Letter of March 10, 2006

The New Adam, Jesus Is Yes Not No!
The Most Reverend Carl F. Mengeling, Bishop of Lansing

The ashes at the start of Lent are an urgent ‘reality check’. They urge us to take stock of ourselves and our lives. We face the truth about our need for conversion. The ashes that teach so much about reality free us for another new beginning in our becoming mature followers of Christ. A true Ash Wednesday sets the stage for our Lenten journey of conversion to the glory of new life on Easter.

Lent is a time to recover our balance again; to recall that we have a future with the Lord and no one else; that no one can save us, except the Lord; that things ... and a total devotion to them, will leave us torn, confused and empty.

Lent helps us to put first things first; to bring all things into the service of love of God and neighbor; to bring our unruly passions and appetites into submission; to bring our mind and will into union with the Lord. It is a call to inner change of heart and mind; getting back on the right track. It is above all a time to open oneself to the Lord and His eternal Kingdom.

A few days after the ashes, we are called to make a decisive choice that determines everything. We say ‘YES’ with the new Adam, Jesus, as he is put to the test. The first Adam had to make a choice for or against God in a decisive test. He turned away from God and took all humanity with him.

The new Adam is also tested and chooses God and opens the way for all to belong to God.

"Straightaway the Spirit drove Him into the desert to that He might be tempted by the Devil..."

As soon as Jesus emerged from His upbringing at Nazareth and was to begin His work as God’s Son in the world, who would win the victory over sin and death. He is driven out into the desert to be tempted. Christ’s first gift to us is not some miracle, parable or fine teaching...His greatest gift is to face the same reality over evil as we must. Man’s fall came from disobedience...’not listening to God.’ Jesus turns the tables. As the new Adam. He accepts His existence as one of us...ON GOD’S TERMS He is obedient. He listens to His Father. The devil tries from the start to deter Him from his mission to save the world. To be the new Adam who would restore the Family of God...in God’s Way. All three seek to trap us into taking things into our own hands, in seeking salvation in ourselves, others or things...NOT IN GOD.

The devil does not win this first bout, but he will return later. On Good Friday, he will have his way and will bring out his whole arsenal, all his tricks and tortures. Jesus will have to fight to the death, and HE WILL WIN.

The temptations of the Lord show the real Christ, not some sugary, sickly and mousy Christ.

The Church starts us off in Lent... by showing us Jesus tempted to turn away from his vocation. That’s important for us because we too are going to take a stronger stand for Christ in Lent. We too are going to accept life and our reason for Living from God, as Jesus did... As soon as we take such a stand, the war begins. Temptation always appears when a person has a Divine Call. We are making a Choice during Lent...for God. We decide not to see our lives only in terms of the worlds passing values and judgements, but to see our lives in terms of the eternal. We see the futility of relying on earthly power alone, but now rely on God’s power. We see that the ways of the world alone will not bring us happiness now and for eternity, so we embrace the Ways of the Lord. The Temptations which Jesus under went in the beginning of His mission in the world determined everything... WOULD HE RELY ON GOD, OR NOT? Once we see the whole picture; rely on God and His Word, then, even the world makes sense. They become the raw material thru which we love God and others even more, rather than the gifts of God which take us away from God...Temptation helps us to know who we are, one way or the other. Temptation makes us ‘lay it on the line’. Temptation means that we have to take a stand...just as Jesus did...That’s what LENT IS ALL ABOUT....

A Lenten Prayer
O God, Lent is the time to face my death -
not just that moment when I breathe my
last, but all the daily deaths that being a
disciple of Christ brings. When we are
forced to face our death, we humans are
said to deny it, to try to bargain it away, and
then to get angry and resentful before
finally accepting it. I come kicking and
screaming into Lent, O God, denying that I
need to die to selfishness and to sin, trying to
bargain away my crosses, tending to become
angry and resentful that genuine Christian life
inevitably seems to involve some dying. Yet
deep down I want to learn to die daily this Lent
because I know that is the only way I can truly live.