Sunday Homilies by Fr. Rudolf V. D’ Souza

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Homily for the first Sunday of Lent - Year C - Lk. 4:1-13

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry.

"The devil said to him, «If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.» And Jesus answered him, «It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'»

"And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, «To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours.» And Jesus answered him, «It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'»

"And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, «If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written, 'He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'» And Jesus answered him, «It is said, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'»

"And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. "

Homily

Once a aged lady approached me and said, “Father, it is so annoying that I get all bad stuff in my mind, even at this age, I do not know what is wrong with me. I am fed up of pushing out all these bad thoughts” I pitied her, and said, dear, bad thoughts are bad when you voluntarily dwell on them. I am sure when you say bad thoughts, they are mostly of taking revenge, jealousy, lust etc. Well, our body made of flesh and blood always is a store house of such things, but our spirit is pure and it should make attempts at purifying these thoughts. Nothing wrong with your bad thoughts, you wrong only when you willingly dwell on them. The aged lady left content silently and thanked me.

Examples:

I know of a person who exhausted all his resources playing in Casinos. He became a desperate person losing all his wealth, with the craze of becoming richer.

Many of our young ladies have lost their health, wanting to lose weight and desiring to become film Models etc.

Now a days, many young people work in call centers, and they earn well and finally they do not know what to do with such a lot of money, consequently they end up consuming drugs, viewing bad dirty movies, and consuming alcohol. Well, many call center youth today also suffer of aids and other sicknesses.

BRING OUT YOUR STRENGTHS TO FIGHT THE DEVIL

We all suffer the weakness of our flesh. No doubt about it. Some acknowledge it openly, other suffer silently. But one thing is certain, unless you are filled with the Spirit of God, your temptations in no way useful for you or even for the devil.

Jesus was tempted precisely because He was filled with the Holy Spirit of God. He was let by the Spirit to the Desert.

Try to imagine: you are filled with the Spirit of God, who can be against you?

Led by the Spirit means: you are absolutely full, content, happy, joyful. But God wants to test you, test you because he wants to take you towards greater heights of holiness. Hence, be led by the Spirit of God always. That means, you try to be holy, pure, sincere, lovable, serviceable.

Desert: This is a wonderful concept for spiritual growth. Look at the desert. It is dry, stony, thorny, at times stormy. Well, look at it, and then you get settled slowly. When you are in the desert, no way can you escape. So try to make the best use of the desert. How can you? In our real life Desert means Dryness. Dryness when you work, with your life partner, with your children, with your neighbor, with your relatives etc. This dryness creeps in our life, at one time or the other. Hence need to take into account your situation of dryness, and try to bloom the desert with your personal efforts, you can try to find water, some solace, and comfort.

"The devil said to him, «If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.» And Jesus answered him, «It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'» "

Making bread out of Stone: Devil will always suggest easy way of earning your bread. Just make bread out of stone. Well, this is how the devil tempts all of us to go through the broader way. But Jesus says, choose the narrow way, way of suffering, pain, way of hard work and way of sweat and blood. There is a tendency among us to copy in exams, cheat, way of bribery, way of sweet words, way of easy gains, way of escapism from our daily hard jobs etc. This how the devil puts in our mind to make bread out of stone. But this tendency for easy gains will not last. We need to say to the devil, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God” meaning to say that the Holy Scripture recommends us the difficult way: the way of patriarch Job, way of St. Paul, Way of Jeremiah etc.

" And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, «To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours.» And Jesus answered him, «It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'» "

Devil would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth, provided he worships the devil. Jesus answers him: “you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve”. This is an invitation never to have any other god’s among us. At times, our authority, money, prestige, popularity becomes our gods and we are blinded and we never keep God in our life. We become slaves of all types of gods, and we lose our real worship to the real God, who created us and all the created things in this world. In some families we find some other gods, worshipping simultaneously idols of other religions, and keeping paintings and pictures of other gods and having to do something with them. The Catholic Church condemns this. So cast away all other gods from among you.

" And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, «If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written, 'He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'» And Jesus answered him, «It is said, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'» "

Jesus is taken to the pinnacle of the temple and is asked to jump down. A serious temptation to throw oneself down – means, either be a popular person to attract attention, or commit suicide.

Becoming popular by drawing attention. Well, a craze to become famous. This is dangerous, because once you become popular, you cannot stand there perennially. You have to come down, and when you come down, you are sure to be discouraged. Devil will prompt you become famous and then will put you down, and in that case people get temptations to commit suicide, this we find among the famous people in the world. They climb up and then they become so discouraged at one time that they take to drugs, alcohol and other vices, and devil has his share.

Jesus too had a similar temptation on the Cross, he was asked to come down from the cross, so that they could believe. Well, Jesus certainly could come down, but he saw that there is going to be more glory, victory staying on the Cross. Hence, we are all invited to stay on the Cross, and then enter into our Glory with Him.

Connections with the Gospel Passages:

Jesus says, when you are invited for a celebration, do not choose the first place, rather choose the last and you will be honored when the host takes you up higher.

Unless you become like little children you will not enter into God’s kingdom, an invitation to humility.

Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it will remain single.

Take up your daily cross and follow me.

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