Lent is the penitential season in the Church's liturgical year; it begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with the celebration of the Paschal Mystery (Easter Triduum). During Lent, the Church reflects the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert in fasting and prayer (CCC 540, 1095, 1438). So on this occasion we learn from Saint Teresa of Avila how we pray.

At the beginning of her reform of the Carmelites, St Teresa of Jesus was asked by the nuns of her first foundation – the monastery St Joseph in Avila – to teach them how to pray. In her response, she chose the spirit of Lent as her guide; she chose the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 6. Her answer to the cloistered nun's request was The Way of Perfection, her first book of teachings. In it, she presents her meditations on the Our Father, the prayer of the Lord – the core of chapter 6 of the Gospel of Matthew.

At the beginning of her book (Ch. 4) St Teresa lays out the proper foundations for a life of prayer: "I shall enlarge on only three things, which are from our constitutions, for it is very important that we understand how much these three things help us to possess inwardly and outwardly the peace our Lord recommended so highly to us.

"The first of these is love of one another; the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all others" (W4, 4).

St. Teresa's connection to the spirituality of Lent is now clear: love of one another relates to alms giving; detachment points to fasting; and, the essence of prayer is rooted in humility. This is Teresa's masterful insight to a life of prayer for her nuns and to all of us today.

Humility is a relational word that acknowledges that God is the creator and man is indeed the creature. The virtue of humility shows that God is the author of all Good and humanity recognizes their total dependence on God and on His goodness and mercy. In the words of the Church, humility avoids inordinate ambition of pride, reveals a contrite heart, and provides the foundation for turning to God in prayer (Cf. CCC 2559).

St. Teresa by highlighting humility solves the situation presented by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them" (Mt 6,1); piety to be seen by men is pride; and the antidote of pride is the virtue of humility, as Teresa rightly points out.

Therefore, to obtain the inner and outward peace that the Lord promises, St. Teresa's counsels, for a fulfilling life of prayer, is to be centered in humility – for it embraces fully both almsgiving and fasting; in her words, it embraces both love of neighbor and detachment of all things. Thus, immersed in the virtue of humility, our prayer life will flourish and the spirituality of Lent will always present in your life. 

The Cross Is Always Linked to the Resurrection

We are still at the beginning of Lent, this season of repentance and penitence, but today the Church is already talking to us about the Resurrection. In the transfiguration of Jesus in today's Gospel, Peter, James, and John get a glimpse of Christ's eternal glory, the glory he claimed fully after the resurrection.

St Paul, in today's Second Reading, writes passionately about God's power and faithfulness as revealed in Christ. And he changes his emphasis mid-sentence to take the spotlight off Christ's death on the cross and let it shine on his glorious resurrection. And in the passage about Abraham and Isaac, which narrates events that took place almost 2000 years before Christ, the release of Isaac from his bonds gives him new life - this too is a symbol of Christ's resurrection.

Even today's Psalm, when it speaks about walking with the Lord in the Land of the living and God "loosening the bonds" of his servant, is pointing our attention towards Christ's glorious resurrection. And yet, Easter is still more than a month away! What's going on here? It's very simple, really.

Lent is indeed meant to be a time of repentance and penitence, a time of sacrifice and reflection in which we acknowledge the weight of suffering in the world and in our lives, suffering that always has its roots in sin. This suffering is always part of the story of every human life, with or without Christ; but with Christ, it is not the end of the story. Crosses purify us of selfishness, if we allow them to, teaching us to lean more on Christ and to have a greater experience of his wisdom and joy - his resurrection.

In our Catholic faith, the cross and resurrection are two sides of the same coin; we must never allow ourselves to think of one without thinking of the others.

Running Marathons with Christ

Ryan Hall, the professional marathon runner who competed for the United States in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, understands this concept well. Ryan is a Christian, and his running career has always been linked to his faith. While in eighth grade and doing a 15-mile run in his hometown of Big Bear Lake, California, he suddenly felt a calling to compete in running at the highest levels: "I felt God had blessed me with this talent," he said in an interview years later. Since then, Ryan has been trying to glorify God by developing his running talent and bearing witness to his faith. His wild success in high school and college enabled him to launch a professional career.

While training for the Olympics, his daily schedule was like this: rise at 7am, eat breakfast, run 10 to 12 miles; eat lunch, have a massage or an ice bath to ease the muscles; take an afternoon nap to recover from the morning workout; run another five to six miles, go to the gym for strength and flexibility exercises; eat dinner, go to bed. That schedule is like most professional marathon runners. But on the night before a big race, Ryan's schedule breaks the mold. Instead of relaxing or listening to music, he watches Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, to get mentally prepared.

The example of Christ's suffering and resurrection helps him manage his pain during the race. He recalled being in agony in the final two miles of the London Marathon in April 2007, where his top performance shocked his competitors. His body was being stifled by a combination of 70-degree heat and a suffocating pace he had set earlier in the race. How was able to keep up his pace? Here's how he explained it: "I actually saw visions of the scarred body of Jesus, and it made me able to go on."

If we bear our crosses with Christ, we will also experience the power of Christ's resurrection - the two always go together.

Keeping the Balance of Christian Wisdom

A healthy, balanced Christian has to always keep these two things in view. By thinking of the resurrection, we find strength to carry our crosses. By not running away from our crosses, we make sure we're on the path to the resurrection. This is the Christian wisdom that keeps us joyful amid suffering, and reasonable amid success.

Two things can help us cultivate this wisdom during Lent. First, we should use the crucifix. It used to be common practice for Catholic families to have crucifixes on the walls of their houses, especially in their bedrooms and wherever the family would pray together. This practice has fallen off recently, but there's no reason we can't start it up again. We can also wear a crucifix necklace or pin or carry a holy card with an image of the crucifixion or put a picture of the suffering Christ on our cell phone screen. This helps us keep in mind what Christ suffered for our salvation. If we do that, the crosses that come our way will never surprise or derail us. We will learn to recognize more quickly God's hand in them.

And second, we should pray the Rosary. The Rosary is a simple prayer that gives us a tour of all the events of Christ's life, including his passion and resurrection. Even if we only pray one decade a day, which takes a few minutes, this tried-and-true prayer will help us avoid tunnel vision in our spiritual lives. In a few moments we will receive Jesus in the Eucharist, the marvellous fruit of his passion and resurrection. When we do, let's talk to him about our crosses and those of our loved ones, asking him to teach us to find hope in his resurrection even when we share in the pain of his passion. 

We Live in the "Time of Fulfillment"

My dear brothers and sisters, Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Mark are mysterious: "This is the time of fulfillment." What does he mean? With these words, Jesus is summing up the entire history of humanity, the fulcrum points of which is his own passion, death, and resurrection, as St Peter reminds us in the Second Reading.

With these words, Jesus Christ ushers in the third and final age in this history. First there was the age of creation when mankind lived in the unbroken communion with God. This ended with original sin, which drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and into the desert of fallen human nature.

Thus began the second age, the age of the promise. God promised Adam and Eve that he would send a savior, a holy king, to free the human family from domination by the devil that their sin had caused. In this second age, God gradually prepared the world, through the education of his chosen people Israel, for the arrival of that savior and king, Jesus Christ.

When Christ finally arrived, it was the "time of fulfilment," the fulfilment of God's promise to send that savior. In this third and final period of human history, God enters into time and space in order to rescue it from sin and destruction.

He does this through his incarnation, which is extended through all time and space through the life of his Church. The end of this third age will yield the new heavens and the new earth, the end of the Kingdom's beginning, and the beginning of its maturity.

Lent is a time to focus on essentials, and nothing is more essential, in a world obsessed with stock markets, political polls, and movie stars, than remembering where we came from and where we're going.

The Multiplication of the Goldfish

One advantage of living in the time of fulfilment is that we have the possibility of storing up our treasures in heaven. Because God's grace has made us his adopted children, all of our prayers and good actions have eternal value. Jesus has promised that he will reward them all, not forgetting even the smallest act of kindness done in his name.

It's like a family that suffered during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. This story I took from "Hot Illustrations," copyright Youth Specialties, Inc., 2001. Before the war, the Malkoc family lived next to a small lake in the village of Jezero. One day in 1990, the dad returned from a trip to Austria with an unusual gift for his teenage sons: an aquarium with two goldfish.

Two years passed and then Serb forces advanced on Jezero. The women and children fled, the men stayed back to fight, and the dad, Samjo, was killed. Later, his wife sneaked back into the destroyed village to bury her husband and rescue what belongings she could.

She let the two goldfish out into the nearby lake, saying to herself, "Maybe they'll be luckier than us." Five years later she and her sons returned. Nothing but ruins remained of their home and their village. Through misty eyes she looked toward the lake.

Glimpsing something strange, she walked over to the shore. "The whole lake was shining from the thousands of golden fish in it," she said. "It made me immediately think of my husband. This was something he left me that I never hoped for." During the war, life underwater had flourished. After their return, the Malkoc family began caring for and selling the goldfish, and soon it became a thriving, lucrative family business.

Christ's grace makes all of our prayers and good deeds alive, like those goldfish; it makes them multiply and spread beneath the surface of life's struggles and battles. Only when we come home to heaven will we see how much good even the smallest one produced.

Repenting and Believing

"This is the time of fulfilment." Through this history lesson, Jesus is reminding us of where we came from and, more importantly, where we're going: to eternal life with him in heaven. And his next sentence tells us how to get there: "Repent and believe in the gospel."

These two things should characterize our spiritual lives during Lent. First, repent; turn away from self-centered and selfish habits; break them! Jesus eagerly invites us to repent, and he also gives us the perfect way to do so: the sacrament of confession.

Jesus invented confession because he knew we would need it. The same devil that tempted Jesus in the desert is still in business, tempting us in the desert of our consumerist and relativistic culture. Repentance and confession give God a chance to pour his unconditional mercy into our thirsty souls.

Our second Lenten exercise is to "believe in the gospel." Believing in the gospel means trusting Jesus enough to do his will; it means saying with our decisions, not just our words: "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done."

We find his will in the Ten Commandments, the beatitudes, the teachings of his Church, and dictates of our conscience. Greed, lust, laziness, impatience, dishonesty - these are anti-gospel values. Believing in the gospel means leaving them aside in favor of generosity, faithfulness, responsibility, sincerity, and patient kindness. This is Christ's vision for our lives, one that he will help us live out if we give him the chance.

In this Mass he is coming among us to fill our hearts with the very strength that filled his heart, the strength which gave him the definitive victory over temptation, sin, and evil. As we continue with this Mass, then, let's thank him for allowing us to live in the time of fulfilment, and let's ask him to help us repent and believe in the gospel.

The season of Lent is upon us, and we Catholics begin preparing to commemorate the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church begins our preparation to join him on his journey to Calvary. The church scene becomes somber and more intense, and such terms as contrition, conversion, penance, almsgiving, fasting, and abstinence dominate the liturgy.

Fasting is a biblical discipline that can be defended from both the Old and the New Testament. In the Old Testament Moses and Elijah fasted forty days before going into God's presence (Exodus 34:28, 1 Kings 19:8). Anna the Prophetess fasted to prepare herself for the coming of the Messiah (Luke 2:37). They all wanted to see God, and they considered fasting a basic prerequisite. We, too, wish to enter God's presence, so we fast.

In the New Testament, Jesus himself fasted (Matthew 4:2). And Jesus expected his disciples to fast (Mt 9:14-15) and issued instructions for how they should do so (Mt 6:16-18). And since he needed no purification, He surely did this to set an example for us. In fact, he assumed that all Christians would follow his example. "When you fast," he said, "do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting" (Matthew 6:16). Note that he did not say, "If you fast," but "when." The Apostles continued to fast, long after Jesus' resurrection and Ascension (see Acts 13:2-3 and 14:23).

Fasting and abstinence are Church-imposed penitential practices that deny us food and drink during certain seasons and on certain days. These acts of self-denial dispose us to free ourselves from worldly distractions, to express our longing for Jesus, to somehow imitate his suffering.

Abstinence traditionally has meant not eating meat and, for centuries but no longer, included meat by-products. Catholics never have been compelled to eat fish on days of abstinence, but rather, to avoid meat. While abstinence refers to the kind or quality of food we eat, fasting refers to the amount or quantity of food consumed. It is contrary to the spirit of abstinence and fasting if we avoid steak but pile our plate high with fish.

Pope Clement XIII in 1759 said that "penance also demands that we satisfy divine justice with fasting, almsgiving and prayer and other works of the spiritual." The purpose of our fast is to not become physically weak or lose weight but to create a hunger, a spiritual void that only Christ can fill; in fasting from the heart, we express our love of God and acknowledge our sinfulness. Though unworthy, we pray our sacrifices will be acceptable to the one who suffered and gave his life and blood for us.

The Bible spells out specific spiritual benefits of fasting. It produces humility (Psalm 69:10). It shows our sorrow for our sins (1 Samuel 7:6). It clears a path to God (Daniel 9:3). It is a means of discerning God's will (Ezra 8:21) and a powerful method of prayer (8:23). It's a mark of true conversion (Joel 2:12).

Fasting does not only consist in avoiding or limiting our intake of food and drink. Rather it should lead us to a firm rejection of sin and selfishness. Pope Francis urges us to do this. He said:

• Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
• Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
• Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
• Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
• Fast from worries and have trust in God.
• Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
• Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
• Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
• Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
• Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
• Fast from words; be silent and listen."

We fast, that is, we voluntarily endure hunger, so that we may also feel the pains and sufferings of our poor brethren who do not have enough food to eat. In this way we become more compassionate towards them and do something substantial to help them. We eat less so that the poor can eat more.

Fasting helps us to be detached from the things of this world. We fast, not because earthly things are evil, but precisely because they're good. They're God's gifts to us. But they're so good that we sometimes prefer the gifts to the Giver. We tend to eat and drink to the point where we forget God. St. Paul said of certain people, "their god is the belly … with minds set on earthly things" (Philippians 3:19). We want to be able to enjoy God's gifts without ever forgetting the Giver. Fasting is a good way to start. 

LESSON: Confidence and Humility Strengthen Our Prayer Life

In today's world, we can all use help with our prayer life, and the leper in today's Gospel passage gives it to us. He reminds us of two key elements in a healthy life of prayer: confidence and humility.

The first thing to note is that this leper has no doubt that Christ can cure him. He says to the Lord, "If you wish, you can make me clean." It's hard for us to have so much confidence.

Our secular culture is constantly sidelining God. This tends to make us think that we can solve all our problems ourselves, through science, technology, or hard work. But if we think that, then we don't really have faith in God; if God is irrelevant, he's not much of a God, after all.

But the leper didn't live in a secular culture; he lived in a religious culture, one that recognized the reality of sin and evil, and the need of God's grace to overcome them. And so, he came out of his isolated and self-destructive bubble of self-sufficiency and exercised his faith.

The second thing to note is that the leper also recognizes that he has no right to demand a cure. He doesn't act like a spoiled child and say, "Cure me!" he says, "If you wish..." It's as if he were saying, "You know what's best; if curing me will give you glory, please do so, but if not, I will still believe and trust in you."

Only the humble heart can tap into the roaring stream of mercy that flows from Christ's Sacred Heart, mercy which not only cured the leprosy, but touched the leper, something no one else had done since the disease began.

If our prayer weaves together confidence and humility, God will be able to do wonders in us as well.

Drawing on God's Bank Account

One thing that can drain our confidence in God is our tendency to fall into sin. We are weak and selfish and find it hard to resist the many temptations that surround us. And when we fall, the devil works overtime to keep us from going back to God to ask forgiveness and start over.

The devil says: "Look at you! Look at what a miserable creature you are! Look at how weak you are! "So many times God has given you his help, grace, and forgiveness, and still you keep on messing up. "God's mercy is for better souls than yours. Don't even bother him with your pitiful prayers and tears. Forget about it. You're not worth it."

But all of that is a lie, a big, fat lie. God's mercy and love doesn't depend on our being perfect - if it did, we wouldn't need it! On the contrary! Our growth as Christians depends on God's mercy.

Imagine a wealthy man with a lot of money in the bank. Now imagine that this man falls seriously ill. He is confined to bed. One day his accountant comes to him and tells him that he needs to sign a large check to pay off some of his expenses.

But the man says, "How can I sign a check? I'm sick!" Is that logical? Not at all! His sickness and his bank account are completely unrelated.

Well, the same goes for our sins and God's mercy. God's mercy is the bank account that was filled by the infinite love of Christ when he died on the cross.

• Our sins are our sickness.
• It doesn't matter how sick we become, we can always draw an abundance of forgiveness and the grace for a fresh start from God's bank account of infinite mercy.

Three Ways to Grow in Confidence and Humility

We cannot have a mature and effective life of prayer without growing in these key areas of confidence in God and humility.

How can we do that?

• There is no pill or surgical operation that can finish it once and for all - that's not how spiritual growth happens.
• Instead, we need to regularly and intelligently exercise whatever humility and confidence we already have (and all of us have some - they both were given to us in baptism).
• All virtues grow through exercise, like muscles.
• And of course, exercise is at least sometimes demanding and uncomfortable.
• This is why regular exercise requires a decision of the will, an act of self-governance.

Here are three ways to exercise humility and confidence in God; let's each choose one of them to focus on this week.

First, the sacrament of confession.

• This is the best exercise, because it was invented by God himself.
• Confession is a perfect mirror of this leper's transforming encounter with Christ.
• Think about it: everything the leper did, we do every time we go to confession.

Second, writing a thank-you note to God at the end of every day.

• By focusing in on the amazing gifts he gives us every single day - life, opportunities, friendships, grace - we put everything else in proper perspective.
• Gratitude reminds us of God's unbounded goodness, and of our childlike dependence on him.

Third, by being the first one to say we're sorry.

• Interpersonal conflicts are almost always the fault of both people involved, at least a little bit.
• When we take the first step to make peace, we are following in the footsteps of Christ himself.

Whichever exercise we choose for this week, Jesus will help us with it - that's why he is coming among us again through the sacrifice of this Mass. 

From a letter by Saint Marie Bernadette Soubirous, virgin

I had gone down one day with two other girls to the bank of the river Gave when suddenly I heard a kind of rustling sound. I turned my head towards the field by the side of the river but the trees seemed quite still and the noise was evidently not from them. Then I looked up and caught sight of the cave where I saw a lady wearing a lovely white dress with a bright belt. On top of each of her feet was a pale yellow rose, the same colour as her rosary beads.

At this I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was seeing things, and I put my hands into the fold of my dress where my rosary was. I wanted to make the sign of the cross but for the life of me I couldn't manage it and my hand just fell down. Then the lady made the sign of the cross herself and at the second attempt I managed to do the same, though my hands were trembling. Then I began to say the rosary while the lady let her beads slip through her fingers, without moving her lips. When I stopped saying the Hail Mary, she immediately vanished.

I asked my two companions if they had noticed anything, but they said no. Of course they wanted to know what I was doing and I told them that I had seen a lady wearing a nice white dress, though I didn't know who she was. I told them not to say anything about it, and they said I was silly to have anything to do with it. I said they were wrong and I came back next Sunday, feeling myself drawn to the place....

The third time I went the lady spoke to me and asked me to come every day for fifteen days. I said I would and then she said that she wanted me to tell the priests to build a chapel there. She also told me to drink from the stream. I went to the Gave [de Pau], the only stream I could see. Then she made me realise she was not speaking of the Gave and she indicated a little trickle of water close by. When I got to it I could only find a few drops, mostly mud. I cupped my hands to catch some liquid without success and then I started to scrape the ground. I managed to find a few drops of water but only at the fourth attempt was there a sufficient amount for any kind of drink. The lady then vanished and I went back home.

I went back each day for two weeks and each time, except one Monday and one Friday, the lady appeared and told me to look for a stream and wash in it and to see that the priests build a chapel there. I must also pray, she said, for the conversion of sinners. I asked her many times what she meant by that, but she only smiled. Finally with outstretched arms and eyes looking up to heaven she told me she was the Immaculate Conception.

During the two weeks she told me three secrets but I was not to speak about them to anyone and so far I have not. 

Daily Prayer Is an Essential Ingredient in the Life of Every Christian

My dear brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ was God-become-man to enable the fallen human race to find its way back to God. His human nature was infused with the power of his divine person.

We see this, for example, in his miraculous cure of Simon Peter's mother-in-law, and in his many other miracles and casting out of demons. Jesus was true man, but his humanity was perfect, sinless, without any tendencies to selfishness, laziness, or pride.

His character was balanced and flawless, firm as the mountains and gentle as a mother's caress. His mind was beyond brilliant, filled with the radiance of divine light and understanding. He had no emotional scars from a difficult family upbringing (Mary was without sin too, and Joseph was a saint), no personality disorders or imbalanced self-esteem - no lacks, no wounds, no imperfections at all. 

And yet, despite all that, over and over again in the Gospels we see him go off to be alone in prayer, just as he did in today's Gospel passage. Christ was perfect, God from God and light from light, and yet he still needed to reserve time just to be alone with his Father.

He needed to go off and pray. He even had to get up early to make time for it. Some-times he had to stay up late to make time for it. But he always did it, even on the very eve of his crucifixion, in the Garden of Gethsemane.

If he, who was perfect, needed prayer in order to fulfill his life's mission, what does that imply for us, who are so imperfect, so weak, so vulnerable to every sort of temptation and wounded by every kind of sin? If disciplined, daily prayer was essential for Christ, it must be even more essential for Christ's less-than-perfect followers.

The Truth of the Gospel

Today's readings remind us that the importance of the Gospel is that it is the truth. We need the truth to pursue what is truly good in life, not illusions.

In today's First Reading Moses, about to part ways with the Israelites, promises them a prophet will be sent to teach them after he is gone. A prophet speaks on behalf of God, which is why the Lord is harsh on those who say their teaching is from God, or from false gods. 

The people of Israel were so frightened by the Lord on Sinai that they wanted an intermediary, someone who would speak to the Lord on their behalf. The prophet promised by Moses is Our Lord. Sent by the Father, he teaches us the truth about God's will for our lives.

In today's Gospel, the crowds see something different in this young rabbi from Nazareth who is just starting his teaching. Why do his words have a weight to them that they didn't find in their scribes? They bear the weight of truth. Something resonates in us when we hear the truth, and for the crowds in today's Gospel they know Our Lord's teaching rings true: it speaks to something in their hearts, be it a call to conversion or a confirmation of the upright life they're trying to lead. We need the truth, and Our Lord is the truth in Person.

Society today focuses a lot on opinion, but often doesn't go very deep. Today many people don't want to speak out at all for fear of being labeled as judgmental, but also, at times, out of a mistaken idea that two apparently irreconcilable beliefs can be true: everyone's got their "truth," and nobody should question it.

This attitude loses sight of the fact that there is a truth to everything, and we're all seeking to understand it and embrace it in our lives. The Gospel brought to us by Our Lord brings that truth to us. It helps us cut through opinions that may veil untruths.

The Gospel today has been preached for millennia, but it's the truth that sets us free. Let's listen to Our Lord with renewed attention today through his Word, confident that it is the truth, and not be shy about helping others learn the truth as well.

"What is Truth?"

In John's Gospel, the Lord told Pontius Pilate that all who were on the side of truth would hear his voice (see John 18:37–38). Pilate responded, "what is truth?" His actions would later show he really had no idea what the truth was: he had an innocent man scourged and then crucified. Our Lord has come to bring us the truth, and, as he teaches us, the truth will make us free (see John 8:32).

No Little White Lies This Week

While everyone agrees that lying is wrong, not everyone holds little white lies up to the same standard. It seems the easy way out when we're faced with the possibility of hurting someone's feelings or getting in trouble.

If Our Lord had lied to the Sanhedrin, he would have saved himself a lot of suffering, but he also would have denied the truth. Don't leave yourself any wriggle room this week. Tell the truth.

Tell the truth mean say honest. Honesty implies a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way. How often do you tell a lie, big or small? Have you ever taken something that does not belong to you? Have you ever deceived someone to their detriment or your benefit? We're not all pathological liars, bank robbers, or con men, but we have to make sure dishonesty has no hold in our life.

Entering Christ's Kingdom Is a Matter of Trust

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Mark are mysterious. He tells us that the time of fulfilment has arrived, and he says, "The Kingdom of God is at hand."

"The Kingdom of God" is one of Christ's most frequently used phrases. He came to establish it; he rules it; and he taught us to pray constantly for its coming: "Thy Kingdom come," we pray in the Our Father, "Thy will be done." Every week in the Creed we profess our faith that this "Kingdom will have no end." Clearly, we can be sure that this concept is central to Christ and Christianity.

In this initial announcement of the arrival of his Kingdom, Jesus gives us the first lesson about what it entails. After proclaiming that "The Kingdom of God is at hand," he adds, "repent and believe in the gospel."

And so, the "Kingdom of God" refers to wherever things are done God's way, wherever his will and his loving heart are allowed to guide people's lives. To repent means to stop doing things our own, selfish way, which is our default tendency ever since Adam and Eve poisoned human nature with original sin. And to believe in the gospel means to trust that God's way, God's will, is always the best choice.

If we trust in the love, wisdom, and power of God, we will have the courage to fashion our lives according to his standards, the ones taught by the Bible and the Church. If we recognize our own ignorance, limitations, and selfish tendencies, we will have the necessary humility to repent.

In other words, if we want to enter this Kingdom and share in its unequalled vitality and meaning, we simply need to trust in God more than other voices (at times, even our own) - over and over again.

The First Apostles Show Their Trust

This trust in God is never unreasonable, even though it is often difficult and hard to understand. Christ's encounter with his Apostles in today's Gospel is a good example.

Jesus had a plan for Peter, Andrew, James, and John. He wanted them to join him in his mission of redeeming the world and conquering the forces of evil. He wanted them to become intimate friends of God, to share the wisdom, joy, and purpose that comes only from that friendship, never from "the world in its present form," which, according to St. Paul in today's Second Reading, "is passing away." But Jesus knew that he couldn't explain all this to them; it was too much for them to grasp. And so, he simply invites them to follow him.

We know from the Gospel of John that this wasn't the first time he had met them. He had already spent time with them and let them get to know him; he even attended the wedding at Cana with them.

He wasn't some fanatic unexpectedly demanding an irrational abandonment of family, career, and previous plans. No, Jesus built up a relationship of mutual knowledge and trust before he invited them to become his full-time disciples. And yet, he still asks them to give up their old ways, to leave behind their fishing nets, those nets which represented their livelihood, reputation, and stability. John and James even leave behind their father and the family business. Why? Because they trusted Jesus; the Kingdom of God had begun to rule in their hearts.

What was the result? They became saints; they changed the course of history. They discovered a purpose, a wisdom, a joy, and a meaning far beyond what their nets and their family business ever could have given them - they entered the Kingdom of God.

Simple Ways to Grow in Trust

Jesus also has a plan for us. He wants us to experience the wisdom, meaning, and joy that come from being full and active citizens of his Kingdom. But for that to happen, we must learn to trust him more.

Only if we cultivate a true, open, heart-to-heart friendship with Christ, as the Apostles did, will we be able to hear and heed his call in our life, to follow the teachings of his Church when everyone else around us, and even our own selfish tendencies, are pointing in the other direction. That friendship is the most important thing because everything else will, sooner or later, pass away.

How can we build that friendship, growing in trust to follow Jesus more closely every day? There is no shortcut, no magic pill, but there are many traditional practices that can help, like beginning each day with a morning offering, ending each day with a brief examination of conscience, and spending at least a few minutes every day reading and reflecting on the Bible.

One practice that used to be common among Catholic families was to keep the family Bible on a stand near the door of the house, whichever door was used most frequently. And then, every time you go out to and come home from work, school, or some other trip, you lean over and kiss the Bible, saying a small prayer, like the beautiful refrain from today's Psalm: "Teach me your ways, O Lord."

Two Times When It's Especially Tough to Trust

Two crisis-situations can be especially challenging to our trust in God. Reflecting on them before the crisis hits, we better prepare ourselves for when it does. The first is when someone we love is stricken with painful suffering.

Our immediate reaction, besides feeling helpless and frustrated, is to wonder why an all-powerful and all-loving God would let this happen. In such times, theological explanations can help, if we have thought about them deeply beforehand.

Theologically, we know that God didn't invent evil. All evil flows from original sin, just like pollution poured into a stream at its source will affect the whole course of the waterway. But we also know that God can bring good out of evil, just as he brought the Resurrection out of the Crucifixion.

When we are faced by this kind of crisis, our best recourse is to kneel in front of a crucifix and pray. There we can also speak with Mary, whose own trust was sorely tested as she watched her innocent Son be humiliated, calumniated, tortured, and executed.

The second type of crisis that tests our trust is when God gives us a special vocation. When he called Jonah to be his messenger to Nineveh, at first Jonah ran the other way. When he called John and James, they had to leave behind their father and the family business.

When God calls us to serve the Church in a special way, through the priesthood or consecrated life, or through dedicating more time, talent, and treasure to God, it means putting our personal plans and preferences in second place. That takes trust. But today Christ is assuring us that it's worth it, "for the world in its present form is passing away," but our friendship with him will last forever, because it is the life of his Kingdom.

During this Mass, let's renew that friendship, and keep it strong all week long. Today Jesus is reminding us that he has a plan for us, a place in his Kingdom much bigger than we can image. When he comes to us in Holy Communion, let's thank him for it, and let's ask for the grace to trust him enough to help his plan come true. 

Answering the Lord's Call to Something Greater

We are members of the Mystical Body of Christ, so what we do is for the good or ill of the entire body. We are also temples of the Holy Spirit. We bear something precious in us that must be cherished and nurtured.

In today's Gospel two disciples of the prophet John the Baptist, at his encouragement, check out a Rabbi (a.k.a. the Lamb of God) and become not only his disciples, but his friends, and must share the good news. Two disciples of a prophet go looking for a Rabbi and find not only a Rabbi but a friend and much more.

Andrew and the "other disciple," whom we presume to be John the Evangelist, don't start grilling Our Lord when they meet him. Rather, they want to hang out with him. They don't address him as the "Lamb of God" as John the Baptist did, just as "Rabbi," an expression of respect and an acknowledgment that he has something to teach them. He doesn't try to impose and preconceived notions on them in response; he merely says, "come and see." It is not just learning from him, but living with him.

Andrew, as the Gospel recalls, "heard John and followed Jesus." If he hadn't listened to John, he would not have found Jesus either. In following Jesus, Andrew discovers that he has met the Messiah, and that's not something he can keep to himself, so he shares it with his brother, Simon. 

The minute Jesus meets Simon, he gives him a nickname—Cephas—and from that friendship a great mission would soon be born. Cephas—Peter—would not undertake that mission alone; he would follow Christ and share in his mission.

Baby on Board

You still see a few around these days, but there was a moment where almost everyone driving on the road with an infant in their car had a "Baby on Board" sign in the window. It was a sign of something beautiful—everyone loves children, especially babies—but also an invitation to drive carefully for the baby's sake. It also showed that the driver was even driving more carefully because he or she had a precious cargo.

Imagine if we all walked around with a "Holy Spirit on Board" t-shirt. What would we be trying to say? We are bearing a precious cargo that we or those around us can endanger: the Holy Spirit.

We can't harm the Holy Spirit, but we can hurt or drive the Spirit away through our sins. Similarly, if people know we are temples of the Holy Spirit and wish us good, they won't do anything to jeopardize that either.

House Guest

If someone was going to stay over with you, would you make them clean their room, make their bed, and wash their towels on the day of their arrival (or any other day, for that matter)?

Would you make them purchase their groceries and prepare their meals? Would you spend time with them and show them around town, or would you ignore them? The Italians have a saying, "Guests are like fish; after three days, they stink" (L'ospite è come il pesce, dopo tre giorni puzza).

The Holy Spirit is sometimes called the sweet guest of the soul. How do we treat the sweet Guest we are hosting?

God Is Faithful

My dear brothers and sisters, every human heart is absolutely starving for someone to trust. Someone who not only will promise to never let us down, never judge us, never abandon us, but someone with enough goodness and enough power to keep that promise. Every one of us needs someone we can lean on no matter what, someone we can go to no matter what, someone who will be glad to see us no matter what - someone who is utterly, totally, unhesitatingly, faithful. That someone is God.

The coming of the Wise Men to adore the baby Jesus is one of the Bible's most beautiful proofs of God's faithfulness. More than 500 years before Christ's birth, God had promised, through his prophet Isaiah, that he was going to lead "all the nations" to Jerusalem to share in the light of salvation. He even promised that they would bring gold and incense.

The Wise Men came from the non-Jewish world; they represent the nations. By coming to Christ, they enter into the light of salvation bringing gifts. This shows us that God is good because he kept his promise. It also shows us that God is all-powerful - the ups and downs of history are under his control. And this is our God, the same God that we come to worship Him today. The same God who will give himself to us today in the Eucharist.

All of God's goodness and power are ours because we belong to Christ and Christ is the incarnation of God's faithfulness. Believing in God, the only One, and loving him with all our being has enormous consequences for our whole life.

It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity. A prayer of St. Teresa of Jesus wonderfully expresses this trust:

• Let nothing trouble you / Let nothing frighten you
• Everything passes / God never changes
• Patience / Obtains all
• Whoever has God / Wants for nothing
• God alone is enough.

The Sacred Heart Keeps His Promise

We have all heard of the famous promises that the Sacred Heart of Jesus made to Saint Margaret Mary. One of these promises was that anyone who faithfully goes to Mass and worthily receives Holy Communion on nine First Fridays of the month in a row is sure to die with the sacraments.

On summer, 2008 there was tragedy struck a Catholic high school in Chile. This particular school practices the First Friday devotions every year. On the fateful day, a busload of 27 girls was traveling on an annual, week-long field trip.

The bus was driving along a winding country road near the mountains. The inexperienced bus driver took one of the turns too fast, and the bus slammed into the barrier at the side of the road. The bus tipped over and rolled several times before it crashed to a stop only a short distance away from a ravine 200 yards deep. Some of the girls were thrown out of the bus; some were pinned underneath it; others were stuck inside of it. All of them were injured, and some lay there dying.

It just so happened that a few hundred yards behind the bus, on the same road, there was a Catholic priest driving back to his parish. When he turned the corner where the accident occurred, the dust hadn't even settled yet. He saw the overturned bus, pulled off the side of the road, and rushed to the scene with his stole and his holy oils. Nine of the teenage girls in the accident died, but they died with the comfort and grace of the sacraments, and their families can rest assured that they are with the Lord.

The Sacred Heart had kept his promise, because he is faithful. Christ doesn't always show his faithfulness by shielding us from the cross (though many times he does); rather, he shows his faithfulness by staying right by our side and sharing our crosses, even when they hurt the most.

Following the Star of Conscience

God is always guiding us, always accompanying us; he never forgets about us. To live in tune with this beautiful, powerful truth of our faith - that we can count on God - means to freely obey our conscience. Conscience is the secret chamber of the soul. Only two people have the key: you and God.

In that secret chamber of our conscience, God shows us the star that can lead us to true meaning and joy. In that secret chamber of our conscience, God tells us what we need to leave behind in order to become truly free.

What has he been telling us our conscience? What has he been asking of each of us? He loves each of us more than we love ourselves, and so he is always urging us forward on the path of life.

Like a good coach, he never stops encouraging us to give our best, to be true to our Christian calling. Maybe he has been nudging your conscience, telling you to break off an unhealthy relationship or to take the first step to heal a broken one. Maybe he has been inviting you to follow your true vocation, maybe to the priesthood or the consecrated life. Maybe he has been warning you to be more faithful to a particular relationship or responsibility.

Only you and God know which star he has been pointing out. Sometimes we are afraid to follow it. Today he is reminding us that we have nothing to be afraid of. He is trustworthy. During this Mass, let's ask for the grace to follow that star. And at Holy Communion, let's pray for all those people who have stopped following it, or who still haven't seen it. God hasn't given up on them, and neither should we. 

A lawyer and law professor named Frederick Larson recently applied his legal logic to this very question. Professor Larson studied St Matthew's description of the Magi's adventure and discovered a group of specific, measurable characteristics having to do with the star of Bethlehem.

Then he used modern astronomical know-how to search for a non-mythical and non-mysterious explanation. His investigation could never have been done before modern times, because it required computer technology. With computer software, you can recreate what the night sky looked like on any date in history, from any point on the earth's surface.

The first thing he discovered had to do with the Magi themselves. He looked at other references to the term "Magi" or "wise men" in the Bible. Then he looked up references in other ancient literature. He discovered that Magi were, basically, the "scientists" of the ancient world. Quasi-scientists, from our perspective, since they didn't have the benefit of the modern scientific, experimental method. But even so, they did make a rational, logical study of philosophy, medicine, and the natural world - including the stars.

They were like the scholars and professors of ancient times. But instead of working in universities, they usually worked for kings. A king would finance his own group of scholars, using them as consultants and translators, and also to enhance his kingdom's reputation.

One group of these scholars revered throughout the ancient world was the Chaldean Magi, based in the city of Babylon, just south of Bagdad, in modern Iraq. This school was already well-established 600 years before Christ, when the prophet Daniel was exiled from Jerusalem.

The King of Babylon at the time forced Daniel and a few companions, some of Israel's most promising scholars, to join his school of Magi. There they studied, learned, did amazing deeds, and even kept their faith in the one, true God, as the Book of Daniel describes. The prophet Daniel never returned to Jerusalem. He lived his whole, long life as a top-scholar and royal adviser among Babylon's Magi, where he not only learned from others, but also shared Jewish history, prophecy, and beliefs.

It is not unreasonable, therefore, to think that his prophesies were known, studied, and passed down through the generations by the Magi there. And if that's the case, it would make a lot of historical sense for St Matthew to tell us that the wise men "from the east" had seen signs of the Savior's birth and come to worship "the newborn King of the Jews."

What Was the Star?

That is a reasonable, interesting, and enlightening explanation of who the Magi may have been, but it doesn't explain the star of Bethlehem. For that, Professor Larson needed to put modern astronomy to work.

He programmed his software to show what the stars would have looked like in Babylon in the year 3 BC. He knew the star of Bethlehem couldn't be a shooting star, or a super nova, or even a comet. Those things would have been obvious to everyone, and yet, King Herod and his advisers were astonished by the Magi's news.

King Herod even asked when the star had appeared - so it couldn't have been an obviously dramatic phenomenon. Instead, it must have been something extraordinary inside the ordinary - something that would be truly remarkable, but that only the expert Magi would have noticed.

Did anything like that occur in the sky, in the year 3 BC? Yes. That September, the Planet Jupiter, the brightest planet in the night sky, followed its normal retrograde motion back and forth, but this time that motion created an elliptical, crown-like pattern above the star known as Regulus.

The Magi would have known Jupiter as the King Planet - the brightest and biggest planet. And the name "Regulus" also means "king". The King Planet giving the King Star a coronation - the first coincidence.

At that time and place, this unusual conjuncture occurred inside the constellation known as Leo, or the Lion. The Magi would have recognized the Lion as the Biblical symbol for the Israelite tribe of Judah. And the Old Testament prophesies predicted that the Messiah would be born of the tribe of Judah - the second coincidence.

Also at that time, the constellation that rose in the east after Leo was Virgo - the Virgin. And right at the feet of the constellation, at that particular moment, was the new crescent moon, the "birthing" moon. Another Old Testament prophecy predicted that the Messiah would be born of a Virgin - coincidence number three.

Together, these starry coincidences linked three concepts: King, Jewish, and Birth - the King of the Jews being born.

Nine months later, things got even more interesting. In June of the year 2 BC, the Planet Jupiter, the King Planet, was no longer in conjunction with the King Star, Regulus. Instead, on the horizon of the western sky, Jupiter was having an even more spectacular rendezvous. Jupiter came so close to the Planet Venus that their light merged, becoming the brightest light in the night sky - the brightest the Magi would have ever seen. And the Magi, along with the rest of the pagan world, knew the planet Venus as the Mother Planet - the icing on the cake.

If at that point the Magi had begun their journey, by the time they reached Jerusalem the orientation of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction would have changed. Looking up from Jerusalem, the Magi would have seen it in the south - the exact direction of Bethlehem. Also at that time, Jupiter's retrograde motion made it appear - relative to the position of the other stars - to have stopped in its tracks, just as St Matthew says.

Here is a historical and scientific hypothesis that not only doesn't contradict the Biblical evidence regarding the star of Bethlehem and the journey of the Magi, but actually sheds new light on it.