Today we begin the Lenten practices that our Lord asks us to take up in the Gospel.
And they are primarily three. Our Lord asks us to involve ourselves in fasting and in prayer and in almsgiving because these are remedies for our sins.
And so we reflect as we begin the season of Lent on this Ash Wednesday, we reflect upon these three gifts, but we must understand them as our Lord understood them.
And so as he taught the apostles for in and of themselves, many of these things are not virtues for the pagans fast, the pagans pray.
And the pagans give almsgiving. And so it is not the very acts themselves that are virtuous, but the intention by which the acts are performed.
And so we must reflect upon the reason why we must perform these penitential acts in order that they may be virtuous acts.
And so our Lord gives us the reasons why we do so. We do so first and foremost in order that we may make reparation for our sin.
For we know fasting is particularly a remedy for gluttony.
And indeed, it is a lack of fast that caused our first parents to fall for it was in eating the forbidden fruit.
And so they sinned with the mouth. And so it is particularly designed as a remedy for the for the mouth.
But even though we must fast according to the prescriptions of the church, we must understand the fast to be something much more, something much deeper for our fast must be a universal fast.
We must not think that we merely sin with the mouth.
For the eye has.
Been the downfall of many a man and the hearing has also been the downfall of many a man.
And so in Lent, we try to exercise a universal fast in which we mortify all our senses in order that we may come to know better the truths.
And so we do so in order to make reparation for sin.
Second, we must enter into these penitential practices in order not to be known by recognized by men as is common practice in today's.
And age that many take up these things in order to be recognized by others, in order to be praised by others.
And we are not called to be praised by others, for we are called to do these things for a much greater and a much higher ideal.
And that is the third reason why we enter into these practices to glorify God in order to give him all the all the glory that he deserves as our savior.
And so we enter into this season primarily to glorify God.
And so these penitentials.
Penitential practices help us to go deeper and deeper into our faith, for we must not simply mortify the body, although it is very important.
There are many, even in the mystical body of the church, who will offend in several ways.
They will either mortify the body in an excessive way or they will not mortify the body at all.
And so there are many who will deny the very common practices.
There are many who claim to be members of the church who will deny the necessity for manual labor.
Even though the saints are very clear that such a practice is essential.
St. Thomas says that without manual labor, man is most likely not to save his soul because we know it to be a remedy, particularly against that vice known as lust.
And so each and every human being must exercise, must mortify their bodies in this manner through fasting, through manual labor and through all the other ways prescribed by the church and held out by the saints.
But most importantly.
We must also mortify our minds.
So we must fast our minds.
That is, we must be certain that our understanding, our memory and our will are rooted in the supernatural faith that we have.
And so Lent is a particular time where we strive to grow deeper and deeper in our understanding of the faith in order that we may hold in our memory the things that are dear.
And most particularly during Lent, we do not try to hold in our memory those glorious things and those joyful things.
But rather that which caused our salvation, the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so we try each and every moment of our life and indeed the saints were in the practice of each and every day during Lent to make an extended meditation on the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
So that they would drive from themselves the pleasures of this world and the seeking of this worldly pleasures in order that they may truly meditate upon that which was most important.
The sacrifice of the Son of God.
And if we do these things, then our will will be strengthened and we will put into practice these things our Lord has instructed us to do.
St. Leo the Great summarized very well for the Christian what Lent is all about.
He said that during Lent, let every Christian scrutinize himself and dig deeply into his inmost heart.
Let him see that no discord cling there.
No wrong decide.
Let fire be harbored.
Let chasteness drive incontinence far away.
Let the light of truth dispel the shades of deception.
Let the swellings of pride subside.
Let wrath yield to reason.
Let the darts of ill treatment be shattered and the chidings of the tongue be bridled.
Let thoughts of revenge fall through and injuries be given over to oblivion.
And find.
Let every plant.
Let every plant.
Let every plant.
Let every plant.
Let every plant.
Let every plant.
Let every plant.
The heavenly Father hath not planted, be removed by the roots.
And when we reflect upon this statement of St. Leo the Great, we all see how much further we have to go in the Christian life.
How much work we have to do.
And we must understand that even though we have our part to do in this work, it is primarily the work of grace.
And so we must understand that we must always strive for moderation and all things.
Not taking things into our own hands.
Not either by denying the need for fasting or fasting excessively, but doing so always and everywhere under obedience.
And in this, every member of the mystical body can exercise for the church, holds out certain seasons in the liturgy as primarily seasons of penance.
And so even the laity can enter into that form of obedience while they fast, give alms and pray during the penitential season of Lent.
And they must do so in order to the.
Being guided by the prescriptions of the church.
And this is the true fast because it is a fast done out of obedience.
It is not the fast that seeks to draw attention to oneself.
That fast that St. Augustine called one of the beautiful vices of the pagan world.
And indeed, when we fast by this means, St. Alphonsus de Liguri tells us very clearly that we risk a self-weaning pride, a deep pride, a blinding pride.
That whose punishment.
Is not knowing we are even exercising the pride we begin to judge everyone according to ourselves and we begin to critique everything they do according to what we do, that is, we are trying to create each and every one into our own image and likeness.
Yet we know that we are called to be conformed into the image and likeness of our Lord.
And so we must do all these things according to his prescriptions and according to his teachings handed out to us by Holy Mother Church.
And so let us.
Strive each and every moment of our lives to exercise that obedience to Holy Mother Church, knowing that it is not what we are in the eyes of each other, but what we are in the eyes of God.
And so let us strive to be delightful in the eyes of God, not counting the cost and not worrying about what others think of us, but always striving to witness to that faith.
And our Lord tells us that when we do so, we are not to perform these exercises for other people.
To see, obviously, he does not mean literally in the physical sense, for if we are to give arms to the poor, it is inevitable that at some point we will be seen.
If some poor person were to approach us in the street who was starving to death, we don't tell him to come back in a week when no one will see him.
We immediately must reach out and give them their needs.
So what our Lord primarily is telling us here is that we must strive not to be seen by men,
but knowing that we are always.
And so we perform that action out of love for him, not out of love for others, not out of human respect, but first and foremost, out of love for our Lord.
And so we must strive to do everything according to the via media.
And so we must understand the via media as it is taught to us by the doctors and fathers of the church.
It is called the middle way.
But a common error in the modern world is to think that the middle way can be attempted.
That is, by our own designs.
If we take a little bit of excess, a little bit of defect, shake it up in some sort of divine milkshake, we think we attain virtue.
The via media is not the middle way because it is a mixture of excess or defects.
It is the middle way because it is above the two.
That is, we always offend God by either excess or defect.
And in order for us to attain the via media, we must attain union with him who gives us the grace,
to do so.
That is why it is above excess and defect because it is attained to the grace of God.
And so it is a perfectly gratuitous gift.
And so the primary penance we must do in Lent is to pray because it is in prayer that we gain the grace from Almighty God
to avoid excess or defect or to avoid bouncing back and forth from the two or trying to mix the two
as if by social law.
And so doing, we will attain virtue.
And so let us pray constantly to her who is the paragon of virtue.
Her who does all these things, who in no defect is found and no excess, but always the will of God, always the love of God.
Let us turn to the Immaculate Virgin Mary who is the model and exemplar of all those who wish to undergo the penitential practices of Lent.
For her whole life was a Lent because her whole life was a life in doing the will of God.
There was nothing in her that she did for herself.
She did it solely out of love of God.
And because she did so, we are the benefactors of her union with God.
Because by her union with God, she drew the Son of God down to the world and offered that Son for the salvation of the world.
And so let us reflect upon these mysteries as we go about trying to do all the works that the Lord has instructed us to do,
both those penitential practices of the body.
And those penitential practices of the soul, knowing that if we are faithful to him,
he will be faithful to us and bring us to that kingdom that cannot be taken,
that kingdom that lasts for all eternity, where we will praise him together for all eternity.
Amen.