<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t get any clearer than today\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 First, Jesus tells of his own fate.\u00a0 He must suffer greatly, be rejected by the supposedly good men of his society, and then be killed.\u00a0 Then he tells everyone that they must also take up their own cross daily, and die to themselves in order to save their own lives.<\/p>\n
You see, a certain kind of suffering is absolutely necessary to salvation.\u00a0 That\u2019s what both Moses and Jesus are talking about this morning.<\/p>\n
Basically, Moses told the people that they had to obey the Lord and His Law at all costs.\u00a0 Yet, the Israelis disobeyed the law and the Lord over and over again by not having faith that the Lord was with them; by moving off in their own direction; and by testing Him.\u00a0 <\/em>They did that to relieve their suffering and fear in the short term.\u00a0 But in the long term, they ended up wandering aimlessly for 40 years.\u00a0 So, they suffered greatly despite their own best efforts, and really, as Moses points out, because of their own best efforts.<\/p>\n What about you and I?\u00a0 Are we strong in our faith, or do we test the Lord and His patience, doing things our way to avoid the suffering God has given us as part of our lives?\u00a0 We have 40 days to think about it- Lent is just starting.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what we are asked to do during Lent- to pull back some from the daily grind; cut back on our self-indulgence- that\u2019s the fasting part; recognize that everything is a gift from God and that life is not just about us, so that we should share our gifts with others- that\u2019s the almsgiving; and reflect on what God really is directing us to do with our lives- that\u2019s the prayer part.<\/p>\n The challenge is to sort out God\u2019s plan for us, and not our own plan.\u00a0 God loves all of us; and He wants only the best for us.\u00a0 He gives us talents and interests, and relishes in our successes.\u00a0 And most of us go off and shape our lives around the talents and interests we have.\u00a0 But there are consequences that follow the free exercise of our talents and interests.\u00a0 These include how we allocate our time, and how we accept the responsibility that comes with our chosen path in life.\u00a0 The devil tries constantly to derail us from God\u2019s path, mostly by appealing to our self-interests and by making the desires we have to satisfy ourselves dominant.\u00a0 We become addicted to video games, watching TV, football, fashion trends, and following celebrities for example.\u00a0 This takes away from time adults spend with their families and the duties they have as parents.\u00a0 And it takes away from time children should use for homework and doing their chores.<\/p>\n We neglect the need to take care of ourselves physically- not getting enough exercise, not eating the right kinds of foods.\u00a0 We avoid taking care of our neighbors when they are in need because we are too busy or we have something else we want to do.\u00a0 We don\u2019t get involved in finding out more about our faith because our self-interests conflict and always dominate.<\/p>\n Well, this Lent, let\u2019s make an attempt to really pull back and look at our lives.\u00a0 How am I being pulled by my own self- centeredness so that I am not following God\u2019s plan for me; and how can I change that so that I accept more of the pain associated with not being so self-absorbed?<\/p>\n Try to identify one such thing that is holding you back from God\u2019s plan for you and make a change as part of Lent.\u00a0 It may be a diet; a may be a little exercise; it may be some time with the family; it may be an effort to get involved in something to help others, or to improve your own spirituality.\u00a0 And even though it may seem painful at first.\u00a0 You will be surprised later at how it saves your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thursday after Ash Wednesday Dt 30: 15-20; Luke 9: 22-25 Dc. Larry Brockman It doesn\u2019t get any clearer than today\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 First, Jesus tells of his own fate.\u00a0 He must suffer greatly, be rejected by the supposedly good men of his society, and then be killed.\u00a0 Then he tells everyone that they must also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[187,186],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}