{"id":2818,"date":"2019-03-10T12:28:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T16:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2818"},"modified":"2019-03-10T12:30:03","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T16:30:03","slug":"1st-sunday-of-lent-year-c-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/1st-sunday-of-lent-year-c-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"1st Sunday of Lent, Year C – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

1<\/a>st<\/a><\/sup> Sunday of Lent, Year C<\/a>
Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15 (see 15b)
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13
March 10, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBe\nwith me, Lord, when I am in trouble.<\/em>\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many people who cry to the Lord\nwhen they are \u201cin trouble<\/em>\u201d but don\u2019t\npay much attention to the Lord when things are good.  I know in the years when I didn\u2019t go to\nchurch, when things were going well, I didn\u2019t pray much but if something was\nwrong, I\u2019d offer a prayer.  When we face\ntrouble, we ask the Lord to provide us shelter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there are more and more people who\ndon\u2019t come to church, the idea of people crying out to the Lord when they are \u201cin trouble<\/em>\u201d is nothing new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of all the people who came to Jesus\nto be cured of illness or for exorcism of evil spirits.  They know their troubles and they bring them\nto Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see in the Old Testament.  In fact, in the Old Testament we see a cycle\nrepeating over and over.  When the people\nare in trouble, they cry out to the Lord. \nThe Lord hears their cry and rescues them.  In gratitude, they follow the Lord\u2019s way for\na while but over time the people once again forget the Lord and fall back into\nsin.  God allows this.  God also lets them face the consequences of\ntheir sins and bad things happen.  They\nsuffer until they realize the error of their ways and again<\/em> repent and cry out to the Lord for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here one might wonder where society is at\nright now.  There are people who think\nsociety is at its best because of all the \u201cfreedoms\u201d people enjoy to live\nhowever they want.  I see a different\nperspective.  The shootings, violence,\nand partisan politics show a low point in society.  We need to turn back to the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to acknowledge our sins.  We need to acknowledge that we need the\nLord\u2019s help.  We cannot rescue ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God will deliver us as He delivered the\nIsraelites from slavery in Egypt.  They\nhad become slaves to the Egyptians.  We\nbecome slaves to sin.  Maybe we don\u2019t\neven recognize our sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you a slave?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can become slaves to sin in that we\nbecome fixated on the physical pleasure that can go with some sinful acts.  Our desire to experience that pleasure\ncontrols our actions.  It might even\nbecome the most important thing.  We put\nthat physical pleasure before the eternal life that Jesus offers us.  Even when we realize our sin, we cannot on\nour own break free from the sin.  This is\nwhat it means to be a slave to sin.  That\u2019s\nwhen we need to acknowledge our sins to Jesus who can take them away in the\nSacrament of Reconciliation when we confess our sins.  We can\u2019t set ourselves free from sin but God\ncan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about becoming slaves to activities\nthat spiritually and morally are neither good or bad on their own but they\nstill come to control our lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might be something as simple as sports\nthat we do for the fun but then require too much of our time and don\u2019t allow us\ntime for family, friends, or God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might be power or money.  I know people who wait to get married for\nyears while they \u201cstart their career\u201d so they can make money and have\nstatus.  They work many long hours to get\nestablished, thinking someday they won\u2019t have to work so much and they can get\nmarried and start a family.  Do the long\nhours ever stop?  Does one become a slave\nto their work under the guise of providing for their family?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there sin in this?  Ask yourself if you have made your job and\ncareer your \u201cfalse god\u201d?  Have you made\nmoney or sports or leisure activity your \u201cfalse god\u201d?  If you have, think about the commands to have\nno \u201cfalse god\u201d for there is only one god. \nHas your attachment to activities or things kept you from keeping the\nSabbath holy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confess it to God and cry out to him for\nhelp.  As we cry out for the help, we\nneed to be in it for the long haul.  We\nmight may not be able to change everything overnight.  It might take time.  Even when we do change, the temptation can\nremain.  We can be weak against\ntemptation and fall back into sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus is the one who is successful against\ntemptation.  He had fasted for forty\ndays.  He was hunger.  The devil knew this and tried to tempt him to\nchange the stone into bread.  Who would\nblame Jesus if He did this?  Would it be\nany different than we give up candy and\/or snacking for Lent and then when Lent\nis over, we gorge ourselves on the very thing we gave up.  Has anything changed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some might even see it as a good thing to\ndo in his hunger.  Yet, Jesus knows He\nhas not been given this power for selfish gain. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus resisted all the \u201cpower and glory<\/em>\u201d that the devil offered\nhim.  This could be like the temptation\nof career and status that we face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your Achilles\u2019 heel?  What is your greatest temptation?  Does it relate to a real need that you need\nhelp to fulfill or is it a want or simple pride that you need to let go of?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you do to free yourself of the\ntemptation?   What help do you need from\nthe Lord?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st Sunday of Lent, Year CDeuteronomy 26:4-10Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15 (see 15b)Romans 10:8-13Luke 4:1-13March 10, 2019 \u201cBe with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.\u201d  There are many people who cry to the Lord when they are \u201cin trouble\u201d but don\u2019t pay much attention to the Lord when things are good.  I know in …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘1st Sunday of Lent, Year C – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82,260],"tags":[570,572,571,163],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-Js","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2819,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions\/2819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}