In Lent we turn our gaze towards the sufferings of Jesus.  Jesus suffers voluntarily, freely, out of love for us.  Our Lenten penances are an opportunity to do the same for him.  Self-denial is an essential aspect of moral strength and freedom.  Without it we are incapacitated to love God and others as we should.

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Lent is a wonderful opportunity to find our peace, joy, and comfort in God.  We do this by denying ourselves our usual sources of support, distraction, and pleasure.   To be filled by God is to run the risk of emptying ourselves out of other things.  This takes trust, courage and patience.   God always responds to this kind of personal faith, even when it is imperfect and needs to grow.   

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In this week's Gospel, Jesus cures a leper who tells him, "If you will, you can make me clean."  In confession, Jesus always wills to cleanse us of sin.  These last days before Lent are a great time to pray about the conversion from sin that God is asking of us.

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Today's reading from the Gospel of Mark continues directly from last Sunday's gospel reading.  Read together, they give us a picture of a day in the life of Jesus.  Jesus's day is filled with work, prayer, and service.   He approaches his tasks and situations with generosity and self-forgetfulness.  This day in his life is a good model for any day in our own lives. 

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The parable of the prodigal son is a parable of freedom and filiation.   The prodigal son and his older brother both misuse their freedom.  They mistakenly feel constrained by their relationship with their father and end up rejecting him.  The prodigal son rediscovers his sonship by reflecting on the truth of his situation.  This speaks to a close connection between true freedom and the truth itself.  The elder son acts correctly for the most part, but does so without charity, without an identification with his father's heart.  This leads him to a resentful and self-righteous fulfillment of his duties.  To avoid all of these pitfalls, we look to Jesus, who always acts freely because he always wants to please his most loving Father.

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The first in a series of classes on the Nicene Creed.   We cover the concepts of Creation and Conservation, the omnipotence of God and out capacity to know God with reason alone. 

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God wakes up the young boy Samuel four times when he gives him his vocation as a prophet.   God will also wake us up from different forms of spiritual slumber when we go to him in our times of prayer.   Jesus does something similar with Andrew and John.  When they take their very first steps as disciples, he asks them "What are you seeking?"  We should reflect on how much we listen to God in our prayer, how engaged our own will and desire is in following him, and from what kinds of spiritual sleep we need to be aroused. 

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The feast of the Epiphany tells us that Christ meant for everyone.   The Magi are the very first of billions of gentiles who will come to be saved in Jesus.  The journey of the Magi speaks to us of our own need to search for God.  The star they follow and the finding of Jesus bring them great joy, as our own vocation and conversions give us the joy of meeting God in Christ.

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Christmas puts before us the Virgin Mary loving and caring for her Divine Son.  It's a scene that we can enter into in our prayer and in our life.  Jesus says that we too are "his mother" insofar as we do God's will.  God allows Mary and all of us to love him in the Christ child just as He has always loved us: with a mother's heart.  Christmas is a time to begin life again with a newfound trust in the goodness of God.

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Originally published Christmas 2020

How wonderful it must have been for the Shepherds from Bethlehem to enter the stable on Christmas night !  Our times of prayer this Christmas are our own chance to be close to the baby Jesus, to speak softly with Mary and Joseph, to be wrapped up in the mystery of God present in the Child.  The warm light of the fire in the stable lets us see and welcome into our lives him who is the Light of Life. 

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