1st Sunday of Lent, A, Pillars of Lent

Posted on by

Matthew 4, 1-11 (1st Sunday Lent, A, 2008, Pillars of Lent)

Focus: The Pillars of Lent: Fasting, Praying and Giving Alms

  1. Introduction

    1. Well, today is the first Sunday of Lent. Shouldn’t we begin this important liturgical season with a “little quiz” …like a midterm? Since students are at the time of the academic term for midterm exams, don’t you think there should be a little test? And for those of us of middle age, this is truly a midterm.
    1. Now, class/students, you will have three questions. They are based on your lifetime of participating in the Eucharist, learning about your Faith, and sharing it with others. Each question will have one of two possible responses. The exam is comprehensive and comprehensible. Remember to keep your eyes on your own paper, use a #2 pencil, and show your work.
  1. Fast or Slow?

    1. Question 1: Do you prefer fast or slow? …… A correct answer is “slow”. We need to go slow during Lent, if we are to get the most out of the “fast”—that is, the fasting. The other possible correct answer is “fast”; we need to fast during Lent. Fasting is the first pillar of the Lenten season.
    2. During Lent, we are called to fast—that is, to set aside some good thing or things, to learn about the greatest good—God. Fasting is not about giving up something that we should not do in the first place, such as stealing, lying, gossiping, etc. We should not do these; they have a vice-type quality to them. For these, we need to repent and go to confession. Fasting during Lent is about giving up the good so that we can ponder the Best—the God of life and love.
    3. Yet, our fasting during Lent is not only about our relationship with God, it is too about our relationship with others. Fasting is also about living with less, consuming less and doing so with greater awareness—especially an awareness of what and how much we consume affects others and our planet. We all have seen the images (and some of us have seen the reality firsthand) of how a lack of fasting negatively influences “the other”—the human family and mother earth. Have we considered fasting for the sake of our relationship with God, others and the rest of God’s creation?
    4. O.K. class/students, how did you score on Question 1? If you did poorly on this question, don’t worry. You still have two more questions. You can still pass the midterm.
  2. Pray or play?

    1. Question 2: Do you prefer to pray or play? …… That’s right, pray. The other possible correct answer is play: you play with God by praying to God. Praying is the second pillar of the Lenten season. Prayer is thanking God, petitioning God for the needs of others, and asking God for what we need.
    2. Each of us is called to pray more intentionally during the Lenten Season, which could mean more, but not necessarily. Prayer is not about quantity. Prayer is not about thinking in terms of “production,” producing more prayer-product, as if we run a prayer factory. To pray with more intention means to be attentive to God, to others, and to ourselves.
    3. Prayer is essentially a spiritual discipline of attentiveness. In our Christian tradition, there are three types of prayer: laudatory, intercessory, and petitionary. Laudatory prayer is thanking God for who God is and for what God has done. An example of this type of prayer would be the Gloria, which we say at the beginning of Mass, although not during Lent.
    4. Intercessory prayer is asking God to meet the needs of others. We are prompted to intercede for others by recognizing their needs. We learn about these needs either by hearing about them from others, of by seeing them firsthand. For example, we might pray for justice in the world, after hearing about or seeing some injustice. Yet, if we pray for justice, we too need to be willing to practice justice in our own lives; that is, there needs to be congruity between our prayer and our own actions, between our words and our deeds. Incongruity would make our prayer hollow, merely vacuous words. Another example of intercessory prayer is asking God to meet the material needs of others, such as those who go hungry. Yet, in so far as we are able, our prayer needs to be followed with action too. An example of “living against the grain” might be seeking to live in solidarity with others, maybe, if even for Lent, by rejecting the worst parts of our culture of consumption. So, intercessory prayer to God for others is more than an abstract wish, it is too incarnated in our actions, choices, and decisions.
    1. Petitionary prayer is asking for what we need. We all have needs in life, and God invites us to pray for them.
    2. All three of these types prayer— laudatory, intercessory, and petitionary—are expressed compactly in the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father. Later in the Eucharist, as we lift our voices in this prayer, look for, listen to, and hear these three forms of Christian prayer.
    3. O.K. class/students, how did you score on Question 2? If you did poorly on this question, don’t worry. You still have one more questions. You can still pass the midterm exam.
  1. Give or keep?

    1. Question 3: Do you prefer to give or to keep? …… That’s right, give. The other possible correct answer is “you keep when you give.” In our Christian tradition, the third pillar of Lent is alms-giving, sharing a portion of what we have been given, as an expression of our gratitude to God for life’s blessings, and as a way of detaching from materialism.
    2. We have a social responsibility. When God has given us a good job, good income, good education, and many possessions there is a social mortgage—we must share with others, contribute to the common good, and, especially, to care for the poor. In so doing, we “keep” the commandment to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to care for the widow and orphan, to welcome the stranger—sometimes the alien, to comfort the dying, and to visit the sick and imprisoned.
    1. O.K. class/students, how did you score on Question 3?
  1. Conclusion

    1. You all passed the midterm exam. But it is not the final exam. One of the questions, comprehensive and comprehensible, that will surely be on our final exam is: did you love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself?
    2. Do your homework; study hard by fasting, praying and giving alms. We will meet again at the final exam. Oh, by the way, don’t leave this classroom yet, we still have our sacred “lunch time.” Then after school, you may go home and take a nap.

Intercessions, First Sunday of Lent, 2008.

For all the members of the Universal Church, especially Her leaders, during this Lenten season, may their practice of fasting, praying and alms-giving purify, strength and guide them, [pause] let us pray to the Lord.

For those who hold religious, political, or ethical power, may they incarnate the spirit of praying, fasting, and alms-giving into their promotion of the common good, [pause] let us pray to the Lord.

For all Christians who gather at this same Eucharistic table, regardless of differences of location, social status, race, language, culture, gender, or orientation, may the pillars of this Lenten Season incorporate them more fully into the life of the family of God, [pause] let us pray to the Lord.

For our local faith community as we enter the Lenten Season, may we prepare well through fasting, praying and alms-giving, so that we might embrace joyously the Risen Lord at Easter, [pause] let us pray to the Lord.

For the millions who have been injured, displaced, tortured or killed because of war and violence, and—for those who care for them, who provide for them, or who bury and grieve for them, may they benefit abundantly from our Lenten praying, fasting and alms-giving, [pause] let us pray to the Lord.

For those preparing to enter the Church during the upcoming Easter Season, may the three pillars of the Lenten Season be sources of strength for them, [pause] let us pray to the Lord.

And for your prayers…