“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19 Wow! Jesus made quite a mess when He cleansed the temple. Take a moment and place yourself at the scene of this Gospel passage. Imagine the chaos as Jesus flipped over tables, brandished a whip, and angrily ordered the money changers to leave. People and animals scattered. As the tables turned over, coins rolled to the ground and people climbed over…
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. – Mark 1:12 Lent has arrived. We began our journey on Ash Wednesday, and we continue it today in the desert with Christ. The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert to fast and be tempted. We go out with Him into the desert of Lent, fasting, praying, and giving alms. We also will be…
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I covered not. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord,” and you took away the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5 This is the last Sunday before Lent, which begins this Wednesday. Lent is a time to prepare ourselves to celebrate Easter. It is an especially good time to examine our lives and bring the Lord anything that is “unclean” in our hearts and…
Here in the desert of Lent, the Lord brings us to the oasis of Jacob’s well. The Samaritan woman came at noon to fill her water jar. Had she been without water all morning? Perhaps she came at noon to avoid people who gossiped about her and her five husbands. We can use our Gospel imagination and suppose that she came to the well dry, thirsty, and ashamed. But something amazing happened: she had an…
Spring is so close! If you look closely, you’ll start to see plants poking up through the late-winter ground: crocuses, daffodil and tulip greens, and garden mums coming to life anew. Gardeners sometimes call this time of year the “greening of the gardens.” It’s exciting to see spring changes, like longer days, the warmer sun, birdsongs returning, and signs of growth all around us. Lent is a wonderful time for our own spiritual change and…
Our readings for this Sunday lay out the reason for this penitential season of Lent: sin, repentance, and salvation. Our first reading reminds us of mankind’s first sin: the disobedience of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3: 1-7). In our Psalm, we acknowledge our sinfulness and cry out for God’s mercy: “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned” (cf Psalm 51: 3). In our second reading, St. Paul explains that our plea for mercy has…
Last week’s reflection focused on how sin keeps us from loving God and others, and how to work on a pattern of sin to purge it from our hearts. One reason sin keeps us from loving is that it also blocks us from receiving love. This is especially true of mortal sin, which turns us away from God and cuts us off from God’s grace (CCC 1855, 1861). God pours love into our hearts and…
Sin is a fact of life for all of us in our fallen world. We have sinned in the past, and unfortunately we will sin again in the future. This is the reality of our human concupiscence: “Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins” (CCC 2515). We might ask, “What’s the use of trying if we’re…
“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?” (Lk 15:4). Thanks be to God for His mercy! If Jesus didn’t seek out His lost sheep, how many of us would be living in sinful ways? How much good would be left undone by us if He would have let us wander off…
Scripture tells us that St. Mary Magdalen had a special devotion to Christ’s precious feet. She wept over and anointed His feet in contrition for her sins. She humbly sat at His feet, listening to every word of His teaching. She stood courageously at the foot of His cross, bearing the weight of His passion. What a humble devotion, to worship at the feet of our Lord. “How beautiful are the feet upon the mountains…