THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Her Doctrine and Morals

Quinquagesima Sunday

11 February 20244

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The Sunday

Sermon

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Dear Friends,

"At that time, Jesus took unto Him the twelve and said to them: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished, which were written by the prophets, concerning the Son of Man. For He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and scourged, and spit upon: and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death; and the third day He shall rise again." (From today's Gospel reading, Saint Luke 18:31-43)

We are quickly approaching the Season of Lent. This Wednesday will be Ash Wednesday. It is a time of fasting, penance, and self-denial. Jesus knew and was ready to go up to Jerusalem and embrace the Cross and His Sacrifice. He is preparing the Apostles for this, but the Gospel says: "And they understood none of these things…" We are told that Lent is approaching, and we hear what we should be doing during that time. However, it appears that, like the Apostles, we do not understand because we don't want to embrace our crosses, fast, or do penance.

We want the glory of being with Jesus for the Resurrection. Still, we want to avoid following Him to the Garden of Gethsemane, the courts of the priests, or the secular court of Pontius Pilate, the journey to Calvary, and the Death on the Cross. This weakness of faith is juxtaposed with the faith of the blind man in today's Gospel. With the full faculties of their senses, they could not see or understand what Jesus was saying to them, but the blind man, despite his lack of physical vision, clearly saw, understood, and believed. Physical blindness is not as bad as spiritual blindness. Today, we often find ourselves in a similar situation. We may have clear physical faculties, but we lack spiritual ones.

During the Season of Lent, we are encouraged to make sacrifices. We are to willingly deny ourselves the pleasure of using one or more of our senses. In the quieting of our physical senses and desires, we become more sensitive or perceptive of spiritual things. The denial of physical sweetness to our palate allows us to taste the sweetness of our spiritual palate. As we turn a blind eye to the material world, we begin to see the spiritual world.

We fail to understand that as much as we enjoy the material blessings that God has given us in this world, He has prepared even more enjoyable blessings in the spiritual realm. We can never know how sweet the cross Jesus has prepared for us is if we never embrace it. Jesus has promised He will make our cross light, sweet, and even joyful, but we must deny ourselves and embrace it. He is telling us and showing us what to do. We need to imitate Him and follow Him to Calvary this Lenten Season.

If we are to see and understand what God has in store for us this Lent, we must deaden or silence some of the many material diversions or distractions we are enamored by in this world. It requires faith to believe without seeing, to trust what Jesus said without understanding. The sacrifices that we make of the material things of this world are the sacrifice of things that are never ours. They are temporary gifts God has given us to use in this life, but they will not follow us into our graves. All of God's gifts to us are to lead us closer to Him. When they become obstacles to loving and serving Him in this world, we must judiciously free ourselves from them. We have been given mastery over these things, but all too often, these things gain mastery over us. We become slaves to the gifts God has provided us rather than the masters of these gifts.

This Lenten Season, we should strive to break our addictions or slavery to the material gifts that God has given us, or at least lessen the control that these things have over us. We should look forward to our own Garden of Gethsemane, our imprisonment, our trial, our cross, our sacrifice, our death, and hopefully our resurrection into eternity. Let us not enter Lent in fear or hesitation but with confidence and trust in God. Everything works for the good of those who love and serve Him. We live a more spiritual life as we die to this material life.

Today, let us look forward to our spiritual journey up to Jerusalem and brace ourselves with the firmness of will and conviction to accept and embrace the penances God is asking of us so that we can increase our faith and love of God and open our eyes and senses to the ever more magnificent spiritual things that await us.

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspire, guide, and protect us!