“Unchain Your Heart”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
February 26-27, 2022
Gospel: Luke 6:39-45
This week, we have Ash Wednesday for which we have rules of fasting and abstinence. You can look them up online for a reminder. People call this the Penitential Season. “Ugh! I have to give up something. It’s 40 days of punishment!” It’s more than 40 days because we don’t count Sundays, and it ends on Holy Thursday. That is 40-50 days of no cake, no coffee, no pie, no soda, and no booze. Be happy about it. I prefer to think of it not as a Penitential Season in the sense that it’s about deprivation, but as an exercise of spiritual freedom. We free ourselves from bondage to things so that we may be able to love. We are trapped in pleasures not worthy of us. Chocolate cake will satisfy us for just so long. Believe it or not, I have not had a piece of bacon in two years. Medical quacks! Anyway. We are enslaved to things rather than free to love. When you break those chains, you achieve freedom. If you are not chained to Facebook, games, or whatever else you have, you are free to love and free to experience God’s love. Satan stirs up all these things in our heart. But Jesus said, “My ways are easy.” His ways are not difficult…He said that. Denying our fantasies is not difficult. If we say that they are, we are accusing Jesus of lying. We make it difficult by listening to Satan and instead, we wind up pole vaulting over mouse droppings where everything is so hard and so dramatic. Hey! Come down off the cross, we need the wood!
I’ll tell you this story. I was at a Christmas dinner years ago with the bishops and the abbot, a priest, was there. He was telling us about how he offered Mass to the people in Venice, and it was so cold, he could see his breath. I said, “Well, Father, I offered Mass in Iraq in 136 degree weather and during a sand storm. But to me, that was just another day at the office. Would I do it again? Yes, because I love my soldiers. Was it pleasant? Not really, but it was a work of love free from attachment. You will find that you have greater happiness. You will find a greater love to allow more love into your soul rather than a love of things. Rather than having things taking up space in our souls, God is there. He is the one for whom our souls were made. As Saint Augustine said, “Our heart is restless until it rests in You.” Our souls were made for God alone. Everything else does not satisfy. People are so unhappy because they keep trying to fill that void with people, places, and things that are not God.
During this season and our works of love, I urge you to come to Confession, and make it a frequent habit. I urge you to offer more prayer. And don’t say, “Oh, I’m going to say two Rosaries every day.” Just try a decade at a time, okay? Start out small with baby steps. You aren’t monks. You aren’t cloistered. You aren’t consecrated and can sit there for an hour. In seminary, we sat there for hours praying for vocations in the world. Just pray. Hey, that computer has an off switch. It won’t hurt you a bit. Honest. I promise it won’t hurt you a bit. Those people on Facebook will not miss you. TikTok videos will go on without you. Someday, we will get our celestial discharge, and they will still go on without us.
This season is a time for us to grow. It is not a time for brutality or self-flagellation. It’s a time for freedom to free ourselves from bondage to things; to improve our vision so that we can see what is really important to us; and to grow in the joy of our spiritual lives. This is not transitory joy that’s good for only a few seconds, then gone, and we are left to deal with the consequences. Rather, this is a joy that nobody can take from us. This is what we do. Seek His love. Don’t ask anyone, “What are you giving up for Lent?” First of all, it’s none of your business. And yes, it is my business as your priest.
People ask, “What are you going to do for this Lent?” Well, I’m going to try to be holier. I’m going to try to free myself of the bondage to things. We all have our fun and things that we like to do. They are innocent in and of themselves. They are not sinful. But, putting them down and turning to prayer might be a much better alternative.
How will you apply this message to your life?
You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to http://AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.” Sermon notes can also be found on the church Facebook page by searching for “Facebook Our Lady of the Annunciation Albemarle”