February 27, 2023
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 1st Sunday of Lent (Year A) on February 26, 2023, at The Paulist Center in Boston, MA. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Psalm 51; Romans 5:12-19; and Matthew 4:1-11.
It may seem as if all of today’s readings are solely about sin and temptation. But let’s listen more closely. Each reading also speaks of grace and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Genesis tells of the temptation in the Garden of Eden, but first it relates that the Almighty initially breathed into the first human being’s nostrils. We are sustained by the Holy Spirit at every moment of our lives. In the response, the psalmist not only sings of sinfulness but also anticipates proclaiming again the joy of God’s salvation. In Romans, St. Paul speaks of the consequences of sin but then declares that Jesus Christ’s obedience provides us with an abundance of grace. And note that in our gospel – as we also sang in our opening song today – it is the Holy Spirit that leads Jesus into the desert to be tempted.
Grace may be harder to objectively quantify or pin down than sin, but let us remember: grace is older than sin, grace is more powerful than sin, and grace is more abundant than sin. As we enter into these days of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, we ask for God’s sustaining grace. And for the times when we have given into temptation, we ask for God’s pardon and mercy.
Far too many people think that Lent is supposed to be all Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with nothing different in between. No! Lent may be a time of making sacrifices, but the disciplines of Lent are not the main point of the season of Lent.
Before the Church invented Lent, the Church devised the process for adults preparing to be baptized at Easter, called the catechumenate. The last six weeks of the catechumenate were called “the period of Purification and Enlightenment,” as the catechumens entered a time of intense preparation and heightened excitement. The Church created Lent so that everyone else already baptized could share in this journey of preparation and excitement for Easter. Lent, by its very nature, is a communal experience. The traditional disciplines of fasting, almsgiving, and extra prayer are supposed to explicitly connect us with those who have less than we do. We pray for the economically marginalized in Lent, we fast in solidarity with them, and then we give the money we’ve saved to them.
The word “Lent” comes from an Old Dutch or German word meaning springtime. Even though Lent in New England often features wintry weather, Lent is supposed to be a season of growth. We’re supposed to grow in our relationship with God. We’re supposed to grow in our awareness of God’s grace. We use the word grace a lot in the Church, but we don’t often explain it. The Catechism defines it this way: “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help God gives us to respond to [the] call to become children of God, … partakers of the divine nature and eternal life.”
If you haven’t settled on what disciplines to take up for Lent of 2023, don’t worry: it’s not too late. The practices we choose should help us to better realize the abundance of God’s grace, that free and undeserved help God gives us to partake of God’s nature. At the beginning of Lent, it’s appropriate to reflect on what’s holding us back from realizing the grace we have received in being God’s children. The readings and rituals of Ash Wednesday through this first weekend of Lent invite us to momentarily reflect on our sinfulness, our weaknesses, and our mortality. But then, Lent should quickly shift our focus back to grace and the Holy Spirit. How do I, as an individual, need to remove the obstacles from my relationship with God? How do we, as a community, rely more exclusively on the sacred breath that God first breathed into us, the breath that sustains us at every moment of every day of our lives?
Together, Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday of Lent are the slingshot to propel us forward on our Lenten journey. And yes, as we carry out our Lenten disciplines, there will likely be moments along the way when we gain new insights about the obstacles holding us back. Personally, even though we’re not even 5 days into Lent, I’ve already struggled with maintaining several of the disciplines I’ve chosen to take up this season! But just as Jesus was strengthened by the Holy Spirit leading him into the desert to be tempted, my struggles these first few days of Lent have already taught me some important things about how I need to rely more heavily on God, on my Paulist brothers, and on everyone else in the Paulist Center Community. Even if we fail in keeping our Lenten promises, the insights we gain into why we can’t do something for a mere 6 weeks is itself an opportunity for grace. By the time we reach Good Friday on April 7, perhaps we’ll each view the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ in new ways because of the insights we’ve received this Lent. Come Easter Sunday, may we perceive God’s graces around us in more tangible ways than ever before!
This weekend, it is the Holy Spirit, not a set of Church regulations, that leads us into the desert. I wonder if Jesus Christ would have been ready to undergo his Passion and Resurrection if he had not spent time in the desert beforehand. Even the desert has a season when it bursts into bloom. But we won’t experience the springtime of the desert unless we have the courage to leave our comfort zones.
A friend suggested using C. S. Lewis’ analogy in the children’s book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to explain the power of grace over sin by sharing. I don’t want to give the whole story away, but here’s what you need to know about two important characters. The White Witch symbolizes all evil in the kingdom of Narnia, and Aslan the lion symbolizes God. The witch thinks that she has definitively triumphed over Aslan, by using the Deep Magic from the dawn of time. Yet Aslan has the ultimate victory. As he later explains, “[The witch’s] knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have [discovered]… magic deeper still which she did not know.”
Even if we don’t know the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we’re familiar with the Paschal Mystery. Despite 40 days of temptation in the desert, the Holy Spirit strengthens Jesus for the journey ahead. And the end of Lent is not the end of the story.
Grace is older than sin. Grace is more powerful than sin. Grace is more abundant than sin. Grace is more powerful than death. Resurrection always follows crucifixion. Easter always follows Lent and Good Friday. This is our faith.
This Easter, our catechumens will be baptized. May we become so aware of God’s grace this Lent that we become Grace itself for others.