Dear Family and Friends,
This is the First Sunday of Lent. We have some powerful readings summing up salvation history in the Liturgy of the Word today. We read in Genesis: “The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden.” Adam and Eve didn’t know evil, the only knowledge they had was the knowledge of goodness and love… and yet they chose freely to know evil, wounding human nature forever.
In the Psalm today we cry out, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.” We cry out because we (those with a human nature, wounded), long for God’s intervention and mercy. We are weak and have sinned. We are weak and still sin.
Then we read in Romans, “If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.” Our wounded human nature has been redeemed by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, took on our human nature and as the Good Shepherd, picked up our human nature and carried it on the shoulders of his divine nature. The light of his divine nature now shines from within a broken and cracked human nature. As Leonard Cohen sang in Anthem: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
We see Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, in the wilderness, fighting off the devil and responding in a way that Adam and Eve never managed to do: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God… You must not put the Lord your God to the test… You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.” Jesus is starting the healing process of our wounded human nature. We see Mary also doing the exact opposite of Eve in the garden when in the Gospel of John Mary says, “Do whatever he tells you.” God’s word is his Son Jesus. Jesus is Love. Listening to Love and doing what Love tells us is what our human nature longs for and what sharing in God’s divine nature means. It’s a gift given to us in our baptism, let’s ask for the grace to deepen in the beauty of this gift and during this Lent let’s allow God to purify in our hearts what is not gold, what is not love, so only love remains.
Have a great week! If you need anything, never hesitate to ask me.
God bless you and your loved ones, Fr. Kramer Cameron, LC
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