Homily for 2nd Sunday of Lent

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+JMJ

Mary, Queen of Vocations, pray for us!

'Do whatever He tells you! (Jn 2:5)'

At this time, ten years ago, I was planning to enter seminary. It was a dramatic time in my life. I cried when I left Lawrence to go to St. Meinrad, Indiana. I knew I was moving toward something better. I knew I was answering God's call. Yet it was hard to sacrifice the life that I had built for myself. It was such a good life. I had so much invested in it. Why would God ask me to leave something so good behind?

Ten years ago, I probably had some idea of what the priesthood would be like. I had some idea of the kind of priest I wanted to be. Yet I can't honestly remember what those ideas were. I am sure some of my expectations have come true. Many have not. Some things about priesthood are far more difficult than I could have imagined. Other parts are far more fulfilling. I can say this for sure, though. God has provided me with a bigger life than I would have ever have picked for myself. It is more mysterious. It is more unpredictable. Yet it is bigger. It is more fruitful. What I gave to God ten years ago seemed so big then. I would give it again in a heartbeat now. God has not been outdone in generosity.

Well, that was the last ten years. What about the next ten? As much as I have changed in the last ten years, most of me would like to change less in the next 10. I would like to think that I am well down the path of conversion to God. Maybe I don't have too much farther to go. Maybe life will be more predictable. Yet I know if I made a prediction today of how the next ten years will go, and wrote it down in this homily or in my diary, I would be laughing my rear end off ten years from now. I am sure the same is true with you. Some of what we want for the future will come true. Yet we know that the next ten years will prove how little we really control things.

I probably entered Lent this year like you did, trying to make a few slight adjustments. Trying to fine-tune things. Lose a few pounds. Pray a little more. Do something charitable. Eat fish. Give up some control and listen to God more in silence. These are the ordinary activities of Lent. They are good activities They give us a chance to be more aware of the closeness of God. They challenge us to be more dependent upon Him. Yet these ordinary activities of Lent are not the final goal for us. Being like Abraham is the final goal. The story of Abraham and Isaac jolts us on this second Sunday of Advent, especially if we have spent the first week of Lent focused on little things. The story reminds us that our prayer and fasting and almsgiving are not ends unto themselves. Lent is not a time of slight adjustments. It is not a time when we decide to give a little more of ourselves to God. No, Lent helps us to realize that God is asking great things of us. He is expecting us to change a hundred times more in the next ten years than we did in the last ten. Lent is supposed to save us from the illusion that God is asking us for small things, when in reality, He is asking us for big things.

Lent is my time to realize than even though I became a priest in the last ten years, God will ask me to change even more radically in the next ten than I did in the last ten. Of course this scares the living daylights out of me. I know I will whine and rationalize that I've already given more than others. I might feel sorry for myself and give with resentment. Worst of all, I might try to set more 'reasonable' goals for myself, goals I am comfortable with, like the goals I set for myself during Lent. I might try to cut a deal with God to be a good priest when I know I can be a great priest. This would be like Bill Self telling us that he wants his team to be good in the next ten years, but don't expect them to win any more Big XII or national titles. This won't do, of course. God does us the same favor in asking great things from us. He does us a favor when He asks us to make leaps of faith instead of slight adjustments.

When God asks us for more than we are ready to give, we usually go into denial. We pretend we didn't hear Him correctly. We pretend that He is really asking for something more reasonable. Abraham does not react in this way. His trust in God is complete. God can ask the most unreasonable thing of Abraham, so unreasonable in fact, that it appears that God is commanding something evil, which is not in God's power to do. This is the supreme test of faith, and Abraham passes with flying colors.

Lent is a time for us to dare God to test our faith, for our own good. It is a time to resensitize ourselves to the call to change more in the future than we have changed in the past. Our fear makes us want to cut a deal with God, to meet Him halfway, to presume upon His mercy and to pretend that maybe slight adjustments are enough. Yet this is not God's way of giving. Even if the creation of the world was God's decision to share partially of Himself, St. Paul reminds us that in giving us His only begotten Son, God has shows that He will never withhold from us anything that is good. God will not be outdone in generosity.

The project of our lives, my dear friends, is to trust in the goodness of God, who has revealed Himself to be love. The project of our lives, a project much more profound and difficult than giving up chocolate for forty days, is to enter into this great drama of trying to outdo God in generosity. This is what makes the story of Abraham on Mt. Moriah so great. It is a man of faith trying to outdo God in generosity, and in doing so, the glory of God shines through Abraham. Even when we find that we cannot give back to God all that He has given to us, the joy of trusting Him and allowing Him to lead us far beyond where our reason could ever take us, is a joy that doesn't fade, but grows stronger with time. Faith takes us beyond our own small expectations. Faith makes us less aware of the life we are losing. It makes us more aware of the life we are gaining, as God always calls us away from less, and to something more. Faith shows us the life foreshadowed by Jesus in the Transfiguration. This is the life that eye has not yet seen, and ear has not yet heard. It is the life that we cannot imagine for ourselves 10 years from now, a hundred years from now, or ever. It is the life that is God's generous gift to us His beloved children. It is the resurrected life of Jesus that we will share with God forever! +m