Sermons
First Sunday of Lent, February 14, 2016, Year C
The Gospel Reading today is the familiar story of the temptations of Jesus in the desert. Let’s situate this story in the life and ministry of Jesus. Having been baptized in the Jordan River, and joined by public sin-ners in a very public place, Jesus is led into the desert to be tested! Notice it was ‘the Spirit’ which impelled Jesus to go into the desert. In doing so, Jesus was identifying with the people of Israel, he was identifying with his people: they too had been led into the desert by the flame of the Angel of the Lord, and they remained in the desert for a long time after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt; the people of Israel, too, were tested, and within that testing time, they were invited into the Covenant between God and the people of Israel on Mt Sinai. That great event of salvation had left a permanent mark upon the corporate mind of God’s people, upon the mind of the people of Israel. Jesus is as well being tested as he is being empowered by the Spirit. The spirit enabled him to refute the devil’s temptations. And Jesus did this in favor of a life orientation of unconditional loving service. These temptations were not just applicable to Jesus, they are the temptations that have always harassed humanity… Here they are: The pursuit of accumulating material things, the pursuit of power, and the pursuit of avoiding responsibility. These temptations were knocked back by Jesus, but they came back to haunt Him many times during His life time, in various shapes and sizes. The same happens to us, doesn’t it? Jesus was nurtured by that special relationship with the Lord God, his Father, during the time of testing. Let’s not forget that Jesus was like us in all things, but sin! Let us recall the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. 1.“If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to turn into a loaf.” Jesus replied: “Man does not live on bread alone.” This 1st Temptation is to only satisfy our hunger with the help of material things – but there is a different hunger, an inner hunger we cannot satisfy with the help of material things. The risk here is greed – we want more and more. But we still remain hungry if we exclude everything we cannot see, we cannot buy, we cannot control, we cannot consume. 2. “I will give you all this power and the glory of these Kingdoms… worship me, and it shall be yours.” Jesus replied: “You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.” This 2nd Temptation is: power as a life focus – power is neutral, yes, it can be used for good and for bad things. But if you look for power for the sake of power because it attracts you, it makes you important, it gives you prestige, then you are a slave of power. Power can be used for the service of others – this is the service God expects from us: “ You must wor-ship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.” 3. “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down for here, for Scripture says, He will put his angels in charge of you, to guard you, and again: They will hold you up on their hands in case your hurt your foot against a stone.” Jesus replied:” You must not put the Lord your God to the test”. This is the 3rd Temptation: avoiding responsibility as a life focus – “Risk your life! You have the chance to become famous! For this you can risk your life!” ”You must not put the Lord your God to the test” - if you need to risk your life, then risk it for a good purpose, risk it while helping others. So we have the three temptations: the pursuit of accumulating material things, the pursuit of power, and the pursuit of avoiding responsibility. Jesus rejected all these temptations in favor of a life orientation of unconditional service and love. Jesus truly identifies himself with all humanity, with each and every one of us. The desert experience was a time of assessment: it is a fact of life that good will always be tested by evil. There is not a saint in Heaven, or a truly great person on earth who has not, or does not attract some vicious slander, or find their paths strewn with ob-stacles. Jesus joins that group in today’s Gospel – Jesus joins us in this Gospel. As we enter into the spirit of Lent, let us check out the direction and quality of our lives. How do we deal with temptation? Do we make room for God’s Spirit, to bring to the surface in ourselves, the holiness that lies deep within? Some days ago we celebrated ash Wednesday – and there we heard a Lenten reminder of our fragility. May this Lenten reminder stay close to us: “Remember, you are but dust, and unto dust you shall return; turn away from sin, and be faithful to the Gospel”.
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 7, 2016
The scripture presents us with three prominent characters: Isaiah, Paul and Peter. The three were confronted with the grandeur, the goodness and holiness of God. They felt humbled and became keenly aware of their unworthiness. When one comes closer to God one suddenly sees with new clarity the depth of one’s sins, just as we can see stains on an apparently clear window when the sun’s bright rays hit it. But the good news is that God’s mercy is always greater than our sins. Not only does He forgive our sins, he restores us to a state of holiness.
The gospel reading describes an interesting story of Peter and his friends who were fishermen. They went to the Lake of Gennesaret to fish. They worked hard the whole night without catching one single fish. I can imagine the frustration, the disappointment and the resignation in their eyes. At daybreak, Jesus came to the lake and borrowed one of their boats to preach to the people. After preaching, he asked Peter “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch (Duc in altum!)” (Lk. 5:6). And Peter replied to him, “Lord we have toiled the whole night but could not catch anything but at your command, at your word I will cast out the nets once again.” He did and caught a great number of fish so that their nets were tearing. What a miracle!
Our lives are always full of success stories and failures. We always desire to succeed in all things. Unfortunately, we don’t always succeed in all we do. We are often confronted with the painful reality of failures. The first enemy we have to face after failures is our ego. As soon as things start going wrong, our defense mechanisms kick in, tempting us to do what we can to save face. For example, we may adopt any one of several attitudes like denial, chasing our losses or hedonic editing. Denial refers to the difficulty of admitting that we have made mistakes and trying to put it right. Chasing our losses denotes an unwillingness to draw a line under a decision or action we regret, leading us to cause more damage. Hedonic editing, in turn, describes our efforts to convince ourselves that the mistake doesn’t matter – we try bundling our losses with our gains or finding some way to interpret our failures as successes.
In many cases, too many people turn to resignation and frustration. That was the case of Peter. Jesus arrives at this point of resignation. His word is: don’t give up, get up and try again – Duc in altum, lower the nets again in deep water. If you are at the point of resignation or frustration today because of failed dreams, failed projects, disappointments in your work place, your family and friends, or relationships after you may have invested so much time and energy, Jesus says to you today: Stand up; don’t give up, lower the nets again for a catch! Don’t try to predict whether your next attempt will actually sink or swim. Just cast the nets into wider and deeper water, at the command of the Lord. You always can begin anew. Always view the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm and look forward to the future with faith and confidence in God.
Fr. Sylvester Ajunwa, Ph.D.
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 24, 2016, Year C
The Gospel says that Jesus “went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath”. That means every Sabbath, like a faithful Jew, He would go to their village synagogue to attend the Sabbath ‘Gottesdienst’ (services). Jesus must have been reading the Scriptures regularly because he was familiar with it. As the Gospel tells us, He himself unrolled the scroll and knew where to look for the passage he wanted to read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. That text was His vision for his mission. His life was based on this text, it was the purpose of His life that regulated everything he did and said. That text was his destiny.
Do you also have a verse or lines in the Bible that you know by heart? Verses which you love to hear and read and repeat? A text you love so much that you know where to find it in the Bible, which book, which chapter and verse? A text that gives meaning and direction to your life, consoles you when you are in difficulties, makes you strong when facing challenges and gives you confidence and peace in your life?
When Jesus was tempted three times in the desert, He contradicted every temptation by a text from the Scriptures. If Jesus needed that, how much more do we need it - we, his disciples. We need the Bible, the Word of God, for our everyday life.
Do you read the Bible every day? “I am too busy”, you might say. But look how you spend your day: there is always a part of your day which you spend on something that you do habitually: watching television, checking Facebook, browsing in the internet, playing computer games, chatting on your cell phone. How often do you do this in a day? Are these the habits that make you “busy”?
Change your habits! If you want to have a better year than last year, change your habits. Good habits create good character and a good character creates a wonderful destiny. Your character is the sum total of your habits.
We are living in a world of modern technology and fast changes. TV, the internet, smartphones and all sorts of electronic gadgets have introduced new habits into our lives, and more often than not, they are not good habits. Can you turn off your TV, set aside your smartphone, so you can sit together, eat and pray together as a family? Can you postpone answering a text while you are talking with your family? Can you delay opening your computer or TV, so you can first greet your family when you arrive home and have more time to spend with them? Modern technology is designed to be our slave, but, instead, we have become enslaved to it. The media says we are consumers – but in reality, we have been consumed.
Let us develop the habit of regularly reading the Bible. Make it your daily habit this year to read a few lines of the Bible. It does not matter if it is only two or three minutes a day, as long as you do it habitually, regularly, automatically, without having to think and decide. If you are a family, make it a family habit. The children may not totally understand it, but if they see you doing it habitually, they will learn to like it. You will discover so many benefits as soon as you get into the habit of reading the Bible – more than you can think of or imagine – because good habits create good character and a good character creates a wonderful destiny. For you, it will be your eternal destiny.
Fr Jun de Ocampo