Lent Reflections by Rev. Robert Barron

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 20 - CLEANING OUR OWN TEMPLES

Yesterday we saw how Lent is a great time for cleaning out the Temple of our own hearts. One of the best ways to do that is to go back to the basics of the Ten Commandments.

Let's begin by looking at the first three. The first three commandments have to do with the question of one's fundamental spiritual orientation: who, or what, precisely, is the object of your worship? What do you hold to be spiritually basic? If we're honest, a lot of us would say something like money, pleasure, power, honor, or to sum all of this up, our own egos. And so we need to hear the very first commandment: "I am the Lord your God; you shall not have other gods besides me."

Next, you shall not disrespect God with your speech, for this leads rather quickly to a denigration of God: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." This can seem fussy and puritanical, as though "swearing" is a terrible sin. But speech is a terribly powerful thing. What we say influences profoundly how we think and act, which in turn shapes our attitudes and behaviors.

Thirdly, you must worship God on a regular basis. There is no place for the attitude of "I'm alright with God; I just have no time for going to Mass ( other worship services)." Or "I get nothing out of the Mass ( or other worship services)." We're obliged to concretize our worship: "Keep holy the Sabbath day."

What shape is the Temple of your soul in with regard to these first three commandments?





"The stress of the Bible is on those commands dealing with our relationship to God because finally everything will depend on how we stand vis-à-vis God."

- Fr. Robert Barron

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 21 - DO UNTO OTHERS

The Ten Commandments are divided into two sets. The first three deal with our relationship to God and how to worship him, and then, following from these commandments, comes a whole series of commandments concerning our relationship with other people.

As we enter into the heart of Lent, reflecting on how we keep these commands can become the impetus to deepen our commitment to the Lord.

"Honor your father and your mother." What is the quality of your relationship with those who are nearest and dearest to you? If things are off there, they are probably off everywhere else.

"You shall not kill." Very few of us have actually killed another person, but what is the role that violence plays in your life? What is the quality of your temper? Have you effectively killed people, that is to say, rendered them lifeless? Do you enhance the lives of those around you, or are people less alive after they've been with you?

"You shall not commit adultery." The Bible is not obsessed with sex, but it does recognize the importance of our sexuality in the moral sphere. Much of our popular culture wants to teach us that sex is basically amoral, a matter, finally, of indifference. As long as you're not hurting anyone, so says the culture, anything goes. But sex, like every other part of us, is meant to serve love, to become a gift. Is your sex life self-indulgent, simply for the sake of your pleasure? Do you lust after others, using them for your own sexual satisfaction? Do you practice forms of sex that are simply perverse?

"You shall not steal." Do you steal other's property, even very small things like little amounts of money? Do you steal someone's good name and reputation through gossip?

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." What is the quality of your speech? How much time do you spend inveighing against your neighbor, even making things up to make him look bad?

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house or wife." The philosopher René Girard suggests that we imitate other people's desires, wanting things simply because other people want them. This can easily lead to conflict and dysfunction. What is it that you are coveting in your life, especially that which others have or desire?

This Lent, suppose that Jesus has made a whip of cords, knotted with the Ten Commandments. What would he clear out of you?




"What shape is the temple of your soul?"

- Fr. Robert Barron

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 22- GOD'S CLEANSING ANGER

When reading about the Cleansing of the Temple, we might assume this was the first time in Jewish history that the Temple had been defiled and needed fixing. But that isn't the case. In the second book of Chronicles we read, "...the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord's temple."

This is the tragedy of Israelite history. The nation that was supposed to be the bearer of God's holiness had become unholy. The Temple, which was meant to be the dwelling place of God, had become an abomination.

But did God give up? No, he sent messenger after messenger to the people, calling them back to holiness. Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and Elijah - all of them were the messengers of God, summoning Israel back to fidelity, "because he had compassion on his people."

Still Israel remained faithless: "But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets." At which point the anger of the Lord was awakened.

God's anger is not God's emotional temper tantrum; it is the divine passion to set things right. Sometimes when things get too bad, they just have to be cleaned out. Remedies and halfway measures don't work: a thorough cleansing is called for. Therefore God uses secondary causes in order to realize his will: "Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire and destroyed all its precious objects. Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon."

What does this have to do with us? It helps us interpret our own catastrophes. What does it mean when a marriage falls apart or a loved one is killed? How about when we lose our job or our Church is rocked with scandal? Might there be a cleansing going on in these cases, something purifying and clarifying?

In the Bible, the negative is always in service of a greater positive. But it happens in God's way, on God's timetable. This means we should never despair; never give up even when catastrophe strikes. The entire process is being watched and supervised by God.




"It is not in order to work out his anger issues that the Father sends the Son, but that the justice of the world might be restored."

- Fr. Robert Barron

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 23 - GOD OF THE NATIONS

While we take comfort from much of the Bible's message, the Bible is not always comforting news. It often carries a message of warning and danger. During this penitential season, it's good for us to attend to the darker side of the biblical message.

When we read about the pollution of the Lord's Temple, we discover a familiar prophetic theme: the people have wandered from the ways of God, rendering impure what God intends to be just and upright. God sends prophet after prophet in order to bring his people back, but they are ignored, mocked, and rejected. Then God's judgment falls on the unfaithful nation.

What is the instrument of God's justice? In one case, it was the Chaldeans, one of the heathen nations. They came and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, burned the Temple, carried off its most sacred objects, and led the people into exile.

What was this? Dumb bad luck? Just the give and take of geo-political forces? No! The Bible insists that this should be read as God's action, more specifically, as God's judgment and punishment. How at odds this is with the typically modern Enlightenment view, according to which religion is a private matter, confined to the heart and the mind of the individual. For the biblical authors, God is the Lord of history and time, and hence the Lord of nations and the Lord of nature. His works and actions must be discerned in all events.

If you want an example of a boldly theological reading of political events, look to Karl Barth, widely considered one of the greatest Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. At the start of the First World War, Barth was a country pastor in Switzerland who had been trained in the confident liberal theology that was all the rage around the turn of the last century. This theology shared the common view that with the rise of the natural sciences, the development of technology, and with political and cultural liberation, human beings could build the Kingdom of God here on earth.

From the quiet of his parsonage in Switzerland, Barth followed the horrors of the First World War, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the devastation of nations, the collapse of the European social order. Then something dawned on him: it was precisely the inflated self-regard and hubris of nineteenth-century liberalism that led to this disaster.

He saw the European powers as descendants of the Tower of Babel builders, attempting to reach up to God on their own terms and in their own way. Behind the sunny confidence of the liberal period, he discerned arrogance, imperialism, and colonialism. The advances of science were made possible through the rape of the environment and economic comfort for some was made possible through the enslavement of others.

In the end, bad personal habits have bad consequences, but bad national habits have bad consequences as well.




"How do you read the moral state of our own country and other countries around the world?"

- Fr. Robert Barron

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 24 - ALL IS GIFT

The Parable of the Prodigal Son tells us practically everything we need to know about our relationship to God, if we attend to its details.

"A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate that is coming to me.'" To live properly in God is to live in an attitude of receptivity and generosity, receiving a gift from God and being always ready to give it away. God respects our freedom and so "the father divided up the property." But this is a tragic moment. What is meant to be a flow of grace becomes divided, separated, riven into yours and mine.

Where does the son then go? He wanders with his fortune into the "far country." In Greek this is the chora makra, the great wide-open emptiness. There he quickly squanders his inheritance, and so it always goes. When we cling to the divine life as our own, we lose it. He was forced to hire himself out so as to become a feeder of pigs. In the chora makra, there are only relationships of economic calculation, each one striving to hang on to what is his. "No one made a move to give him anything," and so it goes in the far country. It is the place of no giving.

Coming to his senses at last, he decides to break away and return to his father, saying, "Treat me like one of your hired hands." He knows that even the slaves are in a life-giving relationship.

The father sees him from a long way off (he had obviously been looking for him) and then, throwing caution and respectability to the winds, he comes running out to meet him. The Bible is not the story of our quest for God, but of God's passionate, relentless quest for us. The father exclaims, "Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet." Some Church Fathers saw this as the ring of marriage, symbolizing the re-establishment of right relation between us and God.

The parable then turns to the older son. Though superficially different from his brother, they are actually in the same spiritual space for he too sees himself in an economic relationship to his father. Like most upright, religiously respectable people, he is put off by this celebration for someone who most assuredly does not deserve it. Listen to his language: "For years I have slaved for you. I never disobeyed any of your orders, yet you never gave me so much as a kid goat to celebrate with my friends." He is a slave, and one who carefully obeys - not one who has caught the spirit of his father. He feels that he has to earn or deserve his father's love. He hates his brother and is resentful of his father's generosity. "Then when this son of yours returns after having gone through your property with loose women, you kill the fatted calf for him." When we fall out of love with God, we fall into hatred of one another.

The father patiently explains: "My son, you are with me always, and everything I have is yours."

In the end, this is the key to the entire parable and is true for both sons, though they don't realize it.

Everything that God has is given to us. His whole being is "for-giving."





"We fall into the illusion born of fear that we have to take, cling, merit, deserve-when all of it is a gift."

- Fr. Robert Barron

[clarencebunsen]

Alan, I hope you don't mind if I divert somewhat. I spent much of my recent journey inside my own head and some of that was reflecting on what has been in this thread. Comments have been written on the various translations of the Bible. For me the "true" version has always been the King James. I have always been amazed that what became a central icon of Western Civilization was produced by committee, a committee made up of people who are remarkably unremembered. I have three different printings of the King James, each special to me in it's own way.

When I had trouble understanding the language of the King James I went to the Revised Standard version. One inspires the other informs.

Thirty plus years ago I read Asimov's Guide to the Bible. I would still recommend that to anyone interested in his own development. Isaac Asimov did not attempt to deal with theology but addressed the historical and political context of each book.

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 25 - SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS

During Lent we are often asked to confront our spiritual blindness. One story from the Gospels, about the man blind from birth, offers us new perspective.

The first thing to note is that the blind man symbolizes all of us. We are all blind from birth, affected negatively by original sin.

What does Jesus do when he confronts this man? He announces who he is: "I am the light of the world." In John's Gospel there are a series of "I am" statements: "I am the bread of life; I am the Good Shepherd; I am the way, the truth and the life." And here he issues another of those powerful claims: "I am the light."

Jesus is the way to see. When we are grafted onto him, when we assume his mind and his attitude, when we live his life, we are able to see the world as it is, and not through the distorting lens of our fear and our hatred.

In the story, Jesus makes a mud paste by spitting on the ground. Many Church Fathers saw this as the mixing of divinity and humanity (the Incarnation) which effectively saves us. God bends low in order to show us what he looks like. Then he smears the paste on the man's eyes becoming the salvator, the bearer of the salve. After the man washes in the pool of Siloam, he comes back and he is able to see.

Now at this point, we would expect that everyone around the cured man would rejoice, but just the contrary; they are infuriated and confounded. The Pharisees try first to deny that a real healing took place: "He is not really the one; he just looks like him." But the man himself corrects them, "No, I'm the one alright."

Then they try to tie him up in legal knots. "This man cured on a Sabbath; only sinners cure on the Sabbath; therefore, your cure came from an evil source." Once more, the man's response is a masterpiece of constraint and understatement: "I don't know whether he was a sinner or not; all I know is that I was blind and now I see."

Why are the Pharisees so reactive? Why don't they want this man to be cured? I suggest it's because we sinners don't like the ways of God; we find them troubling and threatening because they undermine the games of oppression and exclusion that we rely upon in order to boost our own egos.

But God doesn't come to play these games. He comes to help us see.



"Christianity is a new way of seeing, and Jesus provides the vision."

- Fr. Robert Barron

[Deleted]

Mar 13, 2015 19:39:12 GMT -5 clarencebunsen said:

Alan, I hope you don't mind if I divert somewhat. I spent much of my recent journey inside my own head and some of that was reflecting on what has been in this thread. Comments have been written on the various translations of the Bible. For me the "true" version has always been the King James. I have always been amazed that what became a central icon of Western Civilization was produced by committee, a committee made up of people who are remarkably unremembered. I have three different printings of the King James, each special to me in it's own way.

When I had trouble understanding the language of the King James I went to the Revised Standard version. One inspires the other informs.

Thirty plus years ago I read Asimov's Guide to the Bible. I would still recommend that to anyone interested in his own development. Isaac Asimov did not attempt to deal with theology but addressed the historical and political context of each book.

I am not familiar with Asimov's. One thing to remember or know if you don't that scripture study in the Catholic Church really did not begin for the laymen and women until the late 1960's and the German school brought forth so much information. If you are interested in some study then check this out: www.earlychristianwritings.com/index.html

I was reading an interview with Pope Francis and he even commented on the fact understanding scripture text and historical perspective is so important for good preaching and that is why for some Protestant denominations homilies were almost raised to the level of a sacrament.

I used the revised standard version bible in my studies in graduate school. In my time that was necessary because that Bible was also used in some classes that some of us took at Crosier Theological Divinity Seminary in Rochester. Crosier( Protestant Seminary) and St Bernard's my Catholic Seminary shared certain course work which was basically all the Biblical Studies. And you are right in saying that the Bible's various Books even those not included in the Canon all need to be looked at from the historical and political context of the time they were written. I think that was called the sitz in lebun. Not sure about the spelling of that word.

I also like and use the New American Bible once again a lot of footnotes. If I am not mistaken St Joseph's and St. Patrick Church in Utica is doing a study of the Psalms. The teacher of that free course is the Priest at St Basil's Church who is with the Melkite Eastern Church united with Rome. He is married. Which is also very interesting. I get confused if he is with the Syrian or Lebanese but something want's me to think Syrian.

[clarencebunsen]

I was raised Protestant, confirmed in the Methodist Church. Since we were married in 1973, I've attended Catholic mass with my wife but I have never joined.One of the bibles to which I referred is the King James version I received from the Grace Methodist Church in Fergus Falls MN when I started Bible studies there, probably about 4th grade. It still has the cross shaped bookmark I received as class Bible verse champion.

I can in no way claim to be a Bible scholar. I know the stories and have a working knowledge of the history and geography but I depend on others for the deep thinking.

[dave]

I still have my Asimov volumes of the Old and New Testament. I think I bought them in the 70's. It was a pleasure to watch such a mind gather in all of the background and history and let his curiosity flutter over one story or another while he offered his observations on how one related to another. It's the best piece of background reading on the various pieces of our Judeo-Christian thought I've seen, but I'm not a student of religion and suppose I've missed much. I was raised Catholic but now refer to myself simply as a Child of God. By that I don't mean the moniker we get here on the Clipper Corner. I mean it literally, spiritually.

[clarencebunsen]

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 26 - THE FINAL ENEMY

We are halfway through Lent which means the passion and death of Christ are slowly coming into view. At this point, I would like to spend a little time contemplating what God thinks of death.

To put it simply, God hates death and wants nothing to do with it. Listen God speaking through the prophet Ezekiel: "I will open your graves and have you rise from them." These words are spoken just after the marvelous scene of the enlivening of the dry bones.

There is an important clue here, by the way. Those dry bones were there because a battle had been fought on that spot. Death, the fear of death, the threat of death-all of this broods over human life and grounds sin and oppression. All sin, which involves the terrible clinging to self and attacking of others, ultimately flows from a fear of death. Every tyrant who has ever ruled has succeeded only by instilling in people the fear of death.

But what if death - as we know it and experience it - is not at all what God intended? What if it were something that God wanted to deal with once and for all, to get rid of? The book of Genesis tells us clearly that death came from sin. Death as we experience it - as something fearful, horrible, terrifying - comes from having turned from God.

But Jesus came primarily as a warrior whose final enemy is death. I know how easy it is to domesticate Jesus, presenting him as a kindly and inspiring moral teacher, but that is not how the Gospels present him. He is a cosmic warrior who has come to do battle with all of those forces that keep us from being fully alive.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus deals with the effects of death and a death-obsessed culture: violence, hatred, egotism, exclusion, false religion, phony community. But the final enemy he must face down is death itself.



"Like Frodo going into Mordor, Jesus has to go into death's domain, to get into close quarters with it and take it on."


- Fr. Robert Barron

Read and add reflections here: www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-26-the-final-enemy/

[Deleted]

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 27 - LAZARUS, COME OUT!

Jesus raises three people from the dead in the Gospel stories: the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Naim, and Lazarus. In the symbolic language of the Gospels, these physical resuscitations are evocative of raisings from sin to spiritual health.

First, St. Augustine says that the young daughter of Jairus, who dies inside her house, symbolizes the sin that takes place in our thoughts and our hearts. That sin has not yet borne fruit in action.

Second, the dead son of the widow of Naim, carried to the gate of the house, represents sin that has expressed itself concretely in action. This dead man is raised and given back to his mother, who stands for the Church.

Thirdly, and most drastically, we have the case of Lazarus. He stands for the worst kind of moral and spiritual corruption, sin that has been expressed in the world and become embedded in evil custom and habit. This is the rot that has really set in, producing a spiritual stink.

In the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus takes place just before the Passion, just before the climactic moment when Jesus defeats death by succumbing to it. When told that Lazarus has died, Jesus says, "Our beloved Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him." With these words, he signifies we are in a new world. Within the confines of the old world, the old consciousness, death is ultimate, and its very finality gives it its power. However, by referring to it as "sleep," Jesus is signaling that through God's power and purpose, death is not ultimate; it is not the final word.

When Jesus first arrives at Bethany, he learns that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. This is to signal that there is no mistake; the man is truly and definitively dead. But it is no concern for the one who transcends both space and time, whose power stretches beyond life and death as we know them.

Martha comes out to meet Jesus and indicates her incipient belief in his identity and power: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother never would have died. Even now, I am sure that God will give you whatever you ask him." Jesus replies, "Your brother will rise again...I am the resurrection and the life." God hates death and doesn't want its phony finality to ruin human life.

Coming to Lazarus's tomb, Jesus feels the deepest emotions and begins to weep. This is God entering into the darkness and confusion and agony of the death of sinners. He doesn't blithely stand above our situation, but rather takes it on and feels it. But then, like a warrior, he approaches the enemy. "Take away the stone," he directs.

Those who are stuck within the confines of this world protest, "Lord, surely there will be a stench." They are essentially saying, "Don't mess with death; you can't reverse it. Its power is final."

But Jesus is undaunted. He commands, "Lazarus, come out!" This is the voice, not simply of a hopeful human being, not simply of a great religious figure; this is the voice of God who hates death and has dominion over it. And therefore, "The dead man came out." Jesus then orders the onlookers to, "Untie him and let him go free."

That command still echoes today. Just as he did with Lazarus, Jesus sets us free from death and the ways of death.



"What God says is."


- Fr. Robert Barron




Add or read comments: www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-27-lazarus-come-out/

[Deleted]

LENT DAY 28 - CHRIST SETS US FREE

The story of Lazarus is rich in meaning for us, especially during Lent. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus "groaned in spirit." Jesus' trouble here is the result of his identification with sinful humanity. He goes all the way to the bottom of it, letting its truth affect him. Jesus does not just love us abstractly or from a distance. He comes close to us.

More to the point, this groaning of Jesus signals the pain that God feels at our imprisonment. If his glory is our being fully alive, then his agony is tied to our sin. How salvific it can be to listen to this groaning of the Lord at our own lack of life.

In the same vein, Jesus weeps for his friend. There is something heartbreaking about this for it is the only time in the Scripture that Jesus is described as weeping. Whatever form death takes within us - physical, psychological, spiritual - it is something deeply troubling to God.

One detail is particularly moving: Jesus asks, "Where have you laid him?" Sin alienates us from our God, making us strangers to him. Just as in the book of Genesis, God looked for Adam and Eve, who were hiding from him, so here God incarnate doesn't know where his friend Lazarus is.

Then the Lord comes to the tomb. We hear that it was a cave with a stone laid across it. When things are dead, we bury them away, we hide them. When we feel spiritually dead, we lock ourselves up in the darkness of our own anxiety and egotism and fear. But there is a power, a divine power, sent into this world whose very purpose is to break through all such stones. "Lazarus, come out!" Are there any words more beautiful and stirring in the whole New Testament? From whatever grave we are lying in, Jesus calls us out.

"And the dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth." Lazarus comes out with all of the signs of death still clinging to him. So Jesus says "Untie him and let him go." Here we see it: Whatever limits, binds, controls, orders, dominates us - these are the enemies of God.



"Death is no part of God's plan."

- Fr. Robert Barron

www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-28-christ-sets-us-free/