First Sunday of Lent (Year C)

It Is Impossible To Offer Yourself To God Without A Grateful Heart

Each day at Mass, the priest invites you with theses words: “Pray my brothers and Sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father”. Whose words are these? They are not the words of the priest. They are the words of Christ, spoken through the mouth of the priest. It is not the priest who addresses you: “My brothers and sisters”; it is Christ who calls you my brother, my sister, and invites you to add your sacrifice to his to be offered to the Father. The Sacrifice of Christ is the Paschal Mystery, which is the offering of himself to the Father through his Suffering, Death, and Resurrection.

Lent is a time when we prepare to celebrate the Paschal Mystery once again at Easter. We partake in that offering in two ways: the renewal of our baptismal promises on Holy Saturday and the celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. Thus, our Lord invites us not to be spectators but participants who are ready to offer ourselves to the Father.

Beloved, it is not easy to offer one’s life totally to God. Inasmuch as we desire to please God, you and I know that this is not easy. There are temptations and troubles in life. There are storms and times that we find ourselves in the “desert” and we face all kinds of temptations. However, there is good news! Our readings today assure us that we can overcome temptations. Our responsorial psalm teaches us to call on God when we are in trouble. Our second reading tells us: “all those who call on the Name of the Lord, shall be saved”.  Our first reading and the Gospel tell us one important thing we need in order to overcome temptations: Grateful Hearts.

Our first reading teaches us how to offer sacrifices in a way that pleases God. Every sacrifice offered in the Old Testament symbolized the life of the person who was offering the sacrifice. Every act of sacrifice, therefore, is a way of telling God: “I am giving my life to you”. Moses tells the people that when they come to offer a sacrifice to God, they should leave the gift and, first go and recall the history of what God had done for them and their ancestors. He asked them to recall how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, from all their enemies, and established them as a nation on a land flowing with milk and honey. This act of recalling God’s blessings before they offer their sacrifice was to help the Israelites develop a grateful heart, which is essential for every true sacrifice.  

Our Gospel reading also teaches us that the strength to overcome temptation comes from grateful hearts. When he faced temptations Jesus recalled what his Father had done and said to his people as recorded in Scripture. He also recalled how His father had been there with him in the desert for forty days when he had no food and needed protection from all the dangers in the desert. That is why Jesus was able to tell the devil that man does not live on bread alone.  Indeed, remembering what God has done for our ancestors in Scripture, in our families, and in our personal lives will help us develop the strength to obey God.

 As we live this first week of Lent, I invite you to take some time, as a family, as friends, and as a church community, to reflect on the blessings that God has showered on you so that developing grateful heart we may have the strength to overcome temptations and offer our lives to God. I pray for you today to be able to recall God’s blessings so that with the psalmist we can say: “Your words, Oh Lord, have I kept in my heart, so that I may not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

4^th Sunday in ordinary Time (Year C)

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

We gather not to transform God but to be transformed

Beloved in Christ, I wish you all a happy feast day. This past Wednesday, I was on campus and I decided to let people know that we, as a parish, are celebrating the feast of our patron saint. So I took a couple of the badges that we made and gave them out to students. I approached a young and ask: “Hi, I have some badges of St. Thomas would you like one?” You know what is response was? Who the heck is that? So I thought I would also ask you the same question since you are parishioners of St. Thomas: Who the heck is St. Thomas Aquinas?

Beloved, St. Thomas is

1. A Scholar and a saint.

2. A man who loved both science and faith.

3. A man who loved to ask intellectual questions but who was not opposed to receiving the answers from God because he believed that God is Absolute Intelligence itself and that God is Truth. This is the man for whose life we give thanks to God in our celebration today.

Beloved in Christ, St. Thomas believes that human beings cannot be saved by their intelligence alone. We need grace.   What is grace? It is the gift and power of the Holy Spirit, which helps us to accept the fact that we are sinners and that we need transformation. It is the gift and the power that helps us to accept that we are wrong and God is right. Here at our parish our mission statement shows that we agree with St Thomas that we need transformation. We gather, to be transformed, and to be sent.  

Please pay attention here: We gather not to transform God but to be transformed.

How does transformation occur? It begins with accepting grace. Accepting that we are wrong and God is right.  That is what made Thomas a saint. It is sad that many of us in our world today are behaving like the Pharisees in our Gospel and not like St. Thomas. The Pharisees thought they were wise and okay; and that it was Jesus who needed help. They thought he did not get it, and that he was possessed and out of touch with reality.

Beloved in Christ, is that what you think. Do you think that Jesus and his teaching are out of touch and that He needs help?  If we have such an attitude towards Christ He cannot save us. That is what he calls the sin of the Holy Spirit: the rejection of grace. As we celebrate this feast today, let us take a critical look at our lives, the way we live, think, and act.  Let’s take a critical look at the choices we make and ask our ourselves “Am I seeking to transform God or am I allowing God to transform me?