HOMILY PRONOUNCED  BY  MONS. DIEGO  MONROY PONCE; GENERAL AND EPISCOPAL VICAR OF GUADALUPE, RECTOR OF THE SANCTUARY.
SUNDAY 1st.  OF  LENT.

 February 25th of 2007

PRAYING, BEING LITTLE ATTACHMENT TO THE MATERIAL THINGS AND CHARITABLE.

Brothers: Our God and Lord. He is the father of Jesus Christ, Who is rich in mercy and generous to forgive us. He gives us this strong (time) opportunity for conversion to return to the ways of obedience, justice and love, in order to achieve the life, which he promised to us through the passion of his son, whom he raised from the death.

The pope Benedict XVI proposes to us to act like John and Maria watching Jesus, whose body was pierced. It means that we have to stay next to the Crucified, who completed the sacrifice of the salvation for the humanity. The Pope insists on the mistery of the cross as a revelation of the fullness of God´s love. This mistery reveals the power of his unlimited mercy and his love was bigger that he accepted to pay a high price: the death of his only son.

My children, for what and why do we practice the penitence? The immediate cause and purpose are: to purify our sins and to prepare ourselves to the joyful celebration of the Easter day. The ultimate cause and purpose are: to fight frequently against the tendency to sin. It means we are preparing ourselves for the definite Easter.

Thus, the drive that moves us to the repentance and conversion, it is not a vague feeling of guilt but the sorrow and the pain to reject the God´s love, since he has shown it to us through the life, passion, death and resurrection of his son. We have the yearning for perfection, which consists in a happy life next to God, our father, and this encourages  us to resist the temptation of sin, to stand up, recognize our weaknesses and look for the ways around us to defeat the sin. We have a special grace from God through the sacrament of penitence.

The readings from this Sunday include the resources of  Lent, which proposes to us some practices like: praying, fasting, giving alms. These practices are not proposals, they are ways, means to serve to the life and the values giving us the responsability of  being children of God and followers of Chist.

Praying is a frequent search of the union with God through praising, thanksgiving and supplication. All of this must start from an attentive and grateful listening of his word, which is contained in the Holy Scriptures and also in the occurrences of our private, community and universal life. It means we need to learn to recognize the several ways that God speaks to us. Thus praying requires not just a few moments of  our life, we have to walk under the God’s gaze.

Fasting is not just setting limits to food and drinks. It is the most tangible expression of other abstinences. It is also the sing of  the fight against egotistic and excessive attachment to the material things. So the fast should include everything that can be harmful to our spiritual and material health, and the reason is that these things keep us away from God. The last point about fast, it is that we need to put our confidence just in God, not in the power and the pleasure of fake securities.

Charity, it is not just giving something material. It is a sing of mercy and compassion, it means helping people to live in better conditions as children of God. The necessities of the human being are numerous and everybody needs something. Someone needs to receive medical attention for his health, it can be either for sick people  or old people, others need to feel the human contact, which give us serenity and joy. When we give affection for all the marginalized people ,  the God´s love become in a credible experience.

All of this is connected to the Lent, which gives us a sense and meaning. In the second reading St. Paul said: the value of the actions  is the union whit Christ, whom we accept in our heart and  proclaim with  our mouth.  So the fast, pray and charity are expressions of faith and they help us to overcome the temptations like: pleasure, power, possession, etc. Temptations that Jesus overcame and he taught us to do the same with help from his spirit.

In the Eucharist, we celebrate to God our Lord, Who created everything and gives us material and not material things to use them not as proposals, but as means or ways to build a better world, with more justice and love.

Our sweet lady, Holy Mary of Guadalupe, our mother and teacher gives us with her presence an example of solidarity and she intercedes frequently for us, in order to help us to build a society filled with peace.