The Cunning Ways of Fallen Angels

Today's first reading, Genesis 3: 1-8, we are given the story of the temptation both Eve and Adam faced in the Garden of Eden. Both failed the test!  Satan is a fallen angel, an intelligent being bent on turning us away from God and believing that we ourselves are gods. When deceived by fallen angels, we act as a god, totally independent of any authority outside of ourselves. We then boast of our independence and believe that we are truly wise.  "God knows well," Satan tells us, that the moment [we choose independence from God or others, we will be wise, like God and, Satan says to us:] "your eyes we be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil [--you need surrender to no one] and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loinclothes for themselves. When they heard the sound of the Lord moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, [they] hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden."


When you and I are being tempted do what is wrong, that is, to walk away from God, rejecting God's will and choosing your own in any circumstance, we know in the core of our beings what we are doing.  Adam and Eve knew. As soon as they gave in to the temptation to "be like gods," their eyes "were opened, and they realized that they were naked."  What do you and I do when we act like gods and do what we know is not right or just, we, like Adam and Eve, try to hide the truth. The closer another comes to what is really true in confronting us, the louder we protest--we erect bigger trees, speak bigger lies,  build bigger walls behind which we hide!

In the responsorial psalm of today's liturgy, Psalm 32, we pray:  "Blessed [are those] whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered. Blessed [are those] to whom the Lord imputes not guilt, in whose spirit there is no guile [because they have] acknowledged [their] sin..., [their] guilt they] covered not."

May you and I not cover our guilt when we are acting as gods or seeking to be a god and not servants of the Living God, our Master!  Lord, our our eyes when we are turning away from you and erecting ourselves as an idol!

Aware that Our Actions Have Consequences

In today's gospel, Mark 1: 40-45, a leper approaches Jesus, kneels down and says: "'If you wish, you can make me clean.' Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched the leper, and said to  him, 'I do will it. Be made clean.' The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean."  Jesus asked him to tell no one about the healing. However, he broadcast it everywhere to the point that "it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places...."   Jesus suffers the consequences of the leper's inability to respect Jesus' request for privacy and ends up in the position of lepers who had to remain apart from people and stay in deserted places.

The question we need to ponder is: Are we aware of the consequences of the choices we make when faced with sharing our pleasant or unpleasant experiences? When something exciting or painful or traumatic happens, it is easy to get caught in the trap of impulsively sharing it with someone, if not everyone who crosses our path. The temptation to blurt everything out "on the street corners"  is powerful! However, God is far more powerful than Satan and is always at our side with His guidance and wisdom!  May God's wisdom prevail!  

Faith, Humility, Trust

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in today’s first reading, Daniel 3: 14-20, 91-92, 95, stand firm in their faith. They do not succumb to King Nebuchadnezzar, who has threatened them with death if they did not bow down and worship his god.  “There is no need for us to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  If our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, O king, may he save us! But even if he will not, know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue that you set up.”

 Is our faith as firm as that of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? Are we that centered in God? Or are we self-centered, demanding that God perform a miracle? Would we say: “even if God will not perform the miracle that I am seeking, I still will not bow down to lesser gods, including acting as though I myself am a god, a person with supernatural powers, a person whose demands are God’s demands?

 How many times are we not faced with the choice of not worshiping "the golden statue" which Satan sets up for us, hoping we will fall into his trap? How difficult at times it is to remain silent rather than loudly stating our position, arguing ad infinitum to defend our point? Are there not times when it is difficult to let God be our defense in God's time? Letting God be God demands of us a lot of humility, trust, and faith in the Unseen God.  We risk looking stupid, feeling humiliated, and scorned by onlookers, as Jesus experienced on the cross where our sin of pride is destroyed by Jesus' humility and obedience to the will of His Father to save us from sin.  Jesus did not defend Himself and asks the same of us!

Delighting in the Precepts of the Lord

In today’s first reading, Rev. 10: 8-11, John is instructed to “…take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” He was told to eat it, that it would be sweet to the palate but sour in his stomach.  God’s decrees, in the honeymoon stage of our faith development tastes sweet. In the early stages of being married, being incorporated into religious life, in the beginning of our careers, we will do anything for the Lord, anything for our spouses, anything for our employers. Nothing is held back. Eventually, what tasted sweet to the palate turns sour in our stomach. We may begin to hold back, lose our fervor.  In Chapter 3 of Revelation, the angel of the Church in Laodicea, told the people that “you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Satan delights in our wavering faith, in our lukewarmness, as he prowls this earth seeking souls to destroy. Will I be deceived by Satan’s allurements and lose my original fervor? What do I need to do be reigniting my fervor, my love, my delight in the Lord? What efforts am I willing to take to fall in love with the Lord again, to rekindle my love for my spouse, to recommit to religious life and its total giving of self to loving God, loving other and serving without counting the cost?

Temptations: Feeling Trapped between Right and What is Not Right

Today we celebrate the feast of John the Baptist, the one who prepared the people for God the Son’s coming into this world to walk among us as a human being, teaching us the way to the Father, to God’s Kingdom here on earth and in eternity.  Herod was fascinated by John, loved to hear him preach but did not follow his counsel, living according to his own will, not God’s, as did Adam and Eve and their descendants to this very day.  John, being a righteous man, confronted Herod when he married his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias.  It was Herodias and his own daughter who trapped him into doing that which was truly against his conscience.

Herod, Herodias and their daughter’s lives were dominated by wealth, power and self-indulgence, a form of self-idolatry. We ourselves live in a world ruled by secularism, materialism and unlimited freedoms, a  narcissism and forms, also, of self-idolatry.  We become our own gods, so to speak.  Hence, as with Herod, temptations abound in our lives.

To whom am I going to listen today: my narcissistic self or my God-self, the voices of others egging me on to follow the Father of Lies or the voice of the Spirit inviting me to follow Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life which the world does not recognize?  The choices is ours!

Blessed by the Lord, our God, our Deliverer

In today’s first reading, Dan 3: 14-20, 91-91, 95, the King asked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, “is it true…that you will not serve my god, or worship the golden statue that I set up? Be ready now to fall down and worship the statue I had made, whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, flute, lyre, harp, psaltery, bagpipe, and all the other musical instruments. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not succumb to the King’s demands and are bound and thrown into the white-hot furnace. When the King peers into the furnace and sees three men unfettered and unhurt walking  on the red-hot coals with the Son of Man in their midst, he proclaims “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel to deliver the servants who trusted in him.”

In the Gospel , Jn 8:31-42, Jesus, the one true God, reveals the Father’s will and  challenges the Scribes and Pharisees who are planning to kill him.  They carry out their plans and Jesus is executed by crucifixion on the cross.  Death has no power over Him.  He is risen from the dead and now sits at the right of God in glory as king “until he has made his enemies his footstool” (1 Cor 15: 25-26).

The three men in Daniel testify to the power of the one true God to save us from harm and set us free.  Jesus actually does save us and set us free from Satan’s snares to worship false gods. Those false gods are the focus of many of our commercials. Marketing experts “sound the trumpet, flute, lyre, harp, psaltery, bagpipes and all the other musical instruments” to  lure people into worshipping consumerism, materialism, individualism, sexism, and the ego’s demands to exert  power over others, use pleasure at other’s expense, and accumulate wealth for selfish ends.

We, too, are faced every day with the choice Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego made when they said to the king:  “…we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue that you set up."  Yes, every day we, too, are faced with the blaring invitations to worship the gods of this world, of pagan cultures and pagan societies or to worship the one true God and to listen to Jesus’ Gospel messages. Which choice will I make today?

The Fiscal Cliff from a Faith Perspective

These past few days it looked as though  Congress was going to throw the American people over the fiscal cliff into a den of lions waiting to devour our trust in a nation whose idols are wealth, consumerism, materialism, unleashed freedom, modeled by a government that overspends and continues to allow corruption to erode our moral integrity by avoiding actions that need to be taken.

Perhaps what we need to reflect upon in light of the sensational drama played out in our
Capitol these past few days is the testing in the desert that Jesus endured before he began his public ministry. Following His baptism by his cousin John, Jesus  is led into the desert by the Spirit. Satan tempts Him there, seeing how weak he is after fasting forty days and forty nights:

“‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves’.  But  Jesus replied,

‘Scripture says: Human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes

from the mouth of God.’“  (Mt. 4:3-4).

 

Every time Congress does not give us what we want, is God saying to us: “Human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”?

Satan tempts Jesus further, taking Him to the holy city and setting him on the parapet of the Temple.

 

“‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down; for scripture says:  He

 has  given his angels orders about you, and they will carry you in their arms in case

 you trip over a stone.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Scripture also says: Do not put the Lord

your God the test’” (Mt. 4: 5-7).

 

Are we not constantly putting God to the test by engaging in immoral behaviors, closing our eyes to corruption, worshipping idols, chasing wealth as the god that saves, believing  that we have been

“given… angels…[who] will carry…[us] in their arms in case…[we] trip over a  stone”?

And finally, taking Jesus

 

“…to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world

and their splendor. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all these, if you fall at my

feet and do me homage.’ Then Jesus replied, ‘Away with you, Satan! For scripture

 says: ‘The Lord your God is the one to whom you must do homage, him alone

you must serve.’  The devil left him, and suddenly angels appeared and looked

after him” (Mt. 4: 8-11).

Are we ready to say to Satan: “Away with you!”  Is that the lesson of the fiscal cliff!