B Cycle – 1^st Sunday of Lent 24

Mt. 1:12-15

Repent and believe the gospel is one of the options which are said as the ashes were place on your forehead Wednesday.  Perhaps the other formula reminds us too much of death as this one reminds us to do something now.  But turning from sin is not as easy as that admonition sounds. The issue we face is those sins have been with us for a long time.  We have struggled with them forever and we still cannot seem to overcome the temptation they present to us. They beat us up and drag us down each time we yield to them, and we have repented with vows never to do that again.    

How do we turn away from them if Satan has exploited that weakness within us and is relentless in how often it can be offered to us. Would you believe me if I told you, it is easier than we think?  Easy for me to say but the simple truth is God has equipped us for holiness. It is possible for us to rid ourselves of that persistent sin. 

Peter in our second reading reminds us of one Sacrament we have received that we continually fail to appropriate the grace of it in overcoming sin. He refers to the family of Noah who were saved from the flood waters when all of creation was destroyed.  Peter says that the “water prefigured the waters of baptism” which saves us now. Now means now, today, and all the tomorrows. 

Peter says, the waters of baptism, is “…not a removal of dirt from your body, but an appeal to God for a clear conscious through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”   During our baptism each of us was anointed with the “oil of salvation” which is accompanied by a prayer of exorcism, praying that Christ would strengthen us all our lives.  That anointing does not end as we leave the church after our baptism.  Our problem with sin is we struggle to overcome it by our own efforts. We do not rely of the equipment God has given us at baptism – the anointing of the Holy Spirit by water and the Oil of Salvation and of Chrism.    

Peter certainly understood the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.  We can talk about Peter for days because he was so like us.  He strongly believed and at times failed to live what he believed. He interpreted things incorrectly and acted on those wrong impulses.  He was often confused.  We saw this when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration. Yet, he was certain about who Christ was and he died trusting in God’s grace and forgiveness. 

His humanity is a living lesson of how we will never stop making blunders and will continually fail to live according to God’s will.  Yet, we have a Savior who believes in us and who had died so that we might be cleansed of our sin, and He equipped us for holiness by sending us the Holy Spirit to change our hearts.

 There it is the means to overcome that one sin that haunts us and which we struggle with constantly.  Peter understood the power of the Spirit to transform us from weaklings to giant defeating warriors.  He experienced that power transforming him on the day of Pentecost.  From that day on his faith never faltered. 

That same transforming power is available for us to help us turn from sin and to be faithful to the gospel. 

Perhaps instead of our normal Lenten practices and sacrifices we should daily seek to be anointed by that grace we received at our baptism.  Allow the Spirit to show us first how all our sins are forgiven by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How all those past times we received the Sacrament of Reconciliation our sins were not only forgiven by God, but He offered us the opportunity to become sons and daughters, filled with grace and power to defeat any enemy of God.

Satan’s plan is to constantly remind of our failures and keep us from remembering the power of God.  He uses our weakness to convivence us we will never be free of that sin.  How can we believe and have a clean conscience if we cannot forget our past sins?  We cannot because the memory of them clings to us like a leach sucking us dry.  But Christ tells us we can and will become “new creations.” We need to have a renewal of our minds and remember Christ promised that we can become new creations.   The old has passed away and God can do something new within us by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.  

We will never become new creations by our own efforts but by the gift of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy spirit.  We are offered this new life now, not some day in the future.  It is pure gift from a God who desires nothing more than to have us turn back to Him and allow Him to reembrace us.  We will be renewed by the transforming power of God’s love, the gift of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lent is a period when the Church reminds us to turn back to God with all our hearts. To enter His gates with songs of praise and rejoicing for the gift of Jesus Christ. It is time for us to invite the Holy Spirit to do within us what it did for Peter on the day of Pentecost.  

Come Holy Spirit renew in us the grace of our own baptism and remake us in the image of Christ.