3rd Sunday of Lent Year B, 2024

 

(Exodus 20:1-17; 1st. Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25)

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I want us to carefully consider the words and actions of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading: 
 
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.   in the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there.   And making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen.   And He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  And He told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make My Father's house a house of trade.”   
 
Where, in our modern Church, could one find any responsible Catholic leader who would, under any imaginable circumstances, behave as did Jesus?  And yet, Jesus most certainly meant His actions to be examples for His disciples.  Here, He assaulted the money changers; He damaged, and possibly deprived them of, some of their goods; He drove the sheep and oxen out in a far from gentle manner; and speaking of the pigeons He said, “Take these things away”!  And, on top of all, He did this in Israel’s most holy place, before the Temple authorities, and hundreds(?) of devout worshippers coming from what is called the Diaspora … where Jews, exiled originally, were living in many countries but yearning to participate, if possible, in Israel’s great annual feasts, bringing money with them, national enthusiasm, and offering a perfect stage for the proud, largely Sadducee, Temple authorities and ‘guardians’. 
Later, Jesus’ disciples, trying to ‘take-in’ such a remarkable event and wondering what Jesus could have possibly meant them to learn from it, found themselves thinking humbly -- for they were Galilean ‘yokels’ in such a concourse of important and motivated people -- but also with quiet confidence and calm expectancy, sure of their Lord’s Personal authority and Scriptural ‘provenance’, so to speak.  And we are told that they ultimately found what they were seeking in the Scriptures: words they could now try to understand and learn from, that they might gradually assimilate Jesus’ actions into their appreciation of life and their response to it, as His Apostles. 
 
They remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume Me."  
 
Dear People of God, where is Christian zeal to be seen today?  Is it still surviving in our ‘woke’ world? Jesus’ actions certainly did not always call for His disciples’ literal imitation, but they always offered teaching stronger than mere words.  Such zeal as Jesus showed was indeed proscribed by the Temple authorities, but human proscription could not dampen the love and concern, the zeal in Jesus’ heart.  Can it be that zeal -- consuming love for God -- is too dangerous for contemporary Western Catholicism to handle?  Can it be that modern, ‘woke-shadowing’ Catholicism, is too fearful of human authority, too desirous of public approval, to be able to allow any expression of real zeal for God or – what is  much worse – to even be able to conceive any real zeal for the Faith of our fathers, especially for the Apostolic faith of our Apostolic Fathers, any consuming love for Our Lord and Saviour, our heavenly Father?  
 
Our question today is about the difference between the zeal of Jesus Himself, openly manifested and clearly expressed, as distinct from the prevailing Western Catholic ethos.   Are we afraid today of a zeal that cannot be fully comprehended, that might ‘get us into trouble’, a zeal that cannot be fully and authoritatively controlled because it is a zeal that relates to God first and foremost, above all other considerations.  Jesus was filled -- the disciples realized and the Gospel tells us -- with a zeal for God that drove Him to do what no recognized, approved, and responsible, Christian teacher and leader today would dream of doing, and which no modern, official, Catholic teaching would countenance or admit in His disciples. 
 
For officialdom (even in the Church), the work of the Spirit -- because it is humanly unpredictable and difficult both to appreciate and justify by merely human thinking; because it a consuming fire which sometimes comes to burn away human mediocrity and comfortableness; because it is divinely inspired and not humanly conceived; -- the work of the Spirit is becoming something alien and alarming, something increasingly disconcerting for a Catholicism, a Christianity, too centred on human considerations --  accommodating popular human, on-this-earth desires, rather than  elevating human aspirations to what is indeed above them, yet what is possible and even promised, to all who will, in divine obedience, seek it. 
 
Jesus Himself made the question of priorities quite clear when, on being asked by a scribe for guidance:  
 
Which commandment is the most important of all? 
 
He addressed the crowd around most solemnly: 
 
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength”.  The second is this, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. There is no other commandment greater than these.      (Mark 12:30-31) 
 
The two commandments do indeed go together, but there is only one that is first.  This was clearly appreciated in earlier times; of late, however, since Mother Church finds herself, in the West especially, in a secularised ‘society’ which enjoys wealth and promotes pleasure, idolizes popularity and worships success, there is an almost overwhelming pressure to ‘promote’ the Faith by accommodating it to modern humanistic tendencies -- why can’t gays and lesbians marry, adopt (buy) children, openly become members of the cloth?  How can God want us to  cause suffering by holding on to hard doctrines and insisting upon so-called ‘unpopular’ teachings, especially concerning ‘sin’, which today is increasingly rarely committed because it is neither recognized or admitted; nor can it be condemned, for  – “Who am I to judge?” -- when the sinner is so frequently said to have a most-understandable human excuse which it is the duty of modern ‘woke charity’ to compassionately recognize, and accept.  In these and similar ways the second command is twisted in its application and, as it were, ‘escorted’ into prime place. 
 
Jesus was never in any doubt about which command was first and which second, because He lived His earthly life in response, not to the Mosaic  ‘I am the Lord your God’, but in response to, and for the love of, the Person of His beloved Father; for the Honour, the Will, and the Glory, of the Father Who had also sent Him to give supreme and complete expression to what the second commandment can only put into human words, sometimes most blatantly abused, e.g. ‘love’.  
 
People of God, if love of the Father does not predominate in our lives, if the guidance and inspiration of the Spirit is not prayed for  as much as human opinion and approval is sought for, we shall in no way be able to proclaim Christ as: The power of God and the wisdom of God; or agree with  St. Paul when he says that: The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  
 
The Church in our Western – and Western-influenced -- world today most urgently needs to be more fully committed and much more devoted to GOD our Father, the God Who commissions and commands her to proclaim His Truth: she must proclaim the Good News and help those seeking to understand, but not cajole, wheedle, or ‘persuade’.   And that means that we, as children and living members of the Church our Mother, must turn more trustfully to the Father, and whole-heartedly beg that His Holy Spirit come to us ever anew and establish His rule in us and over us, inspiring, guiding, and strengthening us to walk along ways of His Son’s choosing, doing work for His Kingdom, and abandoning our worries and concerns about what ‘the world and its  authorities’ may think of us: 
 
I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me. 

2nd Sunday of Lent Year B, 2024

 

(Gen. 22: 1-2, 9-13, 15-18; Romans 8:31-34; Mark 9:2-10)

Our Blessed Lord’s Passion and Death was looming on the horizon and He had already seriously forewarned His disciples of it; but, as in so many other matters, they were not yet able to truly understand and fully appreciate His words.  When the time would come for Him to be taken away from them, Jesus realized that it would be a traumatic and potentially faith-shattering experience for them, His great concern was, therefore, that they should be so prepared that they might be able to endure the grief of losing Him, and even draw spiritual profit from His own steadfast confidence in His Father and love for them throughout His Passion.  He could not spare them that trial, but He would not have them agonize themselves and lose faith in Him because of it.

How then did Jesus go about this preparation of His disciples?  Considering His later Agony in the Garden, there can be no doubt that He prayed most fervently to His heavenly Father about it.   Let us try to learn something of the efficacy of that prayer.

The bond between her Son here on earth and His heavenly Father was something that the Blessed Virgin Mary could not fully appreciate, something that once caused her to exclaim: ‘Son, why have You done this to Your father and I?’  On that occasion, instead of returning home from Jerusalem with the caravan, Jesus -- after having become ‘officially’ a young man-before-God-and-for-God according to the Law -- had remained there in the Temple at Jerusalem.

After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions (Luke 2:46).

Jesus was delighting in His heavenly Father, as He listened to and questioned the doctors of the Law, and the teachers in the Temple, praising Israel’s God.

Years later, as a fully-grown man, and ‘still at home’ as it were, Jesus left Nazareth and went to search out John the Baptist  actively doing God’s work.  That Jesus did this at His Father’s inspiration is confirmed by His Father’s voice sounding from heaven as He rose from the waters of the Jordan after John’s baptism:

You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.

The Father alone knew when and how He wanted His Son to begin His public ministry;  Jesus had first to hear His Father’s call and learn His will by patient, humble, obedience.  

And now, on the mount Tabor’s top, the Father, in answer to Jesus’ supplication, had plans to comfort and confirm His Son by calling Moses and Elijah – representing the whole of God’s dispensation for the sanctification of Israel through the Law and the Prophets – to emphasize for the truly human Jesus that His coming Passion, Death, and Resurrection would be the culmination and fulfilment of all Israel’s hopes, and of all God’s saving plans for His Chosen People and, indeed, for the whole of mankind.  Moreover, Jesus’ chosen Apostles on the Mount with Him would see and experience this glorification of their Lord as the fulfilment of Israel’s Law and Prophets, before hearing God Himself speak Personally from the heavenly Cloud giving testimony to His beloved and lovingly obedient Son.  That those plans and intentions of God were fulfilled is shown subsequently by Jesus own words and those also of His disciples labouring in His nascent Church:

Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, (the risen Jesus) interpreted to them (two of His followers going to Emmaus) what referred to Him in all the Scriptures.

(Peter said): “To Him (Jesus) all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”  (Luke 24:27; Acts 10:43)

Jesus, most certainly, did not lead His three disciples up the mountain to display Himself; He simply knew, as Man, that He needed to pray; He also knew He had little time to prepare even those three specially chosen disciples for what was soon to happen, which is why He took them with Him that they might be near Him – as later in the Garden of Gethsemane -- when He was praying for guidance and grace.

Jesus, following His Father’s lead, was aware that His disciples were, at present, rejoicing in the presence of their Lord: He was the Bridegroom and they were the Bridegroom’s most privileged friends.  However, such present, earthly, joy, though holy, would not be enough to sustain them through the trials that lay ahead of them.  And that, People of God, is something we should notice. Joy in the Lord based largely on emotional experiences would, most certainly, not be enough for Jesus‘ disciples, nor can it suffice for us: their joy, their love, had to be firmly established -- as must ours also -- on Faith, shot-through and made incandescent, with Hope.  Therefore:

Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them.  

And, as the three disciples looked on:

A cloud came, casting a shadow over them; and from the cloud came a voice, "This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!"

These words from heaven were given to root the disciples’ joy-in-the-Lord to the faith proclaimed by Moses and the Prophets, which had guided and sustained Israel over many centuries.  For, throughout Israel’s wanderings in the desert, the presence of God’s glory among them in the Tent of Meeting had been manifested by a cloud descending upon the Tent.  That same cloud had also covered Mount Sinai when the Law was being given to Moses, and it was there at Jesus’ baptism as you have heard; now it was covering the disciples on the top of Tabor, the mountain of Transfiguration, and from it a voice was telling them to listen to the words of Jesus.  The disciples could have no doubt about the voice speaking to them from the cloud:

            This is My beloved Son.  Listen to Him! (Mark 9:7)

It was indeed the voice of the God of Israel, the Father of Jesus their Lord and Master, they were sharing a vision of heavenly glory and they wanted to remain there, basking, as it were, in the glory of Jesus:         

Peter said 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."

That was not to be.  For the present they had already been given what was necessary: a vision of faith in the heavenly glory of Jesus, and a hope that would inspire and sustain them in an insatiable longing to share with Him in His glory.  Now, to finally galvanize them to put on this new armour of salvation and prepare themselves for the great trauma that lay ahead they were given a command: “Listen to Him.”

Long ago, as the disciples knew full well, Moses had spoken of a prophet like himself whom the Lord God would give to His people (Deuteronomy 18:15):

A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen.

Those very words “Listen to Him” were now ringing in their ears!

The disciples were ready indeed to descend from the top of the mountain; for now their faith -- rooted in that faith which had sustained and guided their fathers for over two millennia -- had been transfigured into Christian faith, and they had been strengthened with hope which no earthly trials could ever take away from them: for now they had a vision of Jesus’ heavenly glory, though hidden as yet from earthly eyes; now, they had an eschatological hope to look forward to; now, they had a divine revelation and commission to hold on to and proclaim to the world. From now on they would be guided and sustained in all their difficulties by a sure and undoubting confidence in the goodness of God, unflinching faith and trust in Jesus’ Person and commands, and unshakable hope in the power of His guiding, ever-present, Spirit of Love and Truth.

People of God, see and learn how to protect yourselves against the snares of the devil rampant in the world of today: delight in the heavenly Jesus more and more.  We are not to be mere moralists, we are called to be lovers and proclaimers of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour who trust in the traditional teaching of His Church and never give up hoping that the goodness of God will lead us -- if we persevere faithfully along the way of the Cross -- to share in the eternal glory of Jesus before the Father.

Trust the faith.  Trust God’s words as did Abraham our father in faith, who, as you heard, was tested by God saying to him:

Take now your son Isaac, your only one whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah.  There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.

How fearsome and dread did those words sound at first!  How wonderfully, how beautifully, did they echo when the Lord God gave the boy back to his father, resolving to become Himself the Only One Who would offer His only-begotten Son for mankind’s salvation.   How wonderful are the blessings won for us by Abraham’s obedience and trust, he was and is most truly our Father in Faith!

Trust – and defend -- the Catholic Faith, and delight freely and fully, and ever more wholeheartedly, in Jesus our Brother and Saviour; for, as St. Paul explains (Rom. 8:38s.):

Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.     

Again I repeat: trust the faith, delight in Jesus, and thank God for His unfailing goodness.   In that way you will be armed both to resist and to overcome all that the devil and the world can try to do against you:  

For the joy of the LORD is your strength.  (Nehemiah 8:10)  

1st Sunday of Lent Year B, 2024

 

(Genesis 9:8-15; 1^st. Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15)

In the course of history God made four covenants with men: the first was set up through Noah for all time and for the whole of mankind; indeed, for every living animal.  You could call it a ‘NATURAL’ COVENANT (Genesis 9:11):

I establish My covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

The second was a directly, deeply, spiritual covenant with Abraham, his family, and followers, beginning what the late  Pope Benedict XVI called ‘A history of blessings’, for  those called to leave behind all that would divert them from their faith-search for the one, true, God.  It was, and still is, for all ‘men’ of faith like Abraham – Christians, that is, who still call Abraham ‘our father in faith’ in the liturgy of Mother Church, and also certain Muslims and Jews searching for the One, True, God to the best of the revelation they know – all looking forward to the revelation of Him Who is the Man-answering-such-faith, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ (Genesis 12:1-3):

Go from your country, and your kindred and your father's house, to the land that I will show you.  And I will make you a great nation; and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

That second covenant was, is, a COVENANT OF FAITH.

There were next two temporal covenants given directly for the Godly formation of Yahweh’s Chosen People, made through Moses and David.

The final, fifth, and Ultimate Covenant was for the redemption and eternal salvation of all mankind, established in and through God’s Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, and the abiding Gift of the Holy Spirit of God in His Apostolic Church.

You will probably remember more of the covenant with Moses and the initial People of Israel (Exodus 24:6-8):

Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.  Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. They said, "All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient."   And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words."  

That third covenant required God’s Chosen People to live in accordance with the Law given by God through Moses: it was, consequently, a COVENANT OF OBEDIENCE AND FORMATION … leading God’s People to a level of moral worth far above and beyond that of the Greeks’ constant questioning and moralizing, and that of the Romans so aware and appreciative of power with authority, and technical ability with efficiency. 

The fourth was a personal covenant that God made with David and his house:

When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before Me. Your throne shall be established forever.  (2 Samuel 7:12,16.)

It Is with this covenant we have the promise of a personal Messiah, a Saviour of kingly line, whose kingdom will endure for ever; this fourth covenant, was a COVENANT OF HOPE AND EXPECTATION.

Finally, we have the fifth and eternal covenant, the ULTIMATE COVENANT for the redemption and eternal salvation of all mankind, made in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, sent by the One God of all previous covenants, to become O/one with us, and thus to draw us to Himself, through faith, that we might -- in His Apostolically established Church -- with Him and by His Spirit come to personally know, love and serve the Father:

He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you. (Luke 22:20)

A covenant of love -- divine love -- calling for mankind’s return to the Father of an in-Jesus-Spirit-sustained-love.

People of God, we must clearly recognise the wonderful wisdom of our God, for this fifth covenant includes all that had gone before.  Here water, used in the original and still enduring nature covenant with Noah, is now sacramentally associated with the bestowal of the baptismal life of the S/spirit, for all who believe in Jesus.  Again, as with all true descendants of Abraham our ‘father in faith’, Jesus’ redeemed people are a People of Faith, this time, however, of supernatural, revealed, Faith; a People ever on pilgrimage looking forward to and living for that which eyes cannot see, that which ears have never heard before, that of which the tongue of man may never tell the whole.  Moreover, this new People of God, the house of Jesus, is pledged to obey a teaching foreshadowed, and indeed prepared for, by the Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai, but now become a law, not of letters inscribed on stone tablets, but of grace poured into men’s hearts by the Spirit of Jesus and Gift of God, that they might respond to God as He wills: in Spirit and in Truth.  And finally, the covenant of hope and expectation in the line of David is most sublimely fulfilled in Jesus, the Son of God made flesh, the promised Messiah become our Saviour and Leader, and Who, by His Death and Resurrection, is able and willing to make of us a chosen nation, a royal priesthood, called to sing more beautiful praises of God than even king David and the Psalmists could bring forth.  THIS COVENANT OF JESUS IS A COVENANT OF FULFILLING LOVE, enabling the Kingdom of God to begin even here on earth by beams of heaven’s merciful glory being reflected back in humble and total love for God by disciples of Jesus and members of His Mystical Body.

After John (the Baptist) was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.’

How wise is our God!  How beautiful is the revelation which Jesus -- originally through His own preaching and now through His Spirit -- makes known to us through Mother Church and the traditional exposition of her God-given Scriptures!  Cleansing water bestowing new supernatural life on disciples and followers called to set out on a pilgrimage from earthly sin and death to eternal joy and divine fulfilment; a pilgrimage along a way not of our own choosing or any merely human imagining, but one marked out for us by God’s beloved Son Who – by His own sacramental presence in Mother Church and the gift of His most Holy Spirit in the hearts of all who believe in Him – continues to call and enable us to follow Him along His way to the Father. 

However, dear brothers and sister in Christ, we must never forget that before Jesus proclaimed His Good News in Israel, before He set about healing the sick, enabling the blind to see, the lame to walk and the dumb to speak, He was first of all led out into the desert -- the devil’s homeland, so to speak -- to fight personally against the power and cunning of Satan.    Why?   Because Satan could not deceive Jesus!

Whereas the multitude of men are largely unaware of Satan’s presence and work in their individual lives and in the social structures they build, in the case of this man – Jesus -- Satan was unable so to disguise and hide himself as to be able to stealthily worm his way into Jesus’ human psyche and gradually corrupt, before ultimately destroying, Him at his own ‘leisure’, pleasure, and will.  Satan was obliged therefore -- even though most reluctantly, for he knew there was something disturbing about Jesus’ ordinary appearance -- to try to overcome Him in a direct confrontation where and when he, Satan, was at his strongest, and Jesus, after His forty-day’s fast, would presumably be at His weakest.

Therefore, we, His disciples, who aspire to further the mission of Jesus in our world today must first of all --under the guidance of the Gospel and in the power of the Spirit -- enter into serious combat against our own personal sinfulness by sincere repentance, a repentance not merely to be pronounced by formulaic words but deeply experienced by a ‘humbled and contrite’ heart, a repentance welling-up in one having glimpsed God in the Person of Jesus, and heard Him in Jesus’ Gospel of salvation:

The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from God (John 16:27).

A whisper -- barely heard in one’s heart of hearts – yet undoubtably known as coming from Him Who is our true and only Eternal Father, calling us secretly and most persuasively to become a child of His now in the Jesus He sent for our salvation, and ultimately a member of His heavenly family by His Spirit of Love.

Let us all, therefore, try to follow Jesus in this Lenten season by making serious efforts both to resist, and – in God’s great goodness -- to overcome, sin in our lives: the surest sign of love for God on earth, and the unshakeable pledge of eternal salvation thanks to the saving Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.