First Sunday of Lent

Msgr. Michael Woster
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
First Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024

We have some very powerful images today in that first reading — flood, God’s anger, destruction. This was a way that our God chose to make a new beginning from the great evil brought into the world by mankind during the time of Noah. But God’s mercy triumphs over his judgment. He promised that he would never do this again. That he would find another way to deal with your sins and with mine and the evil of our world. 

 He placed a great sign of this promise to find another way — the rainbow, which we see every time we have a spring and summer storm. The rainbow. What is the rainbow? It’s God’s bow. It’s his weapon of war which he literally symbolically truly hangs up, puts away. From that time on God sought a new way to deal with our sinfulness in the evil of our world and we learned that this way, through Jesus, becomes the divine invitation to change. 

To change one’s lifestyle can be extremely difficult. I might ask everybody, how are you doing with your new year’s resolutions? We know how hard it is to change and yet many people in our world, sometimes are forced to change. It’s not something they can choose. Catastrophic natural disasters, illnesses, other personal tragedies impose on us changes in our life. We think, for example, of the thousands and even millions of refugees who lose their work, their home, even sometimes their families because of all the wars and disruptions going on in the Middle East and the rest of the world today. 

In today’s Gospel from Mark, Jesus invites us all to choose to change our lives. Not impose. We have the free will to ignore his invitation, but failure to accept it we’re warned will have disastrous consequences. Repentance, or in the Greek language metanoia, is a change of mind and heart in the lifelong process of transformation. Jesus is not asking us these days to do things by temporarily giving up something pleasurable — chocolate, desserts, whatever your favorite libation might be. Though sometimes these things are useful symbolically for what they’re meant to accomplish. A means to an end, namely to the metanoia to which Christ invites us. No his metanoia is both a turning away from evil, that is whatever keeps us from holiness and our discipleship of the Lord, and a turning toward everything that orients us to authentic and unconditional love. 

We learn in the Gospel today there is no better time to begin this turning then right now. Good intentions to make lifestyle choices in the future become empty, meaningless in light of our Lord’s invitation as we hear him say, “This is the time. This is the time of turning away from sin and believing and living the Gospel.” 

We heard this very same line just a few days ago as we received the ashes placed upon our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. We heard the priest or the minister say, “Repent. Change. Turn away from sin and believe in the Good News of God.”

A reception of ashes on Wednesday, indicates that we do desire to change, we wish to change, and we intend to change. If you are like me, you’re aware of some area of weakness, some area of selfishness, some area of sinfulness that we have not yet allowed God to touch and to heal. This is the time. This first week of Lent, reflect prayerfully about how we, during these 40 days, will allow God to come more deeply into our lives and help us bring about the change that is needed in our Christian life. The change which God most desires to happen if we are to be his faithful grace filled disciples. 

And so, the focus of this first week of the Lenten Season is not necessarily about doing something different or better. Not yet at least. Rather the action, this week is a contemplative and reflective one. The goal of this first week of Lent is to discern clearly and courageously what our personal metanoia, that is conversion, needs to be. Then after this week, with the following weeks to come, to take the steps necessary to bring that conversion about by God’s grace, by His power, and by His holy love.