HOMILY for Tues in Week 1 of Lent
Isa 55:10f; Ps 33; Matt 6:7-15
The Word that proceeds from the mouth of God is Jesus Christ, and as Isaiah says, he “shall accomplish that which [God] purposes, and prosper in the thing for which [He] sent it”. That ‘thing’ for which God sent the Son is you and me, it is Mankind. And he came that we might prosper and flourish and live. The task which Jesus was sent to accomplish was our salvation, which he does through his death on the Cross. So we say in the Nicene Creed that “for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven”.
If we return to the image that Isaiah uses, then God’s Word is like water falling from the heavens, and sinful humanity is the dry earth. Without Christ, the soul remains dry and unfruitful. Hence, we are all in need of Jesus, whose grace is like water from the heavens. Christ’s grace, given to us in the waters of baptism, brings new life to the human soul so that it can prosper and be fruitful in good works, in true charity.
Through baptism, we receive the grace of Christ and so we come to share in his divine Sonship so that we can even call God 'Our Father’. Indeed, we have the audacity to do so because Jesus has commanded us to. But, as we say in the Mass, we “dare” to call God our Father not only because Jesus tells us to but also because we have been “formed by divine teaching”. What does this mean?
Because we’re God’s little children, Jesus, God himself, has taught us how we are to behave. We are being formed by his grace to love as Jesus loves; shown how to be truly sons and daughters of God who are ready to forgive and do God’s will. This is why we say that we “dare” to say the Lord’s Prayer because it means that we have the courage and the grace to truly become like Christ. For the 'Our Father’ is not our prayer but, primarily, the prayer of the Son, and only those who live and move in the grace and likeness of Christ the Son, thanks to baptism, can dare to say this prayer with him.
During Lent, we pray, fast and engage in good works of charity because we are training ourselves to love more; to become like the Son so that we can more truly call God our Father. So, like St John the Baptist in the desert we, too, enter the desert of Lent and say: “I must decease and He, Jesus, must increase” (Jn 3:30). But here in the Lenten desert, we recognize how dry we still are, and how much we need the water of God’s grace if we’re to grow in love. Hence we cry out like the psalmist: “O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting” (Ps 62:1). And as Isaiah says, God sends his Word into our hearts to accomplish his work of salvation; the waters of grace are poured into our thirsty souls to revive us, give us new life, and bear the fruit of good works.
So, let us be open to God’s grace and co-operate with it. For we say: “Thy will be done on earth…” Which is to say: let God’s grace seep into our being, into the dry earth of our souls, and empower us to do God’s will, meaning that we will grow to love and forgive and serve as Jesus does.
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