First Sunday in Lent February 21 & 22, 2021 Homily for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of St
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First Sunday in Lent February 21 & 22, 2021 Homily for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of St. Thomas More Catholic Parish celebrated at St. Joseph Catholic Church 116 Theodore Street Scranton, PA 18508 Mark 1:12-15 In today’s Gospel we notice the Lord’s first sermon is very short. After telling us the Kingdom of God is at hand, Jesus says, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” We begin Lent this way every year because of the importance of repentance, of turning away from our sins in order to live in newness of life. Thus, we encourage everyone, in conformity of the precepts of the Church, to make a confession at least once a year, with special emphasis during this season of penitence and fasting. To facilitate this important practice, I am in the confessional a half-hour before every regularly scheduled Mass, every day of the week; so whether people live near or far from here, everyone should have ample opportunity to be absolved before our Easter celebration in April. We also have at the back of the church a guide to confession, not just how to make yours, but also the examination of conscience, to aid us in identifying those ways by which we depart from God’s grace, relying on false consolation and self-help. So, please, take advantage of both these resources, in order that we may all know the fruit of repentance. This fruit is what I’d like to concentrate on this morning. When Jesus tells us to believe in the gospel, He is telling us to believe the Good News; that’s what “gospel” means. Therefore, we see a connection between saying sorry for our sins, entering again into the Grace of God and the good things that flow from a restored relationship, and being reconciled to God and our fellow man. If today were not a Sunday, it would be the feast of St. Peter Damian, the eleventh century Doctor of the Church, and the man after whom our unborn son is named. While the fruit of repentance can be seen in the life of every Catholic who sincerely takes advantage of the sure means of grace, St. Peter Damian’s influence had to do with calling the entire Church to repentance. He grew up in a time of obscene corruption in the Church, an age in which licentiousness reigned, and in a particular way among the clergy. He saw Pope Benedict IX elected to the Chair of St. Peter three times, resigning each time under a cloud of corruption charges and stories about his lust that defiled both married women and boys. It was a time when Church offices were openly purchased, the income from the benefices serving as an incentive for the most unscrupulous and wicked men in Europe to seek ordination to the priesthood. Priests also sought benefices to secure income for their sons, whom they were not supposed to have fathered, but who often would nevertheless inherit the parishes their fathers had ostensibly pastored. In answer to this mess, St. Peter Damian authored the book, Gomorrah, from whose title one can imagine the gross subjects it addressed. This devout reformer dedicated his treatise to Pope Leo IX, recommending reforms by which the clergy of the Church might be purified, reforms that insisted upon the permanent dismissal from the clerical state of all men whose impurities involved one’s neighbors. Happily, many of the reforms he recommended and continued to press for the rest of his life were implemented in the Church. The returning crusaders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are often given credit for the Scholastic movement and the advancement in learning that occurred as Europe regained access to the works of classical antiquity. What the narrative neglects is the repentance from systemic sin that was necessary in order that such works would have fertile ground in which to be planted. It is not an understatement to say that without the work of St. Peter Damian in the middle of the eleventh century, fifty years before the Crusades were even initiated, there would have been no Scholastic movement, no St. Francis, no St. Dominic. For such great ages of evangelization to take place, we need first to repent of the chains in which we have bound ourselves and which are holding us back. A purgation and purification are necessary, if we are to take full advantage of the graces flowing from our Lord’s wounded side. The water must cleanse us before the blood may enliven us. St. Peter Damian understood this relationship and though he died before the full import of his efforts was realized, his zeal for repentance and the fruits that flow from it helped lay the foundation for modern Catholic philosophy and theology. Though most people in the world are unfamiliar with his work, he is one of the most important saints in the history of the Catholic Church, whom Dante in Paradiso places in the highest level of heaven. Hopefully, you notice parallels between the age of St. Peter Damian and our own day. The Good News is that the fruit of repentance will have the same effect. The Church was at its lowest point in 1049, but in 1050 everything changed because a simple priest, St. Peter Damian, called the Church to repentance and millions of Catholics said, “Sorry.” If we desire those fruits for ourselves, the outpouring of graces that accompanies true repentance, we’ll have to turn away from greed and lust, too. The fruit of our repentance, the Good News, is that in our reconciliation we will once again be moved to charity and chastity, so that future saints will have fertile ground from which to harvest an abundance of souls. St. Peter Damian, pray for us. .