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Spirituality

February 21 , 2017 | The Valley Catholic

By Father Brendan McGuire

Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish , San Jose , and Vicar General for special projects , Diocese of San Jose . Email him at bmcguire @ dsj . org .

Sinful Habits Sunday , February 26 , 2017 I have a confession to make . I have a sinful habit : I starve my body of sleep ! It has not always been sinful , just a bad habit . I like to go to bed late , and I love to get up early . I will get as little as three hours of sleep and as much as a whopping seven . I average around four or five hours of sleep each night . It has moved from a bad habit to a sinful habit because it is now getting in between God and me .

Twice this last week , I have fallen asleep during my hour of Morning Prayer . I tried to make up for those lost minutes of prayer later in the afternoon , and within less than five seconds I was asleep again . I knew that it was no longer just a bad habit . It was now a sinful one . It was now between God and me .

My friends have been telling me for ages that I should be getting more sleep . My family is worried about it . Even the Bishop has said to me , “ You need to get more sleep ,” as he gets a 3 a . m . e-mail from me . But it was my spiritual director who got my attention when he said it was a spiritual problem !

In today ’ s Gospel , Jesus is not railing against mammon . He is not saying that money or material wealth is a problem ; he is saying that it is only a problem if God is not the master of it . We cannot serve two masters : either we serve God as our master , or we allow mammon to dictate the rules . My “ mammon ” is lack of sleep .

If we are not finding enough time for prayer , we have another master . We know these things intellectually , but somehow we cannot affect change in our lives until we recognize that we do not have just bad habits . We have sinful habits because they get between God and us .

Today there are many people not getting enough sleep , especially young people in school . They are not getting to bed on time , and I understand that all too well . But if they do not have time for God , then their habit is no longer just a bad habit ; it is in fact a sinful habit .

I ask you to challenge yourself and find out what it is that separates you from God . What is holding you back from developing a more profound and deeper relationship with God and Jesus Christ ? And whatever habit that you thought was just a bad habit , maybe it is a sinful one because it is holding you back from being with God . Reflect on this reality for Lent and give up something different !

Best Time to Reflect Sunday , March 5 , 2017

I have a friend whose favorite time of year is the month of May because it is basketball playoffs . For others , it is the hockey season playoffs . For others , it is summer or spring . Everyone has their own favorite time of year , and it changes as we age .

When I was a kid , I looked forward to summer . School was out ! When I got older , I looked forward to early fall because that is when we would start playing rugby . I loved that game . When I came to America , I really started to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons .

Now one of my most favorite times of the year is Lent . It is a time of refocusing on the spiritual journey . It is a time of reflection , a time to look inward and see where we are in our journey of faith .

In this season , we can focus on the wrong things of Lent . Today ’ s readings speak not so much about the desert as about what we do in the desert . We are called to confront the reality of who we really are . We confront the truth about ourselves , for good or for bad . We look in the mirror of our lives , and we ask , “ What am I really like ?” Jesus is led into the desert by the Spirit so that he , too , faces the truth about who he really is . We , too , need to face the truth about what we are really like and who we really are .

In today ’ s Gospel , you will notice it is all about power . The devil says to Jesus that he can turn the stones into bread : power over the stones . You can command the angels : power over the angels to do what you tell them . And finally , over the kingdom that I will give you : the power over people .

Jesus ’ response is to give up all of that power and give the power to God ; God was going to be the focus of everything that he did and who he was . We are called to imitate that vision of life . To do so , we must enter into the desert of Lent ourselves . We must do exactly what Jesus did , to really look at the truth of ourselves . To look in the mirror of our lives and to look at what we are really like and how we use the power that we have in our lives .

Today ’ s Gospel is a challenge to us to focus on God . What is his will for me ? What would Christ have me do in this particular moment ? To really be honest with ourselves and to really look at what we are like to live with . When I say , or do this , what does the other person experience ? And is that really what Christ has called me to be ? Is that really my best self ?

This is not a one-day project . The Church takes this season so seriously that we take all 40 days to do it . And we call that season Lent . And there are three suggestions on which to focus our attention : prayer ; fasting and almsgiving .

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