5th Sunday of Lent Year C 2016

 5^th. SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

(Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John: 8:1-11)

When the Sunday Gospel tells of a remarkable miracle of Jesus or of a particularly well-known parable of His, that reading not only crowns -- as it is meant to do -- the other readings at Mass but also can smother them into relative insignificance.  That could easily have happened with last Sunday’s Gospel of the Prodigal Son (or as some moderns prefer to call it the Prodigal Father) and could easily be the case with today’s Gospel about the woman taken in the very act of adultery.   Both those Gospel accounts, however, though well-known and rightly appreciated by modern Catholics and Christians were, nevertheless, originally loved and most worshipfully understood by Mother Church in her development  of the Catholic liturgy, in the course of which she decided to ‘assign’ two other readings to support, strengthen, or broaden the appreciation and application of the Gospel reading.  For example last week’s Prodigal Son gospel was shown in the context of the whole liturgy of the Eucharist to be of more than just Prodigal-Father significance for our relationship with the heavenly Father.  Similarly today, the jewel of divine wisdom contained in our Gospel reading is most admirably displayed in the setting of Mother Church’s full liturgical proclamation in today’s Eucharistic celebration.

Our first reading today emphasized the very essence of our human nature and the ultimate purpose for its creation.  Mankind, having been originally created in the likeness of God, the Chosen People were formed for God, that they might announce His praise:

My Chosen People, whom I formed for Myself, that they might announce My praise.

And to enable, help, and guide His Chosen People in the fulfilling of that duty of praise, God gave them, through Moses, the Law.

However, in accordance with Isaiah’s appreciation of the wonder and the goodness of God we heard him declare in God’s name:

Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am DOING SOMETHING NEW.

And this continuing newness in God’s providence for mankind and His Chosen People came to its glorious climax in the GOOD NEWS of Jesus, our New Testament.

Now St. Paul was and is the supreme teacher of the nations in Mother Church’s proclamation of the Good News of Jesus, and he testified most eloquently in our second reading concerning the newness of God’s Providence for us, publicly manifested and to be personally experienced, in Christ Jesus, Our Lord:

I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know Him and the power of His resurrection and (the) sharing of His sufferings by being conformed to His death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Surely, dear People of God, those words resound in our minds and hearts having ourselves known in the gift of the Faith something of the beauty of God’s great goodness and majesty proclaimed in the teaching of Mother Church, and having experienced something of the loving proximity of the glorious Jesus to Whom our humanity -- thanks to His Gift of the Spirit -- still has sympathetic access and with Whom it can have glorious conformity.  And St. Paul assures us (1 Corinthians 10:13) that such resonance with Jesus and the things of God that can thrill our whole being is ours to possess in confidence and hope, because:

God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength but with the trial will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.

Then however, in that context of the fullness of today’s liturgy came, in our Gospel reading, an anti-climax so tragically characteristic of mankind’s response to God.  The religious leaders, taking advantage of human persistence in and affection for sin, try to destroy both the Mission and the very Person of Jesus by their abuse of the God-given Law:

Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now the Law of Moses commanded us to stone such women.  So what do You say?

Their secret thoughts and deepest plans, however, they did not dare mention, for they would have expressed merely human cunning, not humble searching for and faithful trust in God: ‘The  people expect us, and You most especially, to uphold our Jewish Law, but the Romans – our oppressors -- will not allow us to put anyone to death. What do You say?’

What a scenario!!  The religious leaders try to use God’s Law against God’s Son; they try to turn the people against Jesus their Saviour and His redeeming mission and the Roman authorities against His humbly regal Person!

It is our Gospel reading that finally makes crystal clear the seriousness and depth of the issues involved in the apparently every-day issue of infidelity:

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

Those words of Jesus show us that although the time for the condemnation of sinners is not yet; nevertheless, the ‘condemnability’ of sin -- it is absolutely not in any way trivial -- and its actual condemnation have indeed arrived with and in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour (John 16: 7-9; 15: 22, 24.):

When the Advocate, Whom I will send to you, comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, if I had not done works among them that no one else did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both Me and My Father.

Let us now, therefore, turn our attention to Jesus’ very self, in His human attitude to both His ‘professional antagonists’, and to His thoughtlessly yielding-to-pleasure and ever-whining ‘it doesn’t really matter’ pseudo-supporters, and we find yet again Divine Love’s wisdom and patience most beautifully Personified.  He does not argue with the Pharisees and Scribes, He respects what measure of love for the Law of God might possibly be behind their exposure of such immorality; He even seems to go just a very few steps along the way with them:

                Let one among you be the first to throw a stone at her, IF HE IS WITHOUT SIN.

And thus His opponents are enabled to reluctantly withdraw, slink away, from the scene with a certain measure of humility-for-public-appreciation.  What a wonderfully wise and divinely simple discomfiture!!

He then turns to the woman.

Notice there are no emotional words  … imagine that!  Modern leaders and commentators, whether with or without knowledge, would have been pouring forth humanistic sympathy and comfort!!   For Jesus, however, sin is sin, ever real and hateful in whatever circumstances; the sinner, however, is not yet bound hard and fast, and salvation can still be hers, can still fill her heart and mind with peace and true joy, if she will turn her face from the easy and pleasurable way and begin to look for God:

Woman, has no one condemned you?   Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.

And there, dear People of God, you can see the ultimate consequence of sin and the ultimate aim and purpose of the Liar, the Persuader, so many knowingly allow themselves to foolishly listen to and weakly follow: 

They have seen and hated both Me and My Father.

In that so modern setting where devotion has to face up and respond to not only every-day and relatively thoughtless disregard and disdain for religious observance and love of God, but also to the more diabolical opposition of professional and powerful pride, big-time money and large scale pleasure, let us most gratefully cherish the refreshment afforded by those words of St. Paul:

Because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

               

4th Sunday of Lent (Year C) 2016

 4^th. SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today we are encouraged to rejoice on this Sunday called ‘Laetare Sunday’, and so it is up to me now to show you something worth rejoicing about; indeed, something we should be continually bringing to our minds and cherishing most gratefully in our hearts.  That ‘something’ is encapsulated in those words of the father to his elder son:

My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.  But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.

Because human beings are sinful there are, at times, certain occurrences, situations, or questions, which one can only understand through suffering.  Sin is in the world, nestling actively in the hearts and minds of men, women, and even, potentially, in children (mostly to be made actual by imitation or indoctrination) throughout the world without exception; and sin, whether it be known or unknown, acknowledged or unacknowledged, because it necessarily brings with it suffering and death into human life, cannot long remain totally undiscovered or unsuspected.  That is at the root of the old adage that one never truly appreciates something or someone until you have lost it; that is the guiding principle of our Gospel parable today, which begins with the words:

                Then Jesus said, ‘A man had two sons’.

Immediately His hearers and we ourselves are under a certain tension awaiting what is to distinguish these unnamed brothers whose only positive characteristic is that they are both sons of the one father.  What kind of sons? comes to mind straight away.

It would appear that the younger son did not fully appreciate his current experience of son-ship as a privilege because we are told that he said to his father:

                Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.

The father went along with his son and divided the property between them.

After a few days the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.

Whereupon, he had to endure much suffering before, coming to his senses and realizing what he had done, he decided:

I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.

Those words ‘I no longer deserve to be called your son’ are the essential point of the whole parable.  He had not realized, not appreciated, his own birthright as son of such a father.

The elder son, on the other hand, does seem to have had greater appreciation of his father and awareness of his own privilege as son, especially as the first-born son.  He had not gone off chasing wilful pleasures; on the contrary he seems to have understood something of the worthiness of his father and his own duty to respect him.  He lived in that respect unselfishly and, having worked with diligence, duty well done had brought a certain dignity into his life.

However, when his younger brother came back to a ‘right royal’ welcome from his father we are told that:

He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him.  He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.  But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughtered the fattened calf!’

Notice immediately, however, that the old man was very understanding, and responded in such a way as to recall to his elder son an awareness of just where his true dignity was, and where his ultimate fulfilment and happiness were to be found.  He said to him:

My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.  But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.

He calls the elder ‘My son’ and then speaks of the younger as ‘your brother’.  True, he was teaching his elder son that he should never forget that it was the fact of his own younger brother’s return, that is, his own ‘flesh and blood’ coming back so to speak from the dead, that was the right and good reason for them both to celebrate together.  For all that, however, he wanted the elder son to be quite well aware that he -- the loving father of them both -- was addressing him, the elder, as ‘my son’, while in the same breath referring to the younger -- though the beloved cause for such heartfelt rejoicing – simply as ‘your brother’.

My dear People of God, there is nothing whatsoever in life that can compare with the dignity and glory which is already ours as prospectively faithful disciples of Jesus -- the only-begotten and eternally beloved Son of God -- called, in Him, to become members of the heavenly Father’s family, His adopted and beloved children for all eternity; likewise, however, there could be no greater tragedy in our lives than that we should lose such an utterly incomparable privilege and destiny.  We must never forget the example of Esau who sold his birthright as first-born to his younger brother Jacob for some bread and a quickly consumed stew of lentils; and, above all we should never forget the heart-rending plea of Esau to his father Isaac (Genesis 25:31-34):

“Let my father sit up and eat some of his son’s game, that you may then give me your blessing.”  His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?”  He said, “I am your son, your first-born son, Esau.”  Isaac trembled greatly.  “Who was it, then,” he asked, “that hunted game and brought it to me?   I ate it all before you came, and I blessed him.  Now he is blessed!” As he heard his father’s words, Esau burst into loud, bitter sobbing and said, “Father, bless me too!  Have you only one blessing, father?  Bless me too, father!”  And Esau wept aloud. 

People of God, treasure your greatest privilege; that privilege whereby you, as faithful and obedient disciples of Christ can invoke the eternal God as, ‘Our Father Who art in heaven…’  Do not allow worldly considerations in any way to obscure your grateful awareness of your truly sublime dignity: do not allow the allurements of pleasure, the appearances of self-sufficiency, the provocations of self-love, to move you to follow in Esau’s steps along the path to bitter grief and ultimate loss.

We should, however, notice that this parable of Jesus is addressed to some Pharisees and Scribes complaining about the fact of His choosing to eat with publicly acknowledged sinners.  Now, even St. John – so well loved and appreciated though he was --- teaches us, in his second letter (vv. 9-11), a not dissimilar doctrine and piece of every-day and enduring wisdom:

Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works.

Moreover Jesus Himself had just (so St. Luke suggests) expressed an exemplary ‘hard-line’ appreciation of the cost of discipleship for all who, as He said, ‘would come to Him’:

Great crowds were traveling with Him, and He turned and addressed them, “If any one comes to Me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.  Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  (Luke 14:25-27)

Therefore I like to think that perhaps Jesus is not directly responding to those Pharisees and Scribes as died-in-the-wool enemies and opponents, but addressing them as the father in the parable addresses his elder son; seeking, in that way, to reconcile them to His Father.  For there were among such scholars and devotees those to be found who favoured Jesus; for example, warning Him against His enemies and acknowledging the truth and beauty of His teachings, as St. Luke himself has told us (13:31; 10:25-28):

At that time some Pharisees came to Him and said, ‘Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill You! 

There was a scholar of the Law who stood up to test Him and said, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the Law?  How do you read it?  He said in reply, ‘You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all you strength, and with all you mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’  He replied to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this and you will live’. 

These, and their like, were ‘elder brothers’ who had long sought and served the God proclaimed and prepared for by the Law given through Moses; possibly they can be considered as being like the ‘elder son’ of the parable, somewhat disorientated and disturbed by what was 'new’ and above them.  Jesus, I like to think, overlooking their present attitude of fearful antagonism, appreciated their life-long (so far!) fidelity to His Father and was seeking – by offering them the humble joy of those words of appreciation addressed by the father to his elder son – to help them over the last hurdle towards their acceptance of Himself, for love of the Father.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Father’s love for us-in-Jesus:

For the Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God.  (John 16:27)

Is the essential constituent of our being, in so far as Jesus describes His own earthly being and experience in the framework of that one relationship:

I came from the Father and have come into the world.  Now I am leaving the world and going back to My Father.  (16:28)

By opening up the possibility of such a relationship we were told in our first reading that:

                The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today, I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.’

The reproach of our modern world is yet more virulent than that of Egypt, therefore keep in the front of your minds and close to your hearts those words of St. Paul in our second reading:

Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold new things have come.  And all this is from God (the Father) Who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ.