Homily: 4th Sunday in Lent – Cycle B
Friends, we are now a little more than
halfway through Lent and we come to this Sunday, named Laetare, which calls us to “rejoice”. Perhaps you are having your best Lent ever so
far and so this invitation to “rejoice” is a welcome one. If so, good for you! Keep doing that awesome work! If you are like me, however, your Lent has
been a mixed bag so far: either some steps forward mixed with some steps back
or a struggle to get it off the ground all together. If so, then it might be a little annoying to
you that the Church tells us to “rejoice” at this point.
Yes, if you’re anything like me,
you’ve experienced a situation like I have sometime during your Lent. My story goes something like this: I commit
to giving up that favorite sin of mine (you know, the sin that I am not happy
about committing, but for which make excuses whenever I do it… that’s right,
the one that I am annoyed that I have to confess almost every time I go to
confession), but then Satan tempts me unexpectedly and, before I know it, I
fall back into that sin. Frustrated, I
wonder if I will ever overcome it.
Recently, this story played out
again. When it did, I was very upset
with myself. I had trouble sleeping the
whole night because I felt so bothered by my failure to respond to grace and by
my pride that made me think that I could “play” with Satan’s temptations
without falling into sin. (We cannot play with Satan’s temptations!) The next day I woke up earlier than normal, still
bothered by my failure. Then this phrase
from Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians came to my mind: “What I do
is discipline my body.” It was a cold
winter morning with a biting wind and I knew it. But I was convinced that I needed to
discipline my body so I decided to get up and go for a run outside. I’ve done this before, but that day it was
particularly miserable. In a very real
way, I was in hell: suffering physically, yes, but also mentally and
emotionally because I what I had done separated me from God.
About halfway through the run, as I was thinking about how
miserable I was, another insight came into my mind. I thought, “God inspired me to do this because
he wants me to discipline my body: not to punish me, but so that I can purge
the effects of that sin and be strengthened so as to win the next battle.” The thought continued, “God is not happy with
my failure yesterday, but he’s still on my side and he wants me to win today.” Now, while that didn’t change how physically
miserable the run was, I did begin to feel a sense of hope that helped to pull
me out from the sadness that my guilt had caused.
Friends, I think that this is the
story of the Scriptures this weekend: that God allows us to suffer for our
sins—in a sense, to experience a little bit of hell—but always with his eye
towards the restoration that he wants to make in our lives. Just look at the reading from the book of
Chronicles. It describes the great
infidelities that the Israelite people had committed against God; and how time
and again God had sent his prophets to call them to repentance and to warn them
of the suffering that would come to them if they continued in their ways. It describes how the Israelites ignored the
prophets—even mocking and mistreating them—until there was nothing further God
could do. And so he took back his hand
of protection from them and allowed their enemies from the north, the
Babylonian empire, to invade their land, destroy Jerusalem (along with the
Temple), and to take them into exile. He
did this to “discipline their bodies”—to give them an experience of hell, so to
speak—so that, when the fullness of their discipline had been fulfilled, he
could enact his plan to restore them to their land so that they could “sing the
songs of Zion” once again. And to show
them that it was his doing and not their own, God raised up Cyrus, king of
Persia, over the Babylonian empire, whose benevolence to the Israelites allowed
them to return to their land and to rebuild the Temple so that they could
worship God once again. /// God allowed the Israelites to suffer for their
sins. Nonetheless, he remained “on their
side”: knowing that, through their suffering, they were being made more humble
(and, therefore, more faithful to him) so as to win the next battle against sin
and the temptations of the evil one.
The ultimate version of this story
comes in the Gospel reading. While the
book of Chronicles documents how God worked for a particular people, whom he
had chosen to be his light to the nations, the Gospel reading reveals the
fullness of that plan. In what is
arguably the most famous passage in the Gospels, we read that “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.” This
is a very beautiful and powerful verse.
The one that follows it, however, adds emphasis that applies to our
reflection today. It says this: “For God
did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but that the world might be
saved through him.” In other words,
although God may have allowed us to suffer on account of our sins, he remained
on our side, waiting until our “bodies” had been “disciplined” fully so that he
could send his Son: not to “finish us off”, so to speak, but rather to save us
and restore us to his friendship.
Friends, when we look at our sins and
the suffering that often comes with them with this in mind, then we truly have
reason to “rejoice”. And why? Because God, who never fails to acknowledge
our sins (nor the punishments due to us because of our sins) is, nonetheless,
“rich in mercy” and desires not to condemn us, but rather that we would be
restored and strengthened so as to win the next battle against Satan and his
temptations.
And so, if you are feeling a bit down
about your failure to live up to your ideals this Lent, do not despair! God has not given up on you! Rather, he wants you to repent, to confess
your sins and to receive his forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation,
and to allow your body to be disciplined by him so as to make you stronger
against the attacks of the evil one so that you can win the next battle. Friends, Christ has already won the war. In him, with bodies made pure through
discipline, we can win each battle. This
Eucharist that we celebrate is both our reminder of God’s care for us, whose
love sent us Jesus so that we might have life, as well as our strength for the
fight against the enemy. Therefore, let
us rejoice in it! May our rejoicing
carry us through the remaining discipline of Lent; so that, with minds and
hearts made pure, we may truly celebrate the victory of Christ’s Resurrection.
Given in Spanish at St.
Paul parish: Marion, IN – March 13th, 2021
Given in Spanish at St.
Patrick parish: Kokomo, IN – March 14th, 2021
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