SNOW DRAGON

First Sunday of Lent

This morning in the newspaper, there was an article about a rather cool or rather "hot" invention called THE SNOW DRAGON. This machine is able to melt tons of snow...10 tons of snow an hour to be exact...in these parts of the Northeast this winter, such a machine is a gift indeed!

As I read about the "snow dragon", I thought how wonderful it would be to have a snow dragon for our hearts. To melt away all the resentments, lusts, greed, jealousies and anxieties that lurk about in the recesses of the heart. As I prayed,
I realized that we do have such a machine. It's the confessional and the season of Lent is the time to make use of this marvelous "machine"!

For many of us, we associate Lent as a time for Winter Spiritual Olympics...a time when WE do spiritual tricks, like the athletes we are watching in Vancouver. I might suggest, however, that we avoid such displays of personal heroics and allow this Lent to be a time when we allow our LORD to do HIS work IN us. A time for Jesus to be a "Snow Dragon" for us. A time when we allow our sin to melt away and be warmed up as we draw close to Jesus. Then, we wake up out of our cold winter.

Of course, such an invitation fits well with our Gospel today. For we find our Lord in a "hot climate" in the desert today, hungry, tired, alone and tempted. And it is here that he meets another type of dragon, SATAN. Jesus meets him head on and endures his wild attacks.

Friends, one of the things that this Gospel shows us is that this meeting between Jesus and Satan is real, it's not an anology, a fable or story. Satan is not just a pipe-dream...he is real! You may not have heard that recently from a catholic pulpit. But it's time to hear it and it's important for us to reflect on that today. For what happens in the Gospel today is crucial, it's real and in the temptations of Jesus we discover what Life is all about. It's a battle.

This is a good reminder, for in seeing this, we see Jesus to be who He is. And he at the root of things is Savior. He's not just a nice guy. Yeah, He's a nice guy, but He is savior. And as such He saves. He saves us. From what? From the fires of Hell. And oh, how we need that salvation.

In light of this fact, it might be helpful re-read once again, what exactly the Church teaches on HELL, i.e. what exactly Jesus saves us from. This reflection might help us in our spiritual life and warm our hearts to the love of Jesus. Let's take a look at the Catechism:

1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"614

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

My friends, the Good News here is that this teaching does indeed help us to hear the CALL to CONVERSION. The Catechism describes this Call as Urgent. Lent is the time for this to happen.

Let us then, Heed the Call of our Lord. To keep our eyes on the goal and let us ask him to be our snow dragon this season, which will provide us victory over the Satan Dragon in our lives.