Conflicted. Conversant. Concealed (2018-02-18, Lent)

18 February 2018  1^st Sunday Lent (B)

Genesis 9:8-15  ●  Psalm 25  ●  1 Peter 3:18-22  ● + Mark 1:12-15

[__01__]   Are you CONFLICTED? Conflicted?

          The  40 days of Lent have just started, reminding us of our traditional Christian disciplines of FASTING, PRAYER, ALMSGIVING.

          I’d like to touch on your calling – my calling – to ask these 3 questions about FASTING, about PRAYER, and about ALMSGIVING.

          Am I conflicted?

          Am I conversant?

          Am I concealed?

[__02__]   1^st. Conflicted. You and I experience conflict, friction, resistance in many ways. And, fasting – intentional fasting and self-sacrifice exposes us – full contact and full-court press -- to CONFLICT.

          Perhaps, in Lent, we make a daily vow about renewal (or increased) of prayer time, or spiritual reading. Perhaps, my vow is about something dietary, nutritional.

          There are many ways to fast including, e.g., the choice to eat at regular meal times rather than at the time chosen by the random number generating app in my head/brain.

          Choosing when, how, with whom to eat is a fast. It may cause CONFLICT.  Conflict with our regular routine.

          In other words, the conflict is, often, not with the food or with the clock. The conflict is with myself.         

          Jesus was fasting for 40 days and nights in the desert. As John Henry Newman points out, Jesus was not tempted AFTER he became hungry. The hunger is the cause of the conflict, not the food.

Jesus offers up – gives up – the hunger.

          Similarly, I may have a hunger – desire – for recognition or for popularity or to be the top scorer, whatever it is. Am I willing to admit that the conflict is not because I was not recognized or praised. The conflict is because of my hunger inside not because of something that happened outside or what someone else did or did not do.  Can I fast from this desire, can I offer this up ?

          Am I conflicted? If yes, then, I am fasting.

[__03__]    2^nd. Conversant. Am I conversant – experiencing our Savior’s word– each day in my prayer, to talk to and listen to God’s word.

          Through our 9 nights of prayer and reflection of the St. Joseph Novena /retreat, we gather to be encouraged, to experiencing and to be conversant in God’s ways.

          Sometimes, God speaks a different language and this requires extra effort in our prayer.

          Are we willing to make the extra effort?

          Recently, a friend of mine was telling me about his international travels and his goal to learn a few basic sentences in every language.  He enjoyed telling me how he was in Beijing and learned the Mandarin Chinese question that he would use over and over again, “do you speak English?”

          A phrase he can still repeat with proper fluency and tones.

          And, he also memorized and repeated something important to him,  “do you take credit cards? ”

          God wants to converse, talk with us and he is talking to us about the payments, the costs, the sacrifices that we are making each day.

          Are you – & I - conversant?

[__04__]   3^rd. Concealed. Am I concealed? It’s true that you and I do many loving and charitable things that do not generate, LIKES, FRIENDS, NEWS, TRAFFIC.

          Am I concealed?

          In the Gospel of Ash Wednesday, Jesus invites us to make our almsgiving – charitable giving – secret or concealed.  “Do not let your left hand know what your right is doing.” (Matthew 6:3)

           And, isn’t it true that in family or marriage or friendship, many acts of mercy and love are performed without full acknowledgement or recognition.

[__05__]   In your life, my life, we may not know how important the conflict of today is, how it may draw us into conversation with Jesus our Lord and Savior, so that we may be concealed with him in our journeys, so that we may know that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  (Philippians 4:13)    [__fin__]