Fr. JC Maximilian

Who are you? Many of you are probably saying to yourselves, “Well, who are you father? We don’t know who you are and you didn’t introduce yourself at the beginning of Mass.” That is a fair question, and it was not out of rudeness or forgetfulness that I failed to introduce myself at the beginning of Mass. I wanted you to have in the back of you mind the question, “Who are you?”
Well, I am Fr. JC Garrett, and I am down here in Myrtle Beach for a vacation. I am a priest of the Diocese of Trenton, NJ and I am currently the parochial vicar at St. Mary’s Church in Barnegat, NJ — the largest parish in our diocese with nearly 10,000 families. I was here on Ash Wednesday and read in the bulletin that your parochial vicar had just been transferred, so I offered Fr. LeBlanc to assist him this weekend with the Masses. This is my first time in Myrtle Beach, but since I just bought a time-share here, you might be seeing me each year when I come down for vacation.
Now, why did I want you to be thinking about the question, “Who are you?” I head back to New Jersey tomorrow, so there is not much of a chance that I will get to know many of you. So why, “Who are you?”
I think the question “Who are you?” is one of the fundamental questions, not only during Lent but in life. There is a famous psychologist who wrote a book that looked at how men and women tend to answer that question differently: men tend to identify themselves by what they do, e.g. “I’m a banker, or butcher, or candlestick maker,” while women tend to identify themselves by their relationships, e.g., “I’m so-and-so’s wife, mother, etc.” While all those things may be true, they are not at the core of who we are. Sadly, so much of life and society tries to distract us from who we really are. It is a kind of identity theft. Oh, it’s not the kind of identify theft that LifeLock or some other company like it is going to protect you from. It is the kind of identity theft that goes all the way back to the Garden, when the devil stole away Adam and Eve’s true identity. By convincing them that they could be like God, they forgot their true identity as being creatures, made by a loving Father-Creator.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that, “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:12). In the desert Satan tried to rob Jesus of His identity. Each year, the Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent gives the account of Jesus’ temptation in the desert, and the accounts in Matthew (4-1-11) and Luke (4:1-13) give more details about how Satan tried to steal Jesus’ identity through temptation, but they all tell how Satan tempts Jesus to put aside HIs true identity as the obedient, faithful Son of the Father and to be a messiah of earthly power and majesty, a messiah concerned with His own position and status. However, Jesus refuses to allow Satan to steal His identity. He remains true to His message, and faithful to His mission. Jesus remains true to the identification He received at His baptism just before He went into the desert, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).
This season of Lent, we are called to remember the identity that is ours through our baptism. We are children of the Father. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, marked with the sign of the cross. We are people in whom the Spirit of God makes a home.
How can we use this Lenten Season to remember our true identity? We can learn from our Master. It is important to note that it was the Spirit, and not Satan, who “drove” Jesus into the desert. We tend to think of the desert as a terrible place to be. It is hot, dry and lifeless. However, in the Scriptures the desert is often painted in a very different light. Most famously, the Prophet Hosea has God calling His People to come back to the desert, for the 40 years that Israel spent wandering in the desert was seen as a honeymoon period for the Chosen People and God. It is when they formed their identity as the People of God, totally entrusting themselves into God’s hands. It was God who fed them, giving them manna, the food from Heaven. It was God who healed their infirmities when they sinned. It was God who led them into the Promise Land.
Do we see the deserts in our lives as God calling us to honeymoon with Him, or as a hot, dry, miserable and lifeless place to be? The challenges and difficulties in our lives can be opportunities for us to strip away all the false images of ourselves and discover who we really are. I discovered this very early in my priesthood. I was a priest only about six months when I was diagnosed with cancer. I remember coming back to the rectory the night my doctor told me that I had cancer, all the other priests were out and I was alone in the rectory. I remember crying out to God, “Why? I just gave you my life as a priest, to serve You and minister to Your people, so why this?” I was in the desert, and instead losing myself, I was open to God’s invitation. Deep within myself my heart cried out my true identity, “All for Jesus.” Then I realized how I had allowed my identity to get distorted in such a short time. My priesthood was not a gift that I was giving to God; rather, it was an incredible gift that God had given to me. I am the creature, and God is the Creator. I am a beggar before Him, and in His great love for me, He has given me an awesome gift, the gift of priesthood. The treatment for my cancer left me feeling weak and exhausted for a better part of a year, but through it all, I knew that God was leading me to the Promise Land. That was over 7 years ago, my cancer is in remission, actually the doctor says “cured,” and I still know that God is leading me to the Promise Land because He loves me with an everlasting love.
In the desert, Jesus was “among wild beasts and the angels ministered to him.” We too are among wild beasts, but that is not necessarily a bad and dangerous thing. It reminds us that we are surrounded by the natural world which is also created by God. We need to develop our awareness of the traces of God’s presence in the world around us: the natural beauty that we see, the people we encounter, and the situations we find ourselves in. They all point to God’s loving presence, if we but have eyes that see and ears that hear. As much as we need to be aware of the divine presence in the natural world around us, we also need to be aware of the supernatural world. We need to recognize, name and give thanks for the graces that God is constantly bestowing on us. He sends His angels to minister to us as well.
This Lenten Season is a time to check our identity, to examine if we are living according to the identity that is ours as baptized members of God’s Church. Or if we have allowed sin and selfishness, if we have allowed Satan, to lessen and even steal our identity as Christians.
If we have, the words Jesus speaks in this Sunday’s Gospel, are meant for us “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Turn away from sin, and follow the Gospel. Live according to your true identity!