4th Sunday of Lent 2026 - To see with the eyes of Christ

 

The story of the man born blind comes just a few chapters after last Sunday’s Gospel, the story of the woman at the well. Last week, we heard of the woman estranged from her community, going from one assumably failed marriage to the next, estranged from her God. Yet, Jesus comes into the messiness of her life, and offers her a drink of the life-giving waters that well up to eternal life. Her story is our story. Jesus doesn’t wait for our lives to be perfect, he enters into the messiness of our lives, and offers us water to drink—and sends us out to offer that life-giving water to others.

In the Gospel today, we heard of the man born blind.  His story, also, is our story. Each of us struggles with some amount of spiritual blindness. We don’t see as we should.  We don’t see our neighbor as we should, we don’t see our God as we should, we don’t see ourselves as we should, we don’t see the changes we need to make in our lives, in the patterns of our speech and behavior, as we should.  As Jesus offered sight to the blind man at the pool of siloam, so too, He offers sight to us, as well.

Jesus Christ came to restore sight to the spiritually blind, and so by the light of Christ, we are now able live in the light of the truth, not only avoiding those behaviors and attitudes that are harmful to our souls, but seeing how good it is to live virtuously. Spiritual sight helps us to be ever-more attentive to the needs of the suffering, so that we may come to their aid. Spiritual sight even enables us to see ourselves as God sees us, as sons and daughters worth dying for.

The ancient theologian Origen said, “to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.”  “To be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.” 

Here’s an illustration from my own life. During the semester I studied in Rome, I attended several masses at St. Peter’s basilica. Pope St. John Paul II was Pope, and the basilica would often be packed with those hoping to get close to the saintly Holy Father. During Holy Week that year, I went to St. Peter’s for the Chrism mass at which the Pope blesses the holy oils for the upcoming year. I got there very early so that I could get a good seat, and I found myself right on the aisle, where the Pope would be processing up to the altar.

This was in 2004, and the Pope’s health was not great, but he walked up the aisle that day, and I tell you, for a moment, the saint and I locked eyes. And it was if I was looking right into the eyes of Jesus. This spiritual light emanated from the eyes of the Pope. And I felt seen by God, and loved, and confirmed in my vocation. It was so beautiful. I saw the love of Jesus in the Pope’s eyes—a love that was for me and for all. He was truly a saint, for he “saw with the eyes of Christ”, as Origen said, which are eyes of love.

And that’s the goal for all of us: to be so filled with the light of God, the peace of God, the wisdom of God, the compassion of God, that we see with the eyes of Christ. But that only happens when we allow ourselves to be washed, and cleansed, healed and anointed.

When people look into your eyes, what do they see? Harshness, criticism, rash judgment, annoyance? Or do they see patience? Do they see welcome and understanding? Do they see someone who will calmly lead them to the God? If not, why not?

What has yet to be healed in you, so that the light of God can be seen in your eyes? What spiritual blindness is causing you to see not with the eyes of Christ, but with the eyes of the world—the cold, calculating, critical, self-interested eyes of the world? Do you see others as inconveniences or people God has put into your life for you to love?

When we seek to see Christ in others, they will see Christ in us. That was certainly true for the other saintliest group people I have ever met, the missionary sisters of charity, the order of consecrated religious sisters founded by St. Mother Theresa.

I told this story during my first weekend as pastor, how each Friday, when I lived in Rome I would volunteer at the missionary sisters of charity men’s homeless shelter. 

Each week, a group of us seminarians and college students were blessed to work along the sisters in their care for the homeless. And it was always so powerful to be serving alongside these holy woman. Each one of the sisters had this beautiful Christ-like light in their eyes. For their charism was to see Christ in others, and to serve the poorest of the poor as they would serve Christ himself.

We would assist with serving breakfast to the homeless men, and helping the sisters do the laundry. Since Mother Theresa didn’t believe in modern conveniences like electric washing machines, this meant washing the homeless men’s clothing, soiled sheets and towels on old fashioned scrub boards.

One Friday, during Lent, one of the seminarians asked one of the sisters, “Sister, are you ready for Easter?” And in all seriousness she replied, “No, I still have much dying to do.” And she was probably one of the most joyful people I had ever met. “No, I still have much dying to do”. Here was a woman who lived every day in what appeared to be total- selflessness—no possessions, no comforts, spending her days washing soiled sheets and washing the grime off of the homeless. Yet she said, “I still have much dying to do.”

I think about her words quite a bit. For, I know that her words contain one of the most important lessons: that without dying to self, without learning to see with eyes purified by the salve of Christ, we will never have real joy.

On the fourth Sunday of Lent—Laetare Sunday—the priest vests in rose-colored vestments, the color of dawn's first light before sunrise. The liturgical color, rose, symbolizes joyful anticipation for easter—signaling that easter joy is on the horizon. And, yet at the half way point of Lent, it is a reminder that if we want to see that joy, we still have much dying to do.

Our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, our Lenten repenting, our Lenten penances, our Lenten confessions are aimed at helping us to die to self that we may see rightly. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God”.

From what do I still need to be purified? What impurity is still rooted in me so deeply that I don’t even detect it? Or what impurity am I afraid to acknowledge because of the change that will be demanded of me if it is healed?

To remain in spiritual darkness is to be deprived of joy. There are none so blind than those who choose not to see, and they are quite joyless as well.

 But, the Lord wishes that joy may be in us and joy may be in abundance. So may we not be afraid to expose the darkest parts of our lives to the light of the Lord, to allow him to heal us, to fill us with light, to help us to see with His eyes and joyfully love with his heart, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2025 - The Prodigal Son and Joyful dying to self

 Today, on this Fourth Sunday of Lent, known traditionally as Laetare Sunday, we hear one of the most beautiful and beloved parables Jesus ever told: the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This story encapsulates the heart of the Gospel, revealing the Father's boundless mercy, compassion, and joy at the return of his lost child.

The Gospel today describes a son who, after squandering his inheritance on selfish pleasures, finds himself in misery and loneliness. Coming to his senses, he returns to his father, expecting rejection or punishment, yet he receives an extravagant welcome instead. The father, filled with joy, proclaims, "We must celebrate and rejoice, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found."

The father's words remind us profoundly of what Lent is ultimately about: dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ. His joy captures the essence of this Laetare Sunday—a moment of joyful anticipation as we draw closer to the celebration of Easter—a reminder that if we die with Christ we will experience the joy of rising with him to new life.

Today’s call to joy reminds me vividly of an experience from my seminary formation.

I’ve shared before how, I was able to study in Rome, Italy for about six months.  I attended classes at the wonderful Dominican School, the Angelicum; every day I was walked passed the famous Trevi Fountain and the famous Spanish steps, down the same streets of the Eternal City that saints had walked. 

In addition to our academic work, my seminary formation involved some charitable apostolic work.  I had the blessing of working alongside the Missionary Sisters of Charity at a homeless shelter, in their care for the homeless men and women of Rome.  So, every Friday morning, a few of us seminarians would walk past the Coliseum to the Sister’s homeless shelter: we would serve breakfast to homeless men, clean up after breakfast, then help the sisters do the laundry. 

Now Blessed Mother Theresa didn’t believe in modern conveniences, so the clothing and the soiled sheets and towels were washed by hand on old fashioned scrub boards.  Mother Theresa wanted the sisters to learn how to do small tasks with great love—which included doing laundry with the love of Christ in your heart.  

One sister, likely detecting my need to learn a lesson of humble service, had me scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush, teaching me to serve joyfully, even in the smallest ways.

One Friday, deep in the season of Lent, as we are now, one of the seminarians, enthusiastically asked a sister, “Sister, are you ready for Easter?” With seriousness yet unmistakable joy, she replied, “No, I still have much dying to do.” Her words struck me deeply. Here was a woman who lived every day in total selflessness—no possessions, no comforts, spending her days washing soiled sheets and caring for the homeless. If given a simple chocolate bar, she would joyfully give it away, knowing even small acts of love could bring hope to another. Yet she still said, “I still have much dying to do.” She understood profoundly that dying to self leads to rising with Christ.

Today, I stand vested in liturgical rose, the color of dawn's first light before sunrise. It symbolizes joyful anticipation—Easter’s joy is now on the horizon. This Sunday invites us to pause in the midst of our Lenten disciplines to experience joy—not simply because Lent is almost over, but precisely because we recognize the life-giving purpose behind our Lenten penances and sacrifices.

They help us to die that we might live. Like dear sister, we have much dying yet to do. But that dying is done joyfully. We do our penances joyfully because we know that they lead to life. They lead to a fuller embrace of God. 

I don’t know about you, but during Lent, it sure feels like there are more inconveniences than normal. Even those inconveniences though can be embraced joyfully because when we endure them patiently, without complaint, we are dying to self in order to live more fully for God. 

In the Eastern Catholic traditions, believers intensify their spiritual efforts as Holy Week approaches, recognizing the urgency of preparing their hearts fully for the Resurrection. Perhaps we too can intensify our commitment, recognizing that the deeper our "dying," the greater our joy will be on Easter morning.

Today’s Gospel assures us that, regardless of how far we have strayed, from our Lenten penances or even from the path of Christ, the Father joyfully awaits our return. He longs to celebrate our resurrection from sin to grace, from death to life. Like the prodigal son, may we humbly arise and return, trusting fully in God’s merciful embrace.

“Sister, are you ready for Easter?” “No, I still have much dying to do.” As we journey onward toward Easter, let us also joyfully embrace this final stretch of Lent, knowing that our dying to self will lead us directly into the joyful light of the Resurrection—for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2024 - Joyous Eucatastrophe

 Some of you may have heard of the celebrated 20th century author J.R.R. Tolkien. He gained some popular notoriety a few years ago when his books, the Lord of the Rings saga and the Hobbit, were turned into very-well done blockbuster movies by the New Zealand film director Peter Jackson.

JRR Tolkien, you may not know, was a devout Catholic, and his faith deeply influenced his work. The Lord of the Rings is imbued with Catholic themes such as the struggle between good and evil, the importance of self-sacrifice, and the power of grace. Tolkien's heroes are often the small and humble who are called to do great things and carry heavy burdens. His world, called Middle-earth, is one that values tradition, ritual, knowledge, virtue, and a proper ordering of things.

Tolkien believed that myths and fairy stories could convey deep spiritual truths. He saw them not as mere escapism, but as a means to connect with reality at a deeper level. You’d be surprised that many young people credit Tolkien as part of their journey home back to the faith. A very good priest friend of mine even told me that he never would have entered seminary, had it not been for Tolkien’s stories.

In one of his essays, Tolkien discusses how stories can invoke real joy within us, particularly through what he called "eucatastrophe," a term he coined for a joyous turn of events that brings unexpected grace and victory over sorrow, failure, and death.

Think of that moment in Les Miserables where the criminal Jean Valjan is arrested for stealing from the Archbishop. And instead of condemning him and demanding back his silver, the Archbishop says no, take the silver, use it to begin a new life dedicated to grace. The unexpected act of mercy bought his soul for God.

Or think of those old pictures of the Allied forces, rolling in to liberate those concentration camps, and the jubilation that came after those months of starvation and impending doom. 

Or a few years ago, remember, the miraculous rescue of those 33 miners trapped underground for 70 days in Chile brought the world together in a shared experience of relief and jubilation. 

We love these types of stories. They exemplify what Tolkien called eucatastrophe—the triumph of goodness that we didn't see coming, which sparks profound joy.

Did you catch the eucatastrophe in our first reading today?

Our first reading today mirrors this concept. Despite continuous warnings, the people of Judah persisted in their infidelity, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and their exile to Babylon—a direct result of their defiance against God. It was a desperate situation, one they had brought upon themselves, threatening the very existence of their civilization.

But then, the miraculous turn: God moves the heart of King Cyrus to allow the Jews to return to their homeland. And this of course brought profoundest joy.

The Jews knew they were lost, they were beaten, and they were totally at the mercy of their captors. They could not save themselves.

But in his mercy, and fidelity to the promises that HE had made, God saves them. Because God is faithful even when we are unfaithful and undeserving. And that is the cause of our joy. 

This narrative found in Chronicles is analogous to humanity's state before Christ. We were in exile, a predicament of our own making. Despite warnings, we sinned. The ripple effects of our sins damaged our minds, bodies, and souls, deserving eternal separation from God. We deserved hell for our sins—endless sorrow of being excluded from God’s presence for all eternity, the knowledge that its duration would continue forever without possibility of rest, the knowledge that it could have been otherwise had we remained faithful, and the understanding that our punishment was entirely our own fault. 

But then the joyous eucatastrophe--the greatest unexpected grace: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

The joy of the Christian life does not come from the fact that God has freed us from our earthly sufferings—each one of us here still suffers. Evil bombards us. 

Rather, the joy of the Christian life is the experience of salvation—the knowledge and understanding that we have been saved by Jesus Christ when we were deserving of hell. And from experience of salvation blossoms joy that no earthly suffering can diminish—because God’s grace pierces through those evils every time—and shows us the way to heaven. 

This is why Christians can experience joy on our death beds. We’re given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, and we can still have joy because we know that God has given us the way to walk through the cancer to eternal life. We can experience joy when we have been stripped of all things, like Jesus stripped of his clothes on calvary. Because it’s not the earthly things that bring us joy, it’s the thing that can’t be taken away, our union with Christ.

And the only reason a Christian can end up in hell is because of his choice to walk away from Christ up to his final breaths—the rejection of the grace of repentance. But we know, that God reaches out to those souls all the time. He brings about eucatastrophes in their lives—unexpected graces—to help them see the light in their darkness.

And this is why our penances and prayers, during the season of Lent and throughout the year, are so important. Penances undertaken on behalf of others cause beams of God’s light to shine into the darkness of their errors and sins. Our prayers whispered to God help them hear God whispering in the depths of their hearts amidst all the noise of the world.

Christians we don’t just do penance and pray without cause, as if we would anger God if we didn’t. God uses our prayers and penances to help save the lost. And that brings us joy, doesn’t it. To know, that our prayer is powerful, our sufferings offered up, are powerful? When we offer up our sufferings in union with Christ, God works. 

This is why we are to be generous, lavish, with our Lenten prayer and penance and almsgiving. People say, I don’t like to give anything up for Lent. Fine, we aren’t supposed to necessarily enjoy penance. But those things that you don’t like to do, but you do them anyway because they are the right thing to do, deepen your joy in Christ because you are united to Him in his suffering and in his saving mission.

So let us be generous in our Lenten penances and prayers, offering them up for those who have fallen away from the Church or do not yet know Christ. Our sacrifices, united to His cross, become channels of grace that God can use to work eucatastrophes in their lives.

May the joy of our salvation in Christ pierce through every darkness and lead us and those we pray for to the eternal light of Heaven for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2022 - Second Scrutiny - To be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ

 This morning we celebrate the second of three scrutinies for those preparing for baptism and full initiation this Easter. 

You’ll hear prayers for the dispelling of darkness in their lives, for the light of Christ and truth and faith to shine in their lives, and you’ll notice how the exorcism prayer references today’s Gospel reading about the healing of the man born blind.

All of us, emerging from our mother’s wombs, are like the man born blind, but we are born with a more terrible malady, original sin, the deprivation of the loss of God’s grace in our souls. And so we require the saving grace of baptism, to restore what was lost due to sin. And through baptism we are given the gift of faith which enables us to see as we should.

The great church father Origen said, “to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.”  Blindness is used often in the New Testament to point out that we do not see as we should. We don’t see our neighbor as we should with eyes of loving compassion, we don’t see God as we should,  we don’t see ourselves as we should, we don’t see Truth as we should.  Sin has clouded our vision to rightly perceive truth, goodness, and beauty. 

And so to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.  The Saints are those who through a life seeking after holiness have begun to see clearly. They see evil and error and sin for what they really are, and rid them from their lives. They see the poor, as the beloved of God. They see the need to bless those who curse them, and to pray for those who mistreat them, like Christ. The see the cross as the royal road to heaven.

Jesus sees this man born blind.  The blind man was probably begging at the gate, as many blind people were often forced to do.  And Jesus sees him. Jesus sees all of us. The eye of God sees us always, as Padre Pio would say. 

Then Jesus approaches this man, he spits on the ground, and makes a kind of paste, a sort of salve—salve, from which we get the word, salvation.  St. Augustine says, his spittle represents his divinity, the earth, his humanity.  Divinity taking on the flesh, the incarnation of Christ, is the salve God uses to heals our deepest wounds. Jesus rubbing the salve in this man’s eyes, well, that’s Christ himself being rubbed into our eyes.  His incarnation, his presence among us is what allows us to see. 

On Ash Wednesday, we put not earth and spittle on our eyes, but we did put ashes mixed with holy water on our foreheads. That was a salve of sorts. The salve of repentance. The reminder of the need to do penance for our sins, is a salve indeed, that helps baptized and unbaptized alike to take a hard look at our lives, to discern if any sinful attitudes, habits, or behaviors have begun to blind us to goodness of the moral life of Christ.

After placing the salve on the eyes of the blind man, Jesus tells him to then go wash in the pool, and he is then able to see. The pool is evocative of baptism.    

For it is through baptism that we are grafted on to his body and become members of the Church. Isn’t it wonderful to know that when you come to Church, you are gathering with formerly spiritually blind people who are learning how to see again. We are all at different stages of regaining spiritual sight, some of us make better use of the time we’ve been given to regain our sight, some of us have a hard time taking our focus off of the world or off of ourselves. Many of us sadly, at some points in our lives reblind ourselves with the red-hot poker of mortal sin. But even mortal sin after our baptism can be healed in the Sacrament of Confession.

Today I am wearing the rose-colored vestments, because today, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, is "Laetare Sunday".  Laetare means rejoice.  We rejoice because we recognize the prayer, fasting, and almsgiving of Lent helps us see clearly, and helps us to prepare well for Easter which is the source of our spiritual rebirth. We will celebrate the Easter sacraments with our candidates for full initiation, and so we are barely able to contain our joy. 

Again, if you haven’t made a good Lenten confession yet, there is still time. 

We’re 4 weeks into Lent, and I’ve made the invitation to you all several times to go to confession, and many have gone. I was so delighted that Evening of Confession a week and a half ago. I heard about 30 confessions for almost 3 and a half hours, and I would have heard them for three and a half more if I needed to.

But, I can do math. And, there are still many souls in this parish, who haven’t been to confession in a while, too long. Jesus is waiting for you with the salve of his mercy and grace. Go to confession. Especially if you have unconfessed mortal sins. We don’t know the day nor the hour, and the greatest tragedy is when a soul fails to turn to God for forgiveness. There is more joy when one sinner repents than 99 who don’t. Don’t be a member of the 99% who fail to repent. Please. You’ll feel so much better. You’ll begin to see more clearly than you have, perhaps, in a long time.

May this Lenten season continue to bring about the healing of spiritual sight, a dispelling of darkness in all of us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2022 - Prodigal Son and the Merciful Father

On this 4th Sunday of Lent, we just heard one of the most famous and beloved of all the Lord’s parables. The parable challenges us, warms our hearts, brings us to contrition, and gives us hope. And surprises us. 

It’s known as the parable of the prodigal son, but he’s really not the character who surprises us, nor is it the jealous self-righteous brother. Neither of the two brothers really surprise us.  We all know people like the two sons: rebellious and unrighteous on one hand or cold, resentful, and self-righteous on the other. And if we’re honest, we’ve probably all acted in one of the two ways and a little bit of both. This parable is a mirror for seeing ourselves. But, that is not the surprising element of this parable.

What is striking and causes us maybe even to shed a tear of joy is the third and most important figure, the father. Jesus clearly meant this parable to show us not just who we are. Though that is surely the case. In addressing this parable to the scribes and pharisees, he’s certainly giving them an opportunity to recognize their own sinfulness—their own prodigality—how they’ve wandered from God.

What touches our hearts and surprises us is the father. Think of how he was treated. First, his son insults him by demanding his inheritance to finance his wasteful escapade into wickedness, effectively saying, “Father, I wish you were dead so I could have your money.” Any earthly parent’s heart would be broken by this. To hear from your progeny, I wish you were dead, I will now act as if you were dead.

His son’s coldness, no doubt broke his heart, but the Father was not completely shattered, rather, we find him scanning the horizon, hoping and waiting for his son to return. One could imagine this father lighting a lantern in the window of his house every single night. His prayers and tears likely never ceasing since his son left. The son left his father’s house but he could not leave his father’s heart, no matter how far away the son wandered. Even with a broken heart, he could not forget his son.

He glimpses his son and runs towards him. He can imagine the father’s heavy robes bouncing with his exuberant dash to embrace his lost boy. 

That’s one detail that seems to be missing from Rembrandt's painting. Hopefully you’ve taken a moment to examine the painting in the parking lot entrance way: it’s Rembrandt's depiction of the Son’s return. This was one of Rembrandt's last paintings before his death, and he beautifully depicts the prodigal son, in clothes, tattered from his life of dissipation, his sandals deteriorated from his wayward path, kneeling penitentially at his father’s breast. His father calmly embraces his son, laying hands on his shoulders as if to absolve him of sin. The dark scene is illuminated by the father’s tenderness, a symbol of weary and sinful mankind taking refuge in the shelter of God's mercy.

But when I read St. Luke, I imagine the Father a little bit more disheveled and out of breath after having raced to wrap his arms around his son, kissing him with joyful tears in his eyes. 

And when the son returned, the father doesn’t wait for him to throw himself on the ground groveling at his feet. The Father doesn’t punish his son with coldness, like many of us might do. The father doesn’t make conditions for forgiveness, first say your sorry, first pay back the inheritance you squandered. How could he really ever pay back the debt for wounding his Father anyway? Rather, he embraces, he forgives, no matter the debt.

What a powerful image of God’s love for each of us. No doubt, Jesus wanted to present this image to the Pharisees, who believe God to be distant from sinners, unwilling to embrace us because of our uncleanness. The Father wraps his arms around his son who had been among pigs and prostitutes. There was no one more unclean. And the Father races to embrace him, just as there is no sin so great for God to forgive, he rushes to lavish mercy the instant we turn back to Him. He does not hesitate.

This certainly helps us to understand the love which animated the Lord’s own way of the cross. He does not hesitate to go to the cross for us. He does not hesitate to forgive.

Now, the story of the prodigal son could have ended differently. It could have ended with the son dying alone without knowing reconciliation. He could have been trampled by pigs. Diseased by prostitutes. He could have drunk himself to death without remorse and without the Father’s mercy.

The moral of the story: Don’t let your story end that way. It would be the greatest of tragedies. 

We do not know the day nor the hour when we will reach the end of our earthly life and appear before the judgment seat of God. You do not want to come to the end of your life with an unrepented heart and unconfessed mortal sins. You don’t want to face God as your judge and have him say, you didn’t take me up on my invitation to forgive you. All you need to do is admit, confess.

4 weeks into Lent, I’ve made the invitation to you all several times to go to confession, and many have gone. I was so delighted that Evening of Confession a week and a half ago. I heard about 30 confessions for almost 3 and a half hours, and I would have heard them for three and a half more if I needed to.

But, I can do math. And, there are still many souls in this parish, who haven’t been to confession in a while, too long. God is waiting to race toward you with His embrace of mercy. Make the Father weep for joy. Go to confession.

On this Laetare Sunday, the Sunday of Joy, let us think of the joy we experience when we are forgiven by God, the joy of being embraced by his mercy, the joy we bring to others when we do the same. At Holy Mass, we express and pour out our gratitude for the mercy available to us through Christ. May we have the courage and fortitude to turn away from any sin or wickedness unfitting of our Father’s house, for turning away from sin, we turn towards God’s merciful embrace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2021 - Joyful Lenten Waters

 On the 4th Sunday of Lent, the Church celebrates Laetare sunday.  Laetare is the latin word for “rejoice”. Lent and Joy. Initially, it doesn’t seem like those two things would go together. Joy and Penance? Joy and Fasting? Joy and Tears of Repentance? 

Today, is a reminder that true joy only comes from God.  And when we make room in our hearts for him through penance, we fast from the things that keep us from hungering for Him, when we allow him to fill our hearts through prayer, we become filled with joy.  If you haven’t experience yet, during this season, maybe you aren’t doing it right? For Lenten joy abounds with all of the opportunities to turn our hearts to God.

One of my favorite cinematic images of Lenten joy comes from a very good movie called “The Mission” starring Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons.  If you haven't seen it, it's worth the time.  The Mission  is the story of the Spanish Jesuits who go to South America to bring Christianity to the natives there.  Robert DeNiro plays a slave trader.  He had spent years treating the natives as a commodity, often murdering them like cattle.   After he catches his wife and brother in the act of adultery, he murders his brother, and spirals into a terrible depression. Then something amazing happens: DeNiro's character becomes attracted to the Christian faith preached by the Jesuits and embraced by the natives.  

For a life of enslaving and murdering, he makes a confession of his sins, and undertakes a serious penance.  With a backpack filled with weapons and armor, symbols of his old life of violence, he climbs up this gigantic waterfall.  And the deeply moving scene of the movie is when after this tremendous strenuous penitential climb, he reaches the top of the waterfall, and surrounded by the Jesuits and Natives, he is embraced by both, and then falls to his knees.  Overwhelmed by the mercy of Christ and his own sorrow for his sins, he begins to weep and laugh for joy at the same time.  He experiences the sorrow of being a sinner and the joy of being a forgiven sinner at the same time.  Where there was only guilt and depression, through his penance, he opened himself to be touched by God.  I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything like that…but it changes your life.

A powerful image of Lenten joy, indeed  With great sorrow for our sins, we go to confession,  we undergo penances of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and thereby open ourselves to God in a new way.  We are changed internally, as we seek to conform our actions and our life to God.

St. Paul writes about the profound change that occurs in the soul when it comes to Christ in our reading this weekend: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” In Christ, the sinner is transformed into something new. Something awakens that was dormant in the soul, something that was dead is revived.  Blindness, like that of the blind man in the Gospel today, is transformed into sight. Hatred and coldness and selfishness is transformed into love, when Christ is truly encountered as Savior.

Our Lenten penances, our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—our stripping away the non-essentials to create pockets of silence and reflection—these things are meant to awaken something in us. But, maybe that’s why some of us find Lent so hard or unagreeable. We don’t want anything to awaken. We like our lives just the way they are. We like our earthly comforts. We like our isolation. We sense that if we became quieter, something might awaken that we don’t have control over. And so, we prefer spiritual blindness because we are afraid what we might see. 

Some of us resist the whole idea of admitting guilt. And that is to the great detriment of our church and our mission.  I don’t want to climb up a waterfall with the reminders of my sins on my back. I don’t want the Lord to spread muddy saliva on my eyes. It makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to look at the ways I’ve  hurt or betrayed others with my words or actions. It’s humiliating. Yes, it is. But it’s the secret of the saints. With the sincere admission of guilt and penance for our sins comes great sanctity. 

Saint John Paul II lamented what he called the loss of the sense of sin.  He called it a crisis in the Church and the world that so many of us fail to acknowledge the destructive power that sin has in our society and our own souls.  Pope Francis echoing Saint John Paul said recently that “When you lose the sense of sin, you lose the sense of the Kingdom of God."  If we deny the fact that we are sinners, we deny our need for Christ.  

But remember, when Peter at the last supper, defiantly resisted the washing of his feet, and said to Jesus “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him,  “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”

Again, the good news, especially of Laetare Sunday is that Jesus does offer to wash us, he does offer to forgive us in the Sacrament of Confession, he does offer to place his hands on our eyes to heal our blindness, he offers to place his hands on our hearts to heal its coldness. Jesus beckons us, he calls us to repentance that we may know the joy of being redeemed sinners, and that his kingdom make take deeper root in our hearts.  

With the time that we have left of this most holy season, may the Holy Spirit help each of us to identify those selfish and sinful attitudes and behaviors and attachments which keep us from knowing the joy God wants for us. May we have the courage to do the penances we ought to, and allow ourselves to be washed by God’s mercy, and come to know the joy of his goodness dwelling within us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Lent 2018 - Mourning Sin, Mercy, and Lenten Joy

Happiness. The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle both taught that the motive behind all of our actions, is happiness.  We do the things we do because we want to be happy.  Even though there are so many things that divide the human family, the desire for happiness unites us. Why do we build cities, practice music, devote years of our life to athletic training? Why do we watch the Cleveland Browns week after week, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they will overcome past losses and bring home victory? Happiness.  Following Cleveland football is a perfect of example of how we even undergo great sufferings in order to achieve greater happiness.

Why do we desire happiness? Why do we desire joy? We are built for it. The Creator designed us with this deep longing. God made us to discover our soul’s deepest longing, in Him.

However, because of the Fall, because of the sin of Adam and Eve, our moral compass is defective. We look for happiness, we look for joy in all the wrong places. We do too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do need. We eat too much, and fast too little; we gossip too much, and listen to actual wisdom too little; we train our bodies, while neglecting our souls; we are selfish too often, and selfless too seldom; these days, we spend too much time on social media, while neglecting healthy communication with the people we should love most. We settle for the superficial, and then complain when our lives seem meaningless.

Theologians call this broken happiness compass “concupiscence”—this tendency to look for joy, look for happiness in all the wrong places, even violating natural law and the commandments of God. St. Paul even writes about concupiscence to the Romans, when he says, “Sin…produced in me, every kind of covetous desire (Rom 7:8)”...every kind of concupiscence.

So what do we do about this broken happiness compass? Well, we have a choice don’t we? Either seek to fix it or let the broken compass continue to lead us away from joy, into sin, sadness, and separation from God.

During Lent, we seek the Lord’s wisdom to identify our concupiscent habits and the fortitude to overcome them. As we pray in the Eucharistic Preface: God has given us this sacred time for the renewing and purifying of our hearts, that freedom from disordered affections *concupiscence*, we may so deal with the things of this passing world, as to hold rather to the things that eternally endure.
The 4th Sunday of lent is known as Laetare Sunday, whose name is taken from the ancient latin entrance antiphon: Laetare, Ierusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam…Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.

It seems kind of strange that the penitential season is interrupted by this command to rejoice. How do you rejoice in the desert? Well, there is something deeply joyful about doing penance, knowing that are doing something to please the Lord, to humble to one’s pride.

Laetare Sunday is also a reminder that it is through repentance, that our mourning is transformed into rejoicing. The very structure of our scripture readings takes us on this journey from mourning and sin, to joy and truth and life.

In the old testament reading from Second Chronicles we read of the deplorable state of the people of Israel. “In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple.” A people who should know better practicing infidelity after infidelity to God’s laws, abominations like child sacrifice, unnatural relations between men and women, worship of false gods, involvement in occult practices like visiting spirit mediums and fortune tellers. And when God sends his prophets to warn the people, they scoff and mocked and killed them.

It took exile, the destruction of their city, families being ripped apart by a foreign enemy, to get these people to begin to wake up to the consequences of their sins.

Sinful Israel here represents all of sinful humanity, the sad state of our exile from God, our rejection of God’s commandments, and the biblical warning that families and civilizations crumble when they become distanced from God.

Beautiful Psalm 137 is the song of the soul, lamenting his sins, weeping over paradise lost, remembering how good he had it when he lived under the grace and protection of God.

And then our second reading, Paul writes to the Ephesians of how the soul dead in his transgressions is STILL loved by God; that God is rich in mercy, and that grace CAN be restored through Jesus Christ when the soul sincerely repents of his sins.

The Gospel repeats this truth: that Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross is the source of our spiritual healing. That because of Him we can turn away from our wickedness, and we can begin to live in the truth. What a tremendous message.

That same pattern of “sin, repentance, mercy, and life” is evident in the life of every Christian. Every Christian begins life “dead in his transgressions” as St. Paul says, and through baptism comes to new life, the life of grace.

And, we are to follow this same pattern every Lent. Every Lent we are to identify those parts of our life that have yet to be converted, those parts of us in which we allow death, and wickedness, and selfishness, and lust to reign.

We are to bring our fallen affections, our disordered desires and unenlightened intellects to be restored by God primarily in the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Eucharist. Again, if you haven’t gone to Confession yet this Lent, you still have a few more opportunities. The angels rejoice when a sinner repents, and something in us changes when we go to confession as well. We experience the elation, the joy of forgiveness. Our Lenten penances too, even though they bring some suffering, bring a Lenten joy that far outweighs the suffering.

If you haven’t experienced some joy this Lent, it’s likely not because you fasted, prayed, and gave too much, but likely because you’ve done these things too little, with half-hearted devotion, and lukewarmness.

Now that we are passed the half-way mark of Lent, we recommit to the penances some of us have already given up on, and perhaps discern how we might even unite ourselves all the more to Jesus who goes to the cross for us.

May we respond generously to the call to do penance, for it is through penance and repentance, that we reject the things that deprive us of life and joy, and open ourselves all the more to the life and joy of Easter grace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.