Fifth Sunday of Lent
Year B
Lectionary: 35
Reading I
Jer 31:31-34
The days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers
the day I took them by the hand
to lead them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they broke my covenant,
and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD,
for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.
Responsorial Psalm
51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15
R. (12a) Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners shall return to you.
R. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Reading II
Heb 5:7-9
In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh,
he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears
to the one who was able to save him from death,
and he was heard because of his reverence.
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;
and when he was made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Verse Before the Gospel
Jn 12:26
Whoever serves me must follow me, says the Lord;
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
Gospel
Jn 12:20-33
Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me.
“I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?
‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven,
“I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”
The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;
but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered and said,
“This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.
Now is the time of judgment on this world;
now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I will draw everyone to myself.”
He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.
MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
Receiving Jesus Christ as Our Lord and Savior enables us to be healed from all of our self-inflicted wounds that we have brought upon ourselves through our thoughts and actions. From the time that we could determine right from wrong we have constantly been presented with a variety of choices throughout our life. These choices bring about more choices which then create more choices onward into infinity. There is never more than two at a time because each are in possession of a unique characteristic which is directly opposite of each other: one involves God and the other doesn’t. Whenever we make a choice which is devoid of God we hurt ourselves in some way either physically, mentally, or spirituality. As we receive more wounds the weaker we become in some respect. There is no hope of recovery unless it is through receiving the help of Jesus Christ who can then lead us back to The Father.
God reminds us through The Prophet Jeremiah how He made a covenant with His people when He led them out of Egypt. The Jewish people were promised that they would be loved, protected, and would prosper if only they loved Him and followed Him. When they began to ignore God was when things went wrong and ultimately they were crushed under the powerful hammer of the Babylonian Empire and then The Babylonian Exile began. This was a culmination of the long history of Jewish History that displayed great triumphs and devastating failure depending on the relationship they had with God at the time. This wasn’t God’s fault or God’s choice. As it is with us, the Jewish people were constantly presented with two choices: one that included God and one that didn’t. As with them it is with us: making choices without God will always yield terrible consequences.
God does not bring about these consequences. In our arrogance and pride we might ask ourselves why God is doing something to us when it was really our fault. We are so lost without God that, even in times of great distress and crisis, we can refuse to take responsibility for our own actions that created the circumstances we find ourselves in. This puts us in more serious condition because if there is a continuous refusal to acknowledge God except in the negative context then we cannot ask for His help. This can be another wrong choice which will then lead to even more bad choices.
Jesus Christ holds the key to breaking this cycle in our lives and to begin the healing process. There is nothing new that needs to be learned; that comes later. What there has to be is an acceptance of Jesus into our hearts and a willingness to let Him lead us to The Father. This will begin the process of clearly recognizing right choices from wrong choices while making the correct ones that include God. The Prophet Jeremiah describes this in a most intimate away as the law being placed within us and being written on our hearts. What we have to do is just let God do the work He needs to make us better. This may be difficult at time, giving up control of our lives, but it becomes easier as time goes by and there is evidence that what we are doing with God’s help is making things better.
It should be comforting to know that God has already told us that He is here for us and that the only thing that we have to do is respond to His offer of help. He is also ready to forgive us and is waiting for us to ask for forgiveness and to repent. He has established the ground rules for a relationship with Him and the rules all weigh heavily in our favor. His intent is not to hurt or punish us but to heal us; to offer us the best possible experience within His creation. Just as Jesus Christ obeyed His Father we are instructed to obey God and, through that obedience, we will then be shown a better way to live in relationship with Him.
The Gospel Reading today is a very personal reading where Jesus admits that He is troubled by what He will have to endure; referring to His impending suffering and death. In His humanness He reveals His fears and shares them with all those who are listening. He offers this to us as a model of obedience to the Father. Again it shows, even in His time of need, Jesus is willing to think of us first instead of Himself. Instead of seeking comfort Jesus reminds us that whoever honors Him and listens to Him will be honored by the Father. Honoring includes protecting and caring for in a very special way. Even when God spoke in response to Jesus it was not for Jesus but for all the people listening and all of the people in God’s creation. It was for all of us; for our benefit. In His most desperate time and at a time when God was giving over His only son to suffer and die for us EVERYTHING WAS BEING DONE FOR US. This is what a relationship with God is all about: it is very one-sided with us being the full beneficiaries.
Recognizing Jesus Christ and listening to what He says draws us closer to the Father; bringing us to a higher awareness of God and what He wants for us. When we get closer to God we get further away from the material entrapments of the world. Temptation is easier to confront and the allures of the flesh have less power over us. The choices that we have to make are clearer; their implications revealed to us in advance. Satan will have no power over us because we have made the decision to draw closer to Jesus who is ready and willing to protect us from not only him but from ourselves also.
As we go beyond the midway point in The Season of Lent we are encouraged to draw even closer to Jesus Christ through our Lenten Observances. This becomes a good time to reflect back on the journey so far and make the adjustments necessary to correct where we might have found some short-comings. We can then commit ourselves to doing better. Through prayer, Reconciliation, and repentance we can then proceed forward on our journey stronger than we were before. The wonderful thing about this exercise is that we are focusing on our faults instead of our successes with the intent on correcting these faults. With Jesus failure is actually success! With failure comes an opportunity to be drawn from the darkness into the light which is Jesus. As Christians we see short-comings and sin as an opportunity to be healed and be better off as a result. This is what happens when we receive Jesus. Healing, forgiveness, and love always replace the defects that arise within us. He makes the imperfect perfect through His presence.
Deacon Tom
My sisters and brothers in Christ,
This Sunday the readings focus us on the life and death of Jesus and the Old Testament passages that help us understand the life and death of the Lord. It is really important for us to recognize that without the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, it would be very difficult for us—perhaps even impossible—to understand Jesus and His life and death.
The first reading today is from the Prophet Jeremiah. This Prophet is clear that the relationship of God with His people has been difficult and that the previous Covenants have been broken and that there is a need for a New Covenant that will last forever. The Prophet Jeremiah shows us a God who is always seeking us out, who is willing to start a New Covenant with us, who always wants to love us. And so we hear in this reading today: “All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.”
What a wonderful God we have. This God was known and loved by the Prophet Jeremiah and we are invited to know and love this same God, who loves us and who always forgives us—and forgets our sins!
The second reading comes from the Letter to the Hebrews. This letter is used more and more during the time we come close to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The letter speaks so clearly of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
God has taken on our flesh and our human weakness even though God in Christ never sins. God in Christ knows our sinful nature and truly suffers. The carrying of the Cross and the death on the Cross are real and unite Jesus to us in a way that is unimaginable for God to share in our lives. Yet God chooses this way to draw us to Himself. We are invited to learn obedience to the will of the Father, even though we know that in the process of obedience, we also shall suffer.
The Gospel from Saint John today includes a short passage in which the divine breaks through into the ordinary life once again. When we hear a voice from heaven in the Gospels, then we know that the divine is breaking into the ordinary. Jesus says: “Father, glorify your name.” The Voice from Heaven says: “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”
The challenge in this last part of Lent is to LISTEN to the Lord, to the whole of the Old Testament and to the Church. God is speaking to us. Will we answer? Will we give our lives in obedience to the Lord Jesus—always with love and joy?
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
As we listen to the readings today, we hear a clear message from our God: I will save you! God tells us that it is He who does the work of salvation! This is always so necessary for us to hear again and again! Today we hear that it is God who will make the new covenant with His people. We hear the words of Jesus that He will draw everyone to Himself. And in the letter to the Hebrews, we hear that Jesus became a source of salvation to all who obey.
All of these readings can go right over our heads! We need to listen attentively to hear what it is that God is saying to us.
The Prophet Jeremiah did not have an easy life. He is a Prophet who had to proclaim God’s word, even though it brought many difficulties into his persona life. Yet this Prophet trusts God entirely. He proclaims this new covenant in which people will know God in their hearts and not just from another person.
These words sound as if we simply need to go into our own hearts to know the Lord-and there is some truth in that. But the Prophets are not proclaiming a religion of individualism! We know that in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Prophets authenticate the Word of God. We know that not every word claimed as inspired is accepted as such. In the new covenant, there is a Church that authenticates the Word of God for us with authority. That is a huge leap, but one that Catholics take over and over. We believe that there is authority within the Church and that authority is exercised by humans. But this is not the point of today’s readings.
It is important to hear that God will pardon sins and no longer remember them. Sometimes an immense amount of energy is spent in trying to entice God to forgive us. That is never necessary! God loves to forgive. That is how Jesus reveals God to us.
The letter to the Hebrews takes us to the theme of obedience and suffering. This is another theme strong in this time of Lent. Obedience is first and foremost obedience to God Himself: listening to His word, pondering His word, meditating that Word, listening to that word especially when it says things we would rather not hear. That is all obedience. And it leads us into suffering. The Prophets suffered over and over and over because of their obedience to the Word of God. Even today many people suffer because they strive to proclaim the word of peace in a time of war. At other times, it may be necessary to proclaim words that sound like war when there is an apathy of peace. Suffering results either way.
The Gospel picks this up again when Jesus tells us that whoever tries to love his life in this world will lose it and that those who hate their lives in this world will save them. These are often words that we do not want to hear today. Instead, so many of our present values want us to act as though this is the only life, that there is no life other than the one we know now.
And lots of people believe that there is nothing after this present life.
We Christians, however, believe in the Word of Christ and we accept that there is a life to come and that the Good Thief was in paradise with Christ that same day that He died and that there is a resurrection into the life of the world to come. These beliefs in another life help us understand that this life really is a time for striving to live for the values that will last for ever. We don’t even have to get involved in the controversies about hell and purgatory: if there is another life after this, how should we live this life in relation to that which will come? So much of Jesus’ teaching is simply an answer to that fundamental question.
Today, this fifth Sunday of Lent, we can listen attentively to God’s Word! We can believe that God loves us and forgives us even as God invites us to live with values that will last for ever. We can accept that any life with such strong values will bring suffering because of the deep obedience to God. May we become so obedient that we can suffer with Christ for the salvation of our world.
CHRIST IN THE DESERT MONASTERY
We come closer and closer to Holy Week and to the Sacred Triduum—those last three days of Holy Week which express the fullness of our faith in such a striking way. The readings given to us today look forward to those three days.
The Prophet Jeremiah reminds us of God’s love for us: I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more. This is a God who always forgives us, even as He invites us to return to the right path and to do what is right and just. This God is not an uncaring God, but a God who reaches out to us over and over. This is not a condemning God, but a God who invites to live in grace, joy and love.
The Letter to the Hebrews deepens this sense of the Father’s love for us in Christ Jesus: Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered. This is a God who loves us so much that He gives us His own Son, who takes on our humanity so that we can share in the divinity of God Himself.
It is clear from the Scriptures that our Lord Jesus prayed to be freed from the terrible sufferings that He could see coming to Him. His prayer was always: not My will but Your will be done.
The Gospel of John which we have heard today has the same theology of Christ’s suffering. Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.
The only way forward is to go through the suffering. Jesus willingly takes on the suffering for us–because He loves us. Jesus sees that the only way forward is through His death, for us. Jesus recognizes that, no matter how difficult, He came into the world to save us.
I will draw everyone to myself! What wonderful words of strength and consolation for us who believe in Him. Even as we prepare for Holy Week and the Sacred Triduum, when we celebrate once more the death of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection, we can give praise to God. Just as Jesus was born for us, so also He dies for us—so that we might have life abundantly.
We do not always see everything in the light of this mystery. We are invited to meditate and pray so that we can come to see all things in the light of the mystery of Jesus Christ. May these final days of Lent draw us more deeply into the mystery.
CHRIST IN THE DESERT MONASTERY
My Dear Brother in Christ.
I am currently nearing the end of a 30 Week St. Ignatius retreat... We read assigned scripture daily and meet once a week via zoom. During the meeting we break off into small groups and discuss how the Lord spoke to us while meditating on the scriptures.....Today I would like to share with you a part of one of those meetings.... Pilot had already said he did not find fault with Jesus......
Our scripture......Luke 23: 5-12...
5. But they insisted, "He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.
6. On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7.When he learned that Jesus was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.
8.When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see Him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort. . 9. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10. The chief priests and teachers of the law were standing there vehemently accusing him. 11. Then Hero and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. 12. That day Herod and Pilate became friends.........
My meditation is a letter to Jesus.
Dear Jesus...How was your heart feeling at this point? Could you even feel or think? Did you feel that Even if you did speak, No one would understand or care? How did you feel being face to face with Herod who made your family flee because you were born and he wanted you dead? Did you feel victory in your heart or did you just feel numb?
Louise in my group had this to offer..........I'll tell you how he felt.. Her meditation.
Jesus. what did You feel?
I felt nothing--I was numb, in shock from the way I was being treated--standing for a long time, no food, no drink, My heart was hurting from the remarks and treatment. I ignored the comments and action and went to the place I knew I was loved, I kneeled before the Throne of my Father, not physically, but in my mind. There I knew I was loved---I also went to My mother's home where her love held me.
Then I marched to Pilate again were Herod and Pilate became friends...........
Dear Brother, this is the work of the HOLY SPIRIT ! With all my heart I hope this message blesses you with the Love of Jesus during this Lenten season. I pray you are finding peace in these very difficult times!
I am looking forward to being one of the first to visit when things open up.
God love you!
Dianne Y
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