March 10th

Post date: Mar 11, 2019 3:12:57 PM

March 10, 2019 First Sunday of Lent Homily by Fr. Karl Schray

Eight weeks ago, we read about Jesus’ Baptism.

The Holy Spirit came down upon him and God the Father proclaimed,

“You are my beloved son, in whom I am well-pleased.” Now

suddenly, as we just heard in the Gospel, the scene changed dramatically.

The Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert.

I trust most of you can remember times when you felt close to God-

or some special consolation.

Then without warning, you felt as if you were in a spiritual desert.

In this desert, a person often feels they have done something wrong and

God is angry.

But these ups and downs are part of everyone’s spiritual journey, including Jesus himself.

It’s during those desert times, our faith will grow deeper and stronger

if we don’t give up or get discouraged.

Those desert times also make us more vulnerable to temptations.

All of us are weak and prone to evil. This may be a disturbing truth,

but it is one we ignore at our own peril.

A great problem of our time is our failure to know ourselves,

to recognize evil and deal with it within ourselves.

A young Native American came to a tribal elder and told him of his problem.

Inside me there are two wolves fighting—one is good and the other bad.

Which one, grandfather, will win? The answer—the one you feed.

The hardest victory of all is over oneself. The temptations of Jesus are

the temptations of all people—to live for pleasure and material things alone.

To abandon worship of God for the worship of worldly power and fame

and to seek one’s own glory rather than God’s glory.

When I was a boy my mother had an old-fashioned washing machine

with a wringer on top. When the clothes had been washed and rinsed,

she would grab them by the neck and force them through the wringer,

and then through the wringer again.

If we suffer, we do not suffer alone, we have divine company. Christ,

impelled by his love for us chose to go through the wringer himself.

What is at the root of temptation for you? (pause)

In the letter to the Hebrews (4:15), the author, referring to Christ, says,

“We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our

weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way yet has not sinned.

So, let us confidently approach the throne to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”

Lent is a time for living on Christ’s strength and his word.

It is the season for prayer and for the Sacraments.

It is a time to drain bitterness, to shake off apathy.

It is not really a time to go off things,

but a time to get back on the things we’ve gone off.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus resisted the temptation by

obedience to his Father’s will.

Filled with the same Holy Spirit, we can too.