I hope and pray that your Lent is off to a grace-filled start!
First Sunday of Lent A
Despite
that whole unfortunate incident
with the serpent and the apple...
with the serpent and the apple...
Why
did Adam and Eve have the perfect marriage?
Because
Adam would never have to hear
about
all the other men she could have married,
and
Eve would never have to hear
about
his mother’s wonderful cooking!
It’s
pretty difficult to get reliable data
on
why marriages break up these days.
When
couples file for divorce,
they
often reduce their difficulties to a single legal catchphrase
(like “irreconcilable differences”)
and,
in many cases, might not actually have very keen insight
into
the reasons their marriage didn’t work.
Given
the Church’s vested interest in marriage and its success,
I
was rather intrigued by an article
that
came to my attention the other day
concerning
three major sources of modern marital problems.
The
first was no surprise: finances.
have
been taxing married life
since—oh—the
day after money was first invented.
Sharing
expenses, inequality of incomes,
different
career goals,
what sacrifices to make for the children—
not
to mention mounting bills or unemployment—
all
can put incredible stress on a relationship.
But
the next two causes just might startle you a bit:
they
were Facebook and pornography.
Facebook
has only emerged
as
a major contributing factor in the last few years—
still
being a pretty recent innovation, and all.
Social
media—in and of itself—is not the problem;
posting
an interesting photo
or
connecting with old friends—in moderation—
are
harmless diversions,
sometimes
even useful tools.
The
trouble comes when
such virtual connections become a substitute
for genuine face-to-face relationships;
such virtual connections become a substitute
for genuine face-to-face relationships;
when
I spend all my time managing my online persona.
And
pornography, while not exactly anything new,
has
only come out of the shadows
in the last couple of decades
as
a major contributor to divorce.
With
its widespread and
seemingly “anonymous”
availability on the Internet,
availability on the Internet,
the
use of pornography—according to some statistics—
is
now cause of about half
of all divorces in this country.
of all divorces in this country.
The
issue here is not all about sex,
but
even more about self-centeredness:
an
impulse that should be all about reaching out
gets
turned entirely inward.
Reduced
to their most basic elements,
finances,
Facebook, and pornography are really just expressions
of
mankind’s three most disordered values:
possessions,
power, and pleasure.
The
temptation of possessions is to find our security
in
the things of earth instead of those of heaven;
it’s
the temptation of greed and envy;
it’s
a temptation against faith.
The
temptation of power is to believe
I
have full control over my life and can perfect it all on my own;
it’s
the temptation of pride and wrath;
it’s
a temptation against hope.
The
temptation of pleasure is to meet a legitimate need—
for
food, for intimacy, for rest—
in
an illegitimate and selfish way;
it’s
the temptation of gluttony, lust, and sloth;
it’s
a temptation against love.
These
three basic human temptations
are
the same three temptations endured by Jesus in the desert.
(Their
technological cover may keep changing,
but
the devil isn’t exactly very original!)
And
even for Jesus, they’re temptations to divorce.
You
see, Jesus’ 40-day sojourn in the desert
comes
right on the heals of his baptism in the Jordan River—
when
he was revealed as God’s uniquely beloved Son
by
a booming voice from on high
and
the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove.
In
the person of Jesus, God and man, heaven and earth,
have
been wed as one:
united
by a bond of love so tight
that
it can never be undone.
Satan,
therefore, has a strong interest
in
breaking up this relationship—
in
getting Jesus to deny his identity as true God and true man.
It’s
funny, really:
the
temptation which triggered the original sin
was
to convince humans that they could be gods,
while
the temptation set before the Son of God
is
to get him to deny his humanity!
In
what ways does the devil tempt you to divorce—
not
to break up your marriage,
but to divide your soul from the Lord?
but to divide your soul from the Lord?
What
varieties of possessions, power, and pleasure
seem
to have the power
to
separate you’re spiritual life—
the
life you come to celebrate and nurture here at Sunday Mass—
from
your day-to-day living?
Are
there parts of your life from which God is cut out?
Such
questions only make sense, of course,
if
we recognize to what extraordinary lengths God has gone
to
enter into a close and personal relationship with us—
not
with the human race generically, but with you and me individually;
if we
believe that the Incarnation, the Cross,
and
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
are all parts of a magnificent courtship
by
which God has revealed his undying, passionate love for us;
if
we can think of the day of our Baptism as our wedding day—
the
day our souls were united to God in an enduring bond;
if can
you look ahead 40 days to Easter—
when
we will renew our baptismal promises—
as
a chance to say “I do!” all over again.
about
the many things which can break marriages apart.
But
there are three things that have the power
to
make any marriage last:
true
faith in each other;
abiding
hope for tomorrow;
and
self-giving love,
which
always puts the other’s needs ahead of my own.
Despite
all the devil’s many temptations,
may
our disciplines this Lent help us to grow
in
such faith, hope, and love.
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