THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
(Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke
13:1-9)
As always during Lent, the readings today spark our
interest. The first is the famous story of Moses' initial encounter with the
Lord God. Curiously, God speaks to his chosen liberator from a bush that burns
without being consumed. The Gospel sounds like the daily news. It reports two
catastrophes as if they happened yesterday. What is not clear is how these
readings interrelate, as is always the case at Sunday Mass.
To resolve this question, we must extend our perspective to
next Sunday's Gospel. This contains the touching parable of the "prodigal
son." The story highlights the
compassionate father who graciously receives back the son who abandoned him.
The father certainly represents God. Some may think that this compassion is so improbable
that the God it supposedly describes is but a figment of imagination. That's
what Freud thought. However, we know that God truly exists when He identifies
Himself to Moses as "I am." He
is not a myth like the gods of the Egyptians or the Greeks. Nor is His mercy fictitious
as His intention to rescue His people indicates.
This is interesting, but what does it have to do with
today's gospel? In the gospel, Jesus uses catastrophes to call the world to
repentance. He speaks of the northern Galileans in the report of Pilate mixing the
blood of his victims with that of animals. Then he mentions the inhabitants of
Jerusalem in southern Israel crushed by the collapse of a tower. North and
south: in other words, the whole world. Jesus is insisting that everyone change
their ways to conform to God's. If they don't, he warns, they will be lost.
The reason for repentance is not to appease an irate God. Rather,
it is the opposite. As Jesus makes clear in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we
should return to God because He is kind and merciful. He wants to help us
achieve true happiness. God’s motive here is like the mother who forbade her daughter
from running around with a group of wild friends. The mother doesn't care if
her daughter resents her judgment. She just wants her to have a happy life.
Thus, God wants us to repent for our own good.
Sometimes we have difficulty recognizing our sins. As if we
were near-sighted, we can't see other sins than the most obvious ones, like
missing Mass or viewing pornography. Somehow, we must go beyond obligations and
prohibitions in our examination of conscience. We might ask ourselves if we are
generous both in the judgments of our peers and in our donations to the needy.
We might question whether our prayers are merely repeating words or if they communicate
to God our actual fears and hopes.
Lent is to prepare us to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection
with renewed minds and hearts. This renewal seems incomplete without a good
confession of sins. In it, we strive to achieve what Pope Saint John Paul II
called "purification of memory." This experience of truth and
repentance, along with the reparation of any debts owed and the absolution of
the confessor, calms our anxiety. We can go forward at peace with God and with neighbor.
In a world burdened by sin, we can live anew as brothers and sisters of Christ
carrying out the will of the Father.
