Struggles of Lent

Dear Friend,

Lent was clearly off to an awkward start at Mass Wednesday morning when I concluded my proclamation of the Gospel and it hit me that with full vigor I had just proclaimed not the prescribed text for Ash Wednesday, but rather the Gospel text for the first Sunday of Lent. When I bumblingly admitted that I’d just proclaimed the wrong Gospel, a voice came from the assembly suggesting I proclaim the correct one - at which point escaping to the desert seemed like a very attractive option - demons or no demons…

Yet with hellish events continuing to unfold in Ukraine, the consideration of diabolical forces such as those presented in the Gospel seems altogether timely. I was reminded as well this week that the founding of Mission Santa Barbara took place at a time of convoluted attempts by world leaders to combine imperial ambitions with evangelization. The violence and misguided concepts of history would continue in the American period, with the human family set ruinously against itself. 

In light of all this, God’s choice to be one with us in Jesus Christ presents itself as a startling theological proposition. Our Lord was degraded by human weaponry vastly more primitive but certainly no less gruesome in its effects on the human body than what we wield against each other today.

Startling too was the opening prayer for Ash Wednesday (for that, thankfully, I was on the correct page). With clear references to military engagement, the prayer asks God to equip us for Lent with "weapons of self-restraint.” Now there's a phrase worth pondering. Sounds like Jesus in the desert. In these days of high stress and fear I have to ask, what might those weapons look like for us, as Jesus’s disciples? 

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor