Sunday, March 23, 2025

 

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.

Friday, March 21, 2025

 

Friday of the Second Week of Lent

(Genesis 37:3-4.12-13a.17b-28a; Matthew 21:33-43.45-46)

Envy is said to be “sorrow over another’s good.”   Since it lacks charity, it is a sin.  It is said to be a capital sin because it readily gives rise to others.  The derivative sins may be graver than envy. In today’s first reading, envy causes Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery.  In the gospel parable of the vineyard, it moves the tenants to murder.

Most people experience envy at some time.  We may resent the fact that others score better on tests or that they make more money for less work.  Envy can be contravened by effort to be content with what we have.  Jesus tells us not to worry about what we lack, but to ask the Father for what we need.  Another wise man, the Dalai Lama or chief priest of Buddhism, has other good advice.  He says, “We need to learn how to want what we have, not to have what we want in order to get steady and stable happiness.”

 

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

(Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 16:9-31)

A dozen or so years ago sociologist Charles Murray published a book that received national attention. Coming Apart marshaled massive evidence demonstrating that the United States was becoming increasingly stratified economically and socially.  Although the liberal rich are criticized as having an elitist disregard for religion and for wanton living, Murray showed the opposite.  His evidence revealed that the rich were much more likely to go to church and have intact families than the poor.  So do the rich in the United States act like the rich man in the gospel parable today, or do they follow Christ?

Of course, the answer is, “that depends.” In the parable the rich man's sin is not that he is wealthy but that he overlooks poor Lazarus lying at his door.  He probably is well-known in the community, but interestingly in the hereafter he goes unnamed.  Meanwhile, Lazarus dies in misery but is remembered by name in eternal bliss. 

Some rich, no doubt, faithfully follow the Lord.  However, there is a striking parallel between the rich in America and the rich man who ignores Lazarus.  With gated communities, first-class accommodations, and high-cost private schools, the rich are not likely to see the poor struggling close by. They must make special effort on behalf of the needy to be remembered in eternal life.

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

 

Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

(2 Samuel 7:4-5a.12-14a.16; Romans 4:13.16-18.22; Matthew 1:16.18-21.24a)

One innovation of Pope Francis has been to include St. Joseph in the very often used Second and Third Eucharistic Prayers.  For awhile waning in the popular eye, Joseph’s role in the economy of salvation has been reemphasized.  After all, he not only gave Jesus royal lineage; he most likely taught his divine son godly justice.

In today’s gospel Joseph manifests how justice is a virtue that requires more than a literal enactment of law but also love and prudence.  The Law allows Joseph to publicly expose Mary as having sexual relations outside marriage.  Of course, that is not true, but her pregnancy indicates it.  However, Joseph, being truly just, cares about Mary and adeptly decides to divorce her in secret.  In the end he does not have to do it, but his plan reveals a man of good character.  Raising Jesus as his own son, he likely passes on to him godly virtues.

Although contemporary artists often picture Joseph touching Mary, in classical art there is almost always a separation between the two.  Joseph was a chaste man who would not let proximity lapse into sexual intimacy.  It is one more virtue that we can learn from this wise and holy man.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

(Isaiah 1:10.16-20; Matthew 23:1-12)

 In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus wages a war on hypocrisy.  He emphasized it in the Sermon on the Mount where he warned his disciples not to fast, pray, or give alms for show.  In today’s passage he critiques the Pharisees for not practicing what they preach, a sign of hypocrisy. 

Then Jesus tells his disciples that they are brothers and sisters to one another.  As such, no is to assume greater respect or honor than anyone else.  He becomes specific when he says that they are not to call one another, “Rabbi,” “teacher,” “master,” or “father.”  These titles are used among the Pharisees to covet honor. 

We in the Church have not taken Jesus literally here.  Teachers inside the Church abound.  Priests are almost universally called “Father.”  Because these transgressions have a long tradition and often give comfort to those who seek spiritual wisdom, they may be readily forgiven.  But clericalism – the pretension that priests are better and more deserving of honor than lay persons – remains a tragic sin.  It is tragic because Orders is a sacrament of service, not of domination.  It is a sin because it subverts the unity Jesus intends among his disciples.