Homily for Lent 2 - March 13, 2022

 

Homily for Lent 2

March 13, 2022

Of Things Unseen

 

            Our first reading is such a great scene from the life of Abraham, but we often picture it wrongly. God promises him that he will be the father of countless nations and peoples, and takes him outside to demonstrate this promise. He tells him to look up to the sky and count the stars – and we picture Abraham coming out on a clear night, gazing at the Milky Way.

            But if we read further, we find that the Scripture says “as the sun was setting and it was growing dark.” So…God took Abraham out in the middle of the day! How many stars can you see in the middle of the day? Only one: the sun. But how many stars are out there, hidden and unseen? Billions and billions. In the same way, how many descendants did Abraham live to see? Only one: his son Isaac. But there are approximately five billion people on the earth today who consider Abraham to be their spiritual father: he is the spiritual father of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. He didn’t live to see it – but he trusted in God’s unseen promise.

            It can be hard to trust in things unseen. But isn’t that the core of our faith? God has promised us everlasting life after death for those who love Him – but the world offers us pleasures in the here-and-now. St. Paul talks about this tension in the second reading – he contrasts those whose “god is their stomach, their glory is their shame, and they live for earthly things” while, for believers in Christ, “our citizenship is in Heaven”. But isn’t it easier to pursue the pleasures right in front of us, versus holding out to wait for an unseen reward in Heaven?

In 1972, researchers at Stanford University performed a creative study on children to see how long they would wait for something unseen. They presented them with one marshmallow, and said that if they could wait for fifteen minutes without eating it, they would receive two marshmallows for their patience. They then followed those children through adolescence and young adulthood and found that those who had delayed eating the marshmallow actually did better on the SATs, had less behavior problems and addictions, and were more successful in life.

That’s a pretty good analogy of the spiritual life too. We can choose to have the quick pleasure: the five minutes of scrolling through Instagram instead of praying, the chocolate cake when we should be fasting, the unnecessary purchase on Amazon despite our resolution to give to the poor. But wouldn’t it be better to wait for the unseen reward? Heaven is far better than chocolate cake, Instagram, or stuff we can buy online!

Hence, this is the entire purpose of Lent. We deny ourselves earthly goods so that we can start to desire and hunger for heavenly goods. St. Augustine put it best when he said, “The entire life of a Christian is an exercise of holy desire.” When we feel the pinch of hunger from giving up candy, we realize that we have a real hunger for the delights of everlasting life. When our wallets are empty because we’ve given to the Church or the poor, we realize that true riches are meant to be found in God alone. When we spend our time in prayer, we realize that we hope to spend all eternity in the presence of God. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – the disciplines of Lent - detach us from this world so that we can thirst for a better world, the world to come.

I think of the beautiful example of a recent Italian saint, St. Gemma Galgani, who lived in the late 1800s. She was a devout but ordinary girl until one day one of the nuns in her school gave a talk about how beautiful it is to become a saint. The hearts of the children were stirred up and they all said that they wanted to become holy saints, too. The nun smiled at their innocence and decided to have them draw straws to see who would become a saint first. Gemma was surprised when she drew the longest straw – and remarked, “Yes! I will strive to be a saint!”

From that time on, she kept her eyes focused on Jesus. As a young girl she once said, “How dreary it is upon earth; how pleasant it is in Heaven!” She found great delight in prayer – as a young teen, she would pray the whole Rosary on her knees every night, and every day she practiced some self-denial by giving up candy, patiently enduring some suffering, or holding her tongue from an unkind word. As she continued to advance in holiness, she asked Jesus, “Help me to understand what You did for us on the Cross!”

God answered that prayer in a surprising way – by giving her a share in the Cross. First, her parents died in her mid-teens; because of this, the family was thrown into poverty. She began to suffer physical ailments like a painful scoliosis of the spine, losing her hearing, and migraine headaches. She saw all of this as a way of emptying herself of the world and choosing to live in union with Christ’s Passion. During this long period of physical suffering, one day she heard a voice saying, “This can all be over…if you will only listen to me, I shall free you from all your pains, cure you and make you happy.” She recognized this as the voice of the devil and rebuked him, saying, “My soul is more important than my body!” Her spiritual director recommended that she pray certain prayers to be healed, but she replied, “I want union with God more than this earthly life.”

With her heart firmly fixed upon heavenly union with God, the Lord gave her one more painful gift – the stigmata, which is the Wounds of Jesus Christ in the hands, feet, and side. Like many other saints, she received the mystical gift of suffering from Jesus’ wounds in their own bodies. It is excruciatingly painful – but she wanted to be so conformed to Christ that she willingly (and even joyfully!) suffered with Him. She died at the young age of 25, but by that time she was living her life, not for this passing world, but for the joys of Heaven.

We live for a promise unseen: eternal life with God. We don’t see it yet – but neither did Abraham. He trusted in God’s promise. And so do we if we live for Heaven.