The Third Sunday of Lent [B]
Exodus 20:1-3,7-8,12-17  +  1 Corinthians 1:22-25  +  John 2:13-25

His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,  “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

This Sunday’s Scriptures remind us of the primacy of God the Father’s love for us.  This reminder comes to us via a particular sign.

St. Paul proclaims in today’s Second Reading that “Jews demand signs”.  Yet they are like all mankind in this regard.  Signs are helpful and useful.  Can you imagine driving on the interstate or in a business district if there were no signs?

The signs that the Jews demanded were religious signs, however.  They demanded signs, and they demanded these signs from God Himself.  Still, here also we are like our forefathers in faith.  We ask God for signs that we are loved, that things are going to turn out all right, and even that He exists and is listening to our concerns.

So while the first-century “Greeks look for wisdom,” and the Romans respect the rod and the whip, the “Jews demand signs”.  We hear how this is true of the Jewish persons within today’s Gospel Reading.

After Jesus initiates conflict in the Jewish Temple, “the Jews answered and said to Him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’”  Jesus shows them the sign of the Cross through His words:  “‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’”  On Good Friday, Jesus proclaims the sign of the Cross by sacrificing His Body and Blood on it.  But most around Him reject both His word and His sacrifice.  In today’s Gospel Reading, those around Him refuse to believe what He foretells about the Temple of His Body.  On Good Friday, they will nail that Body to the Cross.

Lent is a season of sorrow and bitterness.  In our Lenten devotions such as the Stations of the Cross, we rightly feel sadness at the fact that Jesus suffered so intensely because of our sins.  St. John the Evangelist paints the lines of bitterness and sorrow in his portrait of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage.  This passage is set two years before Jesus’ Passion and Death on the Cross, “while He was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover”.  On that occasion, “many began to believe in His Name when they saw the signs He was doing.”  That sounds like a good thing, since  Jesus’ ministry seems to be growing successfully.

If God the Father had sent His son to save us by miracles, the popular response that He received might have brought joy to Jesus’ heart.  But the evangelist tells us something far different:  “Jesus would not trust himself to them because He knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.”

John’s commentary here foreshadows the events of Holy Week.  God the Father did not send His Son to save us through a miraculous sign, but through a sign of failure:  betrayal, false condemnation, public humiliation and physical torture all led up to the sign of the Cross.  The Cross on Calvary was meant to serve as a human sign, and a divine sign.  Humanly, Jesus had His hands and feet nailed to a cross at the top of a mountain.  This was meant by sinful rulers to serve as a sign for anyone who might dare reject the rule of the Romans and the Law of the Levites.

But as a divine sign, the sign of the Cross reveals that God’s very nature, His divine Life, is a paradox.  St. Paul makes this plain to the Corinthians:  “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”  This is what those of Jesus’ day fail to understand, both on this Passover two years before Jesus’ crucifixion, and also on that day so tragic that we call it “Good Friday”.

Yet even today, God means for the sign of the Cross to serve as a sign for you, a sinner, to experience forgiveness, mercy, and spiritual healing.  Lent is a season of preparation.  This preparation is necessary.  In other words, you cannot and will not celebrate Easter rightly without engaging in the mysteries of Lent.  Lent prepares us for Easter by putting before us—for our devotion and imitation in daily life—the truth that the Cross of Jesus is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
Jeremiah 17:5-10  +  Luke 16:19-31
March 4, 2021

“‘… neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’”

At first hearing, the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus might fool us, in just the same way that the Parable of the Prodigal Son can fool us.  When St. Luke the Evangelist narrates his account of Jesus teaching the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the evangelist makes clear that Jesus is teaching this parable to the scribes and the Pharisees.

So who in the Parable of the Prodigal Son symbolizes the scribes and the Pharisees?  It’s not the Prodigal Son.  Nor is it the Prodigal Son’s father, who prodigally—that is to say, lavishly—bestows mercy on his prodigal son.  No, it’s the older son who symbolizes the scribes and the Pharisees:  the older son who refuses to enter the feast thrown by the father for the prodigal son.  So then, if we were to name this parable after the audience to whom Jesus preached it, we might well call this the “Parable of the Miserly Son”:  that is, the son who was miserly when it came to showing mercy.

With that in mind, consider today’s Gospel passage.  Here Jesus teaches what’s commonly called the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  But that name for the parable, like all the names of the parables, are modern inventions.  Jesus never gave a name to any of His parables.  But in the first line of today’s Gospel passage, the evangelist tells us that Jesus preached this parable to the Pharisees.

We need to remember that the same dynamic at work in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is at play here also.  The Pharisees are not symbolized by either the rich man or Lazarus.  Who in today’s parable symbolize the Pharisees?  The five brothers of the rich man symbolize the Pharisees.  When Abraham declares, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead”, the clear reference is to the Pharisees not being persuaded by Jesus’ future resurrection from the dead.  Jesus wants the Pharisees to accept the graces that God offers, even if those graces come through simple and humble messengers.

Just as the rich man during his life on earth failed to lead his five brothers to God, so each of us has a choice about whether or not to be a messenger from God to others.  Or in other words, each of us needs to be a human angel—metaphorically speaking—because the word “angel” literally means a “messenger”.  Whether we intend to or not, we send messages to others all the time.  But are the messages we send others of God’s kindness, mercy, compassion, and forbearing?

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
Jeremiah 18:18-20  +  Matthew 20:17-28
March 3, 2021

Remember that I stood before you to speak in their behalf, to turn away your wrath from them.

Today’s First Reading is taken from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, whose prophecy echoes throughout the season of Lent.  One of the hallmarks of the Book of Jeremiah is his account of how he must suffer in order to be a faithful prophet.  As such, this hallmark reveals two points for the attention of Christians, though the second grows out of the first.

First, Jeremiah’s suffering as a prophet foreshadows the vocation of Jesus Christ.  Jesus was not only a prophet, of course, but during His three years of public ministry, His prophetic preaching and prophetic miracles were a prime motive for those who sought His death.  So we ought to listen again to the First Reading and imagine it as describing the suffering of Jesus.

Second, each Christian is called by God to live fully in Christ.  This means that each Christian is called by virtue of his or her baptism to share in the three roles that Jesus exercised during His earthly life:  the roles of priest, prophet and king.  Each Christian, in his or her own way, is meant to speak and act prophetically.  In this, we ought to keep in mind that a biblical prophet is not someone who predicts the future, but someone who reminds others—by word and example—of the demands of God’s Word.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
Isaiah 1:10,16-20  +  Matthew 23:1-12
March 2, 2021

“You have but one Father in heaven.”

Sometimes this verse is quoted against Catholics, who address their priests as “Father”.  However, you don’t at the same time hear the New Testament Letter to Philemon quoted, where Saint Paul says, “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment” (verse 10).  Are these words of Saint Paul un-biblical, and un-Christian?

Or ought we, rather, look at today’s Gospel passage in its own scriptural context?  Scripturally, the first and last verses of today’s Gospel passage help us see the meaning of Jesus’ words:  “You have but one Father in heaven.”

Jesus begins by pointing out the contradiction of the scribes and Pharisees.  They legitimately hold the “chair of Moses”, but the choices of their lives are illegitimate.  They do not practice what they preach.  These first words of the passage present the problem.

The passage’s last words present the answer:  “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  Everything in between is a means to this end.  Today, then, reflect on this question:  “How often do I pray specifically to God the Father, and nurture my relationship with Him as if I were indeed a humble child of His?”

Monday of the Second Week of Lent
Daniel 9:4-10  +  Luke 6:36-38
March 1, 2021

But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!

Lent is a season of perspective.  Our “great and awesome God”, as Daniel describes him, is infinite in all His qualities:  beauty, simplicity, and mercy, to name only a few.  God’s mercy is our great focus during this season.

God’s love for us is infinite, and when we sin even in the smallest way, we offend this infinite love.  God’s mercy is an expression of his love.  Some people love, but only up to a point.  Many of us, perhaps, are the sort of person who cannot love once we are offended.  We insist that the one who has offended us does not deserve our love.

Yet who of us deserves love?  What is love if not a gift?  God the Father shows us what real love is in offering us His gift of mercy as a means of reconciliation, in the very light of our rejection of His gift of love.  God’s mercy knows no bounds.  What of ours?  Can we put our need to have mercy on others in perspective with God’s mercy towards us?

Jesus also speaks in the Gospel passage about perspective.  He points out to us that the measure we use will be measured back to us.  This is what we pray every time we recite the Our Father:  “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  That word “as” is the fulcrum within this vital petition.  Let us show mercy to the extent that we wish to receive mercy.

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 26:16-19  +  Matthew 5:43-48
February 27, 2021

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Jesus focuses our attention on how to love our neighbor.  As a backdrop to His words today, we ought to keep in mind Jesus’ two great commands:  to love God and to love our neighbor.  We also need to remember His parable about the Good Samaritan, and its point concerning who exactly our neighbor is.

Jesus is teaching us not only not to hate our enemies, but to consider them our neighbors.  To help us appreciate this, Jesus points to the impartiality of God’s treatment of human beings even on the natural level of life:  “your Heavenly Father… makes His sun rise on the bad and the good”.  So also His Son died and rose for the bad and the good on the supernatural level.

The last sentence of today’s Gospel passage sums up this section from the Sermon on the Mount:  “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Here we see Jesus drawing His two great commands ever closer.  We cannot love our God any more than we love our neighbors.  If I am excluding others from the definition of “my neighbors”, than to that extent I am excluding God from my life.  This is so because God extends His love to every person.  No person can ever be “God-forsaken”, but only “me-forsaken”.  But if I forsake another, it’s not only that other’s loss, but mine as well.

Friday of the First Week of Lent
Ezekiel 18:21-28  +  Matthew 5:20-26
February 26, 2021

“Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

When you take up a passage of Sacred Scripture, remember that the passage may have several different meanings.  At a single sitting, you would likely only ponder one particular meaning, so as to keep your focus.  But after you’ve spent many months and years in prayerful reflection upon the Bible, as you come upon a passage that you’ve reflected upon before, you ought to consider whether there’s an additional meaning that you haven’t previously considered.

The Church has an ancient practice of looking within any particular Scripture passage for four different types of meaning, or “senses”.  Not every passage will bear all four, but we need to look for all four when we take up any given passage.  These four senses are:  the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical.  Without explaining what all four of these are, simply consider today’s Gospel passage in regard to the last of these four senses, the anagogical.

Simply put, the anagogical sense of Scripture takes the literal meaning of a passage and considers what it reveals about “the Last Things”.  The Last Things are Heaven and hell, death and judgment.  So while today’s parable might seem at first hearing only to relate to how a Christian ought to act in this world, the anagogical sense shows how the same parable also applies to life after death.  Reflect, then, on how Jesus’ words following the parable—“Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny”—teach us about the nature of God’s justice in requiring Christians who have been saved by God’s grace to undergo purification in Purgatory before being capable of sharing in the fullness of divine love in Heaven.

The Second Sunday of Lent [B]
Genesis 22:1-2,9,10-13,15-18  +  Romans 8:31-34  +  Mark 9:2-10

So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

When we gaze at the Transfiguration, we notice something odd in this passage.  It’s found in its last two sentences.  If this passage had ended two sentences earlier, with the voice of God the Father speaking of His “beloved Son”, the passage would have ended on a high note, leading us to worship Jesus in adoration.  Instead, the two final sentences make us wonder what Jesus is up to.

First, St. Mark tells us that:  “As they were coming down from the mountain, [Jesus] charged [Peter, James and John] not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”  This is another of those common cases in the Gospel accounts of Jesus wanting His disciples to keep His full identity a secret.  The evangelist then tells us that these three “kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.”

This questioning shows that they don’t understand what the Transfiguration is all about.  There’s another point in this Gospel passage that also shows their ignorance, and that’s the exclamation that Peter makes to Jesus:  “Rabbi, it is good that we are here!  Let us make three tents:  one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Peter’s suggestion is so simple that we might overlook what he means.  Tents mean something different to us today.  Tents mean camping, recreation, and relaxation in the great outdoors.  Tents in ancient days—when many persons and extended families were nomadic—meant putting down roots, staking a claim, and not moving on.  So tents to Peter meant permanence.  They meant having arrived.  But this is where Jesus has to call Peter to a better way.

Peter was like someone who had invested in the stock market and suddenly seen one of his stocks skyrocket to 100 times the purchase price, motivating him to sell it.  He couldn’t imagine anything greater, so he wanted to get out while the getting was good, and rest where he was.

The problem for Peter was that Jesus had no plans to rest.  Jesus had a journey to make.  He didn’t come into this world for rest and comfort.  So Peter, likely reluctantly, followed Jesus back down the mountain, knowing that He had to stay with Jesus if he ever wanted to see such brilliance, beauty, and glory again.

What Peter did not know at that point, but which you and I know, is where the rest of the journey is going to take Jesus and Peter.  Jesus implicitly tells Peter where they’re headed when He charges the apostles “not to relate what they had seen… [until] the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

It was probably fortunate that Peter did not know that “rising from the dead” meant Jesus rising on the third day after being nailed to a cross.  If Peter had known this, he would likely have run away, even after having witnessed the Transfiguration.  In the end, of course, Peter did run away, simply after Jesus’ arrest.

Nonetheless, at this point in their journey, Jesus planted that seed in the apostles’ minds, and it began to germinate during the remainder of Jesus’ public ministry.  Whenever in their memories they saw the sight of the Transfigured Jesus, they also must have heard that strange phrase:  “rising from the dead”.  Jesus helped them always to link these two:  “rising”, and “death”.  In other words, there is no Resurrection without death.  There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday.  There is no empty tomb without the Deposition of the Body of Christ within the tomb.

All of us, I’m sure, would admit that our Lenten resolutions, as well as what the Church demands regarding fasting and abstinence, are small sacrifices compared to Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.  If we recognize this as true, we can see that only God’s grace can conform our lives to the life, suffering, death and Resurrection of Jesus.  Our small sacrifices are only the kindling that allows the wood of the Cross to set ablaze with the fire of God’s love in our hearts.

Thursday of the First Week of Lent
Esther C:12,14-16,23-25  +  Matthew 7:7-12
February 25, 2021

“… how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

When a Christian is a beginner in the spiritual life, most of his prayers are likely prayers of petition.  As he grows in spiritual maturity, fewer of his prayers will be petitions.  More of his prayers will be of the other three types of vocal prayer:  contrition, thanksgiving and adoration.

However, is one of the goals of the spiritual life to no longer offer prayers of petition?  Should you strive to reach the point where you no longer “need” to offer petitions?  Would this even be possible?

In the secular culture that surrounds us, independence is prized.  Standing on one’s own two feet is a hallmark of personal identity.  But Christian growth is marked by becoming more like a little child.  This occurs as one realizes one’s deep and abiding—indeed, everlasting—dependence upon God the Father.  One doesn’t, strictly speaking, grow in dependence upon God, for one can never be anything but fully dependent upon Him.  One grows, rather, in one’s awareness of this dependence, as well as one’s comfort in resting in His providential care.