As Lent continues on, we begin to grow weary of fasting and making sacrifices.  We just want to get to Easter already!!  This provides the perfect opportunity for the devil to come and tempt us, as He tempted Jesus in the desert.

This quote from the Bible is so simple and yet is often difficult to live by.  It seems so simple: just stay alert and then you won't have a problem with the devil.  This isn't as easy as it sounds.  The devil is tricky and deceptive; we see that in the story of Adam and Eve.  Sometimes it's hard to tell if something is actually bad when it just looks like a delicious apple to us.

So how can we resist the devil if we can't even always recognize when he's tempting us?  As the quote says, stay solid in your faith. Fill your heart with such a love for Christ and His Church that there's no room left for the devil to inch in.  In fact, the more you devote yourself fully to God, the more fearful the devil becomes.  As St. Catherine of Siena said, "The devil fears hearts on fire with the love of God."

2 weeks down, 4 weeks to go.
Continue fasting.  Make sacrifices.  Love Christ passionately.  Live your faith radically.  The devil will flee in fear and you'll be one step closer to the Resurrected Jesus.

We've already made it through a whole week and now we're approaching the second Sunday of Lent! So what can we do to continue to grow this Lenten season?

First, we need to enter into a period of discernment. Often, when Catholics hear this word, they immediately think of those discerning the priesthood or religious life. So why should we be discerning if we don't necessarily feel called to that life? Here's why:  discernment isn't just about considering the priesthood or religious life, it's about seeking God in whatever you do. So why wouldn't we make an effort to make this Lent a period of discernment? Don't we want to grow closer to Christ and make Him the center of all we do? If we make an effort to discern Christ and His will in everything we do, we're one step closer to becoming saints.

Second, we need to learn to let go of ourselves and focus on God. Last week, we reflected on the significance of Ash Wednesday and how it reminds us that without God, we're nothing but dust. We reflected on how we must die to ourselves and our worldly desires in order to prepare our souls for Heaven. So, this week, focus on letting go of yourself and letting God work more fully through you. St. Teresa of Avila has a great quote that sums up why we should let go of ourselves. She said, "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

This Sunday, the Gospel is the story of the Transfiguration. Peter, James and John go up to a mountain with Jesus and He reveals Himself in all His heavenly glory to them, along with Moses and Elijah. They are so overwhelmed by the vision that they want to stay there on the mountain and build tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. But they couldn't stay there forever because they had to go back to the world and bring Jesus to the people. So, too, do we have to go out into the world with the glory of God in our hearts and serve the people in His name.

So, this Lent, discern God and His will in your life. Allow Him to make you His hands and feet in the world. Learn to let go of yourself so you can truly become His.

St. Francis of Assisi is one of those saints that makes me have faith in every person's ability to become a saint someday.  He started off his life as an extremely wealthy man.  He partied regularly and was in constant search of glory.  He lived in sin and wanted nothing to do with God until he was about 25 years old.

Here's how it happened: God came to Francis in a dream and told him he was going about life all wrong.  He told him to turn back and go home instead of going to seek glory as a knight in the Fourth Crusade.  So, he returned, and faced a lot of humiliation and the anger of his father.  Francis began to pray and wept for his sins.  When Francis heard God call him, saying "Francis, rebuild my church" he assumed he meant the physical church he was sitting in, one that was falling apart.  So Francis sold some of his father's fabrics to try to pay for materials to literally rebuild the church building.  His father was furious and brought him to the bishop, demanding Francis return the money and renouncing Francis as his son.

A normal reaction to this situation would be to be upset or angry, right?  Well, Francis gave back the money and proceeded to strip off almost all of his clothes (which his father had given him) and walked off into the freezing woods literally singing with joy because now his only true father was his Father in heaven.  He got beaten and robbed and left in a ditch, and what did he do? Got up again and walked off singing!

As people saw how joyful Francis was, they wanted to join him in living as a beggar with absolutely nothing.  As he gained more and more companions, Francis took three things from the Gospel to live by: first, he took the passage where the rich man sold all his goods and gave it to the poor; second, he took the passage where the apostles were told to take nothing on their journey; and third, he took the passage that said to take up your cross daily.  This is how he and his companions lived, truly according to the Gospel.  This is a true example of one of his most famous quotes, "Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words."

Even though Francis was never a priest, he did preach very often.  There's even one story that Francis preached to hundreds of birds who stayed perfectly still and quiet until he told them they could leave.  This is one of many stories that shows how Francis truly believed every piece of nature was part of God's creation and he treated them as brothers.  There was a wolf who was eating humans in a town, so instead of letting the townspeople kill the wolf, he spoke to the wolf and asked him never to kill again.  Well, he never did kill again and soon afterwards, the wolf became like a town pet that everyone would feed.

Francis believed in trying to make poverty holy.  He and his brothers worked for all the necessities and only begged when they had to, never accepting money.  Why would he live like that?  Because what can you do to a man who has nothing?  You can't starve a fasting man, or steal from someone without money, or ruin someone who hates prestige.  He believed that this was the way to be truly free.

Francis was known for acting from the heart, spontaneously and as simply as possible.  This is when one of his famous quotes comes to mind: "Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."  When looking for approval for his brotherhood, he went straight to Pope Innocent III and was actually thrown out!  But later, the Pope had a dream that a small man in rags was holding up the collapsing St. John Lateran Basilica, so he called Francis back and gave him approval.

When converting people in Syria during the Fifth Crusade, Francis went straight to the sultan, in the midst of battle, to make peace.  He was captured and miraculously wasn't killed.  The sultan was charmed by Francis and his preaching and said, "I would convert to your religion which is a beautiful one -- but both of us would be murdered."

As he grew older, he became ill from living in poverty and wandering.  He began to go blind.  He prayed to share in Christ's passion and received the marks of the stigmata, suffering the same wounds that Christ did at his crucifixion.

In classic Francis fashion, he didn't complain about the suffering and blindness, but rather went on to write the beautiful Canticle of the Sun (see below).

If we can pray for one thing today, on St. Francis' feast day, it should be for joy in the midst of suffering.  How often do we experience some sort of pain and simply become despondent and depressed?  Pray for the grace to be more like Francis, rejoicing in poverty, suffering, and sickness.  If we can love the Lord and feel even half the joy that he did, we're sure to be better people and be on the road to sainthood!

It's so easy to get caught up in life.
It's so easy to get lost in the stress and work of each day.
It's so easy to forget why we're here and who we're living for.

You know what else is easy (and probably easier than anything else)?
Falling into God's arms, as weak and broken as you are, and knowing His love.

This song is one of my favorite songs through all the tough times in my life.  It reminds me of how, even when I feel like I have nothing left, God is there for me and will provide the strength and resolve I need.

So, go ahead.  Scream it from the mountains: He is God and He is there, all the time.
Go ahead and blare this song in your car and sing it through to the end, as loud as you can and with all you have.
I guarantee, you'll feel different after you do.