serious prayer, serious fasting. “Turn to God with all your heart” we heard on Ash Wednesday. Not half-your heart, not the part of your heart you have left after you’ve given it your hobbies. Give God all of your heart—that it may be filled with life—the life which Jesus obtains for us on the cross.

So, get serious about turning away from sin this Lent. Show your repentance through prayer, fasting, almsgiving for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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For the Church throughout the world: that during this holy season of Lent her fasting, prayer, and almsgiving may bear fruit.

For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

For the students, families, and staff of Corpus Christi Academy: for a flourishing of faith, hope, and love and help from God in our trials.

For the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the imprisoned, and victims of violence.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy.

 

6th Week of Easter 2022 - Tuesday - The Holy Spirit will convict the world

 Nearing the Feast of Pentecost, our Gospel readings continue to be taken from the Lord’s Farewell Discourse from John’s Gospel. In today’s passage, the Lord reveals that the Holy Spirit “will convict the world.” He will Convict. Here, the word “convict” is used in the legal sense: a criminal is convicted of a crime, meaning, his crimes are brought to light, it becomes clear that he is guilty of committing evil. So, the Holy Spirit will convict the world, bringing to light the evil in the world, the criminal errors and behaviors of the world. 

And the Lord mentions 3 particular areas in which the Holy Spirit will convict the world: in regard to sin, righteousness, and condemnation.

The Holy Spirit, through the preaching and teaching of the Church shows that the world is all wrong about sin. The world say “sin isn’t real. Right and wrong are simply subjective to the individual. What’s wrong for one person is right for another. God’s commandments are fabrications of the patriarchy for the purposes of controlling the vulnerable. It doesn’t matter what you believe in, how you act” FALSE.

Sin is real. Behaviors, decisions, choices, and attitudes contrary to the divine law are evil. And choices which are not in conformity with the goodness of God cause real harm to souls. Sin mutilates souls, darkens intellects, weakens will, deepens the attraction to graver evils. Sin begets sin. The deeper one falls into sin, the farther one falls away from God. The world is wrong about sin. 

It is also wrong about righteousness. We cannot make ourselves righteous by our own activity. For, righteousness comes from being in communion with God, allowing the life of the living God to fill one’s soul, to make choices in conformity with the Divine Will of God.  The world will always fail in its attempts to build a utopia because it divorces itself from God. There can be no secular utopia. We cannot hope to accomplish anything of lasting good value without God.

Rather, we are to “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Unless God is the builder of our lives, our families, our nations, our building is in vain. 

So the world is wrong about evil, the world is wrong about goodness, and finally it is wrong about condemnation. The world says all roads lead to heaven. This is false. All roads except the road of Jesus Christ lead to eternal condemnation. “No one comes to the Father except through me” Jesus says himself. In the end “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two.”  

As baptized members of the flock of Christ, we are sent into a hostile, unbelieving world. But unbelievers and even hostile anti-Catholics will be converted, will be attracted to the Truth when they see the truth evidenced in our lives—the truth that the life of Christ bears fruit that the world cannot produce—true lasting peace, joy, gentleness, chastity, patience—and leads to life everlasting.

You want to proof that Jesus Christ is truly God and Lord? Look at the evidence produced by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church. Look at the courage of the martyrs; look at the saints he has produced, look at their miracles, their righteousness. Look at the unity he has brought among the disparate people of the world who accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at the patience and joy and understanding and knowledge he gives to ordinary people who pray.

The world is convicted by the Holy Spirit working in our lives. May we witness to the saving Gospel in every conversation and decision today and all days, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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God the Father was glorified in the death and resurrection of his Son. Let us pray to him with confidence.

God the Father bathed the world in splendor when Christ rose again in glory, may our minds be filled with the light of faith.

Through the resurrection of His Son, the Father opened for us the way to eternal life, may we be sustained today in our work with the hope of glory.

Through His risen Son, the Father sent the Holy Spirit into the world, may our hearts be set on fire with spiritual love.

May Jesus Christ, who was crucified to set us free, be the salvation of all those who suffer, particularly those who suffer from physical or mental illness, addiction, and grief.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the desires of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our lord.

5th Week of Lent 2021 - Preservative and Liberative Redemption

 In our readings who heard of two women: one who was being framed by evil men, and one who was genuinely guilty of the sin of adultery.  Both were tempted to sin, pressured; but one was resisted sin, the other gave in. And in both stories, God is shown as the great deliverer.

In the first story, God delivers the innocent, by coming to their aid. In the second, God delivers the sinner, the guilty, through mercy. The sinner is delivered through Jesus’ offer of mercy and conversion.

We are called to be innocent like Susanna. When we are being pressured to sin, coerced, threatened by the wicked, we are to turn to God to deliver us from evil. And we are called to be like the woman caught in adultery: when we’re guilty of sin, we are to turn to God to deliver us from evil, our own evil, the evil we have caused, and we have committed. Whether we are unjustly condemned or justly condemned, we are certainly called to place are trust in the Lord.

Blessed Duns Scotus, Franciscan philosopher and theologian, taught that there are two types of redemption: preservative redemption and liberative redemption. God preserves us when we turn to him in temptation, and he liberates us when we’ve fallen. We certainly see those two types of redemption on display today.

The key is that we turn to God whatever our state, whatever our trial. We certainly pray for those who neither turn to God for preservation or liberation, those without faith. And we seek for ourselves, a deeper faith this Lent, that we can come to trust less in ourselves, and more in Christ. 

For each of these women, God's action in their life meant a new beginning for them.  Susanna would no doubt spend the rest of her life as a witness to God’s intervention in her life. The woman caught in adultery, was commanded by Christ, “to go and sin no more” hopefully she persevered in that new way of living.

Similarly with us, we are called to give testimony to others of the great things God has done for us by living righteously and faithfully to Jesus.

As we celebrate in just two weeks the ultimate source of our deliverance and redemption, the Cross and Resurrection, may the Lord deliver us from all sin, all temptation, all evil and all fear of witnessing to his love for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

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For an increase in faith for the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. And That the Church might be delivered and protected from all spirits of error, heresy, schism, and unbelief. Let us pray to the Lord.

That during this Year of St. Joseph, the Church may discover a deeper devotion to our Universal Patron. That through St. Joseph’s intercession families may be strengthened, priestly and religious vocations may increase, demons may be scattered, and the sick and dying may know the peace of Jesus. Let us pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or illness: may they experience the healing graces of Christ. Let us pray to the Lord.

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.  Let us pray to the Lord. Let us pray to the Lord.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.