2nd week of Lent 2024 - Friday - The stone rejected becomes the cornerstone

 Throughout Lent, so many of our liturgical readings point to the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus 

On Sunday, we considered how in the story of Isaac, God saved Isaac by offering the substitute of the ram, and how this story prefigured how God saves all of us from the eternal punishment we deserve by offering up the innocent lamb—his only begotten, for the atonement for our sins.

Our scriptures this morning provide a deeper glimpse into the saving work of God. 

In Genesis, Joseph is a prefigurement of the innocent lamb. He is innocent of any wrongdoing, yet he is sold into slavery by his own brothers out of jealousy and resentment. Yet, Joseph's suffering eventually led to his exaltation and his ability to save his family and the surrounding nations from famine. 

In the Gospel, the Lord tells a parable which follows a similar logic to foretell what God is doing through the suffering and death that he will undergo.  The killing of the innocent landowner's son by the wicked tenants mirrors the suffering and death of God’s son. Yet, the Lord foretells that death is not the end of the story. There will ultimately be justice for those wicked tenants. Just as there will be justice for all those who reject God. And the stone that the builders rejected will become the cornerstone. Jesus' suffering and death on the cross led to the redemption of humanity, offering salvation and reconciliation with God to all who believe in him—the foundation stone of the Church and the source of everlasting life.

The readings today point to where we are heading in our Lenten journey, not just Good Friday, in which Christ the stone is rejected, but also Easter Sunday, in which the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone of the Church. They help us to understand why indeed we call Good Friday, “Good”. For from it, comes our salvation. 

Through the rejection, suffering, and death endured by Jesus, God brings about redemption for those who believe in him. God can bring the greatest good out of the greatest evil, and transform the death of the innocent lamb into the source of our hope, forgiveness, and new life. 

In the stories of Joseph and the parable of the wicked tenants, we witness God's relentless pursuit of our salvation. Despite the darkness of betrayal, suffering, and death, God's light shines through, offering hope and redemption to all who believe in Him.

As we journey towards Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we are called to embrace the paradox of the cross—the seeming contradiction of suffering leading to salvation, of death giving way to new life. For it is on the cross that we see the depth of God's love for us, and it is through the resurrection that we receive the promise of eternal life. May this knowledge fill us with hope, courage, and gratitude as we continue our Lenten journey for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.

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

That we may generously respond to all those in need: 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. Through Christ our Lord.

2nd Week of Lent 2021 - Friday - Overcoming our tendency to reject God

 Especially, it seems, during the season of Lent, our readings have common themes. In both first reading and Gospel today, we stories of rejection.  In the first reading Joseph’s brothers rejected him and plotted to kill him.  In the Gospel, in the parable of the wicked tenants tells of the tenant farmers who reject , seize and kill, not only the vineyard owners servants but also his son.

Jesus offers this parable to the chief priests and elders who are treating him like the son of the vineyard owner. The Lord too will be seized and killed by those who reject him. 

The tale of rejection goes back to the beginning when Adam and Eve rejected God’s command, thereby rejecting His plan for them and for mankind.  By rejecting God they forfeited paradise. So too, the Lord explains that for those who reject Him, “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”

Those who reject God are ultimately fruitless; whatever they hope to build drawing upon their own plans instead of Gods, will ultimately crumble and fall.

Personal Sin, for which we do penance during the Lenten season, always involves a rejection of God’s truth and God’s plan, a rejection of his prophets, a rejection of His Son. Sin pretends that our time, our talents, our treasures belong to us, to dispose of following the whims of our egos. Sometimes the teachings of the Church are found difficult—they infringe on our sinful habits and attachments—and so they are rejected.  At yet, they are difficult so often because we have hardened our hearts against them and have failed to trust God as we should. 

Thanks be to God for sending His missionaries and messengers and His Son into our lives in order to free us from pretend lifestyles.  For the Gospel helps us to remember that I am not the vineyard owner, merely a tenant; and God has sent his Son, to free us from our sins.

In the Lenten Call to repentance we acknowledge those times that we have rejected what God wants for us. The more serious we are about our Lenten penances the more we will come to hate sin and the rejection of God. For our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are meant to till the hardened soil of our hearts; to wake us up out of our tendency to reject God’s truth, and to help us obtain a life free of envy, impatience, jealousy, violence, arrogance, self-centeredness—for a life of authentic service of the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.

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

That Our Lady and St. Joseph may protect Holy Father Pope Francis in his apostolic visit to the war-torn country of Iraq, and that the Gospel may be accepted and cherished there and in every land. 

That we may generously respond to all those in need: the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the imprisoned, and victims of violence. For the protection of the unborn and a respect for the dignity of every human life.  

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. Through Christ our Lord.

2nd Week of Lent 2019 - Friday - Accepting God's plan

In both first reading and Gospel we hear of rejection.  In the first reading Joseph’s brothers rejected him and plotted to kill him.  In the Gospel, in the parable of the wicked tenants we hear how the tenant farmers reject , seize and kill, not only the vineyard owners servants but also his son.

Jesus refers to himself as the cornerstone which will be rejected.  He too will be seized and killed by those who reject him. He is the son of the vineyard owner who is rejected by the wicked tenants.

The tale of rejection goes back to the beginning when Adam and Eve rejected God’s command, thereby rejecting His plan for them and for mankind.  By rejecting God they forfeited paradise—they rejected God’s gift of paradise.

The sinner rejects God’s truth and God’s plan; he pretends that his life belongs to him for his own purposes. 

Sometimes even Christians reject certain teachings of the Church—they infringe on our sinful habits and attachments—they require change, and change is difficult, and so they are rejected.  Yet, as G.K. Chesterton said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

The opposite of rejection is of course acceptance and obedience and faith. We are to accept the prophets who God sends into our lives to wake us up out of our complacency. We are to accept the lessons in humility God sends our way. We are to accept Church teaching, even when they are counter-cultural, even when we don’t understand them fully. We are to accept the calls to repentance, to care more deeply for the needs of the poor and hungry, to give of ourselves in charitable service. We are to accept the call to pray deeply, to hear the Word of God and act on it.

Our Lenten observances help us to accept the grace of God which frees us from envy, impatience, jealousy, violence, arrogance, and self-centeredness. May we embrace God’s truth and God’s plan for us—the ways God wishes to sanctify us and purify us and lead us to life eternal—for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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For the whole Christian people, that in this sacred Lenten season, they may be more abundantly nourished by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

For the whole world, that in lasting tranquility and peace our days may truly become the acceptable time of grace and salvation.

For sinners and those who neglect right religion, that in this time of reconciliation they may return wholeheartedly to Christ.

For ourselves, that God may at last stir up in our hearts aversion for our sins and conviction for the Gospel.

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.

2nd Week of Lent 2018 - Friday - Wimpy Lenten Penances

I heard a bishop say that at this point in this season of Lent, the season of fasting and self-sacrifice, that our fasting and self-sacrifice should begin to hurt. If it’s not beginning to hurt, then you’ve embraced too wimpy of a fast, like someone who adopts an exercise program which consists of walking up the stairs to go to bed...wow, big sacrifice there.

Seeking to be faithful to our Lenten observances is important. Though they are not meant to become a source of sinful pride… “look what I can do all by myself”. Rather, our Lenten penances are meant to create in us a humble spirit, in which we recognize our dependence upon God. Perhaps, we’ve failed to keep our Lenten commitments because we have tried to do it on our own.

The spiritual exercises, the Lenten observances, help us to grow from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. The pain and suffering in our life, whether involuntary or voluntary, like in the case of the Lenten Penance, can both be understood as gifts from God, opportunities to trust in God, to grow in dependency upon His grace, to grow in humble obedience to the Divine Will.

In a sense, the Pharisees are condemned because of their unwillingness to suffer: their fasts were done for show, their prayer was done to garner attention, their almsgiving was done without self-sacrifice or warmth. They were unwilling to undergo the discomfort of conversion, the pain of metanoia. They demanded faith on their terms, they wanted God to fit into their mold, and therefore, were not only unable to identify God-in-the-flesh when he appeared preaching the Gospel, but they violently rejected Him, like the wicked tenants in the parable.

Joseph’s brothers too, were unwilling to be challenged by the fact that Joseph had a very special vocation, and so they violently reject him, selling him into slavery, because he made them uncomfortable.

Our Lenten fasting, our prayerful meditation on the Word of God, the passion of Christ, our encounters with the needy throughout Lent, should make us uncomfortable; they should disrupt our complacency and our sense of self-sufficiency.

And when we encounter that moment of hunger, that insight into my personal sinfulness, we should not turn away from it,  running back into our creature comforts and worldly distractions. Rather we should enter into the suffering with Jesus as our guide, praying “Jesus, I Trust in You.” When we allow Christ to lead us through suffering, to spiritual maturity, we will become, as he says in the Gospel today, people who bear fruit for the kingdom, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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For the whole Christian people, that in this sacred Lenten season, they may be more abundantly nourished by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

For the whole world, that in lasting tranquility and peace our days may truly become the acceptable time of grace and salvation.

For sinners and those who neglect right religion, that in this time of reconciliation they may return wholeheartedly to Christ.

For ourselves, that God may at last stir up in our hearts aversion for our sins and conviction for the Gospel.

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.