Notes from the Pastor

In today’s Gospel (Luke 9:28b-36), Jesus wants to bring some focus to Peter, James, and John by having them witness the Transfiguration. The Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent always includes the Transfiguration. Jesus begins by leading the three Apostles up a mountain – the traditional place to which one went to encounter God. Once there, Jesus is transfigured before their eyes. “…his clothing became dazzling white…”.

In today’s Gospel (Luke 4:1-13), Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days of prayer. Prayer was Christ’s usual practice to discern and obey the will of the Father, and to prepare himself for whatever momentous event was ahead of him. Sustained by only grace and prayer, Christ encounters the devil. Imagine the audacity of the devil as he tries to put God himself to the test!

Wednesday of this week is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. There are some people who seem to have a mistaken understanding of the reception of ashes and assign more importance to receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday than they do to attending Sunday Mass. Do not be misled. The ashes are NOT a Sacrament. They are what is called a “sacramental” and are no different than blessing yourself with Holy Water when you enter or leave the church. What is exceptional about the reception of ashes is that it normally occurs only one day a year (on Ash Wednesday), and that it is an outward sign – a public declaration, if you will – that one is a sinner and is in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. If we receive the ashes and then do not follow it up with a Sacramental Confession at some point during Lent, we have done nothing but condemn ourselves as hypocrites.

As Christians, we worship a God who loves us so much that he became human for our sake and went the extra mile of love, dying an excruciating and humiliating death on a cross. St. Paul assures us in today’s Second Reading (1 Corinthians 15:45-49) that as we are human and in the likeness of Adam – complete with sin – so we will also take on the likeness of Jesus, the heavenly one.

How does God guide us? Listen to the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading from the Gospel according to Luke (Luke 6:17, 20-26). This is a great place to start. The Beatitudes are at the very heart of Jesus’ preaching. They expand upon Jesus’ command that we are to love our enemies and love our neighbor. The Beatitudes are contained in what is called the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, though in Luke’s Gospel this is called the Sermon on the Plain because it is described as taking place on level ground rather than on a sloping hillside. At the core of the sermon is Jesus’ teaching on love.

Looking back at our life, we may recognize a particular person or a specific experience that caused us to make a significant change or to go in a different direction than we would have otherwise. Hopefully, the change was good, enabling us to think bigger, do better things, and use our talents in a way that we had not considered before. This is what happens in today’s readings. Isaiah is called by God to be his prophet (Isaiah 6:1-8). In the beginning, Isaiah does not feel worthy of this call, but by the end of today’s First Reading, he is responding with “Here I am, send me!”

Next weekend is the beginning of our Annual Catholic Appeal campaign for 2019 and we will have the opportunity to complete pledge cards. The theme for this year’s campaign is “His Mercy Endures Forever…Welcome the Stranger,” once again focusing on the Corporal Works of Mercy. All registered parishioners recently received a letter, pamphlet, and pledge card from Archbishop John Wester regarding the importance of the Annual Catholic Appeal (ACA). Unlike the tithing renewal that we do each November in which we commit ourselves to a weekly tithe to the support of our parish, the Annual Catholic Appeal is our opportunity to consider the needs not just of our own parish, but of Catholics across the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, many of whom are not only our “spiritual” brothers and sisters in Christ, but are also literally members of our extended families.

Every January we seem to be flooded with advertisements for weight loss programs, exercise machines, or “miracle” pills that all claim to help us achieve our ideal body shape with little or no effort. Right! But as persons made in the image and likeness of God, we have a fundamental dignity that goes beyond anything we might ever achieve in outward appearance. It is a dignity that is inherent in us by virtue of our relationship with the One who has created us and sustains us in life.