{"id":1040,"date":"2020-03-04T19:49:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T19:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2020-03-04T19:49:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T19:49:37","slug":"reflection-8-march-2020-a-first-sunday-of-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=1040","title":{"rendered":"Reflection 8 March 2020 (A) First Sunday of Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Reflection &amp; Dialogue: Message of Lent: \u201cRepent and Believe in the Gospel\u201d. Dying to Oneself in order to have life in Christ.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lent is not a time for mere externals, sackcloth and ashes. It is a period of forty days in which to reflect on the Christian mystery, on Christian life in Christ, on the dignity and dangers to the human person and on God\u2019s message through Christ regarding all these truths. All this is done with reference to Christ, the New Man, the New Adam. During his forty days in the wilderness Jesus must have reflected on these truths, and the temptations against accepting his Father\u2019s understanding of the human person and God\u2019s response to this through Christ\u2019s own life, his self-emptying, death and resurrection. An ancient hymn, in Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians, \u00a0says that although in the form of God, Jesus did not think equality with God as something to be used for human advantage. Instead he humbled himself and willed instead to be found, and recognized, in human form. The reference is probably not to Jesus\u2019 divine form, divine nature. The hymn, rather, is probably making a contrast between Christ and the First Adam in the garden. Eve was told by the serpent, the tempter, that if she and Adam asserted their autonomy by eating from the forbidden fruit, disobeying God\u2019s command, they would become like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:1-5). Adam, in human form, succumbed to the temptation to take on divine form, with disastrous consequences. Christ would have similar temptations but resisted, and became and an example for his followers, and a source of their salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The drama of the first Adam and Christ, the second Adam, has\nbeen played out down through history, a drama still being enacted in our own\nday. Christianity and much of modern life have contrasting views of the human person\nand what fulfilment of human desires is. There is a tendency in a widespread\nmodern worldview to regard the human person, and humanity, as one dimensional,\nautonomous, with a requirement to live and develop one\u2019s own personal and\nsocial life without any input from outside, from God or Church. This is quite\nthe opposite of the New Testament and biblical teaching. Central to this is\nthat God is love, that God loves the world, and has sent his Son to bring this\nmessage of love to humanity. Christ came so that believers in him, and\nhumanity, have life and have it abundantly (see John 10:10). Christ is the\nsource of life, but also its model. But Jesus also clearly tells us that\nfinding the life he brings entails dying to self in a number of things; life in\nhim entails taking up one\u2019s cross and following him (Mathew 9:35-47). Jesus\nstresses the values of the human person. What does it profit anyone to gain the\nwhole world and forfeit the integrity of one\u2019s own person? What can be given in\nreturn for one\u2019s self? (see Matthew 16:26). In its reflection on the role of\nthe <em>Church in the Modern World <\/em>(paragraphs\n40-44) Vatican II has treated of this question very sensitively: on the mutual\nrelationship of Church and world (no. 40), what the Church offers to\nindividuals (no. 41), what the Church offers to society (no. 42), what the\nChurch offers to human activity through its members (no. 43). The text is\navailable on the internet. It merits reading and reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/strong>Lent is a call to turn away from false values and turn\nto the Gospel message. The period calls for reflection and devotion. Faith is\nnourished by devotion, personal and collective, whether in parish or family.\nDevotion need not be ostentatious. It can be personal and quiet, for instance\nreflecting on Fridays on Jesus\u2019 call to follow him, and in honour of his\nPassion abstaining from meat (by use fish or otherwise) at the main meal. And\nthere are many other ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reflection &amp; Dialogue: Message of Lent: \u201cRepent and Believe in the Gospel\u201d. Dying to Oneself in order to have life in Christ. Lent is not a time for mere externals, &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}