Father Thomas Welbers' Homily

One of the things I have decided to do during Lent is to try, as far as possible, to base my homilies, both on Sundays and on weekdays – you know, you might consider coming to Mass on weekdays too, not just as a Lenten practice – because Mass really isn’t a penance, but an opportunity for grace – but as a valuable part of your life throughout the year – but I digress; back to the point: During Lent I’m going to try to preach using the opening prayer of the Mass as the starting point. Did you happen to listen to the opening prayer? I fear that in actual practice, rather than setting the tone for our entire assembly’s prayer in the Mass, it just comes across as more “yada-yada.” Here is what we prayed: “Father, through our observance of Lent, help us to understand the meaning of your Son’s death and resurrection, and teach us to reflect it in our lives.” Well, that’s nice enough, but it really doesn’t have much “grab-value,” does it? Quite frankly, it didn’t make me sit up and take notice.

The problem, though, is not really with the prayer itself, at least not in its original Latin. The problem is with the translation we’ve been using over the last 30 years. It’s the official English translation, and we’re not supposed to change it on our own. But it was also intended to be an interim, provisional translation – and sadly, because of bureaucratic sluggishness in the Church combined with many differences of opinion on the philosophy of translating and ways of expressing some doctrinal concepts, it hasn’t been upgraded in the past thirty years. Many people, myself included, have criticized our English translation of the Mass texts as clumsy, dull, and even sometimes inaccurate – certainly failing to capture the verve and grace of the original Latin, which of course can be appreciated only by those who know Latin. The answer is not returning to the Latin Mass – unless you all are fluent in Latin. The answer is, however, a better translation, which is in the process of being prepared. It may be ready any century now!

Meanwhile, I went back to the Latin text of this prayer. And here is what the English translation should be, if I were in charge of things. I think my rendition is a bit more faithful to the meaning of the original, and a little more engaging, I hope:

“God all-powerful, as we begin this yearly 40-day training period celebrating this sacrament of the Eucharist, give us what we need both to explore the hidden depths of Christ and to change our lives to conform to the life of Christ.”

So, having just prayed that God will change our lives during Lent, we have to ask, is our prayer sincere enough to let him do just that? Or perhaps do we pray that God will just give us what we feel we need and help us when we feel we need help, and let us alone, thank you very much, otherwise? The part about “exploring the hidden depths of Christ” – that expression “hidden depths” was my translation for the Latin word “arcanum,” which does mean something mysterious, something hidden, something that you don’t just get right away, but you need to explore, and you find as you explore it, you’re farther and farther away from comprehending it, but becoming more and more involved in the mystery, in the reality of it. And so the part about exploring the hidden depths of Christ is what we really need to think about if we want a model of how we should let God be God in our lives. And here’s where the temptations that we just heard about come in.

Most commentators on Scripture see these temptations in the desert not just as an isolated incident at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but as symbolizing the ongoing struggles Jesus has throughout his life and ministry with the unique dilemma of being both fully God and fully human. Actually, “both God and human” doesn’t quite capture the hidden depths of Christ that we are praying to be able to explore. It might be better said that the temptations reflect his human struggle to continue to welcome God into his life. Even though he was aware of his divinity, conforming his human will to God’s will did not come automatically. This is comforting because it doesn’t come automatically for us either. But it’s because he unfailingly said yes to the will of God with his human will that we are saved. We have both the power and the confidence to say yes ourselves to God, because Jesus has done so, and has paid the great price for the yes, even to submission to a painful and shameful death on the cross.

Reflecting on the temptations of Jesus, and how they embody the same temptations we face, is a good doorway to begin to explore the “hidden depths” of Christ of the original opening prayer of the Mass, and a gateway to a Lent in which we can truly let ourselves be changed by the grace of God.

© 2005 Thomas Welbers