We have almost reached the half-way point to Calvary.\u00a0The forty days of Lent remind us of the forty days in the desert, but we must also keep in view that Our Lord now has his sights set on Jerusalem.\u00a0We\u2019ve spent a few weeks in the desert, living our Lenten resolutions, and maybe our\u00a0stomachs, or spirits, are starting to grumble for those things we\u2019ve left behind for these forty days.\u00a0How are our Lenten resolutions holding up? The Lenten resolutions are how we enter the desert. If you haven\u2019t giving anything up for Lent yet, it\u2019s not too late, but once in the desert, you have to stay the course if you want to reach the Promised Land.<\/p>\n
As today’s First Reading reminds us, God is never indifferent to our struggles.\u00a0When Moses asks God\u00a0how he should identify him to the Israelites, suffering under bondage in Egypt, God tells them, \u201ctell them I AM has sent you.\u201d God is always there.\u00a0He doesn\u2019t just stop with that: he reminds them he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to remind them that he is always faithful to his promises. He promised Abraham land and countless descendants if he had faith. Isaac was the fulfillment of that promise, and then Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Despite this,\u00a0when Pharaoh let Moses lead Israel out into the desert, they had forty years of wandering before they entered the Promised Land \u2013 and many never made it.<\/p>\n
In today’s Second Reading St. Paul reminds us that all the Israelites in the Exodus received the same gifts from God, but many didn\u2019t stay the course out of evil desires.\u00a0Their forty years in the desert were\u00a0due to a lack of trust in God. He\u2019d taken them to the Promised Land, but they were too scared to enter.\u00a0They put their trust in food and water (and God sent them dew and manna, and quail to eat), money, ceremonies (trying to set up worship apart from Moses), authority and rumor mongering (asking why Moses should be the only one to speak on their behalf) \u2013 and they perished.<\/p>\n
Our Lord\u00a0doesn\u2019t mince words in today\u2019s Gospel about how we can stay the course in the desert.\u00a0We\u2019re guilty many times of the same thing as the Israelites.\u00a0We don\u2019t understand what the desert is for: a place for God to purify the hearts of the ones he loves, away from distractions.\u00a0There are far fewer distractions in the desert, but the rumbling of our stomachs is also louder, and we ask ourselves what we\u2019re really hungering.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Gospel shows the Jews in a drought of hope. Pilate has slaughtered a group of Galileans as they were offering worship. The Jews ask Jesus why. Why would God allow such as thing? Jesus adds an accident to the list of doubts: eighteen dead in a tower collapse in Siloam.\u00a0Our Lord’s\u00a0words are far from comforting: they are in the same danger, just as we are. Staying the course doesn\u2019t mean not taking risks or making sacrifices (that wouldn\u2019t have saved the Galileans), nor does it mean getting lucky (that wouldn\u2019t have saved the people crushed in Siloam); staying the course means putting your trust in God and showing it.\u00a0We show it by bearing fruit.<\/p>\n
Fruit? In a desert?\u00a0We are in a desert, and God wants us to bear fruit. We bear fruit by trusting in God\u2019s patience with us (in the parable he gives the fig tree four chances to get its act together), and, as Jesus tells us, by repentance.\u00a0Lent is about repentance, not just for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. And the Church teaches us three ways to prepare the soil: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.\u00a0Penance prepares the soil, but the sacraments are how we draw close to Christ and the Holy Spirit. Jesus waters the soil with his own blood so that we can bear fruit. The Eucharist gives us strength for the journey, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation puts us back on our feet and turns us back in the right direction. The fruits of the Spirit will come, as Scripture reminds us: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity. By repentance and the sacraments we gain the strength to bear these fruits. Otherwise, we\u2019ll lose our bearings and never get out of the desert.<\/p>\n
So as we continue our march through the desert of Lent, accompanying Our Lord to Jerusalem, let’s put our Lenten sacrifices on the paten with the host, so that God can transform them into fruits. Let’s ask forgiveness if we\u2019ve fallen behind or gotten turned around in the journey. Let’s\u00a0trust in God to keep strengthening us for the journey with his Body and Blood,and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.<\/p>\n
Readings:\u00a0Exodus 3:1\u20138a, 13\u201315;\u00a0Psalm 103:1\u20134, 6\u20138, 11;\u00a01 Corinthians 10:1\u20136, 10\u201312;\u00a0Luke 13:1\u20139.<\/em> See also\u00a029th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have almost reached the half-way point to Calvary.\u00a0The forty days of Lent remind us of the forty days in the desert, but we must also keep in view that Our Lord now has his sights set on Jerusalem.\u00a0We\u2019ve spent a few weeks in the desert, living our Lenten resolutions, and maybe our\u00a0stomachs, or spirits, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[121,150,15,31],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cycle-c","tag-lent","tag-sunday","tag-third-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-i8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1125,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions\/1125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}