Fifth Week

5th Week of Lent, Thursday

by

Today’s Gospel concludes the long discourse we’ve read in the liturgy over the last week regarding the arguments between Jesus and the Jews who didn’t believe in him (John 8). Yesterday he spoke with some who had believed in him, but, scratching beneath the surface, their faith was shaped more by his telling off the incredulous Jews than by deep convictions. Even yesterday Our Lord warned those in the crowd who believed in him that they were slaves to sin in need of liberation in order to really treat God as their Father again. The response was hostility.

Now Our Lord, having just received another barrage of name-calling due to his teachings (John 8:47–49), and after a long attempt to tell them the truth, a truth that could only be accepted in faith, he lays it on the line: he claims to have power over life and death, and to have seen Abraham and pleased him. The crowds respond that he is possessed (in other words, insane) to think that he is greater than Abraham and greater than the prophets, yet he is. It all comes down to the words for which they sought to stone him: “before Abraham came to be, I AM.” “I AM” was how the Lord told Moses to identify him when he went to free Abraham’s descendants in Egypt (Exodus 3:13–15), and now Jesus was identifying not only his Father as God, but himself. If he is God he’d have power over death, and be able to know Abraham personally. For his listeners that is the last straw.

A deeper relationship with Christ requires not only embracing his humanity, through which he makes himself accessible to us, but his divinity as well. Through faith in him we are led to a deeper trust in him and love for him, and God goes from being some all-powerful being overshadowing us, aloof and distant, to someone who loves us and is close to us. In a week and a day we’ll see the depths of his love on the Cross.

Readings: Genesis 17:3–9; Psalm 105:4–9; John 8:51–59.

5th Week of Lent, Wednesday

by

Yesterday Our Lord addressed the Jews who didn’t believe in him or in the Father. Today he addresses those who did believe in him, and he reminds us that faith alone is not enough; there has to be a change of heart, a conversion. To understand what Our Lord is saying today about the Father and the “father” of the Jews he is addressing we have to consider a moment in the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve. The Lord, addressing the serpent who contribute to the Fall, says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel” (Genesis 3:15, NABRE).

The Jews are thinking of being blood descendants of Abraham. Our Lord is speaking of whose side they’ve chosen by their behavior. Our Lord is the “offspring” who strikes at the head of the serpent’s offspring, a fatal blow. Our Lord is offering them a way to return to the right side: to return to the family of God by turning away from sin. As he describes in today’s Gospel, those who sin enslave themselves. The fact that they seek Our Lord’s death shows that they are not on the side of Our Lord, or of Abraham, or of the Father, because they are trying to kill the truth that could set them free. Our Lord is trying to convince them to change back to the winning side; it they don’t, they may slow down God’s designs, but ultimately they’ll fail.

The young men in today’s First Reading were clear regarding which side they were on, regardless of the consequences. In a world that often entices us to sacrifice our Christian principles, let’s show the same boldness as the young men by believing in Christ and the winning side and giving witness to it, no matter how much the world seems to threaten us.

Readings: Daniel 3:14–20, 91–92, 95; Daniel 3:52–56; John 8:31–42.

5th Week of Lent, Tuesday

by

In today’s Gospel the Jews who don’t understand what Our Lord is trying to teach him are like people who’ve become so accustomed to listening to a muffled voice that they don’t even realize it’s muffled anymore. Even now they have an intuition that Our Lord is trying to tell them something: they recognize he is speaking of some sort of departure that involves death, they recognize that he claims to be someone special, and they recognize that he claims to be sent by someone very important to knowing and understanding the importance of him and his mission.

Like the Israelites in today’s First Reading, their lack of faith has condemned them to wandering, lost, confused, and angry in a desert. The Israelites feared the Promised Land and therefore returned into the desert. The Lord provided for them and they complained about it. Just as the Lord sent them what they needed to survive in the desert, now he has sent his Son to lead them out of the desert. It is a lack of faith that strands them: that generation of Israelites died never entering the Promised Land due to their lack of faith and their sin. Our Lord is warning the Jews in today’s Gospel who don’t believe in him or the Father that they are lost, and they are not open to letting Jesus guide them out of the desert of their lack of faith.

Not everyone listening to Our Lord that day heard a muffled voice; John tells us that, “Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.” Faith is what enables us to hear and understand what Our Lord is trying to say. Ask him for a greater faith and let him lead you out of whatever spiritual desert in which you may be wandering.

Readings: Numbers 21:4–9; Psalm 102:2–3, 16–21; John 8:21–30.

5th Week of Lent, Monday

by

In today’s First Reading the people of Israel believed the corrupt old judges’ testimony, and the Lord intervened through young Daniel to prove that it was false. In today’s Gospel the religious authorities claim that Jesus’ testimony, from a legal perspective, doesn’t have enough witnesses to corroborate it. Jesus responds, independent of legal technicalities, that his testimony is true. In the First Reading the abuse of authority was so severe that the Lord himself intervened to save poor Susanna from her false accusers. Now, similar to yesterday, the religious authorities are putting Our Lord on trial, and he is telling them that his testimony is not something to be accepted through rigorous legal process, but something to accept in faith as true.

At this point in John’s Gospel Our Lord has performed various signs to show that he was sent on his mission from God, but, as he told the religious authorities a few days ago, they don’t know God and so they can’t believe or trust Jesus. The elders in today’s First Reading knew the game well, but they forget that the true Judge was always on watch to make sure the game was played fairly. In today’s Gospel the religious authorities want to draw Our Lord into their game, and he doesn’t play. Susanna was spared by a miraculous intervention by the Lord; Our Lord went down into the depths of injustice, dying on the Cross, and in his Resurrection showed that the games of evil conceited men are in vain, no matter how powerful or skillful they think they are.

Thanks to Jesus we know Our Father and we know Jesus’ testimony is true. Let’s be witnesses to it as well.

Readings: Daniel 13:1–9, 15–17, 19–30, 33–62 ; Psalm 23:1–6; John 8:12–20 (Year C).

5th Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

by

In today’s Gospel Jesus drives home his teaching, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matthew 7:1-2). The scribes and Pharisees are looking for a trial, and they have the criminal caught in flagrante delicto and the Law on their side. The adulteress knows that too, which is why she is silent. She knew her fate was now out of her hands. The legal case is clear, and the “jury” had already convicted her and wanted the sentence to be given. She had to throw herself on the mercy of the court, but Jesus teaches us that justice and mercy are for all, so the “jury” in this case was put on trial too.

It took a just man to pronounce sentence on her; that’s what the Law prescribed. When they invited the just man, the man without sin, to come forward and throw the first stone, they found themselves on trial. They’d only come to trap Jesus in the situation, to put him on trial. They weren’t really seeking justice. They came to him as if they considered him a just man, but their actions showed they were sinners just like she was. They wanted a rubber stamp or a political scapegoat, not justice, and so they found they were the most unjust of men, and they skulked off, one by one, until only the adulteress remained, alone before the only just person who could pronounce the verdict.

When we demand justice at the expense of mercy, everyone and everything goes on trial. They walked off because they didn’t want to accept the injustice in their own lives. The Rich Young Man went away sad because he had many possessions and didn’t want to give them up to follow Jesus (see Matthew 19:22); the “jury” didn’t want to give up their pride, so they skulked off in plain sight. We have to always examine ourselves when the moment comes to stone and condemn others for what they have done. God alone is the judge. There is no mob in our conscience egging us on to cast stones at others. We stand alone with God. The other voices, one by one, leave and attend to their own consciences, knowing that they can only judge themselves so much before the case comes to the Divine Judge. In the end we too will stand speechless and hopeful for mercy, just like the adulteress.

Ashamed and silent, sorry for what we have done, we have to stand before Jesus and answer for it in the light of day. Each “jury” member that had been united around condemning another walked off alone. No one wanted to face up to Jesus for what they had done; they changed their vote with their feet. The adulteress was ready to accept her judgment. Jesus confirmed the jury’s revised verdict: since they had un-decided to condemn her, he would not condemn her either, but he also told her the truth about herself, just like he always does in each of our hearts: “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

As we being the next to last week of Lent, let’s take Our Lord’s words to heart. Let’s not put others on trial without being willing to put ourselves on trial too. Let’s stand before Our Lord and be truly sorry for our sins. Let’s have that compunction of heart to go and to sin no more. The truth about ourselves hurts sometimes, but it is the truth that sets us free.

Readings: Isaiah 43:16–21; Psalm 126:1–6; Philippians 3:8–14; John 8:1–11.