The Worldly Christian

HOMILY
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time – C – 4 August 2013

Readings: Ecc 1:2, 2:21-23; Ps 90:3-4,5-6,12-13,14,17; Col 3:1-5.9-11; Lk12:13-21


The Gospel reading this Sunday opens with a man from the crowd asking Jesus to mediate between him and his brother on the sharing of family property. It was customary for rabbis to be called upon to mediate disputes, but Jesus used the request to drive home a lesson on dealing with worldly riches.  It is also the theme of the other two readings this Sunday. I would like to sum up their message in three points:

1. We should not make riches our master.

This seems straightforward and sensible enough. St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises speaks of a choice we need to make: whether to follow the standard of Christ or the standard of Satan. And he cautions against taking the lure of Satan lightly for that is what makes him all the more effective. After all, the word Satan means the “deceiver”.

A few weeks ago, Pope Francis said that it saddens him to see priests and religious use expensive cars and the latest gadgets, when the money could have been used for better purposes such as helping the poor. Many people – within and without the Church – resonated with the Pope’s call to simplicity, and prompted a good amount of discernment on many of us priests.

Worse, when we let ourselves be deceived, we cause harm to others. Cardinal Chito Tagle, in his speech during the International Congress on the Eucharist in Quebec, Canada, in 2008, says that people who have exchanged the true God for idols like profit, prestige, pleasure, and control, also dedicate their lives to them – and sacrifice others to sustain the worship of their false gods. He asks: “How many factory workers are being denied the right wages for the god of profit? How many women are being sacrificed to the god of domination? How many children are being sacrificed to the god of lust? How many trees, rivers, hills are being sacrificed to the god of ‘progress’? How many poor people are being sacrificed to the god of greed? How many defenseless people are being sacrificed to the god of national security?”

Qoheleth the wise (in the First Reading) says: “Vanity of vanities!” All our toil is pointless. When our lives are mainly centered on working or gaining profit, ironically our toil is reduced to pointless vanity. This is not how God meant us to live.

2. We do not view riches as inherently evil either.


The readings this Sunday don’t say that it is wrong to acquire material possessions or dream of improving our lot. But haven’t we heard it said many times that money is the root of all evil? The text comes from 1 Tim 6,10, which actually says: “The love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.”

It is not riches in themselves that bring people to ruin. It is the inordinate attachment to them. How do we make the distinction between a healthy regard for riches and an inordinate attachment to them? St. Ignatius has a helpful phrase we can remember: “tantum quantum”. A simple translation would be “whatever helps”. He says our purpose in life is to worship and serve God and by doing so find our salvation. All other things in the world are created and made available to us in order to achieve this purpose. Thus, concerning material wealth and such other things as knowledge or good health, for as long as they bring us closer to God, we use them. If they don’t, then their usage becomes obstacles to achieving our true purpose.

3. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

The point comes from Christ’s reminder in Mt. 6,19: "store up treasures in heavens, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal".  The message is related to this Sunday’s parable about the rich man who thinks he can simply hoard all his harvest in a bigger barn and live the life he wanted (eat, drink, and be merry), and why Jesus calls him a fool.

The Fathers of the Church have generally interpreted this parable to mean our social obligation not to abandon the poor and the needy. Their position is well summed up by Venerable Bede: “The reason the Lord reproved the man who tore down his barns in order to build bigger ones was not that he cultivated the earth and collected its fruits into his barns, but that he did not divide with the poor what went beyond his needs–in which case he wouldn’t need larger barns–but instead built larger barns in which to keep them for himself.”

And don’t think the message is only for the materially rich. One can be poor and be inordinately attached to money. Another extreme that a Christian needs to avoid is romanticizing poverty. Renowned lay preacher Bo Sanchez narrates his conversion from this particular point of view in his book “8 Secrets of the Truly Rich”. He said an incident has become chiseled in his memory, and he was never the same again after it happened.

After one prayer meeting, a woman with her small daughter approached him and asked, “Bo, can you pray over me?” “Of course”, he smiled, “what can I pray for?” “Tomorrow is the last day for my daughter’s enrollment and I have no money…” She quietly sobbed, clutching her daughter to her waist. She explained that she’s been praying to God but it seems as though nothing was happening. “Bo, please pray over me that God will increase my faith.”

He became curious. “How much money do you need exactly?”, he asked. “P700”, she said. “P700? P700 only?” He couldn’t believe his ears. “It’s a monthly instalment thing”, she explained. At that precise moment, he wanted to pull out his wallet and give her the 700 bucks. He wanted to say, “Look sister, I don’t have to pray over you. Here’s the money and go home!” But he couldn’t. No matter how much he wanted to. Because as he stood there in front of her, he knew that he only had P20 in his wallet. P20!

So what did he do? He prayed over her. After he laid his hands over her, she thanked him and bid farewell. He said: “Believe me, I’ve done a lot of difficult things in my life. But one of the most difficult was watching this lady and her daughter walk out of the room empty-handed.”

When they disappeared through the door, he sat down on a chair and felt a deep pain inside. A prayer formed in his heart: “Lord I don’t want his to ever happen again. Oh, to have money to help others! Help me help them.”


Fast forward a few years later. Bo Sanchez now earns enough to send a few children to school. And he says the feeling is incredible. 

Material wealth, physical beauty, good health – all these things pass away, some even before we reach the grave. The beauty about storing treasures in heaven is that it doesn’t just prepare us for the life hereafter, it also paves the way for a meaningfully happy way of life even now.


...
Adapted from my homily on the same theme and readings three years ago.

From Guilt to Grace

HOMILY
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time – C – 16 June 2013

Readings: 2 Sam 12:7-10, 13; Ps 32:1-2, 5, 7,11; Gal 2:16, 19-21; Lk 7:36-8:3


Do you remember the last time you felt guilty over some wrongdoing? I doubt if anyone of us enjoys feeling guilty over something. It is an unpleasant feeling to say the least. Guilt prevents us from living life fully, and taken to extremes, it can make some people dysfunctional and immoblized.

That is why it is understandable that most of us try to avoid the feeling of guilt or shame. We devise coping mechanisms to get around it: denial, passing the blame, outright lie. In pathological cases, there are therapies devised just to handle and overcome guilt.

In our haste to eliminate uncomfortable guilt, some of us are led to think that when we rid ourselves of it, we can move on and lead happy lives. Not so fast. Guilt is also a natural human response. And there is such a thing as legitimate guilt.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber calls it “existential guilt”, which “occurs when someone injures an order of the human world whose foundations he or she knows and recognizes as those of his or her own existence and of all common human existence”.

When hurt is done or wrongdoing is committed, whether by malice or insensitivity, the one wronged feels his or her world is damaged, and so the victim becomes more cautious in making similar choices, less trusting with people, less optimistic about life. It is not only the wronged party who gets affected, but the wrongdoer as well. Something also becomes off in his or her world, and this manifests in guilt.

The prophet Nathan, in the First reading, was sent on a mission to show King David his existential guilt. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and sent her husband, a loyal general, to die in the battlefield to cover up their sin. David might have thought he got away with it. Nathan was sent so he won't get the wrong idea.

Guilt is our conscience tugging at us, an indicator that something is amiss in our moral compass. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus showed Simon the Pharisee how much his moral compass was amiss. He failed to see how he was rather dismissive of his guest, and scornful of the sinful woman. Jesus taught him that between his scorn for the sinful woman and the woman’s bizarre behaviour, it was the woman who has her priorities right.

1. Guilt is present not to make us feel miserable, but to help us seek forgiveness.

Once again from Martin Buber: “Humans are those beings who are capable of becoming guilty and are capable of illuminating their guilt.”

David, upon hearing Nathan’s indictment, felt remorse and said: ““I have sinned against the Lord.” As if to echo David’s remorse, the response to the Psalm this Sunday says: “Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.”

We Catholics are blessed to have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to satisfy our need for forgiveness. When was the last time you went to confession and beg God to forgive your sins? How regularly do you go to confession? Do you even consider the Sacrament important at all or it is just one of those quaint family traditions that you have to go through during Holy Week?

When we don’t satisfy our longing for forgiveness, our guilt will gnaw and nag at us. But it is not the worst thing that could happen. Worse is when our guilt disappears. When it happens, it means we have become desensitized to the sin we have done, and most likely, are still doing. And when the sense of guilt is gone, the next to go is the sense of God.

2. The point of forgiveness is not to assuage our guilt but to lead us to order our life for the better.

There is an oft-quoted prayer made by a young and newly-converted St. Augustine, at that time still recovering from the old habits of his former sinful lifestyle: "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet."

Sometimes we find it rather easy to ask for forgiveness but are not quite ready to put proper order in our lives just yet. There are also those who treat the Sacrament of Reconciliation as if it were some sort of spiritual washing machine.

God’s forgiveness – especially through the Sacrament of Reconciliation – is never about tolerating wrongdoing, nor is it a mere washing of dirty linens, or whitewashing old sins. Rather it helps us to rediscover the true purpose and meaning of our lives. In the Gospel accounts, when Jesus tells the sick and the sinners, "your sins are forgiven", He is giving them a new lease on life, or more precisely, He is leading them to a new life.

3. A decision to order our life for the better means welcoming God’s grace to enter our life and transform us.

Mahatma Gandhi tells this personal story: “When I was 15 years-old, I stole something. Because I was in debt, I stole a golden bracelet that belonged to my father. But I could not stand the burden of my guilt. So I went to him. But as I stood there, I was so ashamed that I could not open my mouth. So I wrote my confession down on a piece of paper. And while I was handling it to him, my whole body trembled. My father read the note, closed his eyes and then tore it to pieces. All he said was: ‘Think nothing of it.’ Then he took me in his arms, and from that moment on I began to love my father more than I had ever done before.”

Similarly, God forgives not so much because we are deserving or that we have done something good, but because it is in His nature to love us no matter what.

The sinful woman in the Gospel passage came to Jesus, weeping, anointing his feet with fragrant ointment, showing prodigious amount of love because even before Jesus articulated her being forgiven, she knew and felt that she was welcomed, accepted and loved by Him. This is the sense by which St. Paul proclaims in Gal 2,16: “we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

Ultimately what is being revealed here is an image of God: ready to forgive and reconcile with us, poised to give us His grace, intending to share with us His very life. What are we to do with a God like this?

One last story…

A missionary once observed a Sunday Mass in Bolivia. His curiosity was piqued by the offertory procession of four teenage boys. Aside from the offering of candle, bread and cruets (water and wine), one of them held a rather large stone in his hands. When they reached the foot of the altar, they turned around and lifted up the offertory gifts for all to see. Only one of them speaks: the youth holding the stone. He prays:

“Father in heaven, this stone is also a gift from us. It represents us and our hearts. Enkindle in us a warmth for one another and never allow us to become or remain hard like this stone. On the contrary, may we continue to spread light and life. As we lay it on the altar, may our hearts be transformed just as the bread and wine will be. Amen.”

My suggestion for a fitting response to a God like this: follow Heb 3,7-8: “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts”.

God's Mercy

HOMILY
2nd Sunday of Easter - 7 April 2013

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13; Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; Jn 20:19-31


During the Jubilee Year 2000, at the canonization rites of St. Faustina, Blessed Pope John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter to be celebrated in the universal Church as "Divine Mercy Sunday". Many speculate that the Pope did so because he was Polish and the devotion to the Divine Mercy was, and still is, very strong in Poland and originated with St. Faustina herself.

A more likely explanation is that the Pope truly believed that the world needs to believe and feel God's mercy. And he explained his interest in spreading the message of mercy in great depth and detail in his 1980 encyclical Dives in Miserecordia - referring to God who is "rich in mercy".

The title of the letter is taken from Eph 2,4-5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he has for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ, by grace you have been saved."

The text paved way to the Holy Father's two very important statements about mercy. First, that "mercy is love's second name". Secondly, that mercy is "the greatest attribute of God".

Mercy is an expression of God's grace. What is grace but love that is undeserved, unmerited but freely given. And mercy is its inverse expression: it is about us sinners not getting what we deserve. But there is more to mercy than just punishment withheld. There are many aspects and elements of God's mercy, I would like to share three of them: identification with suffering, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

1. Identification with suffering.

In the Latin tradition, the principal word for mercy is misericordia, which means, literally miserable heart. Fr. George Kosicki, CSB, the great Divine Mercy evangelist, once summed up the meaning of this Latin word as follows: misericordia means "having a pain in your heart for the pains of another, and taking pains to do something about their pain"

In the same encyclical, Blessed John Paul writes that mercy was at the heart of the public ministry of Jesus:  "Especially through His lifestyle and through His actions, Jesus revealed that love is present in the world in which we live.... This love makes itself particularly noticed in contact with suffering."


2. Forgiveness.

The most concrete expression of mercy is, of course, forgiveness. Last Good Friday, we meditated on Jesus' seven last words, among them: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." In many miracle stories, Jesus would not just say, "be healed", or "stand up and walk", but "you're sins are forgiven" - a constant source of perplexity for his enemies. And even they grasped the implication of forgiveness: "How can he forgive? Only God can forgive. Does he make himself God?"


3. Reconciliation.

Reconciliation means repairing a broken relationship, and especially when it refers to the relationship between God and man - it inevitably results to restoring the broken self to its graced dignity. The message of Jesus to his disciples in this Sunday's Gospel is peace.


You died Jesus, but the source of life flowed out for souls and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fountain of Life, immeasurable Divine Mercy, cover the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.O Blood and Water which flowed out from the Heart of Jesus as a Fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You.

Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and the whole world.

Leadership Lessons from N.R. Narayana Murthy

N. R. Narayana Murthy, Indian businessman and co-founder of Infosys (third largest IT company in the world) delivered a talk at AIM last February 21. He impressed upon his audience some valuable lessons on being a successful entrepreneur and leader of industry. So what makes a great leader? Here is my personal integration on how N.R. Narayana Murthy counts the ways.

Character. Good leaders have a clear grasp of what they wish to achieve (their vision), who they are, and what they can offer. Murthy sums this up in a concept: a clear and concise differentiated value proposition, i.e, what an individual or organization can offer that sets it apart from the rest. Add to it a firm commitment to hard work and integrity, and a capacity to sacrifice personal interest for the good of the organization or society. When people see these traits in leaders, they tend to be more attracted to the vision they share, for they lead by example.

A properly-formed character is also the best safeguard against the debilitating effects of mindsets, which come from the data base of our experiences that coagulate into supposedly proven ways of doing things that lull us to complacency and encourage mediocrity. A good leader committed to change is able to recognize innovative ideas and liberate them from mindsets.

Courage. Murthy actually identifies courage as the most important attribute of a good leader. This means the courage to dream big, take moral decisions, implement strategy, go against conventional wisdom, and travel roads less travelled, or in some cases untraveled. If entrepreneurship is about transforming ideas into wealth, of making the implausibly impossible possible, then courage is indeed the defining trait of the entrepreneur. It is also about knowing that subscribing to a value system entails cost. Taking a risk because one’s value system demands it is the true test of courage.

Creativity. Murthy calls it the drive for innovation. A good leader should know how to dream, and be able to convince others that his dream is worth taking – but he should also be open to new ideas. The best way to generate new ideas is to work in improving competence, gaining crucial experience and knowledge in the process. 

For the entrepreneur, creativity may mean the constant search for that which will make his products or services better, faster, cheaper. This is also a good rule for development work. The conviction that there ought to be a better way of delivering services, recognizing rights, or empowering people is the starting point in the journey of transforming inequality to equity.

               

Care for Persons. Murthy jokingly talks about his transformation from a confused socialist to a compassionate capitalist (as some have described him), but he does walk his talk when it comes to his concern for people. He calls it generosity. At the outset, it makes good business sense to care of people – clients, partners, and employees alike. It ensures repeat business, investor confidence and employee loyalty. More than these however, values such as fairness and transparency, courtesy and humility, and generosity of heart (“praise in public, prescribe in private, take blame for failures”) builds people’s trust in the leader and self-esteem and confidence in themselves. 

At the crucial nexus between having the vision to effect change and other people’s willingness to follow or, better yet, take such vision as their own, lies the trust that they have on the one carrying the message. The truism “the medium is the message” may already be a cliché but still rings ever true today: people will accept and carry the message for as long its messenger proves himself genuinely trustworthy and his message empowering.

Our Father

Tuesday, 1st Week of Lent
Gospel Reading: Mt 6, 7-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“This is how you are to pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

“If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”


HOMILY

Our short Gospel passage describes to us the nature of Christian prayer.

1. It is not about the multiplicity of words or length of time spent as about the authenticity of relationship we built.

Prayer is basically communication, and communication builds relationship. The special thing with prayer is that it is our relationship with God that it builds. Does it mean that we are better off without our rosaries and lengthy prayers? Not really. It's just that now we know these prayers spring from our relationship with, or to use the language of prayer, our devotion to, God.

2. It is about putting God first.

Even when we approach God bringing ourselves and our pressing concerns, still we begin our prayer by acknowledging God's reign over us, or as He would like us to know Him, His being our Father. Because God is our Father, He knows our needs and cares for us more than we can take care of ourselves. Thus, we pray primarily to worship God, to seek His Kingdom and His will. And because we have a loving Father, we can approach Him and beg for our daily bread and many other needs.

3.  It is about being transformed by our prayer.

When we pray we become closer to God, and the closer we are to Him, the more we hear His invitation to share His life with us. Meaning, the more we pray and build our relationship with God, the more we are transformed according to His image and likeness. In simple terms, we ask ourselves: are we becoming more loving as we pray? A basic expression of this love is our capacity to forgive. Why forgiveness? When we forgive, we bring the love of God to those who have sinned against us, to those who least deserve it, or to put it another way - we bring God's love to those who need it most.

This is how Jesus taught us to pray.

The Nature of Temptations

HOMILY
1st Sunday of Lent (C) – 17 February 2013

Readings: Dt 26:4-10; Ps 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15; Rom 10:8-13; Lk 4:1-13


The Gospel story on this First Sunday of Lent is the temptation of Jesus by Satan. After His baptism, Jesus went to the desert to fast and pray in order to prepare for pubic ministry. And there Satan tempted Him three times, and three times Satan was rebuffed.

The Temptations of Jesus. A short review of these temptations also reveals how Jesus intends to do His mission to the world.

1. “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

By rejecting this seemingly innocuous dare, Jesus tells Satan that man does not live merely to acquire material goods. And in Mt 4,4 the line is added: “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He also sends the message that His mission is not to become a generous patron who offers instant gratification or overnight solutions to hunger, poverty, injustice, and all other problems of humanity.

2. “All these (kingdoms of the world) will be yours, if you worship me.”

By rejecting this more brazen offer, Jesus tells Satan that all the power and glory in the world is not worth it, especially when it means selling your soul to the devil. He also sends the message that He will not be an earthly power, no matter how benevolent, who demands the command of armies or the subjugation of peoples under his rule in order to bring about peace and prosperity.

3. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

By rejecting this rather desperate challenge, Jesus puts Satan in his proper place and reminded him that he is talking to the Son of God Himself – and one “does not put the Lord God to the test”. He also sends the message that He does not intend to be a populist ruler who moves supporters and fans with showbiz eloquence and miracles.

Instead Jesus will model compassion, gentleness and humility. He will be a faithful prophet who will meet death like all true prophets before and after him. He will be a servant king who eats with sinners and washes His disciples’ feet. He will be a priest who turns Himself into the ultimate offering so His friends may live.

Heb 4,15 says: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.” As Jesus was tempted in every way, so will it be with us His disciples. As He was strengthened and informed by His triumph over temptations, so will it be with us.

The Nature of Temptations. Temptations are basically deceptions. Satan – whose name means “the deceiver” – wishes to distract us from our mission, confuse our idea of true happiness or true love – thus, hinder us from finding it, stop us from discovering our real self, and draw us away from the source of life.

To be effective, a deception has to be clever. Think of the way scammers, say the Budol-Budol Gang, rob their victims blind. The devil does not ask us outright to do evil things – not many of us would be fooled that easily. Rather he persuades us to see a semblance of good in the things he tempt us with. It’s not about Adam and Eve disobeying God, it’s about their becoming like God. It’s not about Jesus getting distracted from His mission, it’s about Him doing an innocuously simple thing: turning stone to bread. After all he would be turning water into wine in a little while.

The problem with making “small” moral concessions “for a greater good” is that it makes the heart and mind comfortable with falling into little temptations, and paves the way for even bigger transgressions.

It’s the classic frog in a boiling water analogy. Drop a frog in boiling water and it will immediately react to save itself. Drop a frog in normal water, slowly heat it, and the frog won’t know it is being cooked till it is too helpless to save itself. This is how temptation works.

Let us identify some of the more common deceptions that we face today.

1. The temptation to choose the good over the better.

People faced with moral dilemmas most often don’t face a choice of good versus evil, but between or among a variety of goods. When we choose the lesser good we fall into the trap of choosing the easier way over the right way. It is so tempting to choose the easy way and fall for the fake sense of contentment brought by blissful mediocrity. Mediocrity in spirit is the one great obstacle to being formed according to the image of God.

2. The temptation not to risk loving again.

Everybody wants to love and be loved. Who are those who find it hard to love? Those who have loved and been hurt, those who have dreamed and failed. Because loving again opens them to the risk getting hurt again, and dreaming once more exposes them to failure and disappointment yet again, some people chose instead to simply stop loving. Apathy and simply living in the moment (forget about tomorrow!) seem to be the easier ways to go. Then again, there is no other path to happiness but to love truthfully. You cannot truly love unless you are willing to take the risk of getting hurt.

3. The temptation to eschew balance in our lives.

Sometimes success blinds us and makes us only see the good that we do, and not the things we need to avoid doing. History and literature is replete with lessons on how unbridled power corrupts the best of intentions. A modern management dictum says: “Systems of accountability are in place to keep honest people remain honest.”

Sometimes too our devotion to duty or dedication to a goal makes us so focused as to be insensitive to the plight of persons and values that get in the way. Remember the Gospel parable of the sheep and the goats: in the end, God will not judge us by how much we have achieved, but by how much we have loved.

4. The temptation to equate happiness with having lots of choices.

It is not so much the availability of choices that leads to true happiness, it is rather the freedom to make a commitment. Choosing from a selection of options is just the first step. Committing to something or someone is the real work, for by doing so we immerse ourselves in the full reality of freedom.

Yet there is something that makes many of us cringe at the mere thought of making a commitment: the fear of being limited. Perhaps this springs from our fixation with an idea of freedom as being able to do what we want when we want to. Many link their happiness to the achievement of this ideal, and resent any authority – government, religion, even God – who sets limits on what they can and cannot do. Sadly, they will only be disappointed. There is no absolute freedom in the first place. It is part of our nature to be limited, weak, and prone to overstep boundaries especially when there are no clear markers in sight. Ironically, there is a sense of liberation in accepting our limits. After all, it is our weak and limited nature that God assumed in order to save us.

5. The temptation to carve God in our own image.

Today the cult of the self has grown even stronger. Industries have been built to satisfy every imaginable vanity and desires of the flesh. The idea of God is accepted and tolerated for as long as it promotes the well-being of the self. There are those who think they can be simply “spiritual” or “saved” without belonging to the community of believers. There are those who think they can be moral while choosing only the precepts that are convenient to them. They carve an idol according to their own image and call him God.

6. The temptation to rely solely on our own strength.

This is the devil’s favorite. By perpetuating a culture that glorifies the self-made, self-sufficient person, we are lulled into assuming we can combat temptation by ourselves, or deal with our addictions our way, or change for the better by sheer willpower. It is when we think we are strong on our own accord that we are most vulnerable.

The whole season of Lent is a graced time to look inwards, examine our relationship with God, and review our lives in the light of the Gospel. As we reflect upon our inner demons may we also rediscover our graced self, the one redeemed by Christ, the one who longed to live in the life of God.

Heb 2,18 says: “Because Jesus himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

As we battle our temptations, we know that we are not alone. We have Christ with us. To the many trials that come his way, St. Paul defiantly cries out in Phil 4,13: “I have the strength for everything through Him who empowers me!”