Good Shepherd Catholic Parish

The Second Sunday of Lent, Year C

          Peace be with you on this, our celebration of the Mass for the 2^nd Sunday of Lent, 2022.  So, how is Lent going so far?  Well, if you’re still spiritually challenged, here’s something that might help.  A friend, living in Texas, told me about the homily he heard last Sunday.  The Priest gave some unusual advice I thought might be appropriate to pass along.  His advice was this, what we really need during Lent is “more beer.”  What, really?  Well, that immediately got my attention.  Then he went on to explain the acronym his Pastor shrewdly applied to the phrase “more beer” – more Bible, more empathy, more Eucharist, and more Reconciliation.  And this simple, clever, guidance can easily crosswalk into exactly what the Church always recommends for Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

          Unfortunately, I think all of us too often, get the wrong focus during Lent regardless of what clever words we apply.  We sometimes tend to fall into a personal trap and use the words “me or I” during our Lenten journeys when the word we really should use is “relationship” and relationship is never just about me or I.  We always must remember we’re never journeying alone.  Obviously, the relationship I’m talking about here is the one we have with Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately, we all live in a world that is continuously trying to tear that relationship apart.  My sisters and brothers as Christians, the only source for strength to keep us from being “carried along” by our secular society, away from Jesus, is grace from God.  Grace given for us all by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Especially during Lent, we should all lean heavily on our personal relationships with Jesus, pray for God’s grace, and concentrate on our journeys of renewal.

           You know I meet people all the time, and you probably do to, who say something like, “I consider myself a spiritual person I just don’t believe in organized religion.”  Do you know anyone like that?  Of course, these people usually say something like, I sit on a mountain, or I sit on a beach, or I sit in a quiet room and personally commune with God without going to a church.  What they naively don’t understand is, God simply becomes whatever they eventually rationalize God to be.  Regardless of what they may say, it’s simply an easy path about “me or I”.  And it is missing one critical word so elemental to our Biblical Christian Catholic Faith – and that word is, sacrifice.  Sacrifice is never, never an easy path but that’s the path Jesus repeatedly tells us to walk if we want to be his disciples.

          In today’s Gospel reading we see Peter, James, and John experiencing a real “mountain top” event when they witness Jesus in his heavenly glory.  Sacrifice doesn’t seem to be in the formula.  Shucks, good old Peter doesn’t want it to end.  He wants to pitch tents and stay right there, but do you know what comes just five short verses before this heavenly scene?  Jesus says, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes,,, and be killed.”  Then he follows that shocking statement up with this, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  In our Gospel reading today, Jesus responds to Peter with his actions. “We cannot stay on this mountain top.  I must go down into the valley of a sinful world and sacrifice myself to redeem mankind.  Will you follow me, Peter?”

          All of us have those “mountain top” experiences in our lives.  You know, those great and wonderful feelings and times we never want to end.  Maybe a wedding day, the birth of a child, special recognition at work or school, or maybe simply relaxing on a beach.  Unfortunately, life always pulls us down off those mountain tops into a world of pain and suffering.  Many of you here today know exactly what I’m talking about.  Ultimately, that’s life on earth.  So, Luke’s Gospel today is the only one telling us Jesus went up that mountain to pray.  Friends, Jesus stood on that mountain top knowing he was about to face the most agonizing eight days anyone who has ever walked the face of the earth, will endure.  What did he do?  He confronted it in prayer.

          As followers of Jesus, we are all called to carry crosses.  We are obliged to take seriously the summons to loosen our grip on the things of this world and to grasp more firmly the realities of eternity.  We are called to sacrifice.  Might I suggest today, in our hectic 21^st Century America, we can sacrifice something perhaps even more precious to us than money.  I suggest we sacrifice time: time for prayer, time for spiritual reading, time to reflect, time to listen to others, and perhaps most difficult, time to help others. 

          Now there may still be skeptics sitting here right now, who don’t really get this whole sacrifice thing.  The big question may be, why sacrifice at all?  Let me read a short meditation from St Alphonsus written in the early 18^th Century.  This is what he said about Jesus’ sacrifice, “He could have saved us without suffering or dying and yet he chose a life of toil and humiliation, and a bitter and shameful death, even death on a cross, something reserved for the very worst criminals.  And why was it that, when he could have redeemed us without suffering, he chose to embrace death on the cross?  To show us how much he loved us.”  Wow!  “He could have redeemed us without suffering.”  Friends, not only did he do it to show how much he loves us, the life he led also gave us an example to follow.

            So, as we leave today and continue our Lenten journeys towards Easter, becoming Christians anew, walk with confidence in relationship with Jesus, willingly try to sacrifice more of that valuable commodity, time.  If you’re having difficulty figuring out what to do next, remember the acronym “more beer”, more Bible, more empathy, more Eucharist, more Reconciliation.