3rd. Sunday of Lent, (C)
(Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; St. Luke
13:2-9)
Our
Lord’s words in today’s Gospel reading need careful consideration:
Do you think that because these
Galileans suffered in this way, they were greater sinners than all other
Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do
not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed
when the tower at Siloam fell on them —do you think they were more guilty than
everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do
not repent, you will all perish as they did!
The attitude of Jesus’ contemporaries
to the tragic deaths of those Galileans – probably nationalist activists such
as Zealots or Sicarii -- whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of the
sacrifices they were offering, or those killed by chance at the collapse of the
Siloam tower, was symptomatic of the Jewish people’s understanding of their
calling as People of God. They had come
to think that being God’s specially Chosen People involved spiritual precedence
over Gentiles and pagans and at least a certain measure of material advantage in
their regard whereby, if they observed God’s Law as closely and exactly as
possible, they could expect God to protect and bless them as a nation in their
relations with the surrounding nations, and as law-observant individuals in all
the circumstances of their personal and social lives. Such ideas made the recent tragedies very
difficult to understand for the generality of people, for surely, those
involved must have sinned against God!
After all, some of the Chosen People had even come to think that they
could, if necessary, remind God of His duty
towards them, while a small few others even thought they could try --
through radicals such as the Zealots or Sicarii -- to force God’s hand, and oblige
Him to come to their aid against their enemies and glorify His name before them. Having begun to overlook, then, qúite forget,
they ultimately came to reject the very idea that they had been specially
chosen by God to serve as His instruments for the spiritual GOOD of the
Gentiles, who might thus become one with Israel in the universal and ultimately
eternal, family of God’s adopted children.
We may learn how very serious this travesty
of God’s intentions was in Jesus’ eyes by the fact that He doubled on their
original tragedy of the Galileans by Himself recalling those killed at Siloam, and
then repeating emphatically His own words – which were most certainly not pleasant
for His hearers – I TELL YOU, IF YOU DO NOT REPENT, YOU WILL ALL PERISH AS THEY
DID.
Those words of Jesus are of perennial
significance for the spiritual awareness of the corporate body of Christians
and the individual souls of all believers:
Do you think because
those Galileans who suffered, or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell
on them — do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in
Jerusalem? By no means! But I
tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”
We Catholics and Christians know that
those who perished as pedestrians at Siloam or as worshippers in the Temple
precincts, were not greater sinners than other Jews or Galileans in
Jerusalem at that time, for Jesus is not merely saying, opining, that they were
not shown to be greater sinners by
their unfortunate end, He is saying quite categorically – on His own authority
-- that they were by no means greater
sinners than all around them. And on
that basis Jesus then went on to warn His hearers:
I
tell you, if you do not
repent, you will all perish as they did!
PERISH
AS THEY DID: dear People of God, notice that Jesus is not saying that His
hearers are likely to suffer from Pilate’s soldiers as did the Galileans, or be
killed by another tower of the city falling down suddenly upon them. No! But
He is saying that for those of His
hearers who remain unrepentant, death will
come upon them just as unexpectedly
and disastrously-for-them as it had
fallen on those now ‘famous’ unfortunates.
That, of course, is of the utmost importance
for modern attitudes among unrepentant Catholics and Christians of our times
because many so very easily spring to the defence of their own flagging,
failing, and lapsing Christian witness or Catholic observance by words such as,
‘I live as good a life as other people’, ‘I am no worse than many others and a lot
better than some of them.’ Or more recently, ‘Look at all the scandals going on
in the Church, I am much better than that!’
After Jesus’ words today that is no
justification, defence, or excuse whatsoever, in such words, which can all be
summed up by the old banality: ‘There would be no Catholics left if my failings
were considered so very bad’. Perhaps there
might even seem to be a measure of truth in such an attitude for some people
but, most certainly, it had provided no excuse whatsoever for the Jewish
audience Jesus was addressing with those words, IF YOU DO NOT REPENT, YOU WILL
ALL PERISH, for they did, in fact, largely perish! Jerusalem was flattened, millions died in the Jewish war
with Rome, and the nation was scattered far and wide among the Gentiles.
How many of those lackadaisical,
unrepentant Jerusalemites had convinced themselves with thoughts such as, ‘I am
as good as …’ and ‘there would be no Israelites left if …’
And what does that word ‘repent’ mean
in this context?
Our first reading was all about Moses
himself having to learn about the sublime HOLINESS of God before speaking in
His name to the enslaved Israelites; our second reading from St. Paul to the
Corinthians was a warning against spiritual self-satisfaction, attending only
to the formalities of Christian worship while ignoring the duties of Christian
morality and witness in their daily living.
As for Jesus in our Gospel passage, you have heard how He warned explicitly
about lack of repentance before God and of the dangers of fruitlessness in a
Christian life:
He told them this
parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard,
and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the
gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree
but have found none. (So) cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for
this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it
may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.’”
Bearing all these aspects in mind, we
can say that ‘repent’ means ‘change your mind, your attitude, turn from your
evil ways, turn to serving, looking for and answering to, the God of all
holiness and goodness, the Father of all believers in Jesus’; it can be
regarded as a condensation of those other (again very difficult to modern ears)
words of Jesus:
Do not think that I
have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the
sword.
Whoever finds his life
will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 10, 34-39)
‘Repent’ can be accurately understood
as the effort a disciple needs to make in order understand, appreciate, and
appropriately adopt into his own style of life, those and other words of Jesus
where He demands first place and supreme love for God and for Himself as Son
sent by the Father, and where He calls for love of neighbour and death to
selfishness.
We are all called to Our Lord, to
Holy Mass each Sunday, as was Moses called in the first reading, Moses! Moses! Moses answered, Here I am Lord as he walked towards the burning bush:
God said, ‘Come no
nearer! Remove the sandals from your
feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’
Moses had been drawing close to God
from curiosity:
I must go over to look
at this remarkable sight and see why the bush is not burned.
God so urgently required ‘repentance’
that:
Moses
hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
We too should be present at Sunday
Mass with a sincerely repentant attitude, wanting simply and solely to worship
God: to learn of His glory and goodness, wisdom and beauty; to join in declaring
or (as best we can, and if the sopranos, God bless ‘em, will allow!) in singing
His praises in the psalms and canticles; to seek His will, His way forward for
us, as we hear the Scriptures read and the homily delivered; and, above all, we should be most intent and committed in
offering Jesus’ sacrifice with Jesus Himself through the ministry of the priest,
most humbly and sincerely joining our own sacrifice of self with that of Jesus
to His Father, for the praise and glory of His most holy Name.
Now it is most desirable for us to
leave Holy Mass not only with a repentant and grateful heart but also with a
certain awareness of how we can make progress in our efforts both to please and
draw ever closer to the God and Father Who so loves us. Saint Paul gave us such advice adapted to our
every-day living:
Do not desire evil
things; do not grumble; and, whoever thinks he is standing secure, take care
not to fall.
Do you fear that all these warnings
might make life burdensome and tiring for you?
Look at the Western world around you! Warnings are not against you, they are to
protect and help you:
Cultivate
and fertilize (your souls) that (they) may bear fruit for the future;
they are like the precious Blood of
Jesus poured out to:
To rescue us and lead us
into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey,
a land, our homeland, where the
Father is waiting to embrace us as did the all-forgiving father in Jesus’
parable:
So, he got up and went back to his father. While he was still
a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I
have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called
your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly
bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals
on his feet. Take the fattened calf and
slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was
dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ (Luke 15:20–24)
The ‘boy’ become the ‘prodigal’ had
suitably repented …. So may we all do likewise, in Jesus, by His most Holy
Spirit, for the Father.
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