Homily for the First Sunday in Lent February 18, 2024. The readings are Genesis 9:8-15, Psalm 25, 1 Peter 3:18-22 and Mark 1:12-15.

As a young person, the other parts of the flood story were the parts that excited me – all the fantastic stuff: Noah building the ark in its massive dimensions, Noah gathering the animals two-by-two, the 40 days and nights of rain. It’s different now, and the part of the story that touches my heart now is what we heard today: The new beginning. A scene that isn’t fantastic at all, but one we’ve experienced. After the storm, after all the destruction and distress, God commits to a new beginning.

Peter explains the flood story in the second reading: It’s about baptism. The flood prefigured baptism, the new beginning for each of us, the beginning of our lives as the people of God.

The gospel reading is also about baptism, because we know Jesus’s sojourn in the desert came immediately after his baptism. He went out there to think, to pray, and to prepare himself for what was to come. He was leaving his home and his family; like all of us, he needed to know that he was going where God wanted him to be. After the newly baptized Jesus spent time in the desert, he came back with strength and confidence, proclaiming that this is the time of fulfilment, the Kingdom is at hand. God’s dream for us is within our reach, it’s happening now.

For our RCIA people it sure is happening right now. We are sending them to Holy Name Cathedral for the Rite of Election this Sunday afternoon. They have been praying, learning, listening, sharing for months, and now they are rounding the last turn into the straightaway toward Easter.

We have three guys here preparing to be baptized at the Easter Vigil in six weeks.
They have been thinking, praying, preparing for what is to come – the rest of their lives as part of our faith community. We have five women, already baptized, completing their initiation into our Catholic Christian way of life. They are doing this for themselves, of course, but they are doing it for us too. By joining in the RCIA they are courageously making their own experience of conversion public.

You have been an example to them, and now they become an example to all of us, an example of conversion, the process we all go through, all of our lives, but especially in Lent. Our word for Lent comes from the Middle English word for springtime. It sounds a little like length, and it means the days get longer as spring struggles to come. It’s this year’s new beginning.

Lent calls us all to an experience of conversion, to experience a new beginning. Don’t get all the way to Easter as the same person you are right now. Face yourself, find what you don’t need, find what does not fulfill your calling. Give it away.

I think we ought to listen especially to the psalm today: Ps. 25. “Teach me your ways, Lord.” This was a song Jesus knew; he would have learned it growing up. Imagine him singing it; imagine him praying it, as he walked alone into his 40-day retreat in the desert. What a good prayer that can be for us, each of the 40 days of Lent: God show me your dream for me. Picture yourself making an effort to get a moment away from the usual stresses and cares of life, and asking God to show you the way. God show me your dream for me. Then stick around and listen for the answer, before you go back to the everyday stresses and cares.

The new beginning inside God’s dream for us – that’s what the three traditions of Lent are for. Prayer, almsgiving, fasting. Each Lent the Spirit invites us to devote ourselves to prayer, almsgiving and fasting so that we can improve our relationships with God and our neighbor, and live ourselves into a new beginning.

If you have not done it already, this weekend would be a really good time to for each of us make a plan for Lent. With our RCIA people, we sat down together last week and we each made an actual personal plan for this Lent: What am I going to fast from? What am I going to share with others in need? What can I do intentionally to improve my prayer life, my ongoing conversation with God? How will those three things fit together and bring depth and meaning to each other? Please think about these questions this weekend and make a plan. We put our plans in writing, to hold ourselves accountable. Try that too.

When I was younger, I focused on other parts of the Noah story – building the ark and gathering the animals and whatever happened to the unicorns – but now I am much more interested in the new beginning, the starting over, the trying again. When I was younger I focused on giving things up in Lent, cutting out something I liked. Now I don’t think it’s so important to give up things we like; what’s important now – what’s a better fast – is to give up our commitment to the world and its stresses and distractions and all of its rushing around. Give that up for while, so we can listen to the voice of the Spirit, the one who reminded us on Ash Wednesday to turn away from sin and recommit ourselves to living the life of the Gospel.