{"id":439,"date":"2023-03-27T23:37:01","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T23:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/?p=439"},"modified":"2026-02-25T01:27:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:27:46","slug":"bearing-our-hardship-for-the-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/2023\/03\/27\/bearing-our-hardship-for-the-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"Bearing Our Hardship for the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Homily, 3-5-23; 2nd Sunday in Lent, Cycle A:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if any of you are interested in genealogy and tracing your family tree. In general, this has not been something of great interest to me. I usually look to the future. But a while ago I stumbled upon the Ellis Island Web site on the internet. On the site you can enter the name of an ancestor who immigrated to the United States and find out when they were processed through Ellis Island. It turns out that my grandfather, my mom\u2019s dad, came to this country from Belgium in 1914 when he was 25 years old. I found out that he left out of Antwerp and travelled on a ship named the Kroonland. He left my grandmother behind in Belgium with their one year old son, my Uncle Joe. Grandma and Uncle Joe did not come to the United States to join him until five years later in 1919. They travelled from France on a ship named the Zeppelin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know much about my grandpa\u2019s faith life\u2014he died when I was only five\u2014but he was willing to venture off to a far-away land to try to make a better life for his new family. For this, he was willing to leave his homeland and his family. As much as I try, I can\u2019t imagine putting myself in his shoes and doing the same thing. I can\u2019t conceive that I could have gotten into a boat to sail to an unknown country and leave my wife at home when our first child was only one year old; to leave my parents and siblings; to leave my homeland. But he was willing to trust and to accept sacrifices to do the right thing out of love. And trust and willingness to accept sacrifice are two major themes that we hear about in our first two readings today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thought of my grandparents\u2019 travels came to mind as I reflected on today\u2019s passage from the Book of Genesis. God said to Abram: \u201c<\/em><\/strong>Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father\u2019s house to a land that I will show you.<\/em><\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/strong> And our passage ends with the very important line: \u201cAbram went as the LORD directed him.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Abram trusted God and did what God directed him to do even though he couldn\u2019t understand it; even if it meant leaving his family and making great sacrifices. God promised that He would make of Abram a great nation, but Abram knew that his wife was barren. And still he trusted in God\u2019s promise. What faith and trust he had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God spoke to Abram and told him clearly what he should do. And Abram did it. Many people will say to me that they wish God would speak to them as clearly as He did to Abraham, or Moses, or Elijah. They say, \u201cIf only God would speak to me that clearly, then I would know what I should do and then I would surely follow God\u2019s commands as well. If only God would speak to me when I looked up at the stars or stood on a mountaintop, life would be so much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But God does speak to us, maybe not in the same way as he spoke to our first fathers, but he speaks to us all the same. He speaks to us through the Church. The problem isn\u2019t that God isn\u2019t speaking; the problem may be that we aren\u2019t listening; we don\u2019t want to hear what He has to say. Abram did as the Lord directed him, but we do not always do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our gospel, God spoke from the cloud and said: \u201cThis is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>God sent His Son to us, and that Son, Jesus Christ, is the head of the Church that he established before He returned to the Father. And through Christ\u2019s teachings, through the teachings of His Church, God speaks to us about what we ought to do and about what we ought not do. But often we don\u2019t listen to what we have already been very clearly told, and then we complain that God never speaks to us. He\u2019s got to be shaking His head up in heaven. I can imagine Him saying: \u201cI sent them a book of information on how to behave and worship and pray\u2014the Catechism\u2014and they won\u2019t read it or follow it. And now they want me to call them up, or tap them on the shoulder, individually and give them some personal advice. If I could trust them to do the little things as I have taught them, maybe I would talk to them about bigger things.\u201d We can wonder why God does not speak to us today when we did not listen to Him yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem isn\u2019t that God isn\u2019t speaking to us, it is that we aren\u2019t listening very well. And a big part of the reason is that we are not willing to make sacrifices. St. Paul tells us today: \u201cBear your share of hardship for the gospel.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we progress through Lent, a good question to ask ourselves is: \u201cAm I willing to bear my share of hardship for the gospel?\u201d Are we willing to make sacrifices like Abram, like my grandfather, to do the right thing, to follow God\u2019s call? Or do we only want to follow Jesus when it is easy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are willing to make sacrifices for those we love or to achieve some goal in life. Lent is a good time to practice making sacrifices for the love of God and our neighbor; to be willing to make sacrifices to attain the ultimate goal, eternal live in heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lent is a season of conversion; a time to grow closer to God so that we can hear Him more clearly in the everyday pulse of the world around us. Many of the practices we accept as part of this season should be ones that we will carry on beyond the Lenten season. We can\u2019t take two steps forward in Lent and two steps back when Lent is over; we will make no progress on our journeys that way. Maybe we can take two steps forward and only one step back so that after Lent we will devote more time to prayer than we did before Lent started. We will add more fasting and sacrifice to our lives year around. We will be charitable and help those in need more readily the whole year around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust God following what He has already taught us and be willing to bear your share of sacrifice for the gospel. It\u2019s a good recipe for a fruitful and productive Lenten season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homily, 3-5-23; 2nd Sunday in Lent, Cycle A: I don\u2019t know if any of you are interested in genealogy and tracing your family tree. In general, this has not been something of great interest to me. I usually look to the future. But a while ago I stumbled upon the Ellis Island Web site on… Continue reading Bearing Our Hardship for the Gospel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-homily","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440,"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions\/440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthoscopy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}