Readings: Deuteronomy 26, 4-10; Psalm 91, Be with Me, Lord, when I am in trouble; Romans 10, 8-13; Luke 4, 1-13
Deuteronomy:
What: This work is the 5th and last book of the Pentateuch/Torah. The first 4 books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, & Numbers.
Deuteronomy has basically 3 speeches delivered by Moses before the people enter the promised land. He reviews all they have endured the past 40 years and how Yahweh has shown his care and power to save them.
Author: Not Moses. Moses may have spoken some of the ideas in the speeches, but others have put the work together. In fact, in chapter 34 the death of Moses is described. Someone other than Moses probably covered this episode.
Date: Ca. 700 years BCE. In other words, about a century before the Babylonian Captivity and just after the destruction of the northern kingdom, Israel, by the Assyrians (ca. 720 BCE).
Our Selection, chapter 26: the end of the second speech. Moses is reminding the people of how Yahweh cared for them since the time they were slaves in Egypt and why they must honor him for this as their one and only god. Instead of being history, this presentation is more like a pep talk to people in trouble, like had been the case in Egypt.
Have a Happy Lent
In Eccliastes 3 it says, "there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens; a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build."
If you are a New Orleans Saints fan, after decades of grief, your time to celebrate has come. And you have celebrated as only people in N.O. know how to celebrate. We have all just passed through the season of Christmas. We, too, have celebrated.
Today we enter another season, the season of Lent. How do we have a happy Lent? How do we make this a time to build and a time to be born, again?
When I was talking with Rosemary about this homily, she asked me if there was not a new way I could talk about this subject. I thought that, no, there really is not a new way for me to talk about this subject. Some of you have heard these ideas or something similar for maybe 20 years. Please forgive me if I repeat some of the same thinking.
My thinking always comes down to how do I, how do we have a happy Lent? How can it be positive and not a negative, depressing, and dreaded event? Two thoughts.
One. Despite what comes up in the liturgies and scriptures, we are not sinners on the road to hell or purgatory paying ransom for our endless sins.
Second. These 5 weeks can be Maslow time. Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, ca. 1940 said that, "What a man can be, he must be." After 4 stages of development, Maslow thought that healthy people arrive at a place of self-actualization.
I call this becoming a person fully alive. "A person fully alive is the Glory of God." This was said in ca. 200 by St. Irenaeus, a bishop of Lyon, France. It is what we are about this season.
How do we fertilize and how do we prune so that we are more fully alive on April 4? Each person has their own recipe, their own path, and most of us know what our path is.
Want a quicky insight into yourself? What are you addicted to? What are you obsessed by? There are the usual culprits, alcohol, fast food, TV, work, smoking, whatever. You can be brain dead and know this. However, we can equally use denial to avoid the obvious. We are aiming at becoming more fully alive people.
I, for my part, plan to give up all alcohol, take French baths to learn French better, not go out at night, in fact, not leave the house at all for 30 days, and I will give up salads, spinach, and greens veggies, and Wednesday I will get rid of this crabby hip that is slowing my life down. All this because the doctor orders it. I will truly enjoy April 4. A real Resurrection.
How are you going to have a happy Lent?
Sources: Wikipedia for Maslow & Irenaeus; Human Development, Philip Rice for Maslow
Picture 1: Mass with Tony and Kevin
Picture 2: Altar helpers
Picture 3: Emily and her mom, Julie
Picture 4: Communion helpers