First Sunday of Lent 2024

First Sunday of Lent 2024

Fr. Ben Riley

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, the holy season of preparation as we look toward celebrating our Lord’s resurrection at Easter. This season of Lent is a time to get back to spiritual basics, but before we start talking about this holy season, I would like to bring your attention back about three months to the season of Advent. Advent is the holy time of preparation for our Lord’s birth at Christmas. I know this is a bit tough with all our decorations put away, all the presents already opened, and the sugar cookies and gingerbread men already eaten, but try with me to go back to that time of lights, and carols, and merriment. The image that comes into my mind when I think of that time of year are the stories: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Jack Frost, and Old Saint Nick, but one of my favorites is Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. Such a classic. Out of curiosity, did any of you go to Silver Dollar City this Christmas? And did anyone see their version of “A Christmas Carol”? Oh good, quite a few of you. They do such a good version of it.

This Christmas season, my cousin Father Stephen Hart came to visit me, and we went to Silver Dollar City to see the show. It was great. The music and dancing was so good, and it’s pretty funny too. But one part that really struck me was the scene when Jacob Marley, the deceased business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge, comes to warn him about the three visitors he would encounter that night: the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Jacob arrives in Ebenezer’s bed chamber covered in thick iron chains, and when Ebenezer notices them, Jacob explains, “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wear it. Then he asks Ebenezer, “Do you not feel the weight of your own chains?”

This image, the image of the chain we forge in our life, link by link and yard by yard. It is a perfect image for both the season of Advent, and this season of Lent, because both these seasons are considered penitential. These are times in the liturgical year when we are called to pay special attention to our chain, to feel its weight, its burden, the burden of our sin weighing us down. And we are also called to remember that by our free will, through self-discipline and the grace of God to destroy that chain. Now, the question becomes, how do we do that?

This first Sunday of Lent the Gospel is taken from Mark, and it is Mark’s very understated version of the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Remember that in Matthew and Luke there are these kind of elaborate narratives that go through the various temptations of the devil and how Jesus reacts. But in Mark, we don’t get any of that. All Mark says is that the spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, he remained in the desert for 40 days, and Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. (This, by the way, is where we get the 40 days of Lent.) Mark says, “He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him”. That’s it. That’s all we get as a description of what happened. We do hear about the temptation by Satan, but no details, and I want to focus in on this mysterious observation Mark makes that Jesus was among the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him. Think about that image for a moment. Jesus in the desert, angels above, wild beasts below. A common theme of Christian theology is that we human beings are made of both body and soul. We combine in ourselves both the spiritual and the material, and this is so important to God’s plan for our salvation.

Unlike angels, who are only spiritual, and unlike animals who are only material, we are somehow both. Our bodies are not accidental to our salvation; our bodies are essential to our salvation. Think of the Nicene Creed, where it says, “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” We believe as Catholics that we will experience, like Christ, the resurrection of the body, that we will receive glorified bodies. Christ will come again, and we will be with him in His kingdom: a new heaven, a new earth. Everything will be made new. The body is not at war against the soul, but as we all know, my fellow sinners, sometimes it can feel what way, when one of these core aspects of our being, the body, or the soul, becomes out of balance and starts to take control of the other.

In the body, we see it in the passions, when our desire for the good of the body becomes too strong, when our desire for food, or drink, or sex, or other bodily pleasures are not tempered by the spirit. And of course, problems can arise in the other direction as well. The spirit can supersede the physical necessities of the body. This happens a lot in seminary. I saw many times a young seminarian, who was so enamored by his new depth into the spiritual life, that he would spend hours and hours in the chapel, but I would never see him in the gym, or eating a balanced diet, or recreating with his brother seminarians.

As with all virtues, true grace is found in the middle ground. It’s not one or the other, it’s both and: the body and the spirit in unity, not opposition. This is why, during Lent, we are called to pay special attention to the relationship between our body and soul and strive to temper the appetites of the body, while bolstering the appetites of the soul. We fast during Lent, not to punish ourselves, but to remind us of what we truly hunger for, a deeper relationship with God. We sacrifice material and physical pleasures, not because chocolate, or alcohol or, television, are bad, but because we want to be careful that nothing becomes more important to us than God. We pray more during Lent, because where the flesh is lacking, only the spirit can take up the slack. And we tithe because that which we do for the least of Christ’s children, we do unto Him. Lent is a time of getting back to spiritual basics: the basics of fasting, prayer, and tithing.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, do not let this Lent pass you by unnoticed. Do not suffer the weight of your chain any longer. Jesus wants to take the burden off your shoulders. Be free, unfettered, confess your sins, and enter the Easter Celebration with a joy and a peace that can only be found by accepting the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.

May God bless you.