Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

(Ezekiel 47:1-9.12; John 5:1-16)

It is said that tavern keepers in Ireland like it when St. Patrick's Day falls on a day late in Lent.  They will increase profits because their clients will be less likely to return to the penance of tea tottering.  Those revelers will consider St. Patrick as having licensed them to begin the celebration of Easter.  But such an introduction into the Easter mystery will bring about a sham imitation of the life it promises. Today’s readings hint at what is to be expected.

Ezekiel highlights the Temple as the source of this abundant life.  From its bowels water flows to not only irrigate the land but also to purify the sea.  John’s gospel shows Jesus as an even more prodigious life-giver.  The paralytic does not have to manipulate himself into the Temple’s waters but only encounter the Lord to be cured.

With Easter approaching, Lenten penances actually lose their bite.  We have become used to life without beer, chocolate, or what have you.  We also know that our time to enjoy these delights is not long coming.  But the real expectation as we enter the home stretch of the Lenten course is not about what the tongue savors.  It concerns our being assured first that death will not close our lives and then that the soon-to-be baptized in the Church who will help us testify to this truth.

Monday, Mar 16, 2015

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

(Isaiah 65:17-21; John 4:43-54)

When St. John Paul II was elected pope in 1978, he advised that the celebration of Jubilee 2000 would be the hallmark of his papacy.  Sure enough, as the bicentennial became more proximate, he issued calls for a global celebration.  Grand synods of bishops were convoked in the different parts of the world.  Tributes were issued to God the Father in 1998, God the Spirit in 1999, and Jesus, the Son of God, in the long anticipated year.  The readings today suggest that similar preparations for Easter now be planned.

The theme of the Lenten mass readings has changed from remorse and repentance for sins to anticipation of the graces of Easter.  The first reading from the third part of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah tells of a new beginning about to take place.  God, it says, will turn the people’s mourning into joy.  No one, it continues, will be deprived of a long life.  The gospel passage indicates why.  It shows Jesus performing the first of his healings in the Gospel of John.  His power, it makes clear, transcends space as he heals the royal official’s son from a distance.

People have traditionally prepared for Easter by buying a new set of clothes.  The idea was as much as clothes make the person, so the people will show that they have been recreated in Christ by new dress.  We should concern ourselves with the virtues that indicate a new creation: gratitude in place of criticism, charity in place of miserliness, and hope in place of discouragement.  Of course, now is the time to start practicing these virtues so that at Easter they become as apparent as a beautiful woman’s Easter bonnet.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Friday of the Third Week of Lent

(Hosea 14:2-10; Matthew 12:28-34)

In a sad ballad Elvis Presley used to sing, “It's only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.”   In the first reading today, the prophet Hosea tells us that God wants us to woo His heart with words.  “Take with you words,” the prophet says on behalf of God, “and return to the Lord.”  Words are like rockets that bring the one who prays close to God.

 

But, as everyone knows, words often fall short of reality.  Sometimes words are used deceptively or, at least, in ways that do not match one’s intentions.  “I would do anything for you,” a university student told his girlfriend.  “Would you go to the library with me on Friday evening?” she asked.  “I would,” he said, “but I am busy then.”  Words then are not enough.  One must be sincere in what one says. 

The step between words on the lips and sincerity in the heart is all that is missing from the scribe’s entering the Kingdom of God in the gospel.  Jesus does not mean to criticize the man when he says that is he is “not far from the Kingdom of God.”  He only means that the scribe’s approval for Jesus’ articulation of the greatest commandment is not enough for salvation.  He must not only approve Jesus’ words but live them.  When we say that we love God, we also must demonstrate our sincerity with actions of self-sacrifice on behalf of others.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

(Jeremiah7:23-28; Luke 11:14-23)

The other day Pope Francis preached that worldliness transforms souls so that they lose consciousness of reality.  They no longer see other people as images of God worthy of respect but as object of exploitation.  This refusal to see, this blindness runs through both readings today.

Jeremiah speaks of the people’s diffidence to the will of God.  He says that God desires to bring them to happiness but they refuse to follow his lead.  The gospel echoes this faithlessness on the part of the people.  Jesus has cast out a demon – a sign that the reign of God has finally arrived.  But witnesses make excuses to withhold their belief in him.  Frustrated, Jesus draws a line in the sand.  “Whoever is not with me,” he says, “is against me.”

We pray that we have really made an option for Jesus.  Sometimes it is hard to tell because we know that the human person has a million ways to deceive herself.  Yet we know that the best prescription for making an authentic choice for Jesus is to imitate his ways – all of them from prayer in the early morning to serving others well after the sun goes down.