Lent is time to rise again
Homily on the 1st Sunday of Lent
February 20, 2010
St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Surulere
Every biography is the story of the dreams, aspirations and achievements of a person, and every
human being is the sum total of his aspirations and potentials. We are always aspiring, always
desiring, always in search of what is true, of what is good, and of fullness of life. There is, in
each of us, a natural desire for the truth, for the good, and for fullness of life. Perhaps someone
might ask: if you say there is in every human being a natural desire for the truth, what then does
one make of the liar? Does the liar have a natural desire for the truth? The answer: even the
habitual or pathological liar has a natural inclination to the truth. And this is evident in the fact
that if you tell a lie to a liar the liar will not like it. Even a liar does not like to be told a lie. And
in the same way, even the perpetrator of evil desires to be loved, desires to be shown goodness.
But it isn’t just the case that we have desires, we can have our desires fulfilled. Not only
do we dream, our dreams can come true, our aspirations can be fulfilled. Not only do we have
these deepest desires in our hearts, God who has put in us the desire for truth, for goodness and
for fullness of life has also created us in such a way that we are able to know the truth, we are
able to find the good, and we are able to attain fullness of life.
But those things we naturally desire, the truth, the good, and fullness of life, cannot be
found in material things. For material things, no matter how beautiful, have their beginning and
their end, their sunrise and their sunset. Like beautiful flowers, the sprout in the morning and
wither in the evening. Our desire for truth, for goodness, and for fullness of life cannot be
satisfied by creatures. This desire can only find fulfillment in God.
We are human. And as human beings, our bodies impose limits on each of us. Each of
us can only be in one place at a time. Only God is everywhere. We are not God. Only God can
do all things. We are not God. What we desire is beyond the limits that this material world
imposes. Yet, God in his loving kindness has given us the capacity to transcend, to go beyond
the limits that the material world imposes.
But we face the temptation of materialism, which is the temptation to look for the
fulfillment of our aspirations only in the possession of material things. It is the temptation to
seek fullness of life in things that have temporary existence, things that have their beginning and
end, beautiful things that are there today but may cease to exist tomorrow. In fact, they may
cease to exist the next fraction of a second. When we seek fullness of life in things that do not
have fullness of life that is when we are running after the air, and whoever tries to catch the air
would know how terribly futile it is to embark on such a venture. The temptation we face is to
seek fullness of life in things that do not last. Such things are beautiful, no doubt. But the
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mistake we often make is to get fixated on their beauty to the point of forgetting or ignoring God,
the Beauty who created them.
We are not alone in this temptation. The Lord Jesus, he who is the Son of God, was
himself tempted to ignore God. That is the teaching the Church places before us every year on
the First Sunday of Lent. Every year, at the beginning of the Lenten season, we are reminded of
the temptation we face by being reminded of the temptation that Jesus had to contend with. This
temptation comes in three forms—the temptation to become slaves to greed, the temptation to
labour for vainglory, and the temptation to nurse an insatiable craving for riches. The devil
dangles before every man and woman the beautiful things of this world and asks us to use them
to replace God. Our hearts are made to desire the fullness of life. But the devil offers us utter
emptiness. And there are many people who accept this offer. There are people who spend their
whole lives chasing after shadows, captivated by the empty promises made by the father of lies.
Are you one of such people? Am I one of them?
To compromise is to make two promises that cancel out each other. To keep either of the
two promises is to fail to keep the other. Compromise, understood this way, is quite different
from virtue, it is quite different from finding the midway between two extremes, between doing
too much and doing too little. Virtue is midway between two extremes. What the devil is telling
us is that the best way to live is to make such promises, promises that cancel out each other. To
claim to serve God and material things is to compromise, it is to make two promises that cancel
out each other. “You cannot serve both God and money,” so say the Scriptures. And in the same
way, no one can serve both God and vainglory, seeking power for the sake of power, not for the
sake of service, seeking power with any means without any regard for the lawfulness or
unlawfulness of the means, a coup d’état or rigged election or palace scheming. You cannot
serve God and pleasure, be they pleasure of food, of drinks, or of sex.
But the devil continues to tell us that a human being can sit comfortably on two chairs,
and that, in fact, the best way to live is to sit on two chairs—the chair of materialism and the
chair of fidelity to God. We have made our baptismal promises. We shall renew them at Easter.
Then, we shall be asked: “Do you renounce Satan? And all his works? And all his empty
promises? Do you believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?” To these
questions we shall answer in the affirmative. Yet we know that sooner or later, our fidelity to
our baptismal vows will be put to test.
Our country is in a terrible shape today because there are many who are entrapped by the
attractive propositions of the Tempter. We have a large population of Christians. And we pray a
lot. We pray at civic functions and social gatherings, at board meetings and prayer meetings.
We pray when nothing works. We pray when we should work. We pray when we allow nothing
to work. We pray when we abdicate our responsibility. We even play when we pray and we pray
when we play. God must be hearing a lot more from Nigerians than he hears from other peoples.
When other countries hold elections, their citizens neither pray, nor fast, nor hold allnight vigils. Yet, the outcome of their elections reflects the will of their voters. In Nigeria, we
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pray, we fast, and we hold all-night vigils before, during and after elections. Yet, even when the
votes are counted, the votes don’t count. There is empty religiosity in a land where many profess
that they believe in God, but the God they worship is what they see when they stand in front of
their mirrors. And so we live in the bondage of political uncertainty, economic turbulence,
pervasive corruption, enthronement of incompetence, and promotion of mediocrity. With greed,
inordinate ambition, and an insatiable desire for riches, our common life has been wounded in
many respects. Things have fallen apart, the centre no longer holds. Our lives must be centred
on God. Our lives are empty without God. And, since is God is love, without God, our lives are
empty without love. When they are not centred on God, intermittent outbursts of “Praise the
Lord”, or “Blood of Jesus”, without sincerity of heart, will not help us out of our current
predicament.
Our politics is corrupt because our religion is corrupt. Politics is about the way we relate
with each other. Religion is about the way we relate with God. The shape of our politics is a
direct consequence of the shape of our religion. Empty religiosity tries to deceive God, and
whoever tries to deceive God will deceive his neighbor. As we shall see on Palm Sunday and on
Good Friday, some human beings are ready to sacrifice God by sacrificing man just to eat,
acquire riches and cling to power. And this is not just about what happened two thousand years
ago, it is a commentary on what is happening at this time, and in this country, in this city.
But there is good news, and the good news is: we can put things right. Christ has shown
us in today’s Gospel that we can conquer evil. We can overcome our temptations turning to
God. A temptation is a challenge, and every challenge is an opportunity to excel. The season of
Lent is a time of testing, a time of facing challenges with the grace that comes from God. It is a
time to allow the word of God and the sacraments of the Church to empower us in our battle with
the Tempter. This is the battle every Christian must face. Our whole life here on earth is a life
of struggle with surrender as we daily face the Tempter.
I said at the beginning of the homily that every biography is the story of the dreams,
aspirations and achievements of a person. There was something I left out. Every biography is
the story of the dreams, aspirations, achievements and failures of a person. If it is to be a
complete story, it must include the story of the many times we have fallen and risen. Such is the
story of every Christian, even of saints. Saints are not sinless persons but sinners with contrite
hearts.
Lent is an opportunity to rise again, a time to write another story, a new chapter in our
lives. It is an opportunity to put things right between us and God, and between us and our
neighbor. The Gospel is not teaching us to hate the good things of this life, but to have a wellordered desire for them. A well-ordered desire for material things, a disciplined use of the
material world, elevates the soul, and frees us to relate well with God and with our neighbor.
That is where prayer, fasting and generosity come in. Lent is a time to learn to enjoy life. And if
you really want to enjoy this life, do not hold tenaciously to material things. Love them and use
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them in a disinterested way. Lent is a time of learning, a time to discipline our hearts and our
bodies so that we do not compromise.
In this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we give thanks to God for his many blessings in our
lives, and as we do so, we implore the Giver of all good things to continue to shower his choicest
blessings on us. In this Mass, this feast of thanksgiving, we receive the body of Christ, fruit of
selflessness. The broken bread we receive is the broken body of Christ giving us the strength to
live for others, to offer our own lives as bread broken for others. This season announces that
Easter is near, so near that it is already here. When we live for others and not just for our selves
and our selfish interests, which is what Lent is teaching us, that is when we have conquered the
Tempter, that is when we have risen with Christ. Lent, my dear friends, is a time to rise again.
Fr. Anthony A. Akinwale, O.P.
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