During my third year in upper graduate seminary, I had the privilege of living with two seminarians who were studying for the Archdiocese of Beijing, China. Both students were sent to the United States as part of an agreement that was made between the official, government-sanctioned church in China and the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. The deal that was negotiated was that some of the Chinese seminarians were given permission to study their theology in Roman Catholic institutions and, in return, the Chinese government would loosen their grip on the priests from the underground church who were unjustly imprisoned and mistreated because of the allegiance they held to the universal Catholic Church. The two students’ names were Peter and Joseph; Joseph lived on my floor and Peter lived two floors above me.

Neither Joseph nor Peter spoke any English when they first arrived in the states. Joseph was more diligent in his studies; Peter seemed to adapt more to the “social customs” of his new country without worrying too much about the education that went with it. I was asked to take Joseph under my wing and tutor him about the ways of the faith and, in the friendship that grew from that relationship, Joseph confided in me his desire to follow the teachings of the underground Church. He told me that this path in life would be quite difficult, that this life might lead him to prison or to much worse. However, as Joseph confided in me, he believed that it was God’s will that directed him in this path and that to deny the will of God was to deny the path of life that he was called to follow.

With these comments, Joseph made me reflect intensely on the word of God and the path that each of us is called to take towards this kingdom of heaven. As we gather at this Mass to pray together, I am certain that each of us has our challenges in life that we must overcome and temptations to take the easy way out of the challenges which we face. The challenges might be simple ones: to go on a diet, how to manage our finances, or which candidate to select for public office. Some challenges might seem more difficult: how to stay faithful in our respective vocations or how to love another person when that other person has wronged us in some way. For some, the easy challenges are hard and the harder challenges are easy. For some, the phrase “lead us not into temptation” might seem as lip service rather than something that someone should take to heart.

I have learned the hard way in life that following the will of God is a whole lot harder than following the will of society – society has a much different plan in life than God does. The old joke that is used in the life of ministry is that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans in life. Society has plans for us in this world and those plans usually are hedonistic by nature. God has one plan for us – to get us to heaven. He has given us the tools to achieve this goal; He has given us His Son to show us the way. All we have to do is hold on to Christ and to follow the blueprint for salvation he has set for us in the Bible and the teachings of the Church – all we are called to do is hold on for the ride and allow Christ to steer this boat and to carry us to the other side.

As we celebrate this first Sunday of Lent, I was thinking about how Joseph chose to follow the will of God, his challenge to remain obedient and avoid temptation in the world. On this first Sunday of Lent I recalled the story of one of Joseph’s fellow clergymen, Cardinal Ignatius Jung, who served 30 years in prison and another decade under house arrest on because of his adherence to the same faith that he was called by God to live and punished by a government as a result of this adherence to the faith. As we read this story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert, I began to think about the significant temptations in life that won’t just make us gain a few points or save us a few dollars. I think about the temptations that can lead us to death. For the sake of Cardinal Jung, for the sake of Father Joseph, I pray that each of us in this holy place are able to say with conviction the same words that serve the basis for their lives: “thy will be done” and “lead us not into temptation.”

The fact is, to follow the will of God leads us all to the desert in order to fight off the temptations of life. This season of Lent reminds us how much easier life becomes when we succumb to sin and avoid the world of grace. The British scholar C. S. Lewis once wrote that the life of sin is like an easy, gentle path that provides little resistance and before you know it, you do not even realize that you have taken the path to hell until it seems too late. Sometimes this path to hell seems innocuous – cheating on a test, cheating on your vocation or cheating on the world becomes simple or complex temptations that slowly draw us away from the Lord. The small sins grow into large sins; the large sins demonstrate to God that we would rather live apart from Him than with Him. The fact is, if someone offers a person the easy way to life with a little sin involved, the person will probably choose that life over the one that is full of grace but accompanied by suffering as well.

In the scripture readings, we understand the parallel between these lives of the profane and the sacred through the strength of obedience found in the persons of Adam and Christ. Both were filled with the grace of God (one obviously more than the other). Both were given the challenge to follow the will of God in order to maintain this relationship. But as we are told in our first two readings today, Adam was tested by the devil and, as a result, Adam was lured away from this perfect relationship. Where Adam failed, Christ persevered. Where Adam succumbed to the temptation of sin, Christ remained obedient to God, right through the cross. And we are told that if we follow the path of Christ and follow the will of the Father, our path will not be easy – it is very difficult to swim upstream in this life of society. The path of this life will eventually lead us to this cross that becomes a symbol of our faith life and a symbol of the type of service our Lord was willing to endure for us. However, the path of Christ carries us through the profane into the existence of perfection. The path set forth by Adam sets us on the nice easy slope to extinction.

I wish to conclude my homily today with a somewhat lengthy mediation from a man named Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who spent 23 years in a Soviet prison after being convicted for supposedly spying on Russia as a “Vatican spy.” Prior to his death in 1984, Fr. Ciszek wrote about the reason he chose to accept the path that God asked of him and why, as a result, he accepted the imprisonment that accompanied this path. For me, I read this reflection and realize that my struggles in life, though very important and significant to me, are extremely trivial in comparison to others. In the larger picture, the sufferings of others like Cardinal Ignatius Jung, Fr. Joseph Zong and Fr. Walter Ciszek serve as an inspiration for me during the Season of Lent to be more diligent in following the path that God has set for me. This reflection serves as my inspiration to follow God’s will. This is what Fr. Ciszek writes:

Choosing to do God’s will and experiencing the spiritual freedom that followed was my greatest joy and the source of tremendous interior strength. For to know that he directed me in all my actions, that he sustained me with his grace, gave me a sense of peace and courage beyond description. Even in moments of human discouragement, the consciousness that I was fulfilling God’s will in all that happened to me would serve to dispel all doubt and desolation. Whatever the trials of the moment, whatever the hardships or sufferings, more important than all these was the knowledge that they had been sent by God and served his divine providence. I could not always fathom the depths of his providence or pretend to understand his wisdom, but I was secure in the knowledge that by abandoning myself to his will I was doing as perfectly as I could his will for me.

Spiritual freedom of this sort, as I knew from bitter experience, is not something that can be attained overnight or ever possessed in its final form. Every new day, every new hour of every day, every new circumstance and situation, every new act is a new opportunity to exercise this freedom. What is required for growth is an attitude of acceptance and openness to the will of God, rather than some planned approach or calculated method. Even ascetical practices such as penances, fasting, or mortifications can be hindrances rather than helps if they are self-imposed. Striving instead to eliminate all self-will, to accept God’s will revealed in the circumstances of daily life, is the surest way to achieve growth in conformity to the will of God. It will provide more than enough virtue to be practiced, suffering to be sustained, pain to be borne; more importantly still, it will make us fit instruments to achieve his designs, not only for our own salvation but for others as well. The service of God must take preference over all else.

For the sake of Fr. Joseph, Cardinal Jung, and Fr. Walter, may we learn to follow God’s will and seek the path of spiritual freedom that comes from this obedience. This is our prayer.

Escoger hacer la voluntad de Dios y la experiencia de la libertad espiritual que continúo fue mi gran alegría y el hecho de la tremenda fuerza interior. Pues el saber que El me dirigió en todas mis acciones, que me sostuvo con Su gracia, me dio un sentido de paz y de valentía mas halla de lo que puedo describir. Aun en momentos de desaliento humano, la conciencia de que estaba haciendo la voluntad de Dios en todo lo que me pasaba servia para todo lo que me llevaba de duda y desolación. Cualquiera sean las tribulaciones en el momento, cualquier dolor o sufrimiento, lo mas importante de todo esto fue la sabiduría que fue enviada por Dios a través de todo esto y el servicio a Su Divina Providencia. No siempre he podido saber las infinidades de Su providencia o pretender el entender su sabiduría, pero estaba seguro en el conocimiento de abandonarme a Su voluntad estaba haciendo la voluntad que El tiene para mi.

La libertad Espiritual de este tipo, como una experiencia amarga, no es algo del cual se puede obtener de la noche a la mañana o poseer con un toque final. Un día nuevo, una hora nueva, cada circunstancia y situación nueva, cada nuevo hecho es una oportunidad para ejercer la libertad. Lo que es requerido para crecer es una actitud de acertamiento y ser abiertos para la voluntad de Dios, en vez de algún procedimiento planificado o un método calculado. Hasta las prácticas de penitencia, ayuno, o modificaciones pueden ser daños envés de ayuda si es algo que nosotros mismos nos imponemos. El tratar de eliminar nuestra propia voluntad, y el aceptar la voluntad de Dios que nos enseña en todas las circunstancias diarias de nuestra vida, es el camino mas seguro de alcanzar el crecimiento en conformidad a la voluntad de Dios. Esto proveerá mas que suficientes virtudes para hacer, sufrimiento para ser sostenido, dolor para soportar; y aun mas importante, nos instrumentos fijos para realizar sus diseños, no solamente para nuestra pero la de los. El servicio de Dios debe tomar la preferencia sobre todo lo demás.