Friends, welcome to Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization, using media both old and new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an encounter with Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today, we invite you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the warmth and light of Christ with each one of us. Peace be with you. Friends, we commence now this holy and wonderful season of Lent, the time of preparation for Easter. I always think of Lent as something like spring training for baseball players. It's like the end of the summer workouts for football players. It's a time to get back to spiritual basics, to reacquaint ourselves with the elemental things in the spiritual life that we might get ourselves ordered to Christ. I always think of, this is my golf background, I think of Jack Nicklaus and Jack Grout, who was his teacher. Nicklaus, I'm dating myself right now, the greatest golfer of all time, great in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But Nicholas, even when he was the best player on the planet, would begin the golf season by going back to his home golf course in Ohio. And he'd meet with this guy, Jack Grout, who was his teacher when he was a kid. And he said, okay, get me back to basics. And Grout would, you know, line him up and talk about alignment and shoulder turn and all the fundamentals of golf. Nicholas, the greatest golfer in the world, knew he had to get back to basics. So here we are, beginning of Lent, and we're like Jack Nicklaus, and we're going back. The scriptures are going to teach us some of the fundamentals. So, of course, the church brings us back to the beginning. First reading from the book of Genesis. What do we hear? We hear that the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and then blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. A really basic, elemental truth. We are both animal and angel. We're both physical and spiritual. We are a hybrid, we human beings. We're from the clay of the earth. The other animals are our close cousins. We get hungry and thirsty. We get tired. We're embodied creatures. But we're not just that. The breathing into us the breath of life means the communication to us of something of God's manner of being. That's in our freedom and our intellect and our will and our creativity. There's something properly spiritual in us, too. And the spiritual life has a lot to do not with the escape of the spirit from the body, but of the proper integration of these two. God made us as these hybrid creatures. And so we live out our spiritual lives in both body and soul. That's why it's interesting, everybody, isn't it, that Lent does talk about spiritual things like prayer, but also very physical things like fasting. that our bodies are very much involved in the process of Lent. Okay, that's what God wanted. One of the signs of sin, fellow sinners, and don't we all feel this, one of the signs of sin is the falling apart of spirit and manner, the falling apart of soul and body that we're at odds with ourselves. Now, where does this come from? Well keep reading the story here It didn come from God No no God planted a garden in Eden and the east and placed there the man whom he had formed Out of the ground he made various trees grow that were delightful to look at, good for food. You know what this stands for in this beautiful symbolic language? Is all the things that God made for us to delight in. God is not interested in putting us down. He's not our rival. He's not taking advantage of us. Read the Greek myths if you want to see that. No, the God of the Bible wants us fully alive. And so he says, look, eat all the trees of the garden, all these beautiful things I made for you. It stands for all those things that give delight to our bodies and indeed to our souls. Good, good. In the middle of the garden, he planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life, what's that? Well, that's eternal life. Does God want us to delight in this world? Yes, but also in the next. He made delight for our bodies, but also delight for our soul. We experience things in this life that are anticipations of the eternity that we will experience with God. So it's all the positive gift that God gives us to delight both the body and the soul. And he says, eat of them all. That's why it's very important, everybody, that original blessing is more important than original sin. We talk a lot about original sin, and we should, and I'll say something about it. But original blessing is more primordial. That's the most fundamental truth, that God wants us fully alive. God doesn't give rise to us and then immediately just give us prohibitions. No, no, he gives us permission. Permission. Enjoy. Take advantage of all these beautiful things that I've made for you. But there is the one prohibition. Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, what doesn't that mean? And I hope in light of everything I've just been saying, this is obvious. It doesn't mean that God's against knowledge, that he's against science. No, no. It's a very particular type of knowledge that he's forbidding to us. Namely, the prerogative to determine for ourselves what is good and evil. Eat of all the trees. I want you fully alive. But the one thing I have to insist that you cannot do, my free creatures, is to become yourselves the criterion of good and evil. Because the minute you do that, what's going to happen? You will choose whatever is most immediately advantageous to your ego. Right? Fellow sinners, we descendants of Adam and Eve, we know exactly what this is like. If I become the criterion of good and evil, I will choose whatever is to my immediate advantage. See, what God wants is for us, as I mentioned last week, to fall in love with him, is to surrender our freedom, to give our freedom to the good that he is. Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil where you say it's my prerogative. No, no. Surrender to the good that God is, and you will be fully alive. and in fact, you will eat of the tree of life, because that's the key to eternal life, is surrendering to God. You know, think here, again, fellow sinners. Eat drink and be merry because tomorrow you die How about in a more sophisticated way Friedrich Nietzsche Well since God is dead all that left is our will to power I decide, I will, to express my power over and against you. Jean-Paul Sartre, the founder of existentialism. Existence precedes essence, meaning my freedom comes first, and I determine who I will be. Can I suggest that those are all descendants, of this first move when Adam and Eve decide, no, I will eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I will become myself the criterion of good and evil. And notice, please, who does the tempting here? The serpent was the most cunning of all the animals the Lord had made. The serpent asked the woman, did God really tell you not to eat of any of the trees in the garden? And she clarifies, no, we can eat of them all. except for this one. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not die. God knows well the moment you eat of it, your eyes will be open. You'll be like gods who know what is good and evil. We're right on a fulcrum here, everybody, of the spiritual life. See, what sin? It's this presupposition that God is our rival. He's out to get us, to oppress us. He doesn't want us fully alive. and so I've got to make myself into a kind of rival God. I've got to say, no, no, it's my prerogative. From that elemental move follows the deep sadness that all of us sinners experience. No one tells me what to do. My body, my choice. My life, my death, my choice. Freedom is absolute. See, all of those are slogans composed in hell, if I can say it bluntly. They're all slogans invented by the devil. No, no, no. You eat a vet and you'll be like a god, and that's what he doesn't want. No, he wants us fully alive, and the worst move we can make is to turn ourselves into rival gods. Now, watch what happens after they eat. And, you know, hey, the fruit is good to eat. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm a sinner. I know all about this. It's when I make this move, it's enticing at first, but it is sweet poison. See, that's the point. It's sweet poison. I know it tastes good to say, my choice, my life, I'm a God, I determine. But what happens? they immediately realized they were naked and they experience shame and defensiveness. I remember in a previous sermon just recently, I talked about the danger of this inward move. When I become preoccupied with myself, I become, by definition, unhappy. The proper move is out, right? It's to forget about your own prerogatives and to become salt, light, and all that for the other. See, the move here is when I eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I turn inward and now become, in a self-preoccupied way, shamed and aware of my own nakedness. See, if you're focused totally on the other, you're not aware of all that. All right? That's reading one. the devil in relation to our first parents and we see the dynamics of sin Just briefly everybody in the great gospel reading from Matthew the account of Jesus in the desert, what do we find? Well, in a way, something very similar. The devil, again, is a main player, but now not Adam and Eve, but Jesus himself. After his 40-day fast in the desert, the devil approaches him. you must be very hungry so turn these stones into bread what's he saying it's not the will of your father that matters it's satisfying your desire it's satisfying your physical hunger that's what it should be all about and and you should make that decision you should make that determination you're the criterion of good and evil satisfy your hunger i don't know but man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. See, Jesus is saying, I'm not the criterion of good and evil in my human nature. It's my heavenly Father. And then the devil takes him to the parapet of the temple. Throw yourself down. The angels will pick you up. What matters most here? Safety. Safety. Keeping myself safe. That's what life's all about. When I eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I'm the criterion of right and wrong. I'll say what's right is what keeps me safe what's wrong is what puts me in danger yeah yeah look at the lives of the saints that how they operate that above all they're going to try to avoid danger that safety at all cost is the criterion no no it's doing the will of God which might put me in grave danger look at the martyrs and so Jesus says that no no don't put the Lord your God to the test you're not the criterion here rather it's following the will of God That's what matters. And then finally, showing him all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. I'll give them all to you if you would bow down and worship me. What's that? Hey, power. Satisfying my hunger, being safe, and now having power. Yeah, that's what the ego always wants. If I'm the criterion of good and evil, that's what I'll do. I'll try to satisfy my hungers, I'll try to be safe, and I'll try to be powerful so I can keep other people at bay. You see, what's happened there is I've become like a God, but this weird, deeply unhappy God. So Jesus dismisses him. You know, you should worship the Lord your God alone. And now there's the key thing, everybody. What happened at the beginning of a human race? The devil successfully seduced our first parents into thinking God is their rival, that they have to cling to their prerogatives to be happy. In giving into that sweet poison, they poison the human race. What undoes the sin of Adam is the obedience of Jesus, not making himself the criterion of good and evil in his humanity, but rather surrendering to the will and purpose of his Father. You know, everybody, we're back to training camp, back to basics. In a way, that's the most important point. That's the most important decision. Everything else is a footnote to it. And God bless you. Thank you for listening to this week's homily from Bishop Robert Barron. For more resources from Bishop Barron, please visit wordonfire.org. Thank you.
