5th Week of Lent 2024 - Wednesday - God's Truth will set you free

 

When told they must worship an idol or be put to death in the fiery furnace, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, chose to remain faithful to the God.  They exhibited tremendous and courageous faith in the face of suffering and death: "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us... But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Their acceptance of suffering in uncompromising faithfulness to the One True God of course foreshadows the passion of Our Lord—the Lord’s uncompromising faithfulness to His Father and the mission for which he was sent. 

Their story is also a powerful prefiguration of the Resurrection of Christ. Just as God delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the flames, He raised Jesus from the dead, breaking the chains of sin and death once and for all. Their deliverance foreshadows our own deliverance through Christ’s Resurrection, offering us freedom not just from physical peril but from spiritual bondage—from the fiery furnace of hell. 

In the Gospel today, the Lord emphasizes the freedom that comes from obedience. Jesus declares, "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). 

Obedience, discipleship, and faith in the revealed truth of God sets us free.

This truth is not merely an abstract concept; it is a living reality that transforms our lives. When we embrace the truth of Christ, we are liberated from the deception and confusion of the world. We are no longer slaves to our passions and desires, but rather, we are transformed to live in the freedom of the children of God, guided by God’s wisdom and love.

Why does it seem like the world is simply going to hell, these days? Because it is divorced from Truth. When we only follow the disordered desires of our fallen natures, our lives spin into chaos. When I put myself, my ego, my opinions, my perversions on the throne of heaven, we begin to reign in a hell of our own making.

Rather, we are to seek the renewal and transformation God wants for us, by taking ourselves off of the throne and becoming disciples, disciples of Truth that comes outside of ourselves, of life that is not grasped, but is received in humility. Modern man is obsessed with treading his own way, creating his own truths, determining his own moral standards. And the biblical lesson is that sort of hubris leads to destruction and self-imposed slavery every time. Rather, true freedom is discovered through obedience to the highest principal, which is not of our own creation, but is the Creator of all things, the Divine Logos, the Word of Life, who seeks the redemption of man’s fallenness, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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That God may be pleased to increase faith and understanding in the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. 

For those without faith, those with hearts hardened toward God, and for those searching for Him.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

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

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.

5th Week of Lent 2023 - Wednesday - Yielding a harvest through faithful perseverance

 

One of the lessons of today’s scripture readings is one of faithful perseverance. When told they must worship an idol or be put to death, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, persevered in their faith. They kept the faith even when threatened with death in the fiery furnace.

In the Gospel, too, teaches about perseverance. He says his disciples must remain in his word, to keep his word, to remain faithful to his teachings, to persevere in the way he has shown us, and promises that if we do, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free.

We often think of the perseverance of the early Christian martyrs: martyrs like Perpetua and Felicity, martyr-popes like Sixtus and Cornelius, apologists like Justin, our own patrish patron saint, St. Ignatius of Antioch, bishop, were told to worship the roman emperor or die. And they embraced death as an opportunity to offer the ultimate witness to the truth and freedom that comes from Christ. Their choice to imitate their Lord, who freely goes to the cross out of love for us, continues to echo through the centuries, and they give timid Christians like you and me the courage to persevere in the faith in our own time.

Now the pressures we face, might not involve coercion to offer a burnt offering to the emperor of Rome, but certainly we experience pressure to forsake prayer to the one true God in order to give our time and focus to the false gods of entertainment, gossip, consumerism, or the pressure just to fit in with the rest of the increasingly secular society. 

How often Christians are being faced with the choice to forsake bedrock basic truths to promote the insane ideas of our culture in regards to sexual morality, gender ideology, and the rights of the unborn! Baptized Christians who have chosen to say the Church is wrong and the culture is right! There are bishops right now in the world who are feeling this pressure: to water down or neglect the preaching of church teaching because some teachings are controversial. God help them, and God help us to keep the word with a generous heart.

Most of us feel daily pressures in the form of stress. And likely, most of us are not praying enough to combat the stresses and pressures. We aren’t studying enough to sharpen our minds against the intellectual onslaught of the culture. We aren’t making use of the sacramentals against the dark spiritual forces which seek our ruin. 

The heat of the furnace is being turned-up, and we might not be able to control that. But we can control our prayer lives. Do we seek the presence of Christ with us in the furnace? Do we allow him to sustain us in our trials? Do we allow him to teach us how to survive the fire with him at our side?

Because of their perseverance, Nebuchadnezzar came to believe in the one true God. Such is the power of persevering faith. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t swallow earthly errors. Don’t worship the false gods of our culture. Souls can be won, hearts can be moved, enemies can be converted. “Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest (of souls) through perseverance” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That God may be pleased to increase faith and understanding in the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. 

For those without faith, those with hearts hardened toward God, and for those searching for Him.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

For the victims of the horrific school shooting in Nashville and the consolation of their families, for the protection of our young people from such future evils, for all those with mental and spiritual illnesses which contribute to such evils.

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

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.

3rd Week of Lent 2021 - Tuesday - God's Mercy and the Amendment of our Ways

 In the year 587 BC, the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem. The Holy City was conquered, the temple was destroyed, and the Jews were separated from their families and marched into Babylonian captivity. 

Once the Jews had arrived in Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar erected an enormous golden idol. The King ordered that anyone who refused to prostrate themselves in worship of this idol would be thrown into the fiery furnace. Three young Jewish men, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, refused to abandon their Jewish faith, and so the king had them bound up and thrown into the fiery furnace.

The Lord sent an angel to save these young men, and they were able to walk through the furnace unharmed. Today’s first reading, involves Azariah, standing in the furnace, asking God to look kindly upon the Jewish people, to forgive their sins which had brought them such torment and suffering.

The biblical understanding of the Babylonian captivity is that it was due to Israel forsaking the covenant with God, abandoning the commandments and right worship, and then ignoring the prophets that made them vulnerable to their enemies. Their captivity in Babylon, their suffering, was essentially, their own fault. 

And so even in the furnace, Azariah is calling upon God to help them return to the covenant, that the sacrifices, that they hope to offer should they survive, will help them follow God unreservedly. 

The plea to God for mercy was repeated in our responsorial psalm today, “remember, your mercy, o Lord”. And this plea is followed with requests, much like that of Azariah, guide me in your truth, help me to be humble, that I may walk in justice. The plea for mercy must always involve an amendment of one’s life, or else the mercy is wasted, the plea is empty.

A similar dynamic is involved in the Sacrament of confession, isn’t it? The acknowledgement of one’s sins, that expression of contrition, is followed by a plea for God to help us amend our lives. The firm purpose of amendment and the act plea for forgiveness, again goes hand in hand.

Hence in the Gospel, we hear this parable of a servant who receives mercy from his king, but then fails to extend that mercy to others. For this failure to extend mercy, there are severe consequences.

In Christ, God has answered the prayer of Azariah, the plea of the Psalmist: mercy has been shown, and truth has been taught. And now, it is up to us, to walk in that truth and to extend mercy for others, lest we end up like that unforgiving servant, who has failed to forgive as he has been forgiven.

Our Lenten penances are the sacrifices in which we show God how much we desire to follow him unreservedly. We give up those non-essentials, to help us amend our lives from our sins, that our entire hearts may belong to Him, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That readiness to forgive may mark the life of every Christian. Let us pray to the Lord.

That all families will recommit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness.  Let us pray to the Lord.

That this Lent we will be faithful to fasting and to all the ways that the Lord sanctifies us.  Let us pray to the Lord.

For generous giving for the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those who are sick, unemployed, victims of natural disaster, terrorism, war, and violence, the grieving and those most in need.  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.

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.