It is God who wants to join divinity, pure divinity, to corrupt humanity. In order to do that the Lord had to take on human flesh so there would be one, pure human flesh in order to sanctify all human flesh. There had to be one, pure, divine love so as to purify all human love. There= s something extremely supreme, stupendous, and mysterious here that the Divine Majesty in its absolute purity should be united with earth. That this purity would join malice and embrace the malice to expiate it and therefore offer us not only forgiveness but new life and the fullness of life.

In today= s gospel we have the three characteristic marks of the practices of Lent. Perhaps for us the most important one is the prayer. But you when you pray go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to the Father in secret and the Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do you really believe this? The monks of old were so convinced of this they went to the desert to seek out silence and solitude in order to be alone with God. All of you have read and listened to the experiences of the Desert Fathers and their holy life and their transformation. But it= s difficult for a 21^st Century people to really sit down quietly and pray. Just to go into your room. What goes on in your room when you sit down, especially when you sit down to pray, or kneel, or stand to pray, in your room?

It is clear from this text it= s not enough to pray together in the hours of the day. It is clear that each of us must take out time to pray. Do we do it? Then if we do it what goes on in that room? Is our mind all over the place? The Desert Fathers knew this problem. They knew when they went into the desert they were removing themselves from exterior distractions. But they knew also that they carried the baggage of their thoughts with them. So there= s the whole tradition of fighting your thoughts and purifying your mind. Where are we in terms of going into the room, closing the door, that is, making the exterior world not impinging on us so that we= re attending to the presence of God. God is here with me. This God who willed to united himself to our corrupt humanity. He wants to pardon us. He came to do this. And so we have to reflect on what= s going on in our room.

First of all, do we have the growth in faith that when we do close the door in our room, that we are before this Majestic Presence that wants to embrace us, to heal us, and to draw us into his heart.

Secondly, we have to also be willing to open our hearts to how the Lord is guiding us. What are the things that the Lord really wants to remove from our heart so that we may grow? Because if we do this faithfully he will show us. Even the most notorious sinners who begin to turn to the Lord are lead by the Lord to a deeper life of faith, hope and love and to a deeper prayer life. Here we are professed monks to be A experts@ of prayer still struggling with do we even go to our room and close the door? Do we practice interior silence? Do we practice the denial that= s necessary to place ourselves before God? It= s interesting that the text in the Greek form, the inner room, is the room where our treasures are. It= s the place that sustains us. In the economic world it would be our safe. So this is the place where we have our strength and all our richness. It= s here, it= s available. Do we really delve into it and come out enriched? God wants to heal us and he has the power to do so. Do we open ourselves to him?

If we apply the first reflection to what= s going on right here God wants to unite himself with us at this Mass. Divine Presence, Infinite Purity comes to us in the Body and Blood of Christ, how do we receive him?