SEASON OF LENT

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-18; 2 Corinthian 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

FIRST READING (Joel 2:12-18)

The first reading is from the prophet Joel of whom very little is known. His name is shared with about a dozen other Old Testament figures. Internal evidence would seem to indicate that he lived in Judah during the Persian period of Jewish history (539-331 BC). The majority of historical references in his book, in which there is no mention of Assyria or Babylonia, would point to a period between 400 and 350 BC. He is regarded as a ‘cultic’ prophet, that is, he exercised his ministry within the life of the Temple.

Today’s reading comes from the earlier part of the book in which Joel sees a plague of locusts which ravaged the country as a sign of God’s judgement on his people and hence a time for repentance.

“Fasting, weeping, mourning…” Fasting was required once a year on the Day of Atonement but also in times of calamity (as with a plague of locusts). It was a sign of penitence and submission to God by a sinful people.

Today’s passage is an eloquent and beautiful call to repentance. “It is Yahweh who speaks – Come back to me with your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning… Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn..” Why? Because Yahweh “is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, and ready to relent”. (This is in contrast to the prophet Jonah who early on in his mission complained that God was too easy on sinners, especially Gentile sinners.)

The passage is a solemn call to repentance. Repentance here is not just sorrow for the past but a call to a complete change of life. The emphasis is on inner change, not outward observance – “Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn”. For us, too, Lent is better observed by an inner change in our way of life than merely the external ‘giving up’ of minor pleasures. A change that will continue well beyond Lent and become a consistent pattern of our living.

It is certainly not a time for fear. Our God is a loving God. “He is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, and ready to relent.” This is almost a chorus line that echoes through the Old Testament. So we can approach God in the greatest of confidence.

But repentance in the Scripture is not just feeling bad about the past and looking for forgiveness.

It is about bringing about a complete change of thinking, a new way of seeing our lives, moving forward on a different track. What the Gospel calls a metanoia, involving a radical change in the way see our life and the direction in which it ought to go.

How to benefit from the goodness of the Lord?

”Sound the trumpets in Zion! Order a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, call the people together...the community...the elders...the children...even infants at the breast… Let the bridegroom leave his bedroom and the bride her alcove...let the priest, the ministers of Yahweh, lament. Let them all cry out for pardon and forgiveness.” All are called together for a common show of repentance, peoples from their homes, newlyweds from their bedchambers, even the priests making sacrifice in the Temple. It is a time for everyone to leave their sinful ways – from priests to children – and to repent with deepest sorrow.

God is reminded that they are his people. If they are reduced to shame, outsiders will be driven to ask: “Where is their God?” Just the question that people often ask when disasters strike – Where was God when his people died by the million in the Nazi concentration camps? Where was God when the Twin Towers were struck? When thousands died in the tsunami of Southeast Asia? When a close relative died, the innocent victim of a driving disaster…? The question to ask most of the time is not: Where was God? but Where were we?

In Joel’s case, the Lord did reply. The prayer is answered; the plague ceases. Yahweh, jealous of his own people, takes pity on them.

Let us pray that this Lenten season will help us to see the world and to see life as God sees it.

The wonderful Scripture readings of Lent will help us.

SECOND READING (2 Corinthian 5:20-6:2)

A powerful appeal from Paul to the Christians of Corinth which fits in perfectly with the beginning of the Lenten season.

First, he reminds us that we are “ambassadors for Christ”. It is through us, through our words and actions, that God is seen by the rest of the world. That is a tremendous responsibility and something to be seriously reflected on especially during this Lenten season.

Secondly, Paul points out that, for our sakes, God made Jesus, who was altogether without sin, “to be sin”. In this sense, that Jesus, the altogether sinless One, willingly endured the effects of sin and evil, especially through his suffering and death on the Cross. His purpose in doing that was that “we might become the very holiness of God”. In other words, we too are called to walk the same Way that Jesus did, to be ready to suffer and die as he did. In this more than by any other thing we might say or do, we truly become ambassadors for Jesus Christ.

So Paul begs the Corinthians (and us) that this tremendous act of God’s love enacted through his Son, Jesus, be not in vain. Lent is a time for us to contemplate deeply the meaning of Jesus’ life, suffering and death for each one of us and to reflect what changes it calls for in the way we live our lives of discipleship now.

“Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!” For the Christian the time of conversion and change is always NOW and never more so than during the great season of Lent.

GOSPEL (Matthew 6:1-6,16-18)

The three central acts for the devout Jew were prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The only fast actually laid down in the Mosaic law was that of the Day of Atonment (Leviticus 16:31) but in later Judaism the practice of regular fasting was common. The Gospel tells us that John the Baptist used to fast and he was contrasted with Jesus who ate with sinners (which does not mean that Jesus did not fast). The Pharisees also fasted regularly.

For Christians too these acts are all proper to the Lenten season. And all three can profitably be incorporated in some way into our lives during these six weeks.

Let us give some more time specifically to prayer (not just saying prayers) each day. We might think of learning something about ways of praying – John Main prayer, Centring Prayer, Lectio Divina (based on reading of Scripture) or some form of Ignatian Prayer. There are many books available to learn about these methods which are basically very simple. They can also be found on the Internet. John Main recommends 20 minutes twice a day as ideal. That may seem a lot but many of us, even in a busy day, do not have a problem with spending an hour or more on a TV programme. For some it may be possible to pray in a small group together with shared prayer.

There are now in most places only two official fast days in the whole of Lent. Some people would never think of fasting although they may be on a diet which is even more stringent than what the Church asks. Fasting can consist of doing without something we do not really need, even if we are over the age for fasting: alcohol, nicotine, snacks and titbits... Sometimes it is harder to let go of these things than to eat fish – especially if you like fish!

And do not let us forget to share something of what we have with those who are in need. Why not take the money that would be spent on that fancy meal you decided to forego and give it to those who do not know where their next meal is coming from? If you have given up movies for Lent or any other indulgence, again let the money saved be diverted to the really needy.

The Gospel today emphasises the importance of doing all these things quietly and without ostentation. No one should even know we are praying more, sharing more or doing without things. Once we draw attention to ourselves doing these things, they have lost their real purpose which is to bring us closer to God and his ways.

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 9:22-25

The readings today offer a clear choice between the way of death and the way of life.

FIRST READING (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

The passage comes from near the end of the Book of Deuteronomy just before it relates the last actions and the death of Moses. It is in a section known as the ‘Third Discourse’, that is, a third discourse attributed to Moses. Only Deuteronomy speaks of a covenant made in Moab, an area to the east of the Dead Sea and the last territory which the Israelites passed through on the way to the Promised Land. It is complementary to that made at Horeb, where the Decalogue was given to Moses.

Today’s reading (as does the Gospel) offers a choice between life and death. “I set before you life or death, blessing or curse.” Life is to be found by totally accepting the way of life that God proposes, “if you love the Lord and follow his ways”.

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you: I am offering you life or death… Choose life…” In other covenants outside that of the Old Testament, it was common to name a list of gods who served as ‘witnesses’ to its contents. The covenant between Yahweh and his people was witnessed by both heaven and earth.

The way to life that God offers is not one that much of the world proposes. In fact the world sees God’s ways as limiting when, in fact, if properly understood, they are truly liberating. The life that God offers is not freedom to indulge in every desire and pleasure – pursuit of wealth, uninhibited sex, indulgence in drugs, legal and illegal, prescribed or non-prescribed... Day after day people’s lives are being destroyed by these things.

Life, now and in the future, consists in hearing, assimilating and living out the way of life that God proposes. Today, God offers us the clear choice between life and death. He leaves the choice up to us.

GOSPEL (Luke 9:22-25)

This passage is about death and life. It begins with Jesus foretelling what is going to happen to him. Intense physical suffering, mental suffering through total rejection by the leaders of his own people, and a brutal execution. But all will lead to resurrection and a new life that can never be taken away.

Jesus goes on to say that anyone who wants to be one of his followers must be prepared to walk the same path, carrying their cross after Jesus. Perhaps we should emphasise that we are to carry our cross which will be different from the cross of Jesus and from that of other people. And Luke adds that it is something we must be prepared to do every day.

Of course, it is a call which goes against many of our normal instincts. Renouncing self goes against our desire to advance ourselves in the eyes of others. Who does not want to preserve their life? Self-preservation is a deep instinct. But self-preservation is not the same as self-advancement. Jesus is saying that a life spent focused only on ourselves and our self-advancement is ultimately a recipe for self-destruction. We are bound to be disappointed.

The only way to live is, like Jesus, to offer our lives for the benefit of others in love, in caring, in solidarity, in compassion, in justice. This is the only way truly to find ourselves and to come out winners. What is the good of winning the whole world – becoming incredibly rich and famous – and to lose one’s integrity, one’s self-respect, one’s dignity as a person, one’s happiness?

Our world – Christian and otherwise – is covered with statues and images of people who gave their lives for others, for causes and values greater than themselves. They are our heroes and our models.

And first among them is Jesus, dying in apparent failure and ignominy on the cross. We now see that cross as a victorious symbol of the greatest love that one can show for brothers and sisters.

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-9; Matthew 9:14-15

FIRST READING (Isaiah 58:1-9)

A magnificent and, in many ways, a frightening passage from Isaiah. It points to where true religion is to be found.

We have here a wonderful prophetic call in the spirit of those great prophets who lived in the post-Exile period. The call is for an inward spirit to match outward observance. A call that pervades Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel and is found touched on in today’s Gospel.

“Raise your voice like a trumpet.” Big feasts and the beginning of fasts were proclaimed by a trumpet. At Mount Sinai God’s voice is compared to a trumpet blast. Actually, only one day, the Day of Atonement, was prescribed for fasting but there could be other days to commemorate some national disaster. Today our Ash Wednesday fills a similar role, a day when many of our churches are packed.

The people are asking God to come near. They are calling out for just laws. They want to have their fasting and their penances noticed by God. On the surface, they seem to be so religious, so pious and docile, but all the while they are neglecting to do what God really wants. “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? Afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” they ask plaintively.

God, through the voice of his prophet Isaiah, gives them a powerful response, one they hardly expected. Instead of praise, they get condemnation.

O yes, they fast all right but at the same time they keep “doing their own things”. They do business on their holy days and oppress their workers. They fast but at the same time quarrel and squabble and physically abuse the poor.

Is this what God wants? Is this real fasting and penance? Looking miserable, “hanging your head like a reed” in a show of abject humility, lying in the midst of sackcloth and ashes? Is it all these very pious acts that God cherishes and wants?

The kind of fast that the Lord wants is something altogether different. It is

- to break unjust fetters,

- undo the thongs of the yoke,

- let the oppressed go free and break every yoke and burden,

- to share one’s bread (money and goods) with the hungry,

- and shelter the homeless poor,

- to clothe the person we see naked

- and to act responsibly towards one’s own flesh and blood.

These words were written thousands of years ago; in our enlightened age they still apply fully. They contain a proclamation that will be repeated by Jesus both in his words and actions. It is by doing these things that we will really be in the spirit of Lent. It is a lot more than keeping the fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday or than giving up things like sweets or smoking.

What is really important is to reach out in love and compassion to those in need and to treat every single person with respect and dignity. “Then will your light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over.” What wound? The wound of our sinfulness, our lack of love and sense of responsibility. The wound of our hypocrisy and false religion.

After doing all that, when we cry out to the Lord, he will answer: “I am here.” Yes, I am in the midst of all that pain and misery you have reached out to rather wallow in your self-chosen pieties.

How do I think God sees me during this Lenten season? What am I doing in response to God’s call to come to his help in my brothers and sisters?

GOSPEL (Matthew 9:14-15)

The Gospel more than once contrasts the lifestyle of Jesus with that of John the Baptist. In today’s passage we see the disciples of John the Baptist (John himself never questions anything that Jesus does) asking Jesus why they and the Pharisees fast regularly but his disciples do not.

The reason Jesus gave was because it was not normal to fast when the bridegroom was still around. He is the Bridegroom and, as long as he was present, it was a time for

celebration. Fasting is a sign of mourning and would be as inappropriate at this time of joy, when Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom, as it would be at a marriage feast.

But there is more than that. Jesus in his life pointed his disciples to something deeper and more important than fasting, namely, reaching out in compassion to others bringing joy, comfort, healing into people’s lives. Fasting can be very self-centred, as in the case of the Pharisees. “See how holy I am!” (We saw that in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday.) Jesus expects more than that.

But Jesus does say that when the bridegroom is gone, when Jesus is no longer visibly present, his disciples will fast. At that time, it will be appropriate to fast as a sign of penance and purification. There is a place for asceticism and even penitential acts. The Church (and every other major religion) has recognised that over the centuries.

But it is the reaching out in caring love that is most important. Without that, fasting has no value.

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Readings: Isaiah 58:9-14; Luke 5:27-32

The Scripture lessons as we enter the Lenten season could hardly be clearer. It is not just a time for focusing on ourselves by giving up things and perhaps even feeling smug about it. It is a time to look beyond ourselves and to find God there.

Earlier in the passage we read today, Isaiah comments on complaints being made by people that though they are fasting God is not taking any notice. The reason is, says Isaiah, is because while they are virtuously fasting they continue to exploit their workers and get involved in fights and quarrels.

If we call on the Lord for help, he will hear us but there are conditions. We must be rid of any form of oppression, false accusations or malicious speech. We need to share our bread with the hungry and console the afflicted.

Then light will shine in our lives and “the gloom shall become for you like midday”. We will become like “a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails”.

There is a further call to spend the Lord’s day in a more reverent manner. It is a time to refrain as far as possible from our daily concerns and make it more a day for quiet reflection and a time to remember God’s gifts to us. “Then you shall delight in the Lord.”

Lent, then, is really a time for us to reflect on the meaning and direction of our lives and to consider what changes are necessary not just at this time but for the year ahead.

Luke 5:27-32

Jesus certainly made strange choices in his prospective followers. Today when we look for “vocations” we tend to search among committed and well-balanced Christians. Today we see Jesus picking someone who was regarded as an immoral money-grabber, a religious outcast.

Tax collectors were despised on two counts: first, they were seen as venal collaborators with the hated colonial ruler, the Romans, for whom they were working; second, they were corrupt and extorted far more money than was their due.

But Jesus knows his man. At the sound of the invitation, Levi drops everything, his whole business and the security it brings him. It is very similar to the fishermen leaving their boats and their nets. He then goes off after Jesus. Where? For what? He has no idea. Like Peter and Andrew, James and John before him, in a great act of trust and faith, he throws in his lot with Jesus whatever it is going to mean, wherever it is going to bring him. In Luke’s gospel particularly, the following of Jesus involves total commitment.

Then, as his last fling so to speak, he throws a party in his house for all his friends, who of course were social rejects like himself. The religious-minded scribes and Pharisees were shocked at Jesus’ behaviour. “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” they complained to the disciples.

Jesus answers for them. Only the sick need a doctor, not the healthy; Jesus has not come to call the virtuous, but sinners, to repentance. Jesus’ words can be read in two ways. On the one hand, there is no need to preach to the converted. Which is what we do a lot of in our Christian churches. What is needed is to reach out to those who are lost, whose lives are going in the wrong direction, who are leading a self-destructive existence.

And surely that is what the Church needs to be about today. There is a lot of the Pharisee among us still. We are still shocked if we see a priest or a “good” Catholic in “bad” company and often jump to hasty and unjustified conclusions. “A priest/sister should not be seen in such company.” As a result the Church is in many cases very much confined to the church-going fringes of society.

Jesus’ words can also be taken in a sarcastic sense. His critics regarded themselves as among the well and virtuous. In fact, they totally lacked the love and compassion of God reflected in Jesus. Their “virtue” did not need Jesus because they were closed to him anyway. We remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple. It was the one who acknowledged himself as a sinner and wanted God’s mercy who won God’s favour.

We too need to be careful of sitting in judgment on others, taking the high moral ground and claiming to be shocked at certain people’s behaviour. All of us, without exception, are in need of healing.

Lent 1 | Monday

The level of true holiness very simply is measured by the way we treat our brothers and sisters. The First Reading tells us the kinds of things we ought not to do while the Gospel emphasises more what we should be doing.

FIRST READING (Leviticus 19:1-2,11-18)

The general theme of the Book of Leviticus is in today’s opening sentence: “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” Today’s reading comes from a section dealing with moral and religious regulations related to daily life, with obvious links to the Ten Commandments. Some of them sound somewhat strange today such as, “You will not round off your hair at the edges or trim the edges of your beard” (as presumably some of Israel’s ‘pagan’ neighbours were doing).

In today’s reading the call is clear: the measure of our holiness is that of God himself. Obviously that is not something to be even remotely achieved in our lifetime; rather, it is an ideal to be constantly aimed at as we continually try to raise our sights. But, are there are any measures, by which we can measure our progress in something so abstract as holiness?

Very simply, today’s reading says that it consists in the way we treat (or do not treat) those around us. It is perhaps worth observing that everything here is largely expressed in the negative, the things we ought not to do towards our brothers and sisters.
- no stealing or fraud
- no irreverent use of God’s name.
- no abuse of others through exploitation or robbery by paying just wages at the proper time.
- no abuse or neglect of the disabled: the blind and the dumb are mentioned.
- avoiding all forms of prejudice and bias either towards the weak or the powerful
- no passing of judgement on others beyond the bounds of justice and fairness.
- never criticise out of hatred but only out of a desire to help.
- no vengeance, no grudges.

It is quite obvious that it is not enough just not to do these things but rather positively to do the opposite in each case. And they are all finally summed up in one positive injunction: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” In the context, it is clear that ‘neighbour’ means a fellow-Jew but Jesus – as well as Paul and James in their letters – would extend its meaning to embrace every single person.

Some of the stricter Pharisees interpreted ‘loving the neighbour’ as implying that one should ‘hate the enemy’. But others came closer to Jesus’ injunction that love for neighbour should even extend to those who would want to harm us. For instance, Rabbi Nahmanides said: “One should place no limitations upon the love for the neighbour, but instead a person should love to do an abundance of good for his fellow being as he does for himself.”

It is clear from this and the later teaching of Jesus that the ‘neighbour’ included every single person and not just those close to us by place, nationality, race, religion, class or gender… but even those who would want to harm us. And, as today’s Gospel makes clear, the neighbour is particularly to be identified with any person who is in need of any kind.

Later, Jesus would push the command even further when he told us to love each other not just as much as we love ourselves but to the degree that he loved us – by ‘emptying’ himself and giving his life for every single one of us.

As I reflect on this passage during Lent, I may ask: Where do I stand in my relationships with my friends, my ‘enemies’ or the needy in my community?

GOSPEL (Matthew 25:31-46)

Both of today’s readings deal with the way we ought to behave towards each other. The First Reading tells us the kinds of things we ought not to do while the Gospel emphasises more what we should be doing.

The Gospel is the great scene of the Last Judgment when all will face their Lord Jesus. We will be divided into sheep and goats – those who are with Jesus and those who are not. The criteria on which we will be judged are interesting. Nothing about the Ten Commandments (normally the matter of our confessions). Nothing about the things mentioned in the First Reading, which more or less reflect the contents of the Ten Commandments. There is nothing about what we normally call ‘religious obligations’ (e.g. being ‘at Mass’ on Sundays and holydays).

The test will be very simple. Did we love all our brothers and sisters or not? There is some discussion as to the identity of these ‘brothers and sisters’. Does it refer to all who are hungry, thirsty, in need of clothes, in need of medical care or in jail or to a particular group? The passage may primarily be thinking of Christians, and especially Christian missionaries whose preaching brought them suffering and persecution. These were more likely, too, to end up in prison. To reject and abuse these people and their message is tantamount to rejecting Jesus himself.

However, we have traditionally extended the passage to include all who suffer in any way because of our neglect and we recognise Jesus as being present in these people in a special way.

And the things we are supposed to do are so simple: give food to Jesus hungry and drink to Jesus thirsty; to clothe Jesus naked; to visit Jesus sick and Jesus in jail. And naturally people will ask: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked or sick or in prison?” And the Judge will answer: “In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it to me.” Whether we realise it or not, every time we spontaneously take care of a brother or sister in need it is Jesus himself we are serving.

Notice: You did it TO me, not FOR me. Jesus identifies himself especially with the person in need. Every time we neglect to help a brother or sister in need, we neglect Jesus himself. Our worst sins, our most dangerous sins will be our sins of omission. We can keep the 10 Commandments perfectly and still fail here. The next time we examine our conscience let us think about that.

Lent 1 | Tuesday

Today’s readings are about prayer or rather about a certain aspect of prayer. Prayer is not a question of us manipulating God to make him do what we want done but rather of finding out what God wants and bringing our own desires into total harmony with his. It is not a question of putting aside our will and submitting reluctantly to his will. It is a question of bringing the two wills together. Then I find I am doing what I want because I want what God wants. That is freedom, that is peace, that is happiness.

FIRST READING (Isaiah 55:10-11)

This short reading comes from the last chapter of the second part of Isaiah, known as Second Isaiah (chaps. 40-55). It is also known as the ‘Book of Consolation’ because it speaks with hope and encouragement of the approaching end of the Jewish exile in Babylon, in contrast to earlier prophecies which rather emphasised the punishments which Israel had merited by her infidelities.

We are reminded that God has his plans for the world and they will not be frustrated. Those plans are not arbitrary. They are for the wellbeing of all creation. He is the loving Father to whom we pray with confidence, described in the Gospel reading about the Lord’s Prayer.

The prophet expresses these ideas in language that is truly poetic. The inevitability of God’s Word being realised is like that of the gentle rain that makes the earth fertile and fruitful and so produces the seed that provides the bread on which we live. “So it is with the word that goes from my mouth: it will not return to me unfulfilled or before having carried out my good pleasure.”

GOSPEL (Matthew 6:7-15)

Jesus tells us here not to babble endless prayers as if somehow by so doing we can bring God round to our way of thinking. (Read Elijah and the priests of Baal: 1 Kings 18:25-29.) Some religious groups, too, would keep calling their god by all his different names, hoping that by hitting on the right one he would listen. There is no need to do this because God knows our needs before we ask. Why then do we need to pray at all? The praying is not for God’s sake but for our own. It is important for us to become deeply aware of our needs and of our basic helplessness and total dependence on God. We also need to learn just what God wants of us so that we can do what he wants.

And that is what the Lord’s Prayer is about. Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer to be recited. It is a way of praying; it is a list of the things we need to pray about. And it is less our telling God what we want him to do than making ourselves aware of the ways by which we can become more united with him. It is a very challenging and, in a way, a very dangerous and daring prayer to make. So,

Our Father: God is the source of all our life and all we have and are. We say ‘our’ and that ‘our’ includes every single person. And, if God is the Father/Mother of every single person then each one of them, without even one exception, is my brother or sister.

Holy be your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven: The three petitions are really saying the same thing. Obviously, in one sense we cannot make God’s name more holy than it is. But we do need to respect that awesome holiness and that is more for our sake than God’s. The petition can also be a petition that God make his name holy by showing his glory, in this case by bringing about the Kingdom in its fullness.
We want God to be loved and respected and worshipped by all – not in some future life but here and now, on earth. We want the loving and compassionate Reign of God to be fully accepted by people everywhere as part of their lives, individually and corporately. We want God’s will for this world to be also the will of people everywhere.
Clearly, all this has to begin with ourselves. The coming of the Kingdom is not just the work of God alone; it is the result of us cooperating with him in the work. What am I doing in my life now for the realisation of that Kingdom?

Give us this day our daily bread: A prayer that our needs be satisfied for today. A prayer that rules out excessive anxiety about the future. But how are those needs to be satisfied? Do we expect manna to drop from the skies? And what about that little word ‘our’ again? Does it just mean me, my family, our community, our town, our country – or much more? Is this not a prayer that we all work together to ensure that no one goes hungry? Yet we know that millions do go to bed hungry every night and even more suffer from an unhealthy diet. And most of it is the result of human behaviour and neglect. This prayer reminds us that changing that situation is the responsibility of all of us. Another dangerous prayer.

Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us: This is another dangerous thing to pray for. I really should not say it unless I am ready. And, if I am not ready, I need to pray hard for a forgiving heart. This is the only petition which is spelled out more clearly at the end of this passage. “If you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.” (cf. Matt 18:21-35, about the unforgiving servant.)

Do not put us to the test, but save us from the evil one: A final plea that we will not fail but that God’s help will be with us all the way. It is an admission of our basic impotence to set things right in our own lives and in the world. Given the challenges of the rest of the prayer, we need all the help we can get.

If this prayer were to really enter our heart and minds, we would become deeply transformed people. So let us stop babbling it as we often do and really pray it, phrase by phrase – and live it.

Lent 1 | Wednesday

Today’s readings are about doing penitential actions for our sins; both readings are linked by the name of Jonah.

FIRST READING (Jonah 3:1-10)

Jonah, probably not a historical figure, is one of the most attractive characters in the Bible. Although he is listed among the Minor Prophets, his book is more a cautionary tale than prophecy in the strict sense. There is an underlying humour through the whole book of Jonah which one does not often find in the Old Testament. The book also indicates a softening of attitudes by the Jews towards Gentiles. They were not totally beyond God’s compassion and mercy.

Jonah is asked by God to go east to preach to the pagan people of Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, described as being so big that it took three days to walk across it. Archaeological excavations indicate that the later imperial city of Nineveh was about 13 km in circumference or a larger area comprising a four-city complex (‘Greater Nineveh’) which would have been about 100 km in circumference. However, we are not dealing with a historical document and the idea is simply to say that it was a huge city with an awful lot of people – all unbelievers in the true God.

However, instead of doing what God tells him, Jonah takes a ship and goes west – in the opposite direction. He cannot believe that God could show mercy to such wicked pagans. After a huge storm threatens to sink the ship and all on board, the crew become aware that Jonah, in disobeying a mission from his God, is the cause of all their trouble. So he is unceremoniously dumped overboard where he is promptly swallowed by a huge fish (traditionally, a whale). Even the whale does not particularly enjoy the presence of Jonah and, after three days, coughs him up on the shore.

By now Jonah begins to get the message that God means business and he reluctantly proceeds to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, a city synonymous with paganism and idolatry. He threatens the city with destruction if the people do not change their ways. “Only 40 days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The 40 days is reminiscent of the Flood, God’s punishment on a wicked world, which lasted 40 days or of the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. The Hebrew expression for ‘overthrown’ is also an echo of the ‘overthrowing’ of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by a special act of God.

To Jonah’s great surprise there is an immediate response to his call for penance. “They believed in God”. In today’s Gospel, Jesus mentions this unexpected conversion and compares it with those Jews who refuse to believe in him.

From the greatest to the least, the citizens of Nineveh begin to fast and wear penitential sackcloth. Even the king “took off his robes, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes”. Even animals were not to be given food.  Inclusion of the domestic animals was unusual but expressed the urgency with which the Ninevites sought God’s mercy. Even then, forgiveness seemed too much to hope for. “Who knows? Perhaps God will change his mind and relent and renounce his burning wrath so that we shall not perish.”

The result was that God did indeed look kindly on their efforts to change their ways and relented. The threatened punishment for their wickedness was not inflicted. Clearly, repentant Gentiles were also the object of God’s love and forgiveness.

The thrust of this story seems to be that, contrary to traditional Jewish belief (of which Jonah himself was an example), “wicked” Gentiles could respond to God’s call and change their ways.
This is an anticipation of what would happen in the early Church, where the first Jewish Christians gradually came to realise that the Gospel call was extended to people everywhere.

For us, at this time of Lent, it is a reminder of our need to repent, both in the sense of being truly sorry for all the wrong we have done and the good we have failed to do and to reflect on how our lives can be brought more in line with the call of the Gospel. It is also a time to reflect on our attitudes to non-Catholics and non-Christians or ex-Christians. Jesus himself says that we will be surprised at the number and kinds of people who will go before us in his Kingdom. Let us make sure that we will be among them. Lent is a time to make the right preparations.

GOSPEL (Luke 11:29-32)

Today’s readings are about doing penance for our sins and they are linked by the name of Jonah.

In Mark’s gospel the crowds are often shown as recognising God’s presence in Jesus better than the Scribes and Pharisees do. In Luke, however, they are sometimes shown as people curious to see signs and wonders but without any real commitment to following Jesus.

So today we are told that “the crowds got even bigger” and Jesus spoke to them. But what he said was not very flattering. “This is a wicked generation; it is asking for a sign.” The only sign they will get will be the sign of Jonah. Jesus, like Jonah, is a call to repentance and radical conversion. And Jesus implies that many of his listeners are not ready or willing to hear that call. They don’t need any signs; Jesus has been giving them an abundance of signs through his teaching and healing work.

On the judgment day, they, the chosen people of God, will be surprised to see the Queen of the South rise up because she, pagan that she was, came a long distance to listen to the wisdom of Solomon – and Jesus is someone far superior to Solomon. They will be surprised to see the people of Nineveh, pagans that they were, rise up because they repented at the preaching of Jonah – and Jesus is far greater than Jonah.

We too, who claim to be God’s People, may be surprised to see who will be called to God’s side on judgment day because they heard and followed God’s word according to their capacity. The question is: where will we be on that day? Thomas A Kempis, the writer of a famous medieval treatise, called The Imitation of Christ, asked that very same question. He was worried about whether he would persevere in serving Christ to the very end of his life. He said he was told in answer to his prayer: “Do now what you would like to have done then, and you will have nothing to worry about.”

Where will I be on the Day of Judgement? The answer to that question can be decided by me this very day and every single day from now on.

Lent 1 | Thursday

Today’s readings are about prayer, specifically prayer of petition.

FIRST READING (Esther 4:17 [C:14-17,23-24])

Esther, a Jewish woman and queen to King Assuerus (in Greek, Xerxes) of Persia, used her influence to avert a massacre of her people by the Persians. As she prepared to enter the presence of the king she made the prayer in today’s passage.

She prays to God to stretch his protecting hand over his people and to help her particularly in the task she has to do. She acknowledges her weakness and that, without God’s help, there is nothing she can do. But she, so to speak, reminds God of the promises he made long ago to his chosen people, chosen as a “lasting heritage”. It is a prayer of pure petition.

She knows that she and her people are totally in God’s hands. She does not threaten or try to manipulate God or bargain with him. She leaves the outcome entirely to him.

While we are encouraged by today’s Gospel to ask, to search, and to knock as a way of acknowledging our total dependence on God. At the same time, whatever we ask for, like Esther, we leave the outcome totally in his hands. As Jesus prayed in the Garden: ‘Father, not my will but yours be done.’
__________
*The text references vary from Bible to Bible. The Book of Esther consists of an original Hebrew text with a later (but pre-Christian) text in Greek added. Non-Catholic bibles tend to omit the Greek text as apocryphal. Today’s reading comes from a part of the Greek text.

GOSPEL (Matthew 7:7-12)

Today’s gospel sounds marvellous. “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find...” It seems all I have to do is pray for something and I will get what I ask for. And yet, we all know from experience that that is simply not true. I pray to win the lottery but don’t even get one of the minor prizes. I pray for the recovery of a person with cancer but the person dies. What is happening? Is Jesus telling lies? Are there some hidden conditions that we are not aware of?

I believe the answer lies in the second half of the passage. First, Jesus asks whether a father would offer a stone to his son asking for bread or whether a snake would be offered instead of a fish. “If you, then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.”

In other words if we human beings, in spite of our shortcomings, care for the well-being of our children, then surely God, who is all good, will be infinitely more caring. The problem is not that God does not answer our prayers; the difficulty is that we tend to ask for the wrong things. We do not give a child a sharp knife to play with even though, when we refuse to do so, he throws a temper tantrum and gets angry with us. A good parent, of course, will try to give the child something else which satisfies its real need at the moment.

Jesus is saying that God will give “good things” to those who ask. In fact, as Jesus says elsewhere (Matthew 6:8), God already knows all our needs so it is not necessary to tell him. Then why pray at all? The purpose of prayer is for us to become more deeply aware of what our real needs are.

The things we ask for in prayer can be very revealing of our relationship with God and with others, it can be very revealing of our values and our wants (which are very different from our needs). The deepest prayer of petition will be to ask God to give us those things which are most for our long-term well-being, those things which will bring us closer to him and help us to interact in truth and love with those around us. It is a prayer to be the kind of people we ought to be. It is difficult to see that prayer not being answered.

It may be useful for us to look at the prayer of petition of Jesus in the garden and how it was answered. Paul in the second letter to the Corinthians also shares an experience of petitionary prayer which he made (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) and the surprising answer that he got.

The passage ends with the so-called Golden Rule – “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Note that it is expressed positively rather than negatively and that makes a considerable difference. The negative version can be observed by doing nothing at all; not so the positive version. Although it is a separate saying it can be linked with what Jesus says about petitionary prayer. If we expect God to be kind and generous to us, surely we are expected to be equally kind and generous to those who come asking our help.

Lent 1 | Friday

Today’s readings are about repentance for the wrongs we have done and the guarantee of God’s mercy. They are also about the surprising ways in which God’s justice works.

FIRST READING (Ezekiel 18:21-28)

The prophet Ezekiel today makes a double point.

On the one hand if the man who has done evil genuinely repents of what he has done he will be totally forgiven. “All the sins he committed will be forgotten from then on; he shall live because of the integrity he has practised.” Because it is God’s desire that we should live rather than die. On the other hand, if the formerly good man turns to a life of sin, he will die in his sin. Some may object that that is not fair. Why should he be punished when he did so much good in the past?

There was a tendency among the people of the Old Testament to believe that people were not only guilty of their past sins but even of the sins of their parents. We remember, in John’s gospel, how Jesus was asked whether the man born blind was that way because of his own sin or the sin of his parents. Chronic disabilities – blindness, paralysis, deafness and the like were often seen as punishment for sin. When the paralysed man let down through the roof came to the feet of Jesus, the first thing Jesus said to him was: “Your sins are forgiven.” And his subsequent healing was taken as proof that indeed his sins were really forgiven, because the cause had also been removed.

But here Ezekiel is affirming that sin is something that belongs to the individual. And that it is a person’s present dispositions, and only these, that determine God’s judgement.

One thing that comes out clearly in the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, is that God has a very short memory. Far from being a defect, it is a quality that very much favours us.

The person God sees is the person that I am now. What matters are my relationships with him now. The past, good or bad, is forgotten. There is not a divine account book with credits and debits that have to be balanced out at the end of the day.

Judas a chosen apostle was lost because of the final choice he made in life. The murderous brigand on the cross with Jesus repents and goes straight to heaven.

Some may complain that “what the Lord does is unjust”. But the reading makes the situation clear: “When the upright abandons uprightness and does wrong and dies, he dies because of the wrong which he himself has done. Similarly, when the wicked abandons wickedness to become law-abiding and upright, he saves his own life.” It is not God who condemns us. It is we who make the choice to be with God or to alienate ourselves from him. And God recognises our choice.

So we too need not be anxious about our past. All that matters is how I relate to God today and each day. And the choice to be with God or away from him is all ours. If today I reject God, directly or through the way I relate with those around me, then, however virtuous I have been in the past, I have put him out of my life. If, on the other hand, today I choose God, then I have nothing to fear whatever I may have been guilty of in the past.

For our own reflection, we can be consoled that, no matter what we did in the past, it will have no effect on our relationship with God provided we reach out to him here and now. On the other hand, there is no room for complacency. Our past good record can be completely undone by our turning away at any time.

GOSPEL (Matthew 5:20-26)

This passage comes from the Sermon on the Mount and is the first of six so-called “antitheses” where Jesus contrasts the demands of the Law with those of the Gospel. Virtue for the scribes and Pharisees was largely measured by external observance of the law.

For Jesus that is not enough. For him real virtue is in the heart. There was a commandment not to kill but Jesus says that even hatred and anger, violence in the heart (often expressed by abusive language) must be avoided. Furthermore, we cannot have one set of relationships with God and another set with people.

So, it is no use going to pray and make our offering to God if we have done hurt to a brother or sister. I must leave my gift at the altar, and first go and be reconciled with my brother or sister. Only then may I come to offer my gift.

I cannot say I love God if I hate a brother or sister. “If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20) and “As often as you did not do it to the least of these you did not do it to me.” Repentance has to be expressed both to God and the person I have hurt. I cannot be reconciled to one and not to the other.

We have something like this in every celebration of the Eucharist although, in practice, it can be very superficially done. At the beginning of the Communion, we together recite the Lord’s Prayer in which we all say: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” How often are we conscious of saying those words and how often do we really mean them?

Just after that, we are invited to share a sign of peace with those around us. Again, this can be done in a very perfunctory way. But the meaning of this gesture is that we want to be totally in a spirit of union and reconciliation with each other before we approach the Lord’s Table to break together the Bread which is the sign of our unity as members of his Body.

Lent 1 | Saturday

FIRST READING (Deuteronomy 26:16-19)

Today’s reading comes from the last part of the Book of Deuteronomy, which is also the last of the five books forming the Pentateuch and containing the covenant laws by which the lives of observant Jews were guided.

Moses reminds the people of the solemn agreement that has been made between God and them. “You have obtained this declaration from Yahweh.” And the declaration is that he will be their God only as long as they “follow his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, his customs, and listen to his voice”. It is a mutually binding contract. He will be their God on condition that they observe his laws and customs with all their heart and soul. If they do that they will stand out among all peoples as a people consecrated to their God and outstanding in their virtue.

However, the reading has to be read in the later context of the Gospel, which spells out more clearly just what are the commandments and statutes that really count. The emphasis in the Law of the Old Testament was very much on external observance of rules and regulations. The emphasis in the Gospel is very much on the interior attitude and on mutual relationships between God, other people and oneself.

Today’s Gospel passage on loving even one’s enemies in particular shows how far God’s commands are to be observed.

Nevertheless, the basic message stands: he is our God and we are to walk in his ways and to listen to his voice. That is the covenant that has been made between God and his people.

GOSPEL (Matthew 5:43-48)

Today’s passage, like yesterday’s, comes from the Sermon on the Mount. The two are not unrelated: both speak of dealing with people with whom we have difficulties.

It is a passage which many find difficult, too idealistic or just downright meaningless. The Mosaic Law said that one must love one’s neighbour. It does not actually say we should hate our enemies but in practice such hatred was condoned. Jesus rejects that teaching outright for his followers. We are to love our enemies and pray for them.

How can we possibly do that? It is important that we understand what ‘love’ here means.
In Greek it is the word agape (’agaph), a deep concern for the good of the other that reaches out even if there is no return. It is not sexual, physical love (eros, ’eros) nor is it the mutual love of intimate friendship or that between marriage partners (philia, filia).

‘Enemy’ here too means those who do harm to us in some way. It does not include the people we turn into enemies because we don’t like them. The true Christian does not have this kind of enemy.

The main reason Jesus gives for acting in this way is that that is what God himself does.
God has many friends and many who are opposed to him, yet he treats them all exactly the same, his agape reaches out to all indiscriminately just as the welcome rain falls and the burning sun shines with equal impartiality on every single person.

Elsewhere we are told that God IS love, it is his nature; he cannot do anything else. And that love is extended EQUALLY to every single person – to Our Lady, Mother Teresa, to the murdering terrorist, the serial killer, the abusive husband, the paedophile...

The difference is not in God’s love for each of these people but in their response to that love.

Jesus tells us that we must try to love people in the same way. It is important to note that he is not telling us to be IN love with those who harm us or to like them or to have them as our friends. That would be unrealistic and unreasonable to ask.

But if we just care for those who are nice to us how are we different from others? Even members of a murder gang, people with no religion or morals do the same. But we are called to imitate the God in whose image we have been made.

And is it so unreasonable to love, to care for, to have genuine concern for our enemies and pray for them? One presumes, as we have said, they are enemies in the sense that they are hostile to us even though we have not provoked them in any way. True Christians, from their side, do not have enemies. For someone to be my enemy, it means that person really hates me and may wish to do harm to me or may already have harmed me in some way.

What do I gain by hating that that person back? Then there are two of us. Why should I allow another’s person’s hate to influence my feelings towards them? A person who hates, is a person who is suffering, a person who is doing more damage to himself – rather than to the supposed enemy. As the gospel says, another person can hurt my body but not my inner self.

And, if he/she does harm me, they only harm themselves as well, even if they get a twisted pleasure in the short term. If I have a true Christian spirit I will reach out in compassion to that person. I will want that person to be healed, healed of their hatred, healed of their anger, and to learn how to love.

Surely it is much better and makes more sense to pray for that person than to hate them back. To bring about healing and reconciliation rather than deepen the wound on both sides.

What Jesus is asking us to do is not something impossible or unnatural. It is the only thing that makes sense and will bring peace to me and hopefully in time to the person who is hostile to me. We can literally disarm a hating person by acting towards them in a positive and loving way and refusing to be controlled by their negative attitudes. “Bless are the peacemakers; they will be called children of God.”

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Obviously, this is an ideal that we can only reach out to. But it is a call to do our utmost to imitate God in extending our goodwill impartially and unconditionally to every single person. This is not just a commandment. When we reflect on it, it is simply common sense and it is as much in our own interest as it benefits others.

Lent 2 | Monday

Daniel 9:4-10; Luke 6:36-38

The theme of the readings today is repentance and a prayer for God’s mercy and compassion.

FIRST READING (Daniel 9:4-10)

For over 1,000 years this prayer has been read in today’s Lenten Mass. It is an excellent penance prayer – a national act of contrition describing God’s perfection and man’s imperfection. It is a prayer of sorrow and repentance for the many ways in which we have failed to listen to God and his messengers. It is a prayer which contains humility, worship, confession and petition.

“We have sinned... we have rebelled... we have not obeyed... we are shamefaced...” On the other hand, “Integrity, Lord, is yours; ours the look of shame we wear today.”

So much of the time these are not the words we hear from people’s lips – or our own. As soon as something goes wrong, we immediately start looking around for someone to blame.

Our media spend a great deal of time and space pointing fingers at others as the source of our troubles. We call it “scapegoating”. It is something we all indulge in to a greater or lesser extent. Just let us listen to a few people gossiping together over a pint or a cup of coffee.

Today’s reading calls on us to point the finger at ourselves and to be fully aware of how we have failed, have sinned, have rebelled – and have much to be shameful for.  A good way to measure our sensitivity in this area might be to look at our confessions. When we do go, what do we confess to? Do we just throw out a few platitudinal admissions (‘Telling lies’, ‘distractions at prayers’, ‘losing our temper’…) or do we go deep into the areas where we truly fail in our relationships with God, with others and with ourselves?

Perhaps we do not go to Confession at all because “we can’t think of anything to say”.  At the same time, most of us would be very slow to reveal to others our inner thoughts and feelings because, to tell the truth, we are quite ashamed of them. Paradoxically, it is often the saint, the one who is closest to God, who is most aware of his or her sinfulness and need for healing.

Lent is a time for conversion, renewal and change. It is a time for openness – especially with oneself. That cannot even begin to take place until we are aware of and acknowledge in ourselves the areas where that change has to take place.

And, having recognised our faults and the harm they have done to others and to ourselves in our relationships with God, we beg his mercy and compassion. And we know for certain that God’s mercy and compassion are guaranteed, once we open ourselves to him.

GOSPEL (Luke 6:36-38)

“Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.” This is the last sentence in Luke’s version of Jesus’ teaching on the need to love our enemies. We saw the Matthaean version last Saturday. There the passage ends with “Be perfect as your Father is perfect.” It is clear that it is in showing compassion for all, even those who wish us evil, that we are to aim at imitating our heavenly Father.

God’s compassion is all-embracing. His love reaches out to all without any discrimination between saint and sinner. Like the rain and sun which fall equally on all, so God’s compassion and mercy are extended to all. We, too, are being called to follow the example of our God and of Jesus his Son. We remember the words of Jesus as he was being nailed to the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Here is the compassion of God being expressed in an extreme situation. The words will be repeated by Stephen when he is being stoned to death.

In today’s Gospel, we are told to follow that compassion by not sitting in judgement on others. That in no way means that we are to be blind to the genuine faults of others. But we are not in a position to take the higher moral ground so that we can sit in judgement on the supposed wrongdoer.

If we are honest we know we judge others a lot, often with very little evidence and even less compassion. Our media, too, are full of judgment. Our conversations, our gossip is full of judgment. We lack compassion for the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters.

At the same time, we do very little to help them correct their ways; in fact, they seldom hear the criticisms we make. It is most often done behind their backs. If they unexpectedly appear, we quickly change the subject. We just take pleasure in the backbiting. We might even be disappointed if they reformed!

“Do not condemn and you will not be condemned; pardon and you will be pardoned.” Later on in this Eucharist we will pray, “Forgive us our sins in so far as we forgive the sins of others”. A dangerous prayer to make, yet it trips so easily off our tongues, the same tongues that can be so critical and judgemental.

The gospel calls for great generosity in our relationship with others. Not just material generosity but generosity in love, in understanding, in tolerance and acceptance, in compassion and forgiveness. The more generous we are with others the more we will receive in return.

Lord, teach me to be generous,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and to seek no reward
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.

Lent 2 | Tuesday

Isaiah 1:10,16-20; Matthew 23:1-12

Today an attack on hypocrisy and a call for humility in the presence of God and in the presence of our brothers and sisters.

FIRST READING (Isaiah 1:10,16-20)

The reading is from the very beginning of Isaiah and today’s passage is primarily an attack on the people’s hypocrisy – the same theme as in the Gospel.

There are strong words from Isaiah on his people and their rulers. He calls the leaders of God’s people “princes of Sodom” and speaks of the people as “people of Gomorrah”. Sodom and Gomorrah were the epitome of all that was most evil and repellent to God. They are classic examples of sinful cities completely destroyed (cf. Gen 13:13; 18:20-21…). And just as Jesus addressed Peter as Satan for blocking God’s plans, so Isaiah addresses his countrymen as deserving no better than the corrupt citizens of those wicked cities.

In verses which are omitted, God, speaking through his prophet, denounces the endless round of burnt offerings and sacrificial animals. “Bring me no more futile cereal offerings, the smoke from them fills me with disgust.”

“You may multiply your prayers, I shall not be listening.” Why? Because “your hands are covered in blood.” There is no relationship between the endless prayers piously offered and behaviour which is totally unacceptable to God.

But God’s desire is not to condemn but to call his people to genuine repentance. “Wash yourselves clean!”

And how are they to repent? By offering still more sacrifices? By going to Confession? By saying a perfunctory Act of Contrition? No, “make justice your aim”. They are to redress the wrongs done to others, to “hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow”. In Jewish society of the time, these were the weakest and most neglected of people. There could be no real repentance unless care was taken of the weakest and most needy in society. For us, in Lent, the message is exactly the same.

And there is hope. “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow.” For those who truly repent – and this is shown by a radical change in their behaviour and in the way they act towards the weak and neglected – total rehabilitation is possible.

That is what we hope will be our experience, too, this Lent.

The choice is ours:

- either to submit ourselves to the compassionate way of God and find life;

- or to go our own rebellious, self-centred way and find death.

GOSPEL (Matthew 23:1-12)

It looks like an attack on the Pharisees but we should really see it directed towards members of the Christian community, especially its leaders. Jesus levels two criticisms against the Pharisees:

- they don’t practise what they preach, and

- they do what they do to attract the admiration of others.

In fact, the words of Jesus are warning to all people in authority. Jesus was attacking the Pharisees but his words can be applied to many positions in our own society. Executives, managers, doctors, lawyers, bishops, priests, civil servants, parents can all be included here.

In so far as they have genuine authority, they should be listened to – the doctor about things medical, the lawyer about things legal, the priest about things spiritual, the parent about family matters...

The Pharisees tried to impress by wearing wider phylacteries and longer tassels. The phylacteries were small boxes containing verses of scripture which were worn on the left forearm and the forehead. The tassels, worn on the corners of one’s garment, were prescribed by Mosaic law as a reminder to keep the commandments. By making each of these items larger one drew attention to one’s superior piety and observance. It is not difficult to see parallels in our time.

Unfortunately, it would be wrong to follow the behaviour of such people especially when they become arrogant and domineering, when they use their authority to draw attention to themselves, to assert their supposedly superior status. When they impose burdens on those ‘below’ them which they themselves do nothing to alleviate. One is reminded of Miss Brodie in the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie telling her students who questioned something she had done: “Girls, don’t do as I do; do as I say.”

Authority is not for power but for empowering and enabling. Real authority is a form of service, not a way of control or domination or a claim to special privileges. So Jesus has no time for people who insist on being addressed by their formal titles. Matthew’s attack on the Pharisees again points to similar weaknesses on the part of church leaders in his time. It is something that again we are all too familiar with in our own time.

“Hi, Jack!” “Mr Smith to you, if you don’t mind.”

“Hi, Father Jack!” “Monsignor Jones to you.”

As Jesus says, ultimately we are all brothers and sisters. And elsewhere he tells us that the greatest among us is the one who best serves the needs of those around him rather than the one who has the most impressive titles, or the biggest desk, or eats in the executive dining room, or has his/her picture on the cover of Time or Hello.

Unfortunately, we contribute a lot to this nonsense because some of us dream of being there ourselves someday.

“Anyone who lifts himself up will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be lifted up.” The perfect model is Jesus himself, who “though in the form of God emptied himself... walked the path of obedience all the way to death... For this reason God raised him to the highest place” (Phil 2:7-9).

Lent 2 | Wednesday

Jeremiah 18:18-20; Matthew 20:17-28

Today’s readings continue in a slightly different from that of yesterday: the need for service without reward. Doing the right things in the right way because they are right and not for glory, honour, praise or reward.

FIRST READING (Jeremiah 18:18-20)

There are plots against the prophet Jeremiah. People find his teaching uncomfortable; they want to get rid of him. He is seen as a trouble-maker.

In the eyes of his critics, getting rid of him really won’t make much difference. The work of the priests, sages and other prophets will go on without him just as before. Their words are so bland and harmless and lull people into complacency as they have always done.

But Jeremiah is puzzled. “Should evil be returned for good?” he asks, referring to the attacks being made on him when he passes on God’s word to the people. It is a question that is often asked. “How could God allow this to happen to such a good person?” He had pleaded with God on the people’s behalf and this is the reward he gets.

We will see in today’s Gospel that they do not treat Jesus any differently. We should not be surprised either if, as Christians, we meet with ridicule and rejection. The world is not ready to hear words truth and justice; it does not like the real prophet who has the tendency to draw people’s attentions to the things they don’t want to hear. Jesus had that annoying habit too.

But let us also consider whether people’s indifference to our message and way of life is because of its blandness, salt without taste. Then we deserve to be ignored.

GOSPEL (Matthew 20:17-28)

In the Gospel Jesus takes his disciples aside to let them know what is going to happen to him. This is, in fact, the third time he has told them this. It is the third and most detailed of the Passion predictions. For the first time, mention is made of being handed over to the Gentiles. The text follows Mark very closely except that, where Mark says that Jesus will be killed, Matthew explicitly says ‘crucified’.

Their reactions are not recorded here but we know that on previous occasions they were both shocked and saddened. They were also perplexed. How could people do this to the Messiah for whom they had waited so long? How could their own leaders do this to the Messiah? Even worse, how could they hand him over into the hands of the hated Romans? They did not yet understand how Jesus would enter his glory through rejection, suffering and death.

In fact, they have still a lot to learn as what follows clearly indicates. The mother of James and John approaches Jesus with a request, a typical mother’s request. In Mark’s gospel, it is the boys themselves who ask the favour. Why Matthew makes the mother ask is not clear. There could be an allusion here to Bathsheba, wife of King David, seeking the kingdom for her son Solomon. Another possibility is that Matthew is more deferential to the disciples than Mark, who regularly shows up their failure to understand the meaning of Jesus’ teaching.

“What is it you want?” Jesus asks her. If Jesus asked me that question right now, what answer would I give? She asked that her two sons be on Jesus’ right and left in the kingdom. ‘Kingdom’ here is to be taken in the sense in which Jesus normally uses it, that is, the Kingdom of God on earth rather than referring to Jesus in glory. The two disciples envision Jesus as Messiah, King of his people and with a court like every other early king.

The mother uses her contact with a person in authority to get some short-cut privileges for her sons. Understandable indeed but not the way that God or Jesus works.

“Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” This question is clearly directed at the two disciples. “We can,” they say with confidence. They are ready to do anything to get the top spots with the Messiah. They have forgotten the words that, unless we carry our cross after Jesus, we cannot be his followers. And Yes, they would “drink the cup” of pain and sorrow and suffering but that is not what they are thinking about now.

In any case, the places at the right and left of Jesus are not privileges given to the first people who just ask. Jesus works by quite other standards. Those places will be given to those who deserve them and to no one else. And those who deserve them are those who follow Jesus most closely.

The other ten disciples are not much better. They are angry and indignant about the backdoor tactics of James and John. Obviously their thinking is no different. So Jesus teaches them about real greatness.

In the secular world, leaders exert power, domination and manipulation. They control people for their own ends. In Jesus’ world, it is altogether different. To be great is to put one’s talents totally at the service of others, to empower not to have power. Jesus himself is the perfect example. It is a lesson we do not find easy to learn or to follow.

And Jesus says in conclusion: “Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” ‘Ransom’ here is to be taken in the sense of ‘liberation, making free’. ‘Many’, as a Semitic expression, means ‘all’. Jesus put his whole life at our disposal so that every single person should experience liberation and fullness of life. We are called to take part in the same great enterprise.

Lent 2 | Thursday

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 16:19-31

Today’s Mass is about priorities and about our responsibilities to those around us. It deals with Cain’s question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and the story of Lazarus and the poor man.

FIRST READING

Jeremiah makes a strong contrast between two kinds of people:

- the one who thinks he is self-sufficient, is immersed in the material world and ignores the place of God in his life. He feels he “has it made”.

- the one who puts all his trust in God and in the way of life that God suggests.

The first man’s life is basically arid and empty. “He is like dry scrub in the wastelands.” He has no eye for what is really good. Surrounded by his luxuries and pleasures he unwittingly lives in a desert. He measures his life by what he has, not by what he is – for himself, still less for others.

The second man “is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream; when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green; it has no worries in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit.” Such a person may lead a life of great material simplicity but is in touch with a deeper source of wealth, God’s truth, wisdom and love.

Finally, there is the warning of man’s gift for self-deception. Verse 11, not quoted for some reason in today’s reading, is very appropriate: “A partridge that mothers a brood not her own is the man who acquires wealth unjustly. In midlife it will desert him; in the end he is only a fool.” You can’t take it with you and, while you have it, you need to share it with those who are genuinely deprived. This is the message of today’s Gospel.

It is very easy to be persuaded that happiness lies in having things, having status, having power.

But God is not interested in the external impressions; he only judges what goes on in the depths of the heart.

Where do I stand in all this? Where do I put my trust? In what are my values?

GOSPEL (Luke 16:19-31)

Here we have illustrated in parable form two of Luke’s beatitudes: “Happy are you who are poor, you who are hungry now!” and “Woe to you who are rich, who are filled now!” The links with the First Reading are also obvious.

On the one hand, you have a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, both signs of great wealth. He also has a good table and enjoys the choicest of foods every day. (He is sometimes called ‘Dives’, which is simply the Latin word for ‘rich’.)

At the same time you have a poor man called Lazarus. (The rich man is nameless. In spite of all his money, he is a Nobody.) He was hungry and longed, like the dogs, to pick up the scraps that might fall from the dining table. The dogs even licked his sores. Dogs were abhorrent to Jews so this was a particularly degrading thing to happen.

What is striking about this scene is that nothing seems to be happening. The rich man is eating; the poor man is sitting and waiting. There are no words between them. The poor man is not abused or chased away; he is simply ignored as if he did not exist. “As often as you neglected to do it to the least of these brothers of mine, you neglected to do it to me.”

Then both men die. Lazarus is brought by angels to the bosom of Abraham; the rich man is condemned to an existence of great suffering in Hades, the place of the dead. The rich man now begs for even the slightest relief from the man he ignored in his lifetime. But it is now too late.

The rich man had his chance and he blew it. He had his life of “good things”; he now knows just how “good” they really were. It is now Lazarus’ turn to have the really good things, the companionship of his God.

The rich man begs on behalf of his brothers that they be warned. “They have Moses and the prophets [the whole Jewish religious tradition],” replies Abraham. “But if only someone would come to them from the dead, they would change their ways.” “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

Surely a reference to Jesus himself and to the many Jews who refused to believe in him even after his resurrection. There are people today who want some special signs from God in order to believe. We have the Good News of the New Testament and the living, experienced presence of Jesus among us; we do not need any more. We have all the guidance we need to lead the kind of life which will ensure we spend our future existence in the company of Lazarus.

And that life is measured not by wealth, status, or power but in a life of caring and sharing relationships. In a world of extreme consumerism, hedonism and individualism, today’s readings have a very important message. Those are truly rich who enrich the lives of others.

Lent 2 | Friday

Genesis 37:3-4,12-13,17-28; Matthew 21:33-43,45-46

There is a strong parallel between the stories of Joseph and Jesus made in today’s readings.

In both cases the words quoted from Psalm 118 apply: “It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone.”

FIRST READING (Genesis 37:3-4,12-13,17-28)

Joseph is the favourite of Isaac’s 12 sons, the sons who would later become the patriarchs of God’s people. His brothers became jealous of him and grew to hate him. They hated him even more for the dreams he told. In one of these he said he had a vision of the family bringing in the harvest. In the dream, all his brother’s sheaves bowed down before Joseph’s sheaf. This, of course, did happen later when the brothers came to Egypt during a time of famine in search of food. Unknown to them at first, Joseph was the grand vizier of Egypt in whose presence they paid homage.

In today’s reading, when Joseph, at the instructions of the father, went to visit his brothers in the fields, they conceived a plot to kill him. However, one of the brothers, Reuben, intervened and suggested instead that Joseph be thrown down a dry well, hoping to give him back to their father later. Reuben was the eldest son but later fell out of favour for committing incest with his father’s concubine. Judah subsequently took over leadership of the family.

The other brothers agreed to Reuben’s suggestion because they did not want to have the blood of their own brother on their hands. Perhaps they remembered what happened to Cain.

Eventually Joseph is either sold to Ishmaelites on their way to do business in Egypt or discovered in the well by Midianites and sold for 20 pieces of silver to traders on their way to Egypt . In later times, this sum was the value of a male of Joseph’s age who had been dedicated to the Lord (see Lev 27:5). The father is later told that his son has died from an attack by animals and is given back, as proof, the famous multi-coloured coat stained with (goat’s) blood.

Joseph should have ended up in obscurity as a slave in Egypt but, thanks to his ability to interpret dreams, he was to win the favour of the Pharaoh and become the chief minister in Egypt and ultimately the saviour of his own people from famine – a famine which Joseph had foretold and helped to prepare for.

The story prepares us for the coming of Jesus, who is clearly the son in the parable which features in today’s Gospel. Jesus, too, was a man of ‘dreams’, with a vision of life which was rejected by many close to him. He, too, was sold into the hands of enemies only, precisely because of that, to become the saviour of his own people.  Both Joseph and Jesus are, in the words of Psalm 118, the “stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone.”

GOSPEL (Matthew 21:33-43,45-46)

We have here a parable spoken to the unbelieving chief priests and elders of the people.

It is the history of the Israelite people told in parable form. In fact, it is more of an allegory than a parable as each of the persons and incidents described point to real people and real events. Some scholars feel that what we have here is really an early Church document rather than something directly from Jesus. What seems more likely is that a parable spoken by Jesus has been modified in the light of later events.

The owner of the vineyard is clearly God. The vineyard is the house of Israel , where God’s people are to be found. The tenants of the vineyard are the people of God. The servants sent to collect the harvest are abused in various ways – beaten, killed, stoned.

The servants represent the prophets and other spokespersons sent by God to his people, many of whom were rejected, not listened to and even abused. Finally, the owner decides to send his son. “They will respect my son.” On the contrary, they saw that, if they got rid of the son, they could take over the whole vineyard for themselves. They could carry on without the owner.

So they seized the son, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. A clear reference to Jesus being crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem.

And what will the king do then? Jesus asks. The leaders condemn themselves by answering the question: “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end” as happened when the city of Jerusalem was totally destroyed in 70 AD.

Instead, the vineyard is let out to new tenants – those Jews and Gentiles, the new people of God, who believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour. The stone rejected by the builders becomes the cornerstone. “The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” (This is one of only two instances where Matthew uses the term ‘ Kingdom of God’ rather than ‘ Kingdom of Heaven’.) The Gentiles had for long been rejected as unbelievers and outsiders. Now, it is on them, together with those Jews who accepted Jesus, that the Kingdom will be built.

The Gospel ends by commenting that Jesus’ hearers understood his message perfectly but, because of Jesus’ popularity with the people, they could do nothing in retaliation for the moment.

Again and again it has happened in world history that fighters for truth and justice have been rejected, jailed, tortured and eventually found themselves the saviours of their people. Pavel in Czechoslovakia , Mandela in South Africa , Martin Luther King in the US , Gandhi in India .

Let us make sure that we are listening to the right people, the people who have the message of truth, love and justice and that we follow them. Jesus our Saviour still speaks through his followers.

Lent 2 | Saturday

Micah 7:14-15,18-20; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

Today’s Mass is about God’s great desire that the sinner repent and experience God’s love and tender mercy.

FIRST READING (Micah 7:14-15,18-20)

The reading comes from the prophet Micah, who was a contemporary of Hoseah and also of Isaiah.

The reading consists of a prayer which appears to be from the time after the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon (537 BC), when the people were still few in number, possessed only a fragment of their former land, and were surrounded by hostile nations.

It is a plea for God to take care of his beleaguered people. But there is confidence because their God is quite unlike any other. The passage reflects what Jesus tells us about God in the Gospel.

“What god can compare with you: taking fault away, pardoning crime, not cherishing anger for ever but delighting in showing mercy?”  The people may at times deserve the anger of God but it will never last, for God loves his people too much. In fact, it is difficult to conceive now of a God who responds in anger when his people sin. It is never he who distances himself from us. It is we who are unfaithful.

We can always be sure of his “faithfulness” and of his “faithful love” which he had promised so long ago and so many times. He had sworn to Abraham and Jacob that their descendants would be as numerous as the dust of the earth and the sand on the seashore, and he had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. He will not go back on that promise.

And so we, too, have confidence of complete forgiveness and reconciliation. This compassion of God for the sinner and his desire to take him back is put graphically in the marvellous story of the Prodigal Son, which is the subject of today’s Gospel.

We, too, provided we are truly sorry and ready to change, can be absolutely sure of meeting the same compassion and forgiveness.

GOSPEL (Luke 15:1-3,11-32)

The parable of the Prodigal Son, a marvellous revelation of God’s unending love and mercy for the repentant sinner.

Steps in the story:

The son receives his share of the inheritance from a loving father. Asking for his inheritance while his father was still alive was tantamount to saying he could not wait until his father had died.

He goes off to a far country, far from his father.

He is not only far in distance but also in thinking: he wastes the inheritance he has been given in pleasures and enjoyment of the most immoral kind.

In the end, he has nothing.

A famine strikes the place and he has nothing to eat, no money to buy food.

He is forced (horror of horrors for a Jew) to feed pigs and is so hungry he is ready even to eat the slops given to them. One can hardly imagine a lower level of abasement and poverty.

Then, he comes to his senses.

He thinks of the home and the loving father he abandoned so stupidly.

Where the lowest servants/slaves are better off than he is.

He will try to go home.

After what he has done, he does not expect to be accepted back.

He will beg to be taken as one of the lowest servants.

He prepares a carefully worded speech for his father.

Then he starts the journey back in fear and trepidation. He knows he deserves very severe treatment, if not outright rejection. “Go back to your pigs and your whores!”

While still far away, the father sees him. He has been anxiously waiting all this time.

But he never sent out to have him brought back.

If the son wants to go his own way, the father will not stop him. He will not be forced back.

Full of compassion the father rushes out to welcome his returning son and takes him in his arms.

The son tries to make his speech of repentance but it is totally ignored.

Instead orders are given for the best clothes to be brought out and a magnificent banquet to be laid on.

“This son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.”

It is a time of celebration.

The elder son, working in the fields (the Lord’s vineyard) comes back at the end of a hard day and hears the sounds of merrymaking.

When he is told what is going on, he is extremely angry.

He has been a loyal, faithful, hardworking son and nothing even approaching this was ever done for him.

While his brother, who was steeped in debauchery and wasted so much of his father’s wealth, is welcomed like a returning hero.

He refuses to go into his father’s house. (Surely the saddest words in this story.)

The father remonstrates: “You are always with me and everything I have is yours.

But your son was utterly lost. Now he is back, we have to celebrate.”

The story is a clear reply to the criticism of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus was mixing and eating with sinners. They simply did not understand the mind of God as revealed in Jesus’ behaviour. How well do we understand them?

The two clear lessons for today are:

- I can be absolutely sure of God’s mercy and forgiveness provided I turn back to him in true sorrow.

- I need to have the same attitude of compassion with people who offend me. I must be ready to forgive and be reconciled. I cannot refuse to love someone that God loves.

There are three people in this story and we can identify with all of them:

- The son who went far from his Father and followed his own way into the most degrading behaviour.

- The son who thought he was good and observant but, deep down, did not have the mind of his Father at all. He kept the commandments and all the rules but did not have a forgiving heart. He did not belong in his Father’s house.

- The Father whose love never changes no matter what his children do and is ready to accept them back every time without exception.

Which of these three most represents me? Which one would I want to be like? Many say they identify most with the elder son. Which, of course, is the point of the story. They are the real sinners – who shut their hearts against God’s compassionate love.

Lent 3 | Monday

2 Kings 5:1-15; Luke 4:24-30

Both readings today are linked by the story told in the First Reading about Naaman, a Syrian general, who was miraculously cured by Elisha the prophet.

FIRST READING (2 Kings 5:1-15)

The central character is Naaman, an army commander from Syria under the king of Aram, probably Ben-Hadad II. He was held in high esteem by his king because of military victories, which the Bible attributes to the power of Yahweh. In the writer’s view, victory is to be attributed to the God of Israel, who is seen as the ruler and controller of the fate of all nations and not just that of Israel.

Now, Naaman was a ‘leper’. The New Jerusalem Bible calls it a ‘virulent skin disease’ because, whatever it was, it does not seem to exclude Naaman coming in close contact with people. In ancient times, real leprosy was, tragically for the victim, often confused with other chronic skin diseases.

Although Israel had concluded a peace treaty with the Aramaeans during the reign of King Ahab, there were still minor skirmishes on the borders between the two states for control of a place called Ramoth Gilead, following a battle in which King Ahab had been killed. It was as a result of one of these skirmishes that a young Israelite girl was taken captive. She would prove the link in bringing healing to Naaman. We could well stop to reflect for a few moments on this young girl. A simple slave, she plays a crucial role in the healing and, together with the austere prophet Elisha, offers a startling contrast to the ostentatious wealth of Naaman, which had no role to play in his being restored to health.

She knew about the prophet Elisha, who was living in Samaria and suggested that her master should go to him for healing. The king gave his full approval for Naaman to go to Samaria and see Elisha and promised to write a letter of introduction to King Joram of Israel. The Syrian king obviously believed that Elisha was subject to Joram and that the prophet’s services could only be bought with a generous gift. Hence the 10 talents of silver (a huge amount of money), 6,000 shekels of gold and 10 festal robes which Naaman brought with him. He thought that God’s gift of healing could only be bought with money.

On the other hand, King Joram is horrified and rends his clothes in despair. His own faith in God’s healing power was so weak that he thought that Ben-Hadad was simply looking for a pretext for war by asking the obviously impossible – the cure of a leper. But when Elisha hears of it, he scolds the king for his failure to consult his prophet.

Naaman now arrives in all the glory of someone in his exalted position with horses and chariots. He will overawe the prophet by his presence, power and show of wealth. He must then have been somewhat surprised to be told by the prophet what he must do. And what he had to do was to bathe seven times in the River Jordan. Elisha clearly indicates that the healing power comes from the power of the God of Israel but only if the general does what he is told by the prophet.

The prophet himself was not strictly speaking a healer. Ritual washings were practiced among the Eastern religions as a purification rite, and the number seven was generally known as a symbol of completeness. Naaman was to wash in the muddy waters of the Jordan River, showing that there was no natural connection between the washing and the desired healing. Perhaps it was also being suggested that one needed to pass through the Jordan, as Israel had done (Jos 3-4), in order to obtain healing from the God of Israel. (And Jesus, too, would pass through the same waters of the Jordan to be filled with the Spirit of his Father.)

Naaman finds this an affront to his dignity. He expected the prophet to come out to him, simply wave his hand magically over the afflicted spots and effect an immediate cure. Instead, he has to do what he is told by someone he regards as a foreign underling. And what is worse, he is asked to bathe in the Jordan. What was wrong with the rivers that flowed through Damascus – the Abana and Pharpar? The Abana was called the ‘Golden River’ by the Greeks and is usually identified with the Barada River today, which rises in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and flows through the city of Damascus. The Pharpar River flows eastwards from Mount Hermon, just to the south of Damascus. In fact, the waters of these rivers were hygienically far superior to the muddy waters of the Jordan. But that was precisely the point; it was not the water which brought the healing.

Deeply insulted, Naaman turns round to go home. But his servants plead with him. After all, if Naaman had been asked to do something difficult, he would have done so. Why not obey the prophet when he asks something so easy? Naaman put his pride behind him, goes to the river seven times and emerges with his skin like that of a new-born child. He is both physically and spiritually reborn.

However, we need to be aware, that there is a deeper meaning to the story. Naaman, the Gentile submitting to the command of Yahweh through his prophet, is put forward as a contrast to a disobedient Israel, which still wavered in its divided allegiance to Yahweh and to Baal. God’s blessings are only to be found in total submission to his will and his commands. In today’s Gospel Jesus will bring up this point himself, much to the anger of the Jews to whom he was speaking.

The clear lesson of the story is given in the last sentence when, after being cured, Naaman goes back in gratitude to Elisha and says, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”

A minor lesson for all of us arises from Naaman’s indignation at being told to bathe seven times in the river Jordan. Wisdom comes from the slaves in his household, “If the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? All the more reason, then, when he says to you ‘Bathe, and you will become clean’.”

How often we cannot see God coming into our lives because of our prejudices and blind spots?

It is clear, too, that the true healer is not Elisha nor the muddy waters of the Jordan river but God himself. And the healing is the result not of the washing in the river but in Naaman’s eventual submission and obedience to God’s spokesman.

It was exactly the lack of this attitude on the part of the people of Nazareth (spoken of in today’s Gospel) that prevented Jesus from healing the people of his own town.

GOSPEL (Luke 4:24-30)

Both readings today are linked by the story told in the First Reading about Naaman, a Syrian general, who was miraculously cured by Elisha the prophet.

The Gospel is the second part of the scene in the synagogue in Nazareth where Jesus officially announces his mission as Messiah, Saviour and Liberator. The first reaction was one of amazement that Jesus, their townsman, could speak with such power. “Where did he get it all?” There was amazement but no real faith in him. Familiarity had blinded them to his true identity. Basically they reject him. For them he is just “Joe the carpenter’s boy”.

Jesus says he is not surprised by this reception. “No prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” He then goes on to give two examples taken from the lives of two well-known Old Testament prophets. They are not quite examples of prophets not being received by their own people but rather of prophets reaching out to other peoples, non-believers.

When there was a great famine among the Israelites, it was a Sidonian widow who was helped by Elijah. Sidon was the place where Jesus would heal a Gentile woman’s daughter. There were many leprous people in Israel, says Jesus, but Elisha was sent to cure Naaman the Syrian, another Gentile.

Jesus’ hearers are incensed by what appear to them arrogant and insulting words. In their minds, they were not rejecting a prophet but an impostor. His remarks about Elijah and Elisha they find highly objectionable.

The references to Elijah and Elisha help to emphasise Luke’s image of Jesus as a prophet like those who went before him. They also lay the foundation for the future mission to the Gentiles.

We, too, can very easily fail to recognise the voice of God in certain people who in fact – whether they are aware of it or not – are bringing a message from him. Like the people of Nazareth, we can think we know them too well to have to listen to them. We feel it would be inconceivable that God could speak to us through such people. This probably happens most of all with people we meet every day of our lives.

Lent 3 | Tuesday

Daniel 3:25,34-43; Matthew 18:21-35

Today’s readings are about forgiveness.

FIRST READING (Daniel 3:25,34-43)

”One of the most beautiful and sincere prayers in the bible. Expressing the abandonment of 2nd century BC Judaism, this prayer pleads that the contrite heart and humble spirit of the people be accepted by God. This prayer is quoted in the offertory of every Mass” (Vat II Missal)

The context of today’s reading is a famous scene from the Book of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar had set up a huge golden statue in Babylon. All the officials were then summoned together for its dedication. At the sound of many musical instruments all were called to prostrate themselves in worship of the statue. Anyone who refused would immediately be thrown into a mighty furnace.

It was reported to the king that some his officials who were Jews had ignored his command. These were Shadrach, Meschach and Abed-nego. They were immediately summoned before the king and asked to account for themselves. When asked why they had not prostrated themselves before the statue, they said: “Your question needs no answer from us: if our God, the one we serve, is able to save us from the burning fiery furnace and from your power, Your Majesty, he will save us; and even if he does not, then you must know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your god or worship the statue you have set up.”

This reply enraged the king to such an extent that he ordered the furnace to be made seven times hotter. The three men were then thrown fully clothed into the furnace. It was so hot that the men throwing the three young men into the furnace were themselves burnt to death.

However, the three men were seen walking in the flames and they began praying aloud. Today’s passage is a part of their long prayer (3:24-90*) of praise and thanksgiving, while the king’s servants continued to stoke the fire. The prayer is led by Azariah, the Hebrew name for Abednego, one of the three men.

The king watched in amazement. “Did we not have these three men thrown bound into the fire?... But I can see four men walking free in the heart of the fire and quite unharmed!” Clearly, the fourth figure was an angel of the Lord sent to protect these faithful servants of Yahweh. The king finally ordered the men to be taken from the fire – their clothes not even singed – and had the highest honours showered on them as a tribute to their God: “There is no other god who can save like this.”

It is in this context that we read today’s passage. It begins with a plea for God not to abandon his people, nor to forget his covenant in which he promised so many descendants of Abraham. In faraway Babylon, separated by hundreds of miles from their religious centre in Jerusalem, there is a recognition that they are despised, abandoned and leaderless and without their traditional religious rituals of worship. “No leader, no prophet, no prince, no holocaust, no sacrifice, no incense, no place where we can offer you the first-fruits and win your favour.”

However, they pray that, even without holocausts of rams and bullocks, they can commit themselves completely to their God. “We put our whole heart into following you, into fearing you and seeking your face once more.” They beg to be treated with mercy and gentleness. They at least hope that a truly repentant heart will win God’s forgiveness and they put themselves totally at the feet of God’s mercy and compassion.

In fact it is not necessary to do things “to win God’s favour”. Once we put ourselves completely in his hands he will take care of us, as he did the three young men.

___________

These verses of the Song of the Three Men in the Fiery Furnace are only found in the Greek, but not the Hebrew, text of the Old Testament. Hence they are not found quoted in most non-Catholic bibles. But, although we only have the Greek text, it is believed that the original was in Aramaic or Hebrew and hence is included in our Bible.

GOSPEL (Matthew 18:21-35)

This passage makes a crucial link between God forgiving us and our forgiving others. Peter asks how many times he should forgive another and offers what he regards as a very generous seven times. Jesus multiplies that by eleven. In other words our readiness to forgive should be without limit.

The reason is that that is the way God himself acts towards us. Supposing we only had seven chances of being forgiven our sins in our lifetime? Supposing we were to confess our sins to a priest and were told: “Sorry, you have used up your quota.” Don’t we expect that every single time we genuinely repent we can renew our relationship with God?

Jesus is simply telling us that, if we are to be his followers, we must act on the same basis with other people. To make his teaching clear he tells the parable of the two servants. The one with the huge debt is forgiven by the king. He then proceeds to throttle another servant who owes what is, in comparison, a paltry amount.

As indicated in the parable, there is no real proportion between the offence of our sins against an all-holy God and those made against us by others. And every time we say the Lord’s Prayer we commit ourselves to this: “Forgive us our sins JUST AS we forgive those who sin against us.” It is indeed a courageous prayer to make. Do we really mean what we say? Do we even think about it when we pray it?

We could make a couple of extra comments:

- This teaching does not mean turning a blind eye to a person who keeps on doing hurt to us. Forgiveness is more than just saying words; it involves the restoring of a broken relationship. It involves the healing of both sides. It may be necessary to make some proactive but totally non-violent response. Our main concern should not be ourselves but the well-being of the other person whose actions are really hurting him/her.

- Forgiveness is not purely a unilateral act. It is only complete when there is reconciliation between the two parties. It is difficult for me fully to forgive when the other party remains totally unrepentant. Even God’s forgiveness cannot get through in such circumstances (remember the Prodigal Son whose healing only began when he came to his senses and returned to his Father). The injured party has to work on bringing about a healing of the wound of division between both sides. Only then is the forgiveness complete. That may take a long time.

Lent 3 | Wednesday

Deuteronomy 4:1,5-9; Matthew 5:17-19

The readings speak about the sacredness of God’s law.

FIRST READING (Deuteronomy 4:1,5-9)

Moses reminds the Israelites of the great treasure they have in their laws and customs, a treasure full of “wisdom and understanding”. These laws are life-giving and will bring the people closer to their God.

“Indeed what great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us? What great nation is there that has laws and customs to match this whole Law?” Other Jewish traditions from this period often emphasise the distance between God and man, indicated by the reluctance even to utter the name of God (as we see even in Matthew’s gospel).

Deuteronomy, however, calls attention to the loving intimacy between God and the people among whom he lives. His enduring presence was symbolised by the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in the centre of the Israelites’ camp and by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night which indicated God’s accompanying presence with his people at all times.

It will find its supreme expression, however, in the Incarnation, when the Word of God “became flesh and lived among us” as one of us – a concept many devout Jews would find very hard to accept.

But it is in the Law, too, that God is with his people. Through its observance they express their closeness to him. But Jesus was to make radical modifications to this Law to bring it to even greater heights of sensitivity and accountability.

The greatness of any society can in part be measured, first, in the quality of its legal system and, secondly, in how its laws are administered and observed. This involves close cooperation between law-makers, enforcers of the law, interpreters of the law and observers of the law.

But, above everything else, as Jesus clearly indicates in today’s Gospel, is the law of love which does not abrogate but goes far beyond the Mosaic Law and includes a deep sense of justice, of compassion and unity between people.

GOSPEL (Matthew 5:17-19)

In Matthew’s gospel especially, Jesus is shown as not being a maverick breakaway from the traditions of the Jews. He was not a heretic or a blasphemer. He was the last in the great line of prophets sent by God to his people. “Last of all God sent his Son.”

And so, in today’s passage, he strongly emphasises that it is not his intention to abrogate the Jewish law but rather to develop and complete it. In the verses that immediately follow today’s passage Jesus gives six very clear examples of what he means. He quotes a number of moral situations contained in the Law and shows how he expects his followers not only to observe them but to go much further in understanding their underlying meaning.

The Law is not to be downgraded in any way; rather it is to be transcended to a higher level. Up to the time of Jesus, and this is clearly exemplified in the Pharisees and Scribes as they appear in the gospels, perfect observance of the Law focused on external observance. Jesus will show that true observance must also be in the heart and mind.

Christians, too, can become obsessed with external observance of Church laws and regulations. It can become a source of scrupulosity and fear. This can happen during the Lenten season when we are encouraged to do ‘penitential acts’. We need to remember that these acts do not stand on their own and only have meaning if they deepen our relationship with God. In all things, our ultimate guide must be the law of love. No truly loving act can ever be sinful, although at times it may violate the letter of a law.

Lent 3 | Thursday

Jeremiah 7:23-28; Luke 11:14-23

The theme today is expressed in the final words of the Gospel: “The one that is not with me scatters.”

FIRST READING (Jeremiah 7:23-28)

Strong statements from Jeremiah about how God’s people do not listen to his words. The covenant was: “Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Follow right to the end the way that I mark out for you, and you will prosper.”

But that is not what has happened, says Jeremiah. “They followed the dictates of their own evil hearts, refused to face me, and turned their backs on me.” And that in spite of so many messengers and prophets sent to speak to the people.

As the Gospel of today indicates in Jesus’ confrontation with some Pharisees, when people do not want to believe, there is nothing that will change their minds. They will refuse to acknowledge goodness staring them in the face.

We are not here to sit in judgement on our predecessors. Readings like this are intended to help us take a closer look at ourselves.

What we need to do is to ask how far do these words of Jeremiah apply to us. How carefully do we listen? How well do we carry out the will of God in our lives? How clearly can we discern the presence of God in our daily situations? What kind of influence or force are we in our communities? A force for greater unity or for division?

GOSPEL (Luke 11:14-23)

Amazement in the Gospel does not always lead to faith. People are amazed to see Jesus liberate a dumb man from the evil power that prevented him from speaking. But, rather than seeing here the clear intervention of God’s saving power, they see in Jesus the power of another evil spirit. More than that, they ask Jesus to give some special sign of his authority and identity.

Jesus shows up the contradictions of their position. First, he has just given a powerful sign but they choose not to see it as such. Secondly, a divided household can only collapse. Why would Satan be undoing his own work? And, if it is through Satan that Jesus casts out Satan, by what power do other exorcists among them do it? If the answer is by God’s power, why should they make an exception of Jesus? And, if it is by God’s power (the only other alternative) that Jesus liberates people from evil powers, then they should know that God’s Kingdom, God’s reign has come among them.

Far from being an accomplice, Jesus is the “stronger man” who is driving Satan from all his strongholds

Both readings today urge us to listen carefully to God speaking to us in our lives. Let us not be blinded by prejudice of any kind which might prevent us from recognising the signs or the voice or the hand of God in people and experiences we have during any ordinary day.

There must be many times when we write off people and events and so fail to realise that God is saying something important to us through them. They may be saints or sinners – it does not matter. God can and does use any channel to reach us.

Lent 3 | Friday

Hosea 14:2-10; Mark 12:28-34

Both readings are about our total commitment to God.

FIRST READING (Hosea 14:2-10)

“More than any other prophet, Hosea tells about God’s love for his people.” (Vatican II Missal)

After many negative words from the prophet to God’s people, Hosea in this last part of his book sounds a note of hope, which he had already hinted at earlier. Today’s passage is a liturgical prayer expressing sincere repentance, concluding with a firm promise of God’s blessing.

In this closing passage of his book, Hosea calls the people back to God. The troubles they have been experiencing are due to their alienation from God. If they will only come back to him, where they belong, their lives will flourish. God is only too anxious to shower his love and gifts on them.

Hosea urges the people to say: “Take all guilt away and give us what is good, instead of bulls we will dedicate to you our lips.” In other words, expressions of true repentance will take the place of purely external rituals.

Nor is there much good in looking for help in powerful neighbours like Assyria nor in the ‘riding of horses’ (perhaps a reference to Egypt). Rather God is “the one in whom orphans find compassion”.

God will bring his healing – “I shall cure them of disloyalty, I shall love them with all my heart”. These gifts and their results are expressed in lovely phrases taken from plant life:

- I will be like the dew for Israel

- they will blossom like the lily

- they will strike root like a cedar of Lebanon

- and put forth shoots splendid as the olive tree

- fragrant as a cedar of Lebanon

- produce grain and blossom like the vine

- become as famous as the wine of Lebanon

God – and this is unique in the Old Testament – compares himself to the greenness of a cypress tree, a source of life and fruitfulness for his people.

If we can only learn that only through the ways of life which God proposes can be found the true fulfilment of our deepest longings, then we will experience a deep happiness right through our life. During this Lent let us open our hearts to a total and unconditional love of God and of those around us.

GOSPEL (Mark 12:28-34)

In the Gospel we find one of the rare meetings between Jesus and a teacher of the Law which is not confrontational. The man seems genuinely interested in Jesus’ answer to a question that was often asked by interpreters of the Law. Again, rather unusually, Jesus answers the question directly.

In fact, he gives a double answer. In doing so, he links in a special and indivisible way a total love of God with love of those around us. The scribe is impressed. He fully endorses what Jesus has said and even adds that such love transcends any purely religious activity. Jesus is also impressed and tells the scribe that he is very close to the Kingdom of God.

Jesus says this because the scribe puts love of God and neighbour at the very centre of living but he will not be fully in the Kingdom until he becomes a follower of the Way of Jesus. Whether that happened or not we do not know.

What we do know is that we today are being called to follow Jesus in a total commitment of heart, mind and strength to loving God and to loving unconditionally every single person we come in contact with.

Lent is a good time for us to evaluate how we are doing in this regard.

Lent 3 | Saturday

Hosea 6:1-6; Luke 18:9-14

The readings are about our attitudes in relating to God in prayer.

FIRST READING (Hosea 6:1-6)

“This passage used to be read every Good Friday... the northern kingdom (Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (Judah) are criticised for their shallow religion and trust in animal sacrifices. God wants a life of sincere service.” (Vatican II Missal)

The prophet here composes a penitential prayer and puts it into the mouths of God’s people, who are terrified by threats of punishment and of being abandoned by him. They exhort each other to return to Yahweh but the return is only superficial; there is no real repentance.

“Let us return to Yahweh” is the call but it lacks sincerity. The people complain that God has treated them roughly but they are confident that he will heal them again. “He has struck us… after two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up.” Some have seen in these words a reference to the resurrection of Christ, by which will bring God’s healing back to his people.

“He will come to us like a shower, like the rain of springtime to the earth.” Israel believed that, as surely as the seasonal rains fell and revived the earth, God’s favour would return and restore her, that his anger would come to an end.

The reason for God’s toughness is the superficiality of their commitment to him: their love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that quickly disappears. God sees through the emptiness of their pious expressions. “What am I to do with you, Ephraim [the northern kingdom]? What am I to do with you Judah [the southern kingdom]? For your love is like morning mist, like the dew that quickly disappears.”

They have used high-sounding words of repentance but their actions have not been in harmony with utterances. “This is why I have hacked them to pieces by means of the prophets, why I have killed them with the words from my mouth.” Not literally killed them, of course, but condemned their sinful behaviour.

God now spells it out clearly: “Faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.” (A sentence quoted twice in Matthew’s gospel.) What God has wanted from them is genuine loving actions, not empty rituals, however piously performed. Knowledge of God, not knowledge about God but a knowledge implying a deep interpersonal relationship instead of ostentatious holocausts.

This is what we see criticised in today’s Gospel too. And, for us, it is not the Masses we attend, or the prayers we say that count most, but the genuine love of God shown by the way we live our lives and the way we relate to the people around us.

Our prayer must flow out of such a lifestyle and, at the same time, bring about such a way of living.

GOSPEL (Luke 18:9-14)

In today’s Gospel we see two ways of praying. One is arrogant, proud and contemptuous of others. As the Pharisee “prays”, God is somehow meant to feel grateful that there are at least a few people as observant of the rules as he is in comparison with the sinful and despicable outsider symbolised by the tax collector behind him.

“I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly I am not like this tax collector.” On the contrary, he fasts twice a week, pays tithes on all he earns – he goes well beyond what the law demands.

Yet his “prayer” is not accepted. It is not really a prayer at all but a hymn to himself. As Catholics, or as regular churchgoers, we can sometimes feel superior to those who have dropped out, to those who have no religion, those who lead what we regard as “immoral” lives.

The tax collector is certainly a sinner; that is not denied. But he knows and acknowledges his sinfulness. He is deeply repentant and he puts himself totally at the mercy of God. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” God accepts the prayer of the second one because he acknowledges God as his Lord and Saviour. Nor does he compare himself with anyone else. He does not judge anyone else; only himself.

Our prayer must always be an expression of our total dependence on God. There is nothing that we can give him which he has not given us first. All we can do is to make an effort to return a fraction of the love that he showers constantly on us. We are and always will be in his debt.

Lent 3 | Alternative Readings:

During the last three weeks of Lent an alternative set of weekday readings is offered which may be used on any day of the week. These readings are taken from the 3rd, 4th and 5th Sundays of Lent in Year A. So they often do not get read on the corresponding Sundays in Years B and C, although the option to read them on those Sundays is available. As these three sets of readings have special relevance to the Baptism of catechumens which takes place at the Easter Vigil it is desirable to have them read and preached on.

For this week, the readings below may be used, especially when the Sunday cycle is B or C and the Gospel of the Samaritan woman has not been read on the 3rd Sunday of Lent. The readings are also found on 3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A.:

“These two readings were used in the oldest Lenten Masses, 1500 years ago, to teach about the grace of God. In the Bible, and in liturgy, water is a common symbol for the life of grace.” (Vatican II Missal):

Readings

Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42

The link between the 1st reading and the Gospel is the giving of water as a source of life.

FIRST READING (Exodus 17:1-7)

The Israelites, wandering through the desert to the Promised Land, find themselves in a place where there is no water. The reading says that the Israelites had camped at Rephidim. This is a place near Mount Sinai, where very soon Moses is to receive the Law from Yahweh. It has been identified with either the Wadi Refayid or the Wadi Feiran, which are both in southern Sinai. A wadi is a place where one would expect to find water in the desert.

The people complain bitterly against Moses, who has only been following the commands of the Lord. They even begin to long for the slavery of Egypt; they are beginning to think that it was better than what they were enduring now.

Moses scolds them for “putting the Lord to the test”. In other words, they are questioning his love and care for them. On their behalf he pleads with God to do something for “these” people (rather than “my people”, for he cannot identify them and their behaviour as being that of Yahweh’s people).

So God tells Moses to stand with some of the elders in front of a rock and strike it with the same rod with which he separated the sea on the day they fled from the Egyptians. Then, against all expectation, water would begin to flow from the rock and restore life to the people. We are not actually told whether the water came out or not but it is understood that it did. The places were then called by Moses ‘Massah’ (‘the place of test’) and ‘Meribah’ (‘place of quarrelling’).

The whole incident went down in the folklore of the Israelites as a symbol of their lack of confidence in God’s care for them and recalled in the Psalm which is our Response for today: “O, harden not your hearts as at Meribah / as on that day at Massah in the desert / when your fathers put me to the test / when they tried me, though they saw my work.”

The whole passage is seen as a lack of trust in God’s providential care of his people by the Israelites. The water from the rock is also a symbol of God as the source of life and that is the link with the Gospel reading about the Samaritan woman which follows.

The gospel too centres around the theme of water and life. What is this water? It is God’s Spirit which comes to us first in Baptism and then in the many other ways in which the Spirit of Jesus is communicated to us in our Christian life.

And it is no coincidence that these readings occur during Lent when many are preparing to celebrate their Baptism and their incorporation in the Church, as the Body of Christ. It is a time for the rest of us to renew our commitment to that incorporation or embodiment into Christ.

GOSPEL (John 4:5-42)

The Gospel centres around the theme of water and life. The woman represents two oppressed groups with which Jesus and the Gospel are concerned:

- women

- all kinds of outsiders, people who are unclean, infidels, foreigners...

The story begins by Jesus showing himself as a person in need: tired, hungry and thirsty. Jesus was a real human being with all the needs that any normal person has. He asks help from a person he should avoid (an unaccompanied woman) and look down on (a Samaritan).

Her surprise at being asked for a drink by a Jewish man allows Jesus to turn the tables and offer her living water. She, understanding him literally, asks how he can give it. After all, he has no bucket. But the water that Jesus will give is different. Those who drink it will never be thirsty again and it gives eternal life.

Again, understanding him literally, the woman wants this water. Then she will never have to make her daily trudge to the well again.

What is this water? It is God’s Spirit which comes to us through Baptism and our incorporation into a Christian community. Baptism is not just a ritual. It is the outward, symbolic sign of a deeper reality, the coming of God into every aspect of a person’s life. It happens through our exposure to Jesus and to the Gospel vision of life and our becoming totally converted to that vision. This can only happen through the agency of a Christian community into which we are called to enter.

Jesus now invites the woman to come back to the well once more with her husband. Jesus’ mission to these people begins with reaching out to a family. But she says she has no husband. Jesus reveals her true situation: she has had five husbands and the man she is with now is not her husband.

At first sight, she would seem to be a very “loose” and promiscuous woman. But in those times for a woman of her social class to have had five husbands would be very rare. A man having five different wives was a different matter altogether. Rather, she is seen here as representing her people. The “husbands” she is said to have had seem rather to point to the various religious beliefs to which the Samaritans attached themselves over a turbulent history of many invasions. Each invader brought their own religion and imposed it on their conquered peoples. Jesus is saying that none of these “husbands” was a true husband. Jesus is bringing the true spouse she needs. (In our readings from the prophets in recent weeks we have seen just how idolatrous God’s people were in the Northern Kingdom, also known as Samaria.)

She is deeply impressed by Jesus’ words and seems to understand the deeper meaning of what he is saying. She calls him a prophet. That is high praise from her because the Samaritans had the greatest reverence for the biblical prophets and expected the Messiah to come from that line rather than from David’s line, as the Jews believed.

So she brings up a disputed issue between the Samaritans and the Jews. The question is about Jewish and Samaritan places of worship: Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim. In the 4th century BC the Samaritans had erected a temple on Mount Gerizim to rival Mount Zion in Jerusalem. The Jews called the mountain Mount Ebal.

But this gives Jesus the opportunity to make another important point. The “holy” well where they are will become irrelevant. So will the Temple of Jerusalem and the mountain of the Samaritans. True worship will be done in Spirit and in truth. With the coming of Christ people will worship through the Spirit which will be for them the source of Truth. We can also say that there will be no more temples. It is not places which are holy but the Spirit-filled people who use them. As Paul will say, we are the Temple of God and the Body of Christ. That is where his real presence is to be found.

She does not say whether she agrees or not but goes on to say that when the Messiah comes “he will tell us everything”. At that moment Jesus tells her that he is the Messiah. His announcement could hardly be more solemn or more simple: “I AM [he], the one who is speaking with you.” “I AM” – the very name of Yahweh. This Samaritan woman, an outsider in more ways than one, and not any of the other disciples is the first person in John’s gospel to receive this revelation. (Later, it will be a woman who will be the first to meet the Risen Lord.)

At this point the disciples now return. They are amazed (even shocked?) to see Jesus alone talking to this strange and foreign woman. They don’t know what to say. For Jesus it is quite irrelevant. Jesus judges by what actually happens between people, not by what could happen. He is perfectly comfortable being alone with a woman, just as he was with the prostitute who kissed his feet incessantly (Luke 7).

They offer him food but are told Jesus has food they know nothing about. “Not on bread alone do people live but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus’ food is his total identification with the will of his Father and doing his work.

Jesus tells them that the harvest is great and it is ripe. And it now includes Samaritans (represented by this woman) and all outsiders, aliens, unbelievers, sinners... Jesus has been planting the seed. It will be up to his disciples to gather in the harvest. It is a process that continues today – some are sowers of the Word and others gather in the fruits.

When the disciples arrived, the woman went away, leaving her jar by the well. This could have two meanings. It was reminiscent of the disciples leaving their boats or Matthew leaving his tax collector’s stall to become a disciple of Jesus. Or it could symbolise that she no longer needs the water from this well, the well of Jacob, a symbol of the Old Testament. She now has access to Living Water. And so she goes off to tell her people about her experience of meeting Jesus and his identity as the Messiah. The woman has become both a disciple and a missionary apostle.

Many of her people came to believe in Jesus because of the woman’s witnessing. That is how the Christian faith is spread. Then they asked Jesus to stay with them, otherwise he would have gone on. Then many more believed.

At the end they said to the woman: “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the World.” They have not only heard the message and accepted it but have made it their own. This is the completion of the evangelising process.

For our catechumens, for our children, and for all of us, the faith that has been handed on must become our own faith. So that, even if everyone around us were to abandon Jesus, I would not. Ultimately faith is totally personal. “I live, no not I, but Christ lives in me.”

Let us pray today that our catechumens who are preparing for Baptism at this time and all of us may find that life-enriching faith for their lives.

Lent 4 | Monday

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

This week we begin a semi-continuous reading of John’s gospel Jesus brings the promise of new life, now and in the future.

FIRST READING (Isaiah 65:17-21)

Isaiah speaks of a coming Utopia, a totally new world full of joy and gladness. A world without pain or sadness, a world of prosperity and plenty. The dream is of a restored Jerusalem after the exile and of an even greater Messianic kingdom after that.

The reading comes from the last part of Third Isaiah, a part of the book not written by Isaiah the prophet. Chapters 65 and 66 form an apocalyptic collection and date mainly from the period after the exile in Babylon when a remnant of the Jews had returned to Jerusalem. (It is not often said but many of the exiles stayed behind in Babylon because life was quite comfortable for them there.)

In the earlier prophets, messianic happiness was foreseen as a return to paradise, to the bliss of the Garden of Eden. But in apocalyptic literature, such as we have in today’s reading, there is seen rather a complete renewal of our present world. So, we have the opening words today: “Look! I am going to create new heavens and a new earth.” The past will go into complete oblivion, never to be remembered again.

There will be a new Jerusalem. There will be a completely restored Jerusalem following the return from exile and even more so in the Messianic kingdom to come. Later on, the Book of Revelation will link the idea of a new heaven and a new earth with the “new Jerusalem” (Rev 21:1-2).

It will be a world free of pain and sickness, no weeping or wailing, no children will die before their time and no one will live less than 100 years. We are speaking, of course, in apocalyptic language, not to be taken literally. It is a dream of better and happier times to come.

It paves the way for the coming of Jesus who, in today’s Gospel, brings healing and wholeness back to a household threatened with death. Where Jesus anticipates his later statement to Martha: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life.”

We do not expect to live lives without pain, sickness or even tragedy but what we can expect from our commitment to Jesus’ Way is to experience the peace which only he can give.

GOSPEL (John 4:43-54)

This week we begin a semi-continuous reading of John’s gospel. Today, Jesus brings the promise of new life, now and in the future.

Today’s Gospel follows immediately on the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman. Jesus now goes back to Galilee from Samaria. In spite of what Jesus had said earlier about prophets not being welcomed in their own place, he was received well, because they had seen what Jesus had done in Jerusalem during his recent visit there.

He returns to Cana, where he had performed his first sign, changing water into wine. A high official comes to ask Jesus to cure his son who is dying. Jesus’ first reaction is negative. He complains of people just looking for miracles, signs and wonders.

The man ignores Jesus’ remarks and repeats his request for Jesus to come and heal his son before he dies. This, in itself, indicates the level of the man’s faith in Jesus. This is always the basic requirement for healing to take place.

Jesus ignores the invitation to go to the man’s house. In the Synoptics it is the centurion who tells Jesus it is not necessary to go to his house. That was because he was a Gentile and knew that Jesus should not go there. (It is not certain if John’s account is another version of that story.) Here Jesus simply says: “Go home, your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said and set off for his home.

Before he gets home the official’s servants are coming out to tell him that his son is alive and well. On further enquiries, the father learns that the fever subsided just at the moment when Jesus promised that the boy would live. It was also the moment when the man, trusting in Jesus’ word, began his journey home.

John tells us that this is the second of the seven “signs”* that Jesus did. Its clear message is that Jesus brings life, eternal life that begins now. In John, eternal life begins as soon as we attach ourselves in total trust to Jesus and to his Way. Lent is a good time for us to renew our pledge to walk along his Way and to ask for a deep level of faith to do so.

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*The seven Signs in John are:

1, The changing of water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana (2:1-11)

2, The healing of the royal official’s son (4:46-54) [Today’s reading]

3, The healing of a cripple at the Bethesda pool (5:1-18)

4, Feeding of the 5,000 (6:1-15)

5, Jesus walking on the water (6:16-21)

6, Healing of the man born blind (9:1-41)

7, The raising of Lazarus (11:1-44)

Lent 4 | Tuesday

Readings: Ezekiel 47:1-9,12; John 5:1-3,5-16

Water is seen as the source of life.

FIRST READING (Ezekiel 47:1-9,12)

”In the Middle East, desert land was commonplace and water all-important. Water was a symbol of God’s saving grace. The prophet Ezekiel described a future idealised Temple, the source of deepening waters and fertile abundance.” (Vatican II Missal)

A marvellous river, flowing out from under the Temple, is a manifestation of the blessings conferred on the land by Yahweh’s return to live among his people. It is linked today with the healing of the man who was waiting for the waters of the ‘Sheep Pool’ to move.

An ever-increasing life-giving stream of water flows out from the Temple. It is clear that a healing, life-giving water is understood. And, in the background, there is the image of the river flowing through the Garden of Eden, a symbol of the life that God gives to all creation. In the world of the Middle East, a world of parched deserts, water signifies great blessings, just as dryness and drought signify a curse.

Although not fed by any tributaries, the river continues to increase remarkably till it is too deep to wade across. Then it is seen to have an abundance of trees, which are reminiscent again of the fertility of Eden (Gen 2:9). The river flows on into the deep depression that marks the course of the River Jordan and into the Dead Sea, so named because its high salt level makes life impossible. But this river will make the waters wholesome. Literally, the Hebrew says that the river will ‘heal’ the waters of the Sea. That this lowest (1,300 feet below sea level) and saltiest (25 percent) body of water in the world should be able to sustain such an abundance of life indicates the wonderful renewing power of this “river of the water of life” (cf. Rev 22:1).

“Fish will be plentiful, wherever the water goes it brings health and life teems wherever the river flows”. Here we have the image of miraculous water flowing from the Temple and conferring a marvellous fertility. The power of the water is such that, as it flows into the Dead Sea where nothing can live because of its saltiness, the sea flourishes with fish and fruit trees of every kind grow along its shores. There are also overtones of the creation of the teeming waters in the Creation story (Gen 1:20-21). “Wherever the water goes, it brings health”: in the context of the Gospel, this water is the Life that Jesus gives. “He who comes to me will never thirst.”

Truly, this is a symbol of the kind of life that God wishes us to share with him. “I have come that they may have life, life in abundance” (John 10:10).

Let us during this Lenten season experience the healing power of Jesus, a healing power which was initiated at our Baptism but which needs to continue for as long as we live.

GOSPEL (John 5:1-3,5-16)

Today we see Jesus back in Jerusalem for an unnamed festival. He goes to the pool near the Sheep Gate. John says it had five porticoes and the ruins of such a pool have been excavated in recent times.

Around the pool are large numbers of people – blind, lame and paralysed. These are the ailments that we Christians often suffer from:

- blindness – we cannot see where Jesus is leading us or where we should go in life;

- lameness and paralysis – we can see but have difficulty walking or even moving along Christ’s Way.

During this Lenten season let us hear Jesus asking us the question he puts to the man: “Do you want to be well again? Do you want to be made whole again?”

For 38 years the man has been trying to get into the water when it is “disturbed” but someone else always gets in before him. It seems that a spring in the pool bubbled up from time to time and it was believed that it had curative qualities. Some earlier versions of the New Testament at this point added: “For [from time to time] an angel of the Lord used to come down into the pool; and the water was stirred up, so the first one to get in [after the stirring of the water] was healed of whatever disease afflicted him.” Some older people may remember this text but its genuineness has since been called into doubt and it is now omitted.

Jesus wastes no time. “Rise up! Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk.” The man is immediately cured and walks away. Again we have in the words of Jesus the intimation of resurrection to new life of which Jesus is the Source. “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

It is at this point that the legalists step in. On his way the man is challenged for carrying his sleeping mat on a sabbath day. How petty one can get! Here is a man who has been a cripple for 38 years and is now taken to task for carrying his sleeping mat on a sabbath. The wonder is that he can do it at all!

It is like those people who get upset because the vestments the celebrant at Mass is wearing are not the right colour for the day or because he changes some unimportant words or because a woman is not wearing a hat.  Or people who worry that they have not been fasting for the full hour. As if there can be any comparison between sharing the Body of the Lord in the Eucharist and observing a minor man-made regulation.

It is so easy to lose our sense of proportion. For some, a rubrically correct but deadly boring Mass is more important than one where there is a real spirit of celebration and community and a coming together in Christ even if the rules are not being followed to the letter.

The man answers that the one who cured him told him to carry his mat but he did not know who that person was, as Jesus had disappeared into the crowds. Later, Jesus and the man meet in the Temple. The man is told to complete his experience of healing by abandoning a life of sin, bringing body and spirit into full harmony and wholeness. This is not to say that Jesus is implying that the man had been a cripple because of his sin. Jesus did not teach that. But what he is saying is that physical wholeness needs to be matched by spiritual wholeness, the wholeness of the complete person.

This is the third of Jesus’ seven signs – again bringing life and wholeness. Let us ask him to do the same for us.

Lent 4 | Wednesday

Isaiah 49:8-15; John 5:17-30

Let us not be afraid or cast down; God is on his way in the person of Jesus

FIRST READING (Isaiah 49:8-15)

The reading is part of a celebration of the people’s joyful return from their exile in Babylon to their home in Jerusalem. It comes from Second Isaiah, a book full of hope and consolation which looks forward to the end of the exile and the people’s going home again.

They are still in exile. Their lives are led in hardship and bitterness but the prophet assures them that better times are on the way. This is in response to the cry of God’s people.

“At the time of my favour I have answered you.” The reference is probably to the year of jubilee but the return from exile will bring about the same restoration of land for the people as the jubilee did for those who, because of debt problems, may have had to sell their land.

So the Lord now calls on his people “to restore the land, to return ravaged properties, to say to prisoners ‘Come out’, and to those in darkness, ‘Show yourselves’.” It is a time for the restoration of justice to all. The end of their sorrows is symbolised in phrases like “they will never hunger or thirst, scorching wind and sun will never plague them.”

Their God is with them: “He who pities them will lead them, will guide them to springs of water.” The way will made clear for their return: “I shall turn all my mountains into a road and my highways will be raised aloft.”

He will give them back their land, seized by the foreign invader. He will bring freedom to the prisoners and light to those in darkness. They will be surrounded by fertile lands, untouched by heat or thirst and luxuriate in springs of fresh water. The ways to the homeland will be cleared and exiles will return from as far away as the “land of Sinim” (now known as Aswan, the first cataract on the River Nile in Egypt).

It is a time for great rejoicing, in which the whole of nature should take part – “Shout for joy, you heavens; earth exult! Mountains break into joyful cries!”

Yet, Zion is still sceptical: “Yahweh has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me.” But they are wrong. Utterly wrong.

God does not forget his people. He is full of tenderness and compassion, as gentle as that of any mother, expressed in those extraordinary gentle and affectionate words: “Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you.”

In our darkest moments, let us not forget the unchanging intensity of God’s love for us.

GOSPEL (John 5:17-30)

Today’s Gospel follows immediately on yesterday’s story of the healing of the crippled man by the pool.  That passage had ended with the words: “The Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this [i.e. the healing] on a sabbath.” We might point out, as with some other sabbath healings, that there was absolutely no urgency to do the healing on a sabbath for someone who had waited 38 years. It is just another indication of the divine authority with which Jesus works.

So Jesus’ reply is direct and unapologetic: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” Because Genesis speaks of God resting on the seventh day (the origin of the Jewish sabbath), it was disputed whether God was in any way active on the sabbath. Some believed that the creating and conserving work of his creation went on and others that he continued to pass judgement on that day. In any case, Jesus is claiming here the same authority to work on the sabbath as his Father and has the same powers over life and death.

The Jewish leaders are enraged that Jesus speaks of God as his own Father. They want to kill him. They understand by his words that Jesus is making himself God’s equal. Jesus, far from denying the accusation, only confirms it.

“A son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will also do.” This saying is taken from the model of an apprentice in a trade. The apprentice son does exactly what his father does. Jesus’ relation to his Father is similar. “For the Father loves his Son and shows him everything that he himself does, so that you may be amazed.” And “just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes” – and whenever he wishes. And such giving of life is something that belongs only to God. As does the right to judge, which Jesus says has been delegated to him.

Jesus is the perfect mirror of the Father. The Father is acting in him and through him. He is the Word of God – God speaks and acts directly through him. God’s Word is a creative Word. Jesus, like the Father, is life-giving, a source of life.

The right to judge has been delegated by the Father to the Son. And to refuse to honour the Son is to refuse the same honour to the Father. In everything Jesus acts only according to the will of his Father and does what his Father wants.

Jesus, then, is the Way, the Way through whom we go to God. For us, there is no other Way. He is God’s Word to us and for us.

Lent 4 | Thursday

Readings about faith in the message of Jesus as coming from God.

FIRST READING (Exodus 32:7-14)

While Moses was up on the mountain conversing with God and receiving the law from him, the people below became impatient. “That Moses, the man who brought us here from Egypt – we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron, the brother of Moses, then collected all the gold that the women and children wore and melted it down to make a golden ‘calf’.

The word ‘calf’ is somewhat derisive because it was in fact the statue of a young bull, a symbol of divinity in the ancient East. It seems that a group in competition with Moses’ group, or a dissident faction in Moses’ group, wished to have the figure of a bull to symbolise the presence of God, instead of the Ark of the Covenant. However, the God being worshipped was still the Yahweh who had brought them out of Egypt. The bull was itself an image of Yahweh but regarded as the footstool of the unseen deity (as indeed was the Ark which the bull was intended to replace).

In paying worship to the bull they saw the saviour who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They were worshipping a god of their own making – something people in all ages, including our own, tend to do.

God is portrayed as reacting very angrily to this and asks Moses, who is still in his presence, not to stand in his way. “Leave me, now, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them.” But Moses, while not denying their sin, pleads on behalf of his people. Later, he will plead on behalf of his sister, Miriam, and frequently on behalf of the people all during their journey through the desert. His intercession foreshadows that of Christ, who won forgiveness for our sin on the Cross.

Moses’ argument is that, if God destroys his people, he will become a laughing stock among the pagans for rescuing his people and then destroying them in the wilderness. In addition, Moses reminds God of the promises he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of the great and unending future of their descendants. So, God seen here in very human terms, relents and withdraws his promise of vengeance.

Of course, this is not at all the kind of God the New Testament asks us to believe in. We should be careful about speaking of our God in such anthropomorphic terms. God does not get angry, he does not take revenge… Our sinfulness brings its own punishment because every sin is a denial of what we are meant to be and become.

As with most passages of Scripture, what we need to look at here is not what is being said and done but at the underlying meaning of the passage. The emphasis here is on the thanklessness of God’s people and on God’s readiness to forgive and give them another chance.

We are constantly in the same situation. Let us be aware at this time of the countless gifts God has given us and continues to shower on us. At the same time, we know that, when we fail, his mercy and compassion are there for us always.  But let that compassion draw us closer to him and to Jesus and help us to leave behind every lack of love in our lives.

GOSPEL (John 5:31-47)

Today we continue with yesterday’s words of Jesus to the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus re-affirms that God himself is the witness – in four ways – to the truth of all that Jesus says:

1, The testimony of John the Baptist, although that was only human testimony (vv.33-34).

2, The works of Jesus give clear testimony of the divine origin of all that Jesus does. “The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.” The leaders could not see this but the crowds often testified to it with enthusiasm. (v.36)

3, The Father himself has given testimony, although that has not been seen directly by some of the Jews. “The Father who sent me has testified on my behalf but you have never heard his voice nor seen his form.” (Is this a reference to Jesus’ baptism or to the Transfiguration?) (vv.37-38);

4, A careful reading of the scriptures will show they give testimony to Jesus. “You search the scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life.” This is clearly shown later on by Jesus when explaining the scriptures to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. (vv.39-40).

Although Jesus clearly comes in the name of his Father, he is not accepted or believed in.

Yet some individual will come in his own name and they will accept him. Further they keep looking into their own traditions rather than looking further to someone who clearly comes from God.

Jesus will not accuse them before his Father. Moses, in whom they claim to believe, will be their accuser. “If you have believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you refuse to believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?” By “Moses” is meant the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch and whose authorship is attributed to Moses, although we know now by the dating of the various parts that this could not be possible. It was common in ancient times to attribute the authorship of a work to a well-known personality.

How much of all this applies to us? Where do we ultimately put our faith? In the Christ of the New Testament or in a Jesus we have tailored to our own wants? How familiar are we with the Word of God in the New (and Old) Testament? Where do we clearly see the Risen Jesus bringing God into our lives every single day?

Lent 4 | Friday

Wisdom 2:1,12-22; John 7:1-2,10,25-30

The paradox that the good man faces in our world.

FIRST READING (Wisdom 2:1,12-22)

The reading comes from early on in the Book of Wisdom in a passage describing life as seen by the godless.

We often feel that if we are good and virtuous and, even more, because we are good and virtuous, people should be inspired to follow and imitate our good example. However, experience tells us that many times the opposite is the case.

It is so well put in today’s reading and it applies so perfectly to Jesus, so much so that some people see in this passage a prophecy about Jesus. However, it also applies to hundreds of others down the ages whose goodness has been resented, whose behaviour is seen as a condemnation and a threat to those with different values and who have been as a result persecuted and even killed.

“He annoys us and opposes our way of life.” By itself that should not be a problem but it is because the prophet’s words are felt to be true and create feelings of guilt in those against whom they are directed. “He reproaches us for our sins against the Law and accuses of sins against our upbringing.” The reproach is not denied but it is strongly resented.

“He claims to have knowledge of the Lord and calls himself a child of the Lord.” This is the very people that Scripture says should be respected and protected. And that claim is not denied but such a one is seen as a “reproof to our way of thinking. The very sight of him weighs our spirits down.”

And then there follows a good description of the counter-witness: “His kind of life is not like other people’s, and his ways are quite different.” How true of Jesus and of many of his most faithful followers!

There then comes the justification for violent action to remove the source of criticism. If the prophet is really a spokesperson for God, then surely God will protect him against any violent attack. “Let us test him with cruelty and with torture and thus explore this gentleness of his and put his patience to the test. Let us condemn him to a shameful death since God will rescue him – or so he claims.”

It is exactly what happened to Jesus at the hands of his opponents as his enemies mocked him during his trial (“They blindfolded Jesus and hit him. ‘Guess who hit you!’ they said.” - Mark 14:65) and on the cross (“The chief priests and the teachers of the Law and the elders jeered at him: ‘...He trusts in God and claims to be God’s Son. Well, then, let us see if God wants to save him now’.” - Matt 27:41-44).

Among many others down the centuries, it will happen in our times to Bishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador – and for exactly the same reasons. We call such dedicated followers ‘martyrs’ from the Greek word for a witness. They give striking witness to the values of the Kingdom.

Those who carry out these actions can convince themselves that what they are doing is right. “This is the way they reason, but they are misled. They do not know the hidden things of God.” Their aim is to obliterate the source of their discomfort but the result is often the very opposite. It is a very dangerous thing to create martyrs. We remember the early Christian saying: “The blood of martyrs is the seed of faith.”

Jesus himself has told us not to be surprised that we too will be misunderstood and treated as he was. The following of Christ involves what is called a ‘counter-witness’ to the prevailing values in our societies. Such a counter-witness will often be deeply resented, attacked, rubbished and ridiculed and it may invite even violence and death.

Of course, we also have to be very careful that our witness is based on truth, integrity and love; we have to be careful to avoid any taint of Pharisaism or superior elitism, which we can fall into so easily. It is God we are proclaiming, not ourselves.

As we approach Holy Week, we need to reflect on these things and see how they fit into our lives. Whose side am I on? If I had been on Calvary, with whom would I have been standing? In issues of truth and justice in my own society, where am I seen?

GOSPEL (John 7:1-2,10,25-30)

In today’s Gospel we move to the 7th chapter of John, skipping chapter 6 on the Bread of Life which will be read at another time in the liturgical cycle.

We are told that Jesus was confining his activities to Galilee. He did not want to go to Judea and the vicinity of Jerusalem because there were people there who wanted to kill him. Jesus does not expose himself unnecessarily to danger. He knows that a time is coming when the final conflict will be inevitable but that time is not yet.

It is the time of the Feast of Tabernacles and (this is not contained in today’s reading) his family are urging him to go up to Jerusalem for the feast and show himself to the world. He tells them the time is not ripe for him to do this but later on, after his family have left for the city, he goes privately and unknown to others. However, in Jerusalem, Jesus goes to the Temple area and begins to teach openly to the amazement of his listeners: “How does he know scripture without having studied?” (A good example of Johannine irony. Does the Word need to study the Word?!)

Jesus is a source of some confusion in the minds of many people. On the one hand, the people are aware that Jesus has become a target of their religious leaders and yet he goes about openly and speaking freely and without fear.

Jesus would not be Jesus if he were to keep his message to himself. The Word of God cannot remain silent. On the other hand they are also confused about the identity of Jesus. Is he allowed to speak freely because the leaders now believe he really is the Messiah-Christ? But everyone knows where Jesus comes from (Nazareth in Galilee). How, then, can he be the Messiah?

Jesus then tells them: “Yes, you know me and you know where I come from.” That is only partially true; rather, they think they know. “Yet I did not come on my own, but the One who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” And, if they do not know the Father, how can they know the Son? And vice versa.

This only angers his listeners who know what he is implying but they cannot arrest him there and then because “his time had not yet come”. The time of his arrest will only be in accordance with God’s plan.

Do we really know who Jesus is? There are many conflicting opinions out there. We can only know the real Jesus by reading the Scriptures under wise and perceptive guides who can penetrate the deeper meaning beneath the literal text. We can also learn a lot by prayer and contemplation. Lent is an excellent time for us to do both and, better still, to begin making it a practice that goes far beyond Lent.

Lent 4 | Saturday

Jeremiah 11:18-20; John 7:40-52

How prejudice can blind people’s minds to the truth.

FIRST READING (Jeremiah 11:18-20)

Jeremiah, as a prophet of God, is the target of vicious conspiracies which want to wipe him out.

In 622 BC, King Josiah of Judah undertook a religious reform (described in 2 Kings 22) after the Book of the Law was discovered, having lain hidden for years. It seems that Jeremiah took an active role in the reform. By championing the reform, which included the suppression of local shrines, Jeremiah incurred the hatred of his fellow citizens, the people of Anathoth.

It is then that he compares himself to a “trustful lamb being led to the slaughterhouse”. A phrase which will later be applied to Jesus as he is led to his execution. For Jeremiah’s enemies are plotting to get rid of him, “Let us destroy this tree in its strength, let us cut him from the land of the living, so that his name may no longer be remembered!” Jeremiah had no children so, in the eyes of his enemies, that would be the end of him forever.

But they were ironic words because, as in the case of so many martyrs in the cause of right, his name is all the more remembered after his enemies tried to blot him out of existence. And Jeremiah knows that too: “I shall see your vengeance on them, for I have revealed my cause to you.”

Ultimately God is Jeremiah’s only protection against his enemies. But God will see that ultimately truth and justice prevail. And, of course, this is true most of all of Jesus. “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Ps 118:22). That is what we reflect on and celebrate as we watch Jesus go through his Passion in the coming days.

GOSPEL (John 7:40-52)

Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s confusion about the identity of Jesus. There is a conflict between what people are seeing and hearing and what they have been taught to believe. On the basis of his words and actions, Jesus looks like the Messiah but, as every Jewish child knows, the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee (where Nazareth is) but is to come from Bethlehem and the family of David. This is a good example of Johannine irony. Of course, Jesus did come from Nazareth but he was of the family of David and, as Matthew and Luke tell us, born in David’s town of Bethlehem.

Even the police are confused. When asked by the religious leaders why they have not arrested Jesus, they reply: “There has never been anybody who has spoken like him.”  They are scolded for their ignorance. Never mind how impressively he speaks. Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? And the crowds are written off as ignorant and cursed.

But one Pharisee, Nicodemus, who had earlier (John chap. 3) spoken with Jesus in secret and had been won over, protests. Even the Law says a man should be given a hearing before judgement is passed. He is swept aside by the leaders’ preconceived ideas: prophets do not come from Galilee.

We need to remember we are not reading this passage simply to condemn the Jewish religious leaders or the Pharisees but to reflect on our own prejudices and short-sightedness. How do we see Jesus, the Gospel message, the whole Bible, the Church, our parish community and its leaders, our family, friends, neighbours, not to mention strangers and outsiders...? Let him or her who is totally without prejudice or who has never passed judgement on another cast the first stone.

Let us pray for an open mind to accept in its totality the message of Jesus. And also be very open about the many and surprising ways in which Jesus can speak to us. If we are honest, there is something of the Pharisee in every one of us.

Lent 4 | Alternative Readings

The following readings may be used instead of the proper ones on any day this week, especially when the Sunday cycle is B or C and the gospel of the man born blind has not been read on the 4th Sunday of Lent. The story of the Man Born Blind is one of the key readings in preparing for Baptism at the Easter Vigil:

The theme of both readings is that the Lord is the one who is the light in the darkness of our lives. He is the Light of the World.

Micah 7:7-9; John 9:1-41

FIRST READING (Micah 7:7-9)

The passage is written in the time of exile when the enemies of Israel seem to be in complete control. The unnamed enemy of Judah (Zion, the Southern Kingdom) may be Assyria or one of Judah’s neighbours, such as Edom which would profit if Judah fell. Zion would indeed be destroyed in 586 BC.

The reading has been chosen because it reflects the theme of today’s Gospel about light and darkness. Israel at this time is plunged in darkness.  Nevertheless, she has not given up hope. “I shall look to Yahweh, my hope is in the God who will save me; my God will hear me.”

Zion may be the laughing stock of her enemies. “Do not gloat over me, my enemy.” But times will change; the Lord is on Zion’s side. “Though I live now in darkness, Yahweh is my light.”

Zion’s tribulations are acknowledged as the result of her own sins and infidelities. “I must endure God’s anger, because I have sinned against him.” In due course, however, he will set things right again: “He will bring me out into the light and then I shall contemplate his saving justice.”

To be in the light is to be able to see clearly the source and meaning and direction of our life. It is only when we can see, that we know how and where we are to serve our Lord and Master.

The passage prepares us for the story of the man born blind, a story which makes real Jesus’ statement: “I AM the Light of the world.” He will bring light into the blind man’s life who, after his sight is restored, can only do one thing – become a disciple and follower of Jesus. The Pharisees, on the other hand, are shown to be the ones who remain plunged in darkness.

Where do I stand? Am I living in the light of Jesus and his message? Or do I grope blindly, not sure where my life is going?

GOSPEL (John 9:1-41)

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. This man is the hero of today’s Gospel. This is much more than a miracle story; it is a story about everyone who becomes a follower of Christ. It is possible that it is based on the story of Bartimaeus found in the Synoptic gospels, especially Mark 10. It has close links with Baptism and discipleship.

His disciples ask Jesus, “Why was he born blind? Was it the result of his own sins or the sins of his parents?” It was a common belief that something like blindness or other disability was punishment for the person’s sin or the sin of the parents. In Exodus we read: “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation…” (Exod 20:5). But Jesus does not ever draw a connection between sin and suffering and this thinking was abandoned by the later prophets, e.g. Ezekiel.

Jesus, in fact, turns the question around: neither the man nor his parents sinned to cause this. In this case, the real reason was so that the glory and power of God should be made evident before their eyes, so that their own blindness could be cured.

The story always emphasises the man was blind from birth. To heal him is to help him begin a completely new life. He will enter a new bright world he never experienced before. He will be able to experience the light that Jesus brings. In the previous chapter which leads up to this story Jesus had said: “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” This is a theme running through the whole of John’s gospel. We saw it in the Prologue. Speaking of the Word made flesh, John says: “What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race” (John 1:3-4).

In the beginning of the story, the man is blind – he cannot see, he is a beggar – he has nothing, he is an outsider – no one accepts him. At the end, when he can see and because he can see, he becomes a disciple of Jesus.

Jesus using moistened clay mixed with saliva to smear on the man’s eyes helps us to recall God using mud to create Adam, the first man. Here, too, there is a new creation, new life. Jesus is making a new person. St Paul calls the baptised Christian a “completely new person”. Then Jesus tells him to and wash in the pool of Siloam. This is, as it were, his baptism.

After his healing, his friends and his neighbours discuss his identity. Is it really him? But he was blind and this man can see. Because he has changed, some people cannot recognise him. You begin to wonder who is really blind! When we are baptised, when we follow Christ, we too should change radically. Maybe some people will say, “You are not like the way you were before!”

Because they are not satisfied, the neighbours bring the blind man to see the Pharisees. Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath and the methods he used were against the Law. If Jesus is from God he will not break the law. And, if he is a sinner, how can he do these things? Sinners cannot do the work of God.

They are in a dilemma, caused by their own blindness. For them, sin is breaking the letter of the law; for Jesus sin is doing an unloving thing, breaking or hurting a relationship where God is present.

The Pharisees ask the blind man his opinion. He says Jesus is a prophet. That is, his actions are from God. He measures Jesus by what he did, not by what the law says. But the Pharisees cannot accept this. If they accept, they have to accept Jesus and his teaching also. So they do not even accept that the man was born blind!

Now they ask the parents of the man. The parents know but they are afraid to say. They know that if anyone says Jesus is the Messiah they will be expelled from the synagogue. They will no longer belong to the community. Many Christians over the centuries and down to our own day have had this experience. Because of their choosing to follow Christ, they have been disowned by their families or by their community. “Brother will hand brother over to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death” (Matthew 10:21).

So the parents say their son is an adult. They pass the buck and do not support their own son because of their fear. They cannot afford to identify themselves with Jesus against the authorities. This reflects the experience of the early Christians when they were persecuted for their faith. One of the most serious sins in the early Church was that of apostasy, denying one’s faith in Christ to save one’s life or to avoid social exclusion. It is an experience that has been repeated down the centuries. In recent times, this was the experience of many Christians during the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-76).

The Pharisees again ask the man to tell the truth. “We know that Jesus is a sinner. He cannot do these things.”

“I don’t know if he is a sinner. I do know I was blind and now I can see.” He begins to mock them. He is more daring now, not afraid. “You want to be his disciples too?”

This makes them very angry. They insult him. “You are his disciple. We are Moses’ disciples.

No one knows where that fellow came from.” Note the contempt in the phrase “that fellow”. Yet they speak truly when they say no one knows where he comes from.

“How strange!” retorts the man, “He cured me.  Sinners cannot do such things. God does not listen to sinners. God listens to those who respect him and do his will. Never was it heard before that anyone cured a man born blind. If Jesus is not from God he could not do this.” In the whole of the Old Testament, there is only one record of a person being cured of blindness. This is in the book of Tobit but Tobit was not born blind.

The Pharisees are now even more angry. “You were born and raised in sin [proved by his blindness]. You want to teach us?” And they expel him from the synagogue. This was the experience of many Jews who became Christians. And the experience of many others who were expelled by their families, relatives and society for choosing to follow Christ.

Jesus hears the man has been expelled and goes to find him. “Do you believe in the Son of Man, that is, the Messiah?”

“Tell me who he is and I will believe in him.”

He does not yet recognise Jesus. It is the first time he has seen Jesus with his healed eyes. “You have seen him. He is talking with you now.”

Then comes the great profession of faith: “I believe, Lord.” And he kneels down before Jesus.

He is now a disciple. A disciple is someone who can see and accepts Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. Jesus now goes on: “I came to this world so that the blind could see and those who see become blind.”

The Pharisees ask, “Do you mean we are blind, too?”

“If you were really blind [like the man had been], you would not have sin; but because you say, ‘We can see’ you are guilty.”

Those who sin, those who refuse to listen, those who are proud, are the really blind people. The Pharisees, who thought they could see, were the real sinners. The man born blind who accepts Jesus is the one who can really see.

This Gospel has a clear relation to baptism. But it also speaks to us who are already baptised. We also need to see Jesus and the Gospel more clearly. It is a never-ending search.

Let this be our prayer today: “Lord, that I may see.”

Lent 5 | Monday

Daniel 13:1-9,15-17,19-30,33-62; John 8:1-11

The common theme linking the two readings is the sin of adultery. In one case the woman is proved entirely innocent of the charge. In the Gospel, there is no question of her guilt but she finds complete forgiveness.

FIRST READING (Daniel 13:1-9,15-17,19-30,33-62)

The last two chapters of the Book of Daniel are not part of the Jewish canon of Scripture. The short stories in these two chapters may have originally been about some other Daniel or Daniels different from the hero of the main part of the book. The texts exist now only in Greek, but probably were first composed in Hebrew or Aramaic. They do not appear in non-Catholic bibles either. However, the Catholic Church has always included them among the inspired writings.

They contain two famous stories, one of Susanna, who was falsely accused of adultery, and the other of the events which led to Daniel being thrown into the lions’ den.

A certain prudery has often led to the Susanna story being dropped or substituted by a more innocuous text. (Or worse, being dropped because of its length by those celebrants who think that that the only good liturgy is a short one!) But, as Cardinal Newman once said, we cannot have a sinless literature and that applies very much to the Bible. It is only in the context of our sinful weakness that we can fully appreciate the greatness and the compassion of our God.

The story itself needs little explanation. It is about two lecherous men and an innocent married woman who is led into a clever trap from which there seems no escape. However, the woman defends her integrity at the risk of being falsely accused of being unfaithful to her husband in a society that was even less forgiving in these matters than our own. In fact, the whole community, after hearing the evidence from the two men, was ready to stone her for her adultery and indicated this by laying their hands on the woman’s head.

She would certainly have been executed by stoning if the “young boy Daniel” had not come on the scene. The rest of the story is a description of his integrity, his sense of justice and insight. Through his clever and separate examination of the woman’s accusers he proves them liars and the sharp contrast between the two trees mentioned – one being quite small and the other tall and majestic – only made clearer the inconsistency of the two men’s evidence. They end up receiving the punishment originally intended for the woman.

Really, the focus of this long and dramatic story is on Daniel and on his perception and wisdom and as a champion of justice. But, in today’s liturgy, it leads by way of contrast to another and very different case of adultery. A situation where the woman is clearly guilty and yet wins Jesus’ total forgiveness.

Reading both these stories today, we might reflect on how much we enjoy reading explicit and titillating media accounts of sexual wrongdoing and, with the media, sit smugly in judgement on people who are being rubbished. We read avidly of the doings of ‘sexual monsters’ on page 1 and then go and drool over page 3 and see no inconsistency in so doing.

GOSPEL (John 8:1-11)

There are some doubts as to whether this story about a woman accused of adultery really belongs to John’s gospel. Some would say the style is more reminiscent of Luke and one can easily imagine it fitting into his gospel.

The scene takes place on the Mount of Olives, just outside the walls of Jerusalem. It is the only mention of this area in the gospels apart from the accounts of the agony in the garden. Yet it is likely that Jesus and his disciples would have gone there from time to time.

There is no question at any stage that the woman was guilty as charged. In our day, of course, we might like to ask what happened to the man. It takes two to commit adultery (unless it is in the secrecy of the mind). And which of them was the married partner? Both of them? Or was it only the man?

But in a society which was very concerned about legitimacy and the continuation of the family line, the burden of integrity was on the wife. “Extracurricular” affairs of the husband were taken far less seriously. Any children arising out of such a liaison were the woman’s problem and did not affect the ‘purity’ of the family line.

What is also highly distasteful in this scene is that the woman is dragged in by the scribes and Pharisees as a pawn in a game they are playing with Jesus. There are a number of such ‘plants’ in the Gospel story.

“The Law says that this woman should be condemned to death by stoning. What is your opinion?” It is a little like the question about paying taxes to Caesar. Whatever Jesus is likely to say, he will convict himself out of his own mouth. In fact, the Law specified death but not the manner of execution for adulterers. However Deuteronomy prescribes stoning for a betrothed virgin caught in adultery. (If it were not for Joseph, this could have been the fate of Mary when she was found with child.) It was also the prerogative of witnesses to the adultery to throw the first stones. (Deut 17:7) – hence, Jesus’ invitation to his accusers.

If Jesus says she should be forgiven, then he is in violation of the Law; and, if he says she should be punished, then he contradicts his own teaching about mercy and compassion for the sinner.

Jesus cleverly throws the ball back in their court. “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” In a strange show of humility, they do not reply. They are reduced to silence and one by one, beginning with the eldest, they go out.

Eventually Jesus and the woman are left alone. (It is no embarrassment to Jesus to be alone in the presence of a convicted adulterer.)

“Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir.”

“Neither do I condemn you; go away, and do not sin any more.”

Does this mean that Jesus condones adultery? Not at all. But he sees in the woman the seeds of repentance and the potential for conversion. Jesus looks always at the present and the future and never at the past.

Looking at this story we can first look forward with confidence to the same compassion from Jesus for our sinfulness. But we also need to have the honesty of the Pharisees who did not dare punish the woman because they acknowledged that they too were sinners.

How often have we unhesitatingly sat in judgment on someone for wrongs they have done with never a thought of our own culpability, picking specks out of others’ eyes while there are planks in our own?

ALTERNATIVE GOSPEL

When John 8:1-11 is read on the 5th Sunday in Cycle C, it can be replaced by John 8:12-20, a text which immediately follows the incident of the woman caught in adultery.

GOSPEL (John 8:12-20)

“I AM the Light of the world.” This is one of the seven “I AM” statements which Jesus makes in the course of John’s gospel.* When Jesus uses the term ‘I AM’ it is not just a version of the verb ‘to be’. It echoes the name that God gave when Moses at the burning bush asked the voice he was hearing to identify itself. The Hebrew is variously translated as “I AM who I AM.” Later philosophers and theologians will see in this statement God identifying himself as pure existence and the source of all that exists. Jesus also lays claim to use this term also and does so seven times in John’s gospel. It also appears in other contexts as when Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah to the Samaritan woman (John 4).

In the Prologue to John’s gospel the author also says:

All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life
and this life was the light of the human race. (John 1:3-5)

We are to walk in that light, and, in a reflected way, that is, insofar as we reflect Jesus in ourselves, we too are to be the light of the world. After delivering the Beatitudes, Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth… you are the light of the world (cf. Matt 5:13-14). We are to be the moon to Jesus’ sun.

But Jesus’ self-testimony is challenged by some Pharisees because they say there are no other witnesses to his words. Jesus counters by saying that he knows what he is talking about while his hearers know nothing of his real origins. As far as they are concerned he is a carpenter’s son from Nazareth. They are looking at him from a merely human point of view and, contrary to what they see, Jesus is not alone. There is a witness to back him up, namely, his own Father.

Speaking from their human perspective, they ask where his Father is. Jesus tells them that they neither know him (that is, his real identity) nor do they know the Father. If they really knew Jesus, they would know the Father as well because, for those who know, Jesus is the mirror of his Father. “Who sees me sees the Father,” Jesus will tell Philip at the Last Supper.

It is therefore very important for us to know Jesus intimately for through him we go to God and in him we begin to understand something about the nature of God. We do that principally in two ways: by steeping ourselves in the Scriptures and by prayer. If we have not been very good at doing either of these things, Lent is an excellent time to start. It may already be the fifth week, but, where getting closer to God is concerned, it is never too late.

________________________________

*The seven statements are:

I AM the Bread of Life (6:34,48)

I AM the Light of the World (8:12)

I AM the Gate (10:7)

I AM the Good Shepherd (10:11)

I AM the Resurrection and the Life (11:25)

I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life (14:6)

I AM the true Vine (15:1)

Lent 5 | Tuesday

Readings - Numbers 21:4-9; John 8:21-30

The bronze serpent of Moses lifted up is seen as a symbol of Jesus on the Cross.

FIRST READING (Numbers 21:4-9)

We see the Israelites on their long journey through the desert to the Promised Land. They are quite near their final goal. In their way stood the territory of Edom. In spite of requests to pass through without causing any trouble, they are turned down.

Moses, however, was determined not to engage Edom in battle and the people became impatient with him and also with God for the direction in which they were being taken. They were full of confidence, having just won a victory over Arad, a territory lying between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. They forgot that their victory over Arad had been granted by the Lord in response to a solemn pledge to put a curse on the towns they attacked. But now they had forgotten what they had done with God’s help and were ready to rebel again.

As they make their way to the Sea of Suph, that is, towards the Gulf of Aqaba (at the southern tip of modern Israel) and skirt around Edom, they begin grumbling against God and Moses. They are finding life hard and wish they had never left the slavery of Egypt, which now seems better than what they are going through now.

The focus of their complaints today is especially against the manna, the food that God provided them with six days a week. “We are sick of this meagre diet.” Their impatience leads them to blaspheme against Yahweh, to reject Moses and despise the ‘bread from heaven’, the manna which fell every day as God’s gift to them. This was more serious than it might appear. By rejecting the food God was sending to them in abundance, they were rejecting God himself.

Their complaints about the tastelessness of the food represents a kind of tastelessness of their own, their ingratitude to God who fed them in the desert and prevented them from dying of hunger. Thanksgiving to God for his blessings to us is often one of the prayers we make least often.

It is then that God sends a plague of poisonous serpents which kill many people. They are called in Hebrew ‘fiery serpents’ (saraph), from the burning effect of their poisonous bite. (The word ‘seraphim’ comes from the same root.)

The people see in this a punishment from God for their grumbling. “We have sinned by speaking against Yahweh.” They beg Moses to intercede with God on their behalf. Moses is told to mount a bronze serpent on a pole; anyone bitten who looks at it will live. And so it happened.

The significance of this reading is clearly in its being a foreshadowing of Christ on the cross. Later on Jesus will say, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that those who believe in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:14ff).

The serpent only healed people of the bite of a snake. Later, we are told in the Second Book of the Kings that Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent which Moses had made because it had become an object of idolatry.

The life that Jesus gives from the cross is of a totally different kind. And that is what we prepare to celebrate as we come to the end of the Lenten season.

GOSPEL (John 8:21-30)

Listening to Jesus, the Pharisees must have thought he was speaking in riddles. This was largely due to their own preconceived ideas about him. They take every statement he makes literally (they are the original Fundamentalists) and miss the symbolism. Basically, their problem is, as Jesus points out, that they “are from below; I am from above”; they “are of this world; I am not of this world”.

John uses the word ‘world’ in two senses. In one meaning he simply is referring to the world that God created with all its variety. Later, he will tell his disciples that, if they want to communicate his message effectively, they will have to be fully inserted in that world, like the leaven in the dough. Separating themselves from that world will not do much for the building of the Kingdom on earth.

The second meaning of ‘world’ for John refers to everything around us which cannot be identified with God or Jesus. It is that part of our environment which speaks and acts in a way that is contrary to the Spirit of Jesus and the vision of Jesus for the world. Jesus does not identify himself with that world nor does he want any of his disciples to identify with it either. Their mission is to change it, to shine his Light on it.

Twice in today’s passage Jesus says of himself “I AM”, an expression we saw yesterday and which was used directly of God himself.

When they “have lifted up the Son of Man”, then they will know who Jesus really is and that everything that Jesus has said and done comes from God himself because, as he will say later, “I and the Father are one”. “Lifted up” not only refers to Jesus being lifted up on the cross but also includes the glorification of Jesus, his lifting up to sit at the Father’s right hand. For John the cross is Jesus’ moment of glory, the triumphant climax of his mission.

And, because of these words, we are told, “many” came to believe in him but most of the Pharisees were not among them.

This is a time for us also to examine our allegiance to Christ and what he means for us in our lives. Is our following of him truly a healing and liberating experience not only for ourselves but for others as well?

Lent 5 | Wednesday

Daniel 3:14-20,24-25,28 [or 91-92,95]; John 8:31-42

Our lives find their centre in God; all else takes second place.

FIRST READING (Daniel 3:14-20,24-25,28 [or 91-92,95])

Today’s reading comes from a different section of a passage we already saw on Tuesday of the 3rd Week in Lent.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had built a golden statue and commanded all his subjects to bow down in adoration before it as a test of loyalty. (Not unlike the requirement that the early Christians had to bow down before an image of the emperor as a sign of abandoning their faith in Christ as Lord.)

Three young Jewish men in the service of the royal court and who were particular favourites of the king for their outstanding qualities refuse to worship the statue. They prefer death rather than turn their back on their God.

In his anger, the king threatens to have them thrown into a white-hot furnace from which no god will save them. The young men calmly reply that either their God will save them, because he can, but, even if he does not, they will still remain steadfast in their trust of God.

The king, now even more angry, has them thrown into a furnace which has been made seven times hotter.

Later, when he makes enquiries, the king finds that the three young men in the company of a fourth are walking unscathed in the fire. The pagan king is deeply moved by what he sees. First, he is filled with admiration for the God that delivered them from certain death and, secondly, he deeply respects the young men who disobeyed him and were ready to sacrifice their lives rather than turn their back on their God. “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,” he exclaims.

The reading is linked with the Gospel in which Jesus speaks of those who are truly descendants of Abraham. If those attacking him were true descendants, then they would recognise Jesus as truly the Son of God. As it is, they show they are not true descendants.

Reflecting on the First Reading I might ask: What are the idols in my life? Is there anything in my life which I would find very difficult to sacrifice if God asked me to give it up? Is there any thing or any person in my life which comes between God and myself?

GOSPEL (John 8:31-42)

The contentious dialogue between Jesus and the Jews continues. There are some sayings here which we would do well to reflect on deeply.

“If you make my word your home, you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.”  The Pharisees take umbrage at that statement. As descendants of Abraham they were never slaves to anyone. In fact, in the long history of their people, the Jews were almost continuously enslaved to invading powers. However, the slavery Jesus speaks about is the slavery of sin.

In responding to Jesus’ words, how many of us who want to be disciples of Christ have truly made his word our ‘home’? How many of us have to admit that we are not really very familiar with Jesus’ word in the New Testament? Yet we cannot truly follow him unless we are steeped in that word.

Again, how many of us really believe that the truth about life that is communicated to us through Jesus makes us genuinely free? How many of us experience our commitment to Christianity as a liberation? How many have left the Church because they felt suffocated and wanted to be free? What freedom were they looking for? For many being a Christian is sacrificing freedom in exchange for a promise of a future existence of pure happiness. We can say with confidence that, if we do not find being a Christian a liberating experience here and now, we do not really understand the true nature of our Christian faith.

“If God were your father, you would love me, since I have come from God.” To know Jesus, to love Jesus, to follow Jesus is the way to God and it is in God and only in God that we will find true happiness, freedom, and peace. But the only way to know the truth of that statement is to experience it personally.

Lent 5 | Thursday

Readings - Genesis 17:3-9; John 8:51-59

The covenant made between Abraham and God is both sealed and renewed in Jesus Christ.

FIRST READING (Genesis 17:3-9)

At the beginning of chapter 17 of Genesis we are told that Yahweh appeared to Abram, now 99 years old, and identified himself as: “I am El Shaddai.” ‘El Shaddai’ was an ancient divine name of the patriarchal period, preserved mainly in the ‘Priestly’ tradition and rarely used outside the Pentateuch (except in Job). The usual translation ‘Almighty God’ is inaccurate; ‘Mountain God’ is the probable meaning.

Yahweh, El Shaddai now promises to make a covenant with Abram and to pledge him a long line of descendants. Abram bows down in deep adoration.

Abram is to become the father of many nations and because of that his name is to be changed from Abram to Abraham. We need to remember that, for the ancients, a name did not merely indicate a person or thing, rather it made a thing what it was, and a change of name meant a change of destiny. Abram and Abraham, it seems, are in fact just two dialectical forms of the same name whose meaning is ‘he is great by reason of his father, he is of noble descent’. Another variant is Abiram (Num 16:1; 1 Kings 16:34). The additional ‘-ha-‘ in the form Abraham is explained by folk etymology as coming from ab-hamon goyim, “father of a host of nations”.

On his side, God makes a solemn commitment to Abraham and to all his descendants in perpetuity to be their God. “I shall make you into nations and your issue will be kings.” There will indeed be a long line of kings – and a very mixed bunch they are. But, no matter how corrupt they could be, the promises made to Abraham continued to be fulfilled. Paul, writing to the Romans, will speak of Abraham’s faith in God’s promise which, by that time, had been so clearly fulfilled.

It is a pledge made forever: “I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, as a covenant in perpetuity to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” Yahweh further promises to give them the whole land of Canaan to own in perpetuity. A pledge which Christians, unlike some Jews, would now read in a less than literal way

Finally, Abraham and his descendants are to ratify this covenant on their part are to keep the covenant by their total allegiance to their one and only God.

Abraham, as the Gospel indicates, is regarded as the father of all God’s people. As Matthew’s genealogy indicates, he is the ancestor of Jesus and in Jesus we find the complete fulfilment of the promises made long ago. We read in today’s Gospel: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to think that he would see my Day: he saw it and was glad.” And through Jesus, people everywhere become in a special way children of God.

Let us rejoice in having God as our Father and Jesus as our Brother. We do so by the way we live our lives.

GOSPEL (John 8:51-59)

Jesus continues to challenge the Jews about his identity. They continue to misunderstand the real meaning of what he says. “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.” This they can only understand in a literal sense.

But they do see the implication of the words that Jesus is claiming to be more than Abraham or any of the prophets. And they ask: “Who do you make yourself out to be?” This was the same question they asked of John the Baptist (John 1:22) who gave a very different answer.

Jesus makes it perfectly clear to them by talking of his “Father” and then saying that the Father is the one they call “our God”. But he continues by saying that they do not know the Father, although they may think they do. And they do not know the Father because they do not know Jesus. Jesus, however, knows him and keeps his word. Then comes the supreme provocation: “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day: he saw it and was glad.” (This could be a reference to the joy following the unexpected birth of Isaac, when the promise was made to Abraham that his seed would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore and as the stars in the sky – Gen 17:7; 21:6)

To which the shocked Pharisees retort: “You are not fifty yet, and you have seen Abraham?” only to have Jesus make the ultimate claim: “I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever came to be, I AM.” Again we have Jesus using the term “I AM” of himself. He unequivocally identifies himself with Yahweh. The Pharisees are horrified by what they regard as terrible blasphemy. The term ‘came to be’ is used for all that is created, while ‘I AM’ is used only of the Word, co-eternal with the Father-God.

“They took up stones to throw at him…” They were not able actually to carry out their plan to kill him because his “time” had not yet come. Then come words of prophetic significance: “”Jesus hid himself and left the Temple.” It is a striking summary of Jesus’ role.

Jesus “hid himself”. In his humanity, the Godhead in Jesus, which he has just spoken about, was largely concealed (except to those with the eyes of faith). St Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises speaks of the divinity being hidden during the terrible hours of the Passion. St Paul in his Letter to the Philippians speaks of Jesus “emptying” himself and taking the form of a slave.

And “he left the Temple”. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil guarding the Holy of Holies in the Temple split right open, revealing the sacred inner sanctuary to the world. God was no longer there, he had left the Temple. And he now dwells in a new Temple, not now a building but a people, the Church, the Body of the Risen Christ.

Lent 5 | Friday

Readings - Jeremiah 20:10-13; John 10:31-42

FIRST READING (Jeremiah 20:10-13)

Jeremiah, the prophet, God’s spokesman, is attacked and denounced on all sides by his own people.

“Terror on every side!” is the mocking call of Jeremiah’s critics, satirising his constantly gloomy predictions. “Let us denounce him!” – in the way that he constantly denounces the behaviour of others.

Even his friends abandon him. “All those who were on good terms with me watched for my downfall.” They are waiting for him to make some fatal mistake. “Perhaps he will be seduced into error. Then we shall get the better of him.” Jesus was treated in exactly the same way by Pharisees and Scribes constantly trying to catch him out in violation of the Law. They ‘plant’ a cripple in a synagogue on a Sabbath day to see if he will heal him. They ask him if it is right or not to give taxes to Caesar – where a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer will be equally incriminating.

But Jeremiah has confidence in his God and his attackers will not prevail. “The Lord is at my side… my opponents will stumble, mastered, confounded by their failure…” For his God is a God of justice and truth. A God who is on the side of the needy. “Praise Yahweh, for he has delivered the soul of one in need.”

The needy one, ebion, or the poor, anaw, is used in a religious sense: ill-treated by people but confident in God, looking to Yahweh for support. By Jeremiah’s time, the term ‘poor/needy’ had become virtually synonymous with ‘righteous’, someone whose total trust and dependence is on God.

Ultimately, Jeremiah knows, Truth and Justice will prevail no matter what some people try to do. It is a belief that we need to remember ourselves. It is a belief we see realised in Jesus. They could kill his body but not his Spirit.

GOSPEL (John 10:31-42)

Once again Jesus’ enemies want to stone him because they continue to accuse him of

blasphemy. “You, a man, are making yourself God.”  It is clear they have no doubt about the meaning of his words.

Jesus points to the Scriptures which has God saying of some people “You are gods”. Jesus is here referring to the people called ‘judges’ in Israel. Since they were judges of their people, taking on themselves something which belongs only to God, they were called “gods” (cf. Deut 1:17; Exod 21:6; Ps 82:6).

If people inspired by the word from God could be called ‘gods’ can Jesus whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blaspheme because he says, “I am the Son of God”?

And, if they will not accept a verbal claim, Jesus appeals to what he has been doing. “Even if you refuse to believe in me, at least believe in the work I do.” To anyone with an open mind it is clear that God is working in Jesus. “You will know for sure that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Again, they tried to seize him but he escaped from their power. His time had not yet come. That time would not be decided by them.

On the other hand, while Jesus was being attacked by the leaders of the Jews, many of the

ordinary people continued to seek him out. Jesus had gone back across the Jordan (a safer place) to the spot where John the Baptist had baptised and given such strong testimony to Jesus. Many people came looking for him there. They could see, as the Pharisees could not, a clear distinction between Jesus and John: “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true. And many there came to believe in him.”

There are many who reject Christ and his message today but let us pray that we may have open minds to believe the many signs by which God reveals his love to us each day.

Lent 5 | Saturday

Readings - Ezekiel 37:21-28; John 11:45-57

FIRST READING (Ezekiel 37:21-28)

”The union of all tribes is a frequent element in messianic prophecy. God is to unite the nation in a new covenant in which there are five essential elements:

- Yahweh, its God

- Israel, his people

- Life, ‘on the land where their fathers lived’

- ‘My sanctuary among them’, as a sign of the presence of the Lord and law;

- David, as the one shepherd over them.” (St Joseph Weekday Missal)

The prophet foresees a time when the two divided kingdoms of the Jews (Israel/Ephraim and Judah, the Northern and Southern kingdoms) will be united into one and forever and when all those living abroad who belong to Israel will come back. This will be a feature of the Messianic age.

“I shall gather them together from everywhere and bring them home” a sentence which is echoed in the Gospel when John says that Jesus will die “not for the nation only, but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God”. They will give up all their sinful ways and all forms of idolatry and abominations, with which they had been plagued for so many generations, and will be cleansed by God.

“David my servant will be their prince for ever and there shall be one shepherd for them all.” The coming Messianic ruler is called David because he will be a descendant of David and will achieve for Israel what David had – except more fully. He is likened to a shepherd, who cares for his flock, echoing chapter 34 where Yahweh says he will be a shepherd for his people (Ezek 34). We recognise Jesus in this ‘Messianic David’ and later Jesus will also call himself the Good Shepherd, protecting his own and looking for those who are lost.

“I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant… I shall set my sanctuary among them forever.” The phrase ‘eternal covenant’ occurs 16 times in the Old Testament, referring to that made with Noah, with Abraham, with David, and a ‘new covenant’ made in Jeremiah (32:40).

The covenant formula is once again repeated: “I will be their God and they will be my people” – a pledge of mutual commitment. It is through Jesus, through the covenant signed by his blood on the cross, that the New Covenant will be ratified and is still in force. With one big difference – it extends now not to one people or race but to the whole world.

“The nations will know that I am Yahweh, the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them forever.” And that ‘sanctuary’ for us is the ongoing and visible presence of the Risen Lord no longer identified with a building but in his People, who are now his Body. “Surely you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you” (1 Cor 3:16) and “Don’t you know that your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you?” (1 Cor 6:19). Again, “And the bread we break: when we eat it, we are sharing in the body of Christ. Because there is the one loaf of bread, all of us, though many, are one body, for we all share the same loaf” (1 Cor 10:16-17).

And indeed, as today’s Gospel ends it points to the coming Passover feast when the sacramental celebration of Jesus’ Pasch will be celebrated, that celebration by which we commemorate and make present the inauguration of the New Covenant on Calvary.

GOSPEL (John 11:45-47)

We are now on the threshold of Holy Week and today’s Gospel sets the stage for the coming events. Today’s Gospel passage is full of Johannine irony, where people make statements with a meaning far beyond what they intend to say.

The raising of Lazarus had led many to believe in Jesus but others were alarmed. They went off to the chief priests and asked what was being done to stop this man in his tracks. Their report was serious enough to warrant calling the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, into session.

“What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs.” Far from seeing the great significance of the “signs”, they go into a panic. “If we let him go on in this way everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy the Holy Place and our nation.”

Of course, what they feared and wanted to stop is exactly what happened. Jesus did go on “in his Way” and the Temple and the nation were destroyed.

Caiaphas, the high priest, moves to quell their fears and then goes on to make his own unwitting prophecy. A gift of prophecy, sometimes unconscious, was attributed to the high priest. He says: “You fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” He wants to say that it is better to get rid of Jesus than put the whole nation in jeopardy. In fact, in a very different way, Jesus did die for his own people and John comments that Jesus died not only for the Jewish people but for people everywhere. And it was not for the political preservation of a nation but for the giving of new life to a people where all conventional divisions became irrelevant.

The end for Jesus is coming close so he goes into hiding until the time is ready. Again he goes to Ephraim, a place thought to be about 20 km northeast of Jerusalem, where mountains descend into the Jordan valley. It was a remote desert area where Jesus was relatively safe.

As the Passover approaches, people are on the watch for Jesus to appear. Instructions have been given out that any sightings of Jesus were to be reported so that the authorities could arrest him.

Again there is another ironic question: “What do you think? Will he come to the festival or not?” Little did they know that Jesus would be the central character of this Passover and make it the most famous Passover in history.

We are now ready to enter the great finale of Holy Week.

Lent 5 | Alternative Readings

The following readings may be used instead of the proper ones on any day this week, especially when the Sunday cycle is B or C and the gospel of Lazarus has not been read on the 5th Sunday of Lent:

2 Kings 4:18-21,32-37; John 11:1-45

God is the giver of life and Jesus is his agent.

FIRST READING (2 Kings 4:18-21,32-37)

A story from the Old Testament of a child being restored to life by the prophet Elisha. There is a vivid contrast between the multiple prostrations over the boy to bring him back to life and the brief word of command spoken by Jesus to Lazarus.

The woman was a widow and the child had been a special gift of God to her in her old age. The child had been a reward for hospitality that the woman had shown to Elisha by providing a special room in her house which he could use whenever he passed that way.

Now, in a strange twist of fate and a great test of the woman’s faith, the boy suddenly was taken ill (meningitis?) and died in his mother’s arms. She took the dead child and laid him on the bed in the room kept for Elisha. In this way she concealed the child’s death from the rest of the household while she went to find the prophet. (Perhaps it was a matter of shame that the child which had been a special gift of God to her should so quickly be taken away again.)

It is not recorded in today’s reading but the mother went all the way to Carmel to fetch Elisha. At first, he said it was enough for his staff to be brought and waved over the child. (His staff, like that of Moses, seemed to have special powers.) But the mother was not satisfied and asked the prophet to come personally to the house. On the way, a servant of Elisha did use the staff on the child but to no effect.

When they reached the house, Elisha went to the room where the child was and closed the door. The woman left the room – a sign of her great faith and her confidence that Elisha, who was instrumental in her having this boy, would give him back to her again.

The prophet then began to pray to God. There are similarities between this story and one where the prophet Elijah, Elisha’s predecessor, had dealt with another widow who lost her son (1 Kings 17:20-22 and mentioned by Jesus in Luke 4:25). Elisha turned to the Lord in earnest prayer for restoration of life to the dead child. His prayer is clear evidence that his subsequent actions were not intended as a magical means of restoring life. For it is not the prophet but God who is the giver of life.

At the same time, he lay on the boy’s body hoping to transfer heat and life to the dead child. He did this seven times altogether. The apparent intent of physical contact was to transfer the bodily warmth and stimulation of the prophet to the child. Elijah’s prayer, however, makes it clear that he expected the life of the child to return as an answer to prayer, rather than just as the result of bodily contact.

All of a sudden the boy sneezed. In the creation story, God breathes the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils for it is through the nostrils that we breathe. The sneezing indicates that the breath of life has returned to this child.

The mother was now called and given back her living son. She fell at the prophet’s feet in deep gratitude.

There is both a clear similarity and a contrast with today’s Gospel story. The contrast is in the authority with which Christ acts. Just before bringing Lazarus from the tomb Jesus had said to Martha: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life.” The theme of Jesus as the Source of life runs all through John’s gospel.

GOSPEL (John 11:1-45)

We have here the striking story of the raising of Lazarus, the sisters of Mary and Martha.

This is the longest continuous narrative in John’s gospel with the exception of the Passion. (Other long narratives are the meeting with the Samaritan woman and the healing of the man born blind – all three of which feature in the Lenten liturgy as preparation for the baptisms which will take place at the Easter Vigil.)

“The theme of life predominates. Lazarus is a token of the real life that Jesus dead

and raised will give to all who believe in him. Johannine irony is found in the fact that Jesus’ gift of life leads to his own death.” (New American Bible)

Mary and Martha are known to us through Luke’s Gospel but it is only John who speaks of their brother Lazarus. It is clear that Jesus was very attached to this family and seemed to have been a regular visitor.

And yet, when he is told that ‘his friend’ Lazarus is very sick, Jesus takes his time going to visit him. The delay will give an opportunity for God’s power to shine even more strongly through Jesus.

When he does decide to go, his disciples are alarmed. Bethany, where Lazarus lives, is only a few miles from Jerusalem. It is highly dangerous for Jesus to go in that area; his enemies are out to get him.

But the timing of Jesus’ suffering and death is not in the hands of his enemies. Things will happen when they are supposed to happen and not before. In the meantime, there is still light for work to be done; the darkness will come in due course.

“Our friend Lazarus is resting, I am going to wake him,” Jesus tells his disciples. They see here a very good reason not to go ahead with the visit but by “rest” Jesus does not just mean “sleep” but “death”. Thomas, with his usual bravado, says: “Let us go too and die with him.” He can only see this as a suicide trip. (He will not be very visible, however, after Jesus is arrested.)

By the time they get to Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. Again, true to character, the fussy Martha comes out to meet Jesus while the contemplative Mary stays behind in the house.

Then we have this lovely dialogue between Martha and Jesus which we often read at funeral Masses: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.”

“Your brother,” says Jesus to her, “will rise again.”

Martha says, “I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.”

Jesus says to her, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she says, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.” These titles are a summary of those given to Jesus earlier in this gospel.

This marvellous profession of faith almost surpasses that of Peter in the other gospels. And it is a promise not just of life after death but something which can begin here and now. Once we invest our whole selves in Christ and his Way we begin to enjoy a quality of life which nothing else can give.

Mary then goes and calls her sister Mary with the lovely invitation, “The Master is here and he is calling for you.” If only we could hear that invitation extended to us every single day and indeed many times a day.

When she goes out to meet Jesus, she more or less repeats the earlier words of Martha that, if Jesus had arrived earlier, Lazarus would not have died. There is a feeling that now it is too late to do anything.

Seeing the grief of the two sisters and their friends, Jesus himself becomes overwhelmed with grief. “See how much he loved him,” people were saying. Jesus now orders them to remove the stone covering the entrance to the tomb even though Martha says that corruption has already set in.

He tells her to believe and trust in him and then prays to his Father. In Aramaic Jesus would have said ‘Abba’, Jesus’ intimate way of speaking to his Father. Our God is awesome in transcendence and immanence but we, too, are encouraged to use this intimate term to address him. So in the letter to the Romans (8:15) we read: “You have received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, Abba, Father!” Again in Galatians (4:6): “As proof that you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out “Abba, Father!” A prayer Jesus makes more for the benefit of those around than for himself.

Then in a loud voice Jesus calls, “Lazarus, come out!”

Still wrapped in the burial cloths Lazarus steps out of the tomb and Jesus orders him to be unbound and let free. And, not surprisingly, many of those who witness this event believe in Jesus. But it is also the trigger for the Jewish leaders finally to get rid of Jesus – and even to get rid of Lazarus as well. Jesus was gaining far too much influence with the people. He had to be removed. The Giver of Life must have his own life removed.

The whole story is first of all a symbol of Jesus’ own death and resurrection but also of the dying and rising of everyone who gives himself totally to the Way of Jesus. To become a fully committed disciple of Jesus is to enter, here and now, a new life.

This story is not found in the other gospels but there are parallels in the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:21) and the raising of the widow’s son (Luke 7:11-17). The New American Bible also points out an interesting parallel between this story and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke (16:19-31). “In both, a man named Lazarus dies; in Luke, there is a request that he return to convince his contemporaries of the need for faith and repentance, while in John, Lazarus does return and some believe but others do not.”

Holy Week | Monday

Isaiah 42:1-7; John 12:1-11

FIRST READING (Isaiah 42:1-7)

“The Suffering Servant represents the finest qualities of Israel and her great leaders. In [today’s] song he is a ‘chosen one’ like Moses, David, and all Israel. As the Servant, he fulfils the role of Davidic king and prophet.”

Today we have the first of four songs of the servant of Yahweh from Isaiah. It is a beautiful description of a mysterious servant of God which the Church has long realised applies so aptly to Jesus.

The passage today is taken from the ‘Book of Consolation’, or Second Isaiah (chaps 40-55). It speaks of Israel as a ‘Servant of Yahweh’, chosen, set apart, to act as God’s witness before the nations. But the four ‘Songs of the Servant of Yahweh’ (42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12) present a mysterious ‘servant’ who in some ways is like the servant-Israel of the other passages. In today’s passage, however, he is distinguished from the servant-Israel and shown to have other qualities which show him as a particular individual.

Called by Yahweh while still in his mother’s womb, ‘formed’ by him, filled with his spirit, the servant is a ‘disciple’ and Yahweh has opened his ears, so that, by establishing justice on earth, he may instruct mankind, sort them and judge them by his word. He performs his task gently and without display, even appears to fail in it. He accepts outrage and contempt; he does not succumb because Yahweh sustains him.

“Here is my servant.” Yahweh is speaking. He designates and consecrates the Servant. In the royal terminology of the ancient Near East “servant” could mean something like “trusted envoy” or “confidential representative”.

Jesus, too, called himself a ‘servant’ – “The Son of Man did not come to be served; he came to serve and to give his life to redeem many people” (Mark 10:45). He gave a dramatic example when he knelt down and washed his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper (John 13:1-17).

He will not only ‘gather’ Israel but he will be the light of the nations everywhere. The New Testament, cf. Luke 4:17-21sees Jesus as this servant: in his person the attributes of the King-Messiah, Son of David, are united with those of the suffering servant.

In the previous chapter King Cyrus of Persia had been introduced as delivering Israel from captivity in Babylon but the Servant would deliver the whole world from the prison of sin.

The passage speaks of gentleness and non-violence, a message so necessary for our time. Gentle, but not weak or passive.

“He does not cry out or raise his voice.” He is a bringer of harmony and peace, not of noise and turmoil.

“He does not break the crushed reed or snuff the faltering wick.” He does not exploit the weak in a false show of power but empowers through bringing healing and wholeness to the frail and the weak. Just what Jesus did in his mission to the people.

“He will not grow faint, he will not be crushed, until true justice is established on earth.” In his gentleness and compassion, there is no weakness. There is a great inner strength but a total rejection of violence. A passage which Matthew quotes in his gospel (Matt 12:18-21).

“The coasts and islands are awaiting for his instruction.” Indicating the lands of the Mediterranean and, by implication, the pagan lands lying beyond Israel. The Servant has a mission to all, not just to some.

Then comes the special call made by Yahweh to the Servant.

“I have called you in saving justice”, similar to the call made earlier to King Cyrus, who will deliver the Jews from their Babylonian exile and allow them to return home.

“I have taken you by the hand and formed you.” In Hebrew the same term is used in the creation story of Genesis to describe Yahweh ‘forming’, ‘modelling’ the body of the first man. Jesus, of course, is the New Adam.

“I have made you a covenant of the people and light to the nations…” Jesus as Messiah will inaugurate the New Covenant by his suffering and death, a covenant now embracing peoples everywhere. We will see that more clearly when we read more of the Suffering Servant during Holy Week.

This Servant has been called by God the creator of all things to do God’s work and carry out his will. He will be “a light of the nations” and will “open the eyes of the blind, free captives from prison and those who live in darkness from the dungeon”. Originally this referred to release from the prison of the Babylonian exile but it also indicates the hope of liberation for every person from all spiritual and moral bondage.

As we begin Holy Week we are reminded that this work of God’s servant, which we also are, has to go on through us. We are not here this week just to be spectators, even grateful spectators. We are to be part of the work which the Paschal Mystery inaugurated. We, too, are to be servants, ready, if necessary, to suffer as Jesus did for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

GOSPEL (John 12:1-11)

Today’s Gospel serves as a lovely prelude to the Passion of Jesus.

Jesus is back in the house of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, recently brought back from the dead. Perhaps these are his last moments of companionship before the horrors that are to come. True to character, Martha is the active hostess. Mary, the contemplative, brings in a jar of an expensive perfumed unguent and pours it all over the feet of Jesus, filling the house with its fragrance. It is a sign of great love and echoes what the “sinful” woman in Luke’s gospel also did. This account is probably the same as that described in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 but is distinct from the story of the woman in Luke 7:36-50.

While the “Beloved Disciple” is a nameless character in John’s gospel, he can be matched by this beloved disciple.

Judas, the spiritually blind materialist, only sees what he regards as terrible waste. Hypocritically he suggests the money would have been better spent helping the poor. John suggests Judas was more interested in getting the money for himself than sharing it with those in need.

Jesus sees an altogether different meaning in Mary’s action. He sees the tremendous love behind the action and interprets it as a symbolical anointing for his burial. Dying as a common criminal, Jesus would normally not have been anointed. (And, in fact, he was not anointed after his burial; when the women went to do the act on Sunday morning, Jesus was already risen.)

“You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me.” This is not to be understood any cynical way. The poor cannot be truly loved except in God and in Jesus.

“As often as you do it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.” Only those who truly love God (whatever name they call him) are able truly to love the poor and all those in need. And vice versa. Also, in Jewish tradition there was disagreement as to whether giving alms to the poor or burying the dead (which would include anointing) was the greater act of mercy. Those in favour of burial thought it an essential condition for sharing in the final resurrection.

Finally, we are told Lazarus’ own life is in danger as well as Jesus’. Lazarus is seen as the living sign of Jesus’ divine power and so they both must be wiped out. Many of the Church’s martyrs died for the same reason. The word ‘martyr’ means ‘witness’, witnessing to the truth, love and power of Christ.

Am I willing to be a martyr-witness for Christ, to stand beside him on the cross as he is mocked and insulted? This is the week for me to find the answer to that question.

Holy Week | Tuesday

FIRST READING - Isaiah 49:1-6

Today we read the Second Song of the Servant of Yahweh.

The prophet again speaks in words that apply very suitably to Jesus. Jesus has been called from all eternity to do this work of salvation. He is a “sharp-edged sword” and a “polished arrow”.

God says, “You are my servant in whom I shall be glorified” but Jesus must surely be tempted to say, with Isaiah, “I have toiled in vain, I have exhausted myself for nothing.” Surely it must have looked like that as Jesus hung dying on the cross, his mission a shambles, his enemies victorious and his disciples in total flight. On the cross, Jesus cried out with these heart-rending words: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Yet he had been chosen as a servant so that “Jacob”, i.e. Israel, might be brought back to him. And finally he will be made “glorious in the sight of the Lord” and his God is his strength.

His moments of darkness become the moment of glory. “I will make you the light of the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” As indeed has happened. But who, standing at the foot of the cross on that first Good Friday, could have seen the outcome of this ‘failure’?

Yet, that is what we celebrate during this week.

“Coasts and islands…distant peoples.” These are the lands along the Mediterranean and beyond the seas, whom we saw mentioned yesterday. The message of the Servant is for them – and hence for all of us, for me.

“Yahweh called me when I was in the womb, before my birth he had pronounced my name.” The language is similar to that of the call of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 1:5) and of Paul (Gal 1:15). And, as Christians, we believe that that is true of all of us. “Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ…” (Eph 1:4).

“He made my mouth like a sharp sword… made me into a sharpened arrow…” Later, the Letter to the Hebrews will compare the Word of God to a two-edged sword, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of our hearts, bringing both consolation, wisdom and discomfort for our wrongdoings.

“Israel, you are my servant.” Israel here is generally understood not of the nation but of an individual, representing the best that Israel should be. Perhaps we, too, should be less arrogant when we apply the term ‘Christian’ to ourselves, knowing how far we are from what Jesus is calling us to be.

“I said, ‘My toil has been futile, I have exhausted myself for nothing to no purpose.” As he hung on the cross, his mission apparently a failure and mocked by those bent on destroying him, these words would seem to fit Jesus so well. It will be in the Third and Fourth Songs that we will begin to see the place of all the pain and suffering in the mission of Jesus.

“Yet all the while my cause was with Yahweh and my reward with my God.” In spite of apparent failure, the cause of Jesus will be vindicated and his mission a success. “Yahweh…formed me in the womb to be his servant.” And the Servant carried out that call to the very end and with wondrous results. We, too, have been in the mind of God from eternity and been given a special call. How do I see that call at this time?

“To bring back Jacob…and to re-unite Israel” – a reference to the release from captivity in Babylon and the return to Jerusalem. But there is the wider connotation of bringing God’s people back to union with him.

And it will not be just Israel because a little further on the passages says: “I shall make you a light to the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the remotest parts of the earth.” The Servant’s mission is the conversion of the whole world to his Way. Together with Gen 12:1-3; Ex 19:5-6, this verse is sometimes called the “great commission of the Old Testament” and is quoted in part by Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13:47. Christ is the light of the world (Luke 2:30-32; John 8:12; 9:5) and Christians reflect his light (Mt 5:14).

“You are like salt for all mankind… You are like light for the whole world.” Is that the way I see myself? Let me hear Jesus say these words to me as I watch him on the Cross during these days.

GOSPEL (John 13:21-33,36-38)

A sad moment in the Gospel: double betrayal.

First, that of Judas. Judas is no outsider but one of the inner circle of the Twelve.

Jesus announces solemnly: “One of you is going to hand me over.” The statement comes like a bombshell. For all their weaknesses, they cannot imagine any one of them planning such a thing. Peter asks the Beloved Disciple, who is closest to Jesus (in every sense of the word) to find out who it is. “It is the one to whom I hand the piece of bread after dipping it in the dish,” says Jesus.

Jesus hands over the morsel, a symbol of sharing. It is probably part of the bitter herb, dipped in salt water which was a feature of the Passover meal. Jesus hands it over to the one who will hand him over to those who wish to be rid of him. This is an act of friendship which makes the coming betrayal doubly treacherous. The bitterness of the morsel is also significant.

In that very moment Judas knows he has made his fateful decision as Jesus tells him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” None of the other disciples realised the significance of the words.

As soon as he has left, it is no wonder that the evangelist comments: “Night had fallen.” Yes indeed. It was a moment of utter darkness. This is a gospel which constantly contrasts light and darkness. Yet at that very moment which sets the whole passion experience in motion, Jesus speaks of his being glorified and of God also being glorified.

To do this, Jesus is going to leave his disciples. He will leave them in death but he will also leave them to return to the glory of his Father.

Peter, well-meaning but weak, swears that he will go all the way with Jesus, even to death. It is the second betrayal. Worse in some ways. At least Judas made no wild promises. What will save Peter will be the depth of his repentance and later conversion.

We too have betrayed Jesus and those around us so many times. We have broken bread with Jesus in the Eucharist and then turned our back on him by the way we treat those around us. We have promised at confession with his help never to sin again and then gone and done what we have just confessed.

Let us pray that we, like Peter, may weep bitterly for all the wrongs we have done and all the good left undone.

Holy Week | Wednesday

Isaiah 50:4-9; Matthew 26:14-25

FIRST READING (Isaiah 50:4-9)

The Third Song of the Servant of Yahweh.

(The Fourth and last Song will be read during the liturgy of Good Friday.)

Another ‘Servant’ passage from Isaiah which speaks very graphically of what Jesus will go through in his passion. God provides his Servant with the words he needs to speak, especially for those who need encouragement. And Jesus will speak words of encouragement to his disciples before his Passion. He will speak to the women who sympathise with him on the way to Calvary.

“The Lord Yahweh has given me a disciple’s tongue… to give a word of comfort to the weary.” Jesus is the Word of God, communicating God’s love and encouragement. Later, Jesus will say: “Come to me, all of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your spirit” (Matt11:28-29).

“He makes my ear alert, to listen like a disciple… has opened my ear and I have not resisted.” A way of describing the total submission of Jesus to his Father. “Even though he was God’s Son, he learnt through his sufferings to be obedient” (Heb 5:8). “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…” (Phil 2:7). In this he is in contrast to a rebellious Israel. In the Gospel, Jesus tells frequently tells his disciples to listen; in other words, to submit totally to the Way of life to which he is calling them.

“I have not resisted, I have not turned away…” This will be described in greater detail in the Fourth Song. The Servant willingly submits to insults and beatings and will not return in kind. To do so would be to bring himself down to the level of his attackers. Plucking the beard was a great insult. He offers his back for a beating, something given only to criminals and fools. This, of course, will happen during the scourging. Similarly for the mocking and spitting. It requires great inner strength not to respond in kind to such provocation. But when it is undergone with dignity, it is the attacker who seems small.

The Servant makes no resistance to his attackers. He will not meet violence with violence. He will not resist when he is beaten, when his beard is plucked, when he is struck and spat upon. However, it must be made very clear that this is not weakness but a sign of great inner strength and peace.

“Lord Yahweh comes to my help, this is why insult has not touched me, this is why I have set my face like flint and know that I will not be put to shame.” God comes to his help so that he is “untouched by the insults”. This is the sign of the inner security and strength. Insults and violence cannot change the inner reality of the person. And ultimately the Lord is on his side. Insults are either true or false. If they are true, they are not really insults but simply a statement of fact. If they are false, they can be ignored. In either case, to respond with violence is to show weakness and insecurity.

He meets insults and physical attacks with firmness. He will not be turned away from the way that the Father is asking him to go. Knowing that the ultimate outcome will not be shame but vindication and glory. “The Lord God is my help.” Towards the end of his public life, we are told that Jesus “resolutely set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51)         

“Who has a case against me? Let us appear in court together!... Look, Lord Yahweh is coming to my help!” Jesus is perfectly innocent of all the charges thrown against him. He has no fear of court proceedings, even when they are corrupt. Final vindication will be his.

We could reflect today on how we respond to criticisms, statements about us we regard as unfair or untrue. Are we prone to violence – physical or verbal? And, even if we do not respond externally, do we allow statements and events to turn us into cauldrons of anger, hatred, anxiety and tension?

The way of Jesus is the way to peace.

GOSPEL (Matthew 26:14-25)

The stage is being set for the final drama of Jesus’ mission. Judas has gone to the chief priests to make a deal for handing Jesus over to them. This term ‘handing over’ is like a refrain all through the Gospel and reaches a climax here. John the Baptist was handed over. Now we see Jesus being handed over – the term occurs three times in today’s passage. Later, the followers of Jesus will also be handed over into the hands of those who want to put an end to their mission.

Judas sells his master, hands him over, for 30 pieces of silver. Only Matthew mentions the actual sum given to Judas. The sum derives from a passage in Zechariah (11:11-13), where it is the wages paid to the shepherd (Zechariah himself) rejected by the people. He is then told by God to throw the money into the Temple treasury as a sign of God’s rejecting those who reject him. (Judas, too, will throw back the money to the priests after realising what he has done.)

What people will do for money! Judas is not alone. What he did is happening every day. Perhaps I, too, have betrayed and handed over Jesus more than once.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus’ disciples ask him where he wants to celebrate the Passover. Little do they know the significance of this Passover for Jesus – and for them.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover are closely linked but there is a distinction between them. The Passover was the commemoration of the Israelites being liberated from slavery in Egypt, their escape through the Red Sea (the Sea of Reeds?) and the beginning of their long trek to the Promised Land. The feast began at sunset after the Passover lamb had been sacrificed in the temple on the afternoon of the 14th day of the month Nisan. Associated with this on the same evening was the eating of unleavened bread – the bread that Jesus would use when he said over it “This is my Body”. The eating of this bread continued for a whole week (to Nisan 21) as a reminder of the sufferings the Israelites underwent and the hastiness of their departure. It was a celebration of thanks to God for the past and of hope for the future.

Jesus tells the disciples they are to contact a man who will provide all that they need for a Passover meal.

During the meal Jesus drops the bombshell: “One of you is about to betray me (in the Greek, ‘hand me over’). It is revealing that none of them points a finger at someone else. “Is it I, Lord?” Each one realises that he is a potential betrayer of Jesus. And, in fact, in the midst of the crisis they will all abandon him.

Nor is it one of his many enemies who will hand Jesus over. No, it is one of the Twelve, it is someone who has dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus, a sign of friendship and solidarity.

All of this has been foretold in the Scriptures but how sad it is for the person who has to take this role, even though it is a role he has deliberately chosen. There is a certain cynicism when Judas asks with an air of injured innocence, “Not I, Rabbi, surely?” “They are your words,” is Jesus’ brief reply.

The whole approaching drama is now set in motion.

Let us watch it carefully during the coming three days not just as spectators but as participants. We too have so often betrayed Jesus, we too have so often broken bread with Jesus and perhaps have sold him for money, out of ambition, out of greed, out of anger, hatred, revenge or even violence for our own personal gain.

We can, like Judas, either abandon him in despair or, like Peter, come back to him with tears of repentance.

Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil

Understanding the Passion (1)

There are two points which can be highlighted on reading the story of Christ’s Passion.

The sufferings of Jesus were truly awful.

There are some people who seem to think that Jesus, as the Son of God, did not really suffer very much. He primarily went through the motions.

To speak in this way, of course, is to make a mockery of the Incarnation. John, in the Prologue to his gospel, says that “The Word (logos) was made flesh and lived (literally, eskenose, ‘pitched his tent’) among us.” ‘Flesh’ (caro in Latin, sarx in Greek) in the Scripture usually has a pejorative meaning. It denotes what we sometimes call our ‘lower nature’, that part of us where all our irrational appetites are found and which is the source of our less desirable behaviour. In saying that the Word was made ‘flesh’, John is telling us that the Word in Jesus entered totally into our human situation. It is also a negation of the Gnostic position which saw all material things as evil. Jesus is the affirmation of the Creation story: “God saw everything that he had made and it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

The Letter to the Hebrews says that he was like us in all things except sin, that is, wilful wrongdoing. But everything else he shared with us. With all due respects, Jesus had to go to the toilet several times a day. If he had not eaten properly, he possibly suffered from constipation – or its reverse. There were times when he was hot or cold, when he was tired – asleep in the boat, Mark 5:38), when he was hungry and thirsty (at the well when he met the Samaritan woman, John 4:7). There were times when he was happy and sad. His feelings are alluded to on several occasions: feelings of anger and of grief and fear and deep compassion.

We have here a very sensitive person, with very strong feelings.

So we can be quite certain that he felt the sufferings of his Passion with great intensity. The scourging at the pillar was terrible as was the crowning with thorns. They were also barbaric and degrading. The crucifixion was one of the cruellest forms of execution ever devised (although other peoples in other times and places have not been far behind). In normal circumstances, the person could hang there for days until finally succumbing to loss of blood and/or asphyxiation.

But, in addition to the physical pain, there were other sufferings. There was the shame and disgrace. Jesus was dragged through the streets as a common criminal. He was nailed stark naked to the cross and left on display outside the city walls for all to see and mock at. Rendering a man naked is a great humiliation. Jesus was stripped of every shred of human dignity. There must have been a terrible sense of utter failure. All his work gone for nothing. The small group of followers nowhere to be seen, having taken to their heels to save their own skins.

Rightly, the reading from the Letter to the Philippians tells us that “he emptied himself”. This is often referred to as the kenosis or ‘emptying’. The Word not only became a human person but allowed himself to be lowered to a sub-human level, taking on the “form of a slave”, a human chattel that could be bought or sold like a cow or a pig. It is this total emptying of every positive quality which expresses the depth of God’s love for us. But the eyes of faith can see the extraordinary beauty of it all.

What Jesus experienced was totally voluntary.

Again, questions are sometimes raised about the meaning of the Passion. How could a loving God make his own Son go through all this, even if that was the price for our ‘salvation’’? It seems very close to offering human sacrifice, something strongly condemned by all good-thinking people.

It is very clear that, although Jesus foretold on a number of occasions how his life would end, he did not look forward to it. It would be quite contrary to what has been said of his genuine humanness above that he would want to go through such an experience. It would be quite abnormal. It is clear that, when things were getting too “hot”, Jesus several times withdrew to a quiet place. Far from courting danger, he kept away from it, especially when his “time” was not ready. But it was clear that the hostility between himself and the religious and civic leaders of his people was reaching breaking point and something would have to happen.

On that last Passover, Jesus made his way into Jerusalem. There is first the reaction of the ordinary people. It is one of great enthusiasm as they cheer his entry into the city and lay their cloaks and branches of trees in his path. In the background, however, the final countdown is under way. Much as they dislike doing so, the Jewish leaders will denounce Jesus to the Roman authorities for only they have the authority and power to get rid of Jesus once and for all.

Jesus, in the meantime, makes his own preparations. He has a final and emotional Paschal meal with his disciples. A meal which we commemorate in this Eucharist we are celebrating. Then he went out to the Mount of Olives with his three closest companions. It was here he was overcome with fear, a fear so great that he sweated blood. At the same time, he prayed – begged would not be too strong a word – that he would not have to go through the suffering that was ahead. “Father, if it be possible, take this terrible suffering away from me. Please, let there be another way.”

He asked his friends for support but they were too wrapped up in their own concerns and had fallen into the escape of sleep.

But at the end of his prayer there came a change. “Father, not my will but yours be done.” His prayer resulted in a total harmony between his Father and himself. What the Father wanted he also wanted. And what the Father wanted was not Jesus’ death as such but the ultimate expression of the Father’s love for his children which that death would express (John 15:13).

And, we might note, that is what accepting God’s will means for all of us. Some seem to think that accepting God’s will is to accept something which is quite the opposite of what they want themselves. There is a sense of heroism in letting God’s apparent will override their own. I do not think that that is the way it should be. Rather, to accept God’s will is to bring one’s own will totally into harmony with what is clearly God’s will. There are not two conflicting wills; there is just the one desire in two different persons – God and me. In doing God’s will, I am also doing my own. That is where the peace and happiness comes.

From that moment on, it is clear that Jesus is a transformed person. He is full of strength and peace. He simply towers over all the other characters in the drama. He is in total control right up to the end. But let’s make it clear: there was a real struggle in reaching that point.

For us, too, it will be the same. There are times when we can escape pain and suffering through prayer or some other practical means. But there will be many more times when the only way is not to go round the pain but through it. That was clearly the way that Jesus had to go. And it is important to realise that, when we have accepted that it is through the pain that God wants us to go, there is inside peace and even joy, a peace and joy that may not be found if we try to escape.

The suffering and death of Jesus as the Son of God creates many questions but it also tells us something about the way we must deal creatively and constructively with the suffering in our own lives and in the lives of those who are near to us.

Understanding the Passion (2)

THE PASSION OF JESUS raises questions about the meaning of suffering in our lives.

Why do apparently perfectly innocent people have to suffer so much? Why did Jesus have to suffer so much? Was this the only way for us to be liberated from our sins?

How can an all-loving God allow the terrible suffering that we see all around us? This is such a contradiction that one can only come to the logical conclusion that God is a merciless tyrant or that he does not exist at all. The first does not make sense and so leads many to come to the latter conclusion.

But does getting rid of God solve the problem? Personally, I feel that it only makes it worse.

The German philosopher Nietzsche in a story announced that God was dead. And the reason was that men had killed him. They killed him by adopting a totally laissez-faire philosophy of life. A way of life where the only governing value was personal pleasure. With the death of God, there was no longer any right or wrong, any good or bad. There was no morality as such. Human beings could only create laws which tried to remove what were regarded as inconveniences or obstacles to lives dedicated to pleasure and comfort. But otherwise all meaning had been removed from life, with the exception that, if it feels good for me, it is good for me.

This, of course, as Nietzsche clearly realised, creates a hell of a world. It leaves the way open for unfettered exploitation. Life is a matter of getting as big a slice of the cake as I can with no regard for others. They, of course, are trying to do the same. It is a world of a few winners and many losers.

In such a world, there is no way of expressing, no need to express suffering and pain. There are two kinds of suffering: those arising from natural causes and those brought about by human agency.

If 100,000 people die because of an earthquake, a flood, a tidal wave, or a drought, that can easily be explained in terms of physics and chemistry. There is no need to ask further. If someone suffers and dies after months or even years from cancer or a debilitating disease, this also can be explained in terms of physics, chemistry and biology. But there is no point in searching for any meaning. Without God there is no meaning.

Similarly, when one group of people exploits another group in the interests of power and material possessions, that’s just the way things are. There are winners and losers. There is no need to look any farther. Some people lives in enormous houses with every conceivable luxury within their grasp. Huge numbers of people live lives of hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, poverty and disease.

Too bad. If only they worked a little harder, they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps and have what the rich have.

We know that we cannot live our lives in that way. We cannot be satisfied that the sudden death of a loved one, whether by illness or accident, can simply be explained by the laws of science. We are forced to ask Why? We cannot not search for meaning. Where does that meaning come from? It is not invented by us; it is acknowledged as already present.

Similarly with matters of truth, love, compassion, justice, freedom. We have not invented these things. They are factors which govern our lives. They are part of our being human. Without them we are no longer human. Where do they come from? They were there before we were. When we realise that the only life worth living is one based on truth, love, compassion, justice and freedom and when we try to live according to those norms we are in effect acknowledging the influence of a Higher Power which precedes us and is above us and sets the standards which give meaning to our life.

And similarly with the difficulties caused by tragedy, illness, pain and suffering. We simply cannot accept them without question. We cannot not look for meaning; we cannot not ask the question Why? The answers do not come easily, at least at the time although they may become clearer later on.

Who is to know that a young person who dies before their time may have been spared even greater suffering or tragedy? Or have been the cause of greater pain to others? We will never know. But the pain that we experience watching such events can only be explained by our conviction that there is a loving God there somewhere in the midst of it all. Take away that God and our own pain is irrational. Death is death is death. Suffering is suffering is suffering. It can all be explained by science. But it can’t. Science can – sometimes but not always – explain how but not why.

The only answer to all our suffering and of those around us is the Cross. “God did not spare his only Son.” It is not a complete answer but, strengthened by faith and trust, it is about as near as we can get.

Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Exodus 12:1-8,11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

[The same Scripture texts are used every year of the cycle]

This evening we commemorate that meal that Jesus shared with his disciples on the eve of his suffering, death and resurrection. This meal obviously was a very special occasion. Basically, it was the celebration of the Jewish Passover which, by no coincidence, fell just at that time. But, for Jesus and his disciples, it had other important meanings as well. As they realised later on, what happened that evening had close symbolic connections with what was to happen to Jesus in the coming days and it would become the basis for the celebration of the Eucharist, which is at the heart of all our Christian living. All of these things we commemorate this evening.

Passover meal
The First Reading speaks about the Passover Meal. This meal was, and is still for the Jewish communities round the world, a commemoration of one of the greatest events in the history of the Jews as God’s people, namely, their liberation from slavery in Egypt. The Passover meal is a re-enactment of that hasty meal they had to take before escaping from the Pharaoh and his armies. The meal is full of symbols: the lamb eaten whole, the blood of the lamb painted on the door posts, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, eating the meal standing and dressed ready for a long journey. It is a sacramental celebration remembering, recalling the liberation of the Exodus, when the Jews, under the leadership of Moses, were liberated from the slavery of Egypt and began their long trek to the Promised Land. All those symbols would have been present at the Last Supper and many of them are carried over – albeit in adapted forms – into our Eucharist.

Last Supper
At the Last Supper Jesus and his disciples sat down together at their Passover meal. There is no mention of a lamb because there is a new Lamb, Jesus himself is the Lamb of God. He is the sacrificial victim of the New Covenant whose blood will adorn the wood of the cross. In this meal, the emphasis is on the unleavened bread and Body, on wine and Blood. This meal becomes now the sacrament of our liberation through the broken Body and the poured out Blood on the cross.

Service to be remembered by doing
The choice of Gospel today is very significant. In his Last Supper account John makes no mention of the bread being Jesus’ Body and the wine being his Blood. Instead, he introduces a different sacrament: the washing of the feet. This is a sacrament of loving service, which is re-presented in our liturgy this evening. To be the leader, to have authority is to serve others in love.

When Jesus bent down to wash his disciples’ feet, Peter was aghast and cried, “You will never wash my feet!” For washing the guests’ feet was the job of a slave in the house. However, in so speaking, Peter revealed the mentality that the Master never serves but is always served and obeyed. But Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” Peter has to learn that in the Kingdom, in the world of Christ, the leader is one who serves. It is a message for priests, parents, teachers, employers, managers, chief executives...

Kinds of service
We might observe that in so doing, Jesus was not humiliating or degrading himself. I like to say there are three kinds of service: service from below, service from above, service of friends. We are all familiar with service from below, where people who do things for us are regarded as being on a lower plane than ourselves – the waiter in the restaurant, the girl at the supermarket checkout, the people who do the ‘dirty’ work in our society. There is service from above where a person with a particular training or talent puts their skills at our disposal, usually for a considerable fee – so we have doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, architects. They serve us but they are the experts and we are the ‘laity’. Finally, there is the service of friends. This is what Jesus was doing. “I call you friends.” Service here is love (agape, ’agaph) in action – it is carrying out in action the strong desire I have for the well-being of my friend. I do it not because I am below him or above him but because I love him and this is how I express my love.

At the end Jesus asks, “Do you know what I have done? You call me Teacher and Lord and you are right. That is what I am. But if I, as Lord, wash your feet, you must do the same.” “Do to others as I have done to you” which echoes the words at the Eucharist, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Eucharist and loving service
There is obviously a clear and important link here with the Eucharist.

a, The Eucharist is memory and thanks for what we will celebrate tomorrow (Good Friday). In our sharing of the Body and Blood of the Lord, we assert our unity with him and with each other. We ARE the Body of Christ. At communion we are brought into a special union with the Lord but also with each other.

b, The Eucharist must also be at the same time the celebration of a loving, serving, caring community. If there is no community, there is no Eucharist. The Bread of the Eucharist is not just received and eaten; it is SHARED and that sharing is a symbol of the unity that actually exists. If there is no such unity, no mutual respect and love for everyone present, then our communion is close to blasphemy or sacrilege. We remember the words of Paul to the Christians at Corinth: “A person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation” (1 Corinthians 11:29). And the “body” in question is not Jesus in the host but the Body of Christ which is Christ and the community as one.

Our Eucharist only becomes real after we leave the church. If the celebration of the Eucharist stops at the church door it is a sign and celebration of nothing. It is a kind of sacrilege to claim to recognise Christ in the bread and wine and not in those around us. The Eucharist, if it is to be real, is essentially the sign of a living, loving, mutually serving community of brothers and sisters. A living, loving community celebrates and strengthens what it is through the Eucharist.

Jesus gave us the Eucharist at the Last Supper to be a constant reminder of God’s great love for us and, combined with the washing of the feet, that we have an obligation to share that same love with all those around us. Both the celebration of the Eucharist and the loving service given to our brothers and sisters have to be done in memory of him.

Good Friday: Celebration of the Lord’s Passion (A,B,C)

Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9;John 18:1-19:42

During these three days we are celebrating what we call the Paschal mystery: the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the Lamb of God: oppressed, afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb he is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before his shearers, he did not open his mouth. This is Isaiah’s description of the ‘Suffering Servant’, which the Church has always seen as a foretelling of Jesus’ Passion.

One could see this as a sign of helplessness and powerlessness. On the contrary, it is a sign, not of weakness, but of great inner strength. This is the strength of the one who absolutely refuses to match violence with violence. This is so clear in the dialogues with the Sanhedrin and Pilate. Jesus earlier had told his disciples to turn the other cheek when attacked by enemies. When struck by a soldier during his trial, Jesus calmly says: “If I have done wrong, please tell me. If not, then why do you strike me?” Significantly, he is not struck again.

Why did Jesus suffer so much? Because, again in the words of Isaiah, “we like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned to our own way. And so, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all... By his wounds we are healed”. He is totally innocent, totally undeserving of the afflictions he has undergone. But such is God’s love for us that he gave his only Son to suffer and die. It is both a testimony of the extent of that love and the only way adequate reparation could be done for the enormity and multiplicity of our sinfulness. Jesus is our Redeemer, the one who has bought us back and paved the way for our reconciliation with God his Father. Let us look at the crucifix today and express our deepest gratitude to God for sending Jesus to suffer in this way for us.

Our great high priest
He is our great high priest, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us today. He is the only one we will ever need. He is a unique high priest, who can sympathise with our weaknesses for he has been tested just as we are, yet is totally without sin. So we are encouraged to approach the throne of grace with boldness because it is one of ourselves, one who shared our weak human nature, who is there to be our Mediator before the Father.

Let us be very clear. Jesus may have been the Son of God but he did not go eagerly through this experience. He was also a human being like us with the same feelings and fears. The thought of his Passion filled him with dread. And so in the Garden of Gethsemane “he offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death”.

But, even though he was the Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. He accepted what was the will of his Father who wanted him to go through this suffering. And, having been made perfect through his total submission to his Father, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

Meaning in meaninglessness
The Passion of Jesus gives meaning to what is in itself meaningless – pain and suffering. It was through his acceptance of suffering and death that Jesus brought us life and liberation.

We often wonder why people suddenly get heart attacks, or terminal cancer, or are involved in crippling accidents, why families are left without a father or a mother. Why does God do these things to us? But, of course, he does not do them to us. Nor does he prevent a natural course of events from taking place.

God did not kill Jesus. Nor did he prevent the course of events which led to the suffering and death of Jesus. God did not spare his own Son. These events could be easily predicted and certainly, after the event, were easily understood. The same is true with much of our own pain and suffering.

But the point is that out of the suffering, the pain, the degradation, the humiliation something beautiful was born. Something which continues to draw us here 2,000 years on. That something is the deep, unconditional love for us which is at the heart of it all. Without that love it would have no meaning. As a young mother said to me after the birth of her first child, “Now I know why a mother is ready to die for her child.” Death, in itself meaningless, suddenly takes on meaning.

A prayer heard
The suffering of Jesus then gives meaning to our own sufferings. We cannot ask God to give us a life without pain, or sorrow. Nor should we feel he does not care about us because such things happen. Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death. “Let this chalice pass from me”, was his prayer and he sweat blood in his fear and anxiety.

And HIS PRAYER WAS HEARD. That is the point. In being heard, he was not rescued from the pain he feared but given the strength to go through it with calm and dignity and total acceptance.

He has not promised any other way for us his followers. “Anyone who wants to be my follower must take up his cross every day and walk after me.” And we really have no realistic alternative, although many try to find escape routes. They do not work. His Way, the way through suffering and eventually death, is the only way to life.

That life we will celebrate tomorrow night. Please do come and join us.

Postscript

“Yes, there have been times when I have felt a hole in my stomach, times when a question rises up from within: why me? But at root this question goes on blaming God for what is happening. And then I slip into the realisation, which comes from the depths of my faith, that it is not God who sends us death, but rather God is the one who is with us in our death, at our side, so that we may live it through with faith and gracefulness, with deep hope, even with deep joy.”

Carlos Bravo Gallardo SJ
a Mexican theologian,
when dying of brain cancer.

Easter Vigil (Holy Saturday):
Resurrection of the Lord (A,B,C)

Genesis 1:1-2:2; Exodus 14:15-31,15:20,1; Isaiah 55:1-11; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10

Given the length of the liturgy some celebrants may be tempted to omit a homily but this would be a pity. On this night of all nights, there should be some pastoral reflection, even if shorter than usual, on the themes of the main readings and on what is taking place.

1. Tonight is a celebration of life.

We began with the story of creation.

God made everything, gave life to all living things.

God saw all that he had made and it was very good.

His creation and conservation continues.

We, made into God’s image, are partners in that work

and stewards to take care of all that makes up this planet,

especially all living things.

Made in the image of our Creator, we, too, are called to be lifegivers and life preservers.

This has been called by one writer the “Original Blessing”, the gift of creation which preceded the failure of human beings to respond and the consequent disasters with which the human race has been visited ever since.

2. We then heard the story of the Exodus.

The great event in which God’s people are brought out of the half-life of slavery into full freedom and full life.

We need no longer be slaves but God’s own people (yet many of us remain enslaved to habits and desires).

The liberation from Egypt is an event celebrated and commemorated to this day by the Jewish people at their Passover.

And we can join our celebration with theirs at this time.

3. In fact, it is no mere coincidence that the events we celebrate this week coincide with the feast of the Passover or Pasch.

Through Jesus, the Lamb of God, we have been given the opportunity to pass from the slavery of sin and all the destructive elements of our life to a life of freedom.

As the crucified Jesus breaks through the bonds of death in glorious resurrection, he opens the gates of life for us too.

“I AM the Resurrection and the Life.”

“I have come that they may have life and life in greater abundance.”

“I am the Way: I am Truth and Life.”

4. This evening is now the special time for catechumens to be baptised and become fully members of our community in Christ. It is a time of special joy for them and for us.

It is also a time for us to reflect on the meaning and the effectiveness of our own Baptism in our lives right now.

Our Baptism and Confirmation and our sharing in the Eucharist are the signs of our participation in this outpouring of life and love which we celebrate this evening.

The going down into the water is our dying to the ways of sin and evil.

The coming out of the water is a rising to the life God wishes us to have and experience.

Our baptism and confirmation are an ongoing reality reflected in the way we live out the Gospel from day to day.

So very soon we will renew our promises, renew our allegiance to Christ and the Christian community, which is his visible presence in the world.

Let this night be a time for all of us, individually and together to revitalise our Catholic life

and to involve ourselves more in the life of our parish community.

end

HOLY THURSDAY [Alternative version]

Exodus 12:1-8,11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Today’s Scripture readings cover the whole sweep of what today’s feast means.

FIRST READING: Exodus 12:1-8,11-14

The First Reading is a description of the Jewish Passover Meal. It is a sacramental re-enactment of the meal taken by the Israelites before their flight across the Red Sea from Egypt. A flight from slavery to freedom and liberation. This, once a year commemoration, could be called the “Eucharist” of the Jews. Except that they celebrate it just once a year and not weekly or even daily, as we do. It is a sacred remembering of God’s great act to liberate them from slavery and the beginning of their long journey to the Promised Land. It is no coincidence that it was precisely during the celebration of this meal that Jesus instituted what we now call the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Here is the link between the Hebrew and the Christian Covenants.

SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

In the Second Reading, Paul recalls what Jesus did during that Last Supper, that Passover Meal. He took the bread at the table and said it was his Body. He took the cup of wine and said it was his Blood to be poured out for us. These actions were to be repeated by his followers in memory of the liberation brought about for us through his suffering, death and resurrection.

Three events are thus united into a new mystery:

- the Jewish Passover and Paschal Meal;

- the whole Paschal Mystery of Jesus: suffering, death and resurrection.

- the linking of the bread and wine and its communal eating with the sacrificial death and the resurrection of Jesus;

There is a new liberation, not just from physical slavery, but from every kind of slavery, especially that of sin and evil. There is now a new Pasch and a new Passover. There is a new Lamb, the Lamb of God. There is a new unleavened bread, the Bread that is the Body of the Risen Lord. The blood of the lamb is now replaced with the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus, who takes away the sin of the world.

GOSPEL: John 13:1-15

The Gospel links all this with the concrete reality of our lives. It says nothing directly about the Pasch or the Passover. It says nothing about the Eucharist, or the Body and Blood of Jesus. Instead it speaks of Jesus, Lord and Master, getting down on his knees and washing the feet of his disciples. It is this spirit of love and service of brothers and sisters which is to be the outstanding characteristic of the Christian disciple.

And this is the true living out of the Eucharistic celebration. To have one without the other is not to live the Gospel. And so the words of the Eucharist are also repeated here: “Do this in memory of me.”

Not to celebrate the Eucharist in community and not to spend our energies in love and service of each other is not to be living the Gospel. Our Christian living is a seamless robe between Gospel, liturgy and daily life and interaction.

There is something lacking if we are devout in our regular attendance at Mass but our lives are lived individualistically and selfishly. There is also something lacking if we are totally committed to caring for others but never gather in community to remember, give thanks and break the bread together. When properly celebrated (and very often that is not the case) the Eucharist can create a unique Christ-centred bonding in a community.

Season of Lent - Weekday Reflections

Ash Wednesday

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Lent 1 | Monday

Lent 1 | Tuesday

Lent 1 | Wednesday

Lent 1 | Thursday

Lent 1 | Friday

Lent 1 | Saturday

Lent 2 | Monday

Lent 2 | Tuesday

Lent 2 | Wednesday

Lent 2 | Thursday

Lent 2 | Friday

Lent 2 | Saturday

Lent 3 | Monday

Lent 3 | Tuesday

Lent 3 | Wednesday

Lent 3 | Thursday

Lent 3 | Friday

Lent 3 | Saturday

Lent 3 | Alternative Readings:

Lent 4 | Monday

Lent 4 | Tuesday

Lent 4 | Wednesday

Lent 4 | Thursday

Lent 4 | Friday

Lent 4 | Saturday

Lent 4 | Alternative Readings

Lent 5 | Monday

Lent 5 | Tuesday

Lent 5 | Wednesday

Lent 5 | Thursday

Lent 5 | Friday

Lent 5 | Saturday

Lent 5 | Alternative Readings

Holy Week | Monday

Holy Week | Tuesday

Holy Week | Wednesday

Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil

Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Good Friday: Celebration of the Lord’s Passion (A,B,C)

Easter Vigil (Holy Saturday): Resurrection of the Lord (A,B,C)

HOLY THURSDAY [Alternative version]