FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
My Dear Parishioners
It is so easy to look with contempt and bemusement at many of the characters we encounter in the Scriptures. The Israelites saw the Red Sea open before them as they were freed from slavery, yet they consistently complained about the Lord’s lack of generosity. The Apostles saw miracle after miracle; how could they doubt that Jesus was who He said he was? But our First Reading is perhaps the best example of them all.
Adam and Eve have everything. They were created exclusively out of God’s love and given everything they would need. God has poured out endless generosity and goodness upon them. He has one rule… that they cannot eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the exclusive domain of God… but they can do anything else. Yet they are seemingly easily caught by a simple deceit of the serpent. How could they have believed that God was keeping something from them? How could they doubt God’s goodness with everything they had seen?
A priest once asked us in seminary, “What is the hardest doctrine for people to believe?” When we answered, “The Immaculate Conception,” “The Virgin Birth,” or “Transubstantiation,” the priest simply shook his head and said, “People have struggles with all of those, but the hardest doctrine for people to believe is that God loves them.” While this seems absurd at first glance, the experience of Adam and Eve proves it to be true.
Adam and Eve ignore everything God has done for them and rebel against Him because they think He is not a good Father. They assume that He is keeping something from them, and that if they do it their own way, they will be happier. They forget God’s goodness and quickly resort to their own designs.
The result is predictable and relatable, if only because we have done the same thing thousands of times. Adam and Eve quickly realize that rebellion against the Father leads only to sadness and isolation. The same happens with us. God gives us blessing after blessing, yet at the first hint that maybe I do not have everything I want, I assume God is holding back on me, and I choose my own thing. I rebel, get hurt, God forgives me… and then I’ll go through the cycle again! This is the sad human condition after the Fall.
Christ’s fasting and triumph over the Devil in the desert provides us with a better way. The devil uses the same tricks as he used with Adam and Eve. “You could have more.” “You could be more popular.” “You could be more powerful.” Yet where Adam and Eve fell, Christ stands strong. After each temptation, Christ acknowledges that His Father has a plan, and that real joy comes only from trusting Him.
We have begun the great adventure of Lent, where we enter the desert with Christ. Our prayers, fasts, and almsgiving give us the opportunity to trust that God is who He says He is. When I get a little hungry, don’t want to go to stations, or give some of my extra resources to charity, I’m implicitly telling the Father that He can make me happier than I can make myself. Every pang of hunger, check I write, or prayer time I spend gives me the chance to do what Adam and Eve cannot do: trust the Father!
While much of my life has been a mirror image of the experience of Adam and Eve, this Lent grants me the opportunity to follow Christ’s lead and put my Faith in the God who can never let me down.
Peace,
Fr. Monteleone
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