Fourth Sunday in Lent, Cycle C, March 18,2007

SCRIPTURE: Joshua 5:9a,10-12. Psalm 34:2-7. II Cor.5:17-21. Luke 15:1-3,11-32.Lectionary #33: REJOICE! Laetare! This is the Latin word that identified this Sunday when the Liturgical readings were read in Latin before Vatican II. It is found it our entrance hymn for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. This beckons us to keep up on our Lenten prayers, intentions, and good works for we are now past the middle of the sacred season and are heading toward the great days of Holy Week which are not consider as Lent but are the direct preparation we have for the Paschal Mysteries of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. We therefore rejoice that we have come so far. The Gospel is that of the parable of the merciful father or as tradtionally known as the parable of the prodigal son. It is one of the great parables of mercy that Luke gives us in his Gospel that does emphasize the loving and merciful kindness of God. The parable centers on the father who is so great in mercy that he pardons the wayward prodigal and talks with tenderness with the elder self-righteous son who is angered at the father's great forgiveness of his brother. We too experience this love of the father who is like to God in our life and pardons us when we are manifesting the prodigal son side or when we are like the elder brother who is also in need of the father's understanding and forgiveness. The father loves both sons and manifests the same spirit of forgiveness to them. The elder son has what we have at times and call having "an attitude." I know at various times in my life I have been one or the other of these sons and need forgiveness for both "attitudes." Only the father is the stable one in the parable. He is always faithful in his forgiveness and his understanding. He celebrates with us whenever we come back to him asking forgiveness; he even forgives before we ask him to forgive us. Now that is truly a loving parent! So today we rejoice (laetare) for we know God has and is always there for us with open arms. We just have to turn back and run towards his embrace and enjoy it. Today we can show our appreciation of this wonderful loving Parent by offering our best prayers and doing "random acts of kindness" to and for our brothers and sisters. Amen. Saturday, March 17, 2007. Scripture: Hosea 6:1-6. Psalm 51:3-4,18-19,20-21ab. Luke 18:9-14. One of the books written by the great pastoral theologian and spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen is entitled the "Wounded Healer." I thought of that book as I listened to and pondered over our first reading from Hosea. It was this line that brought back the story of the Wounded Healer (a rabbinic story): "For it is He who has rent, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind our wounds." Jesus is our wounded healer throughout our lives and we are especially called to be healed of our spiritual, psychological, and physical wounds by this Healer, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus like the Wounded Healer in the midrash looks first at our wounds before attending to his pierced and wounded body. He shows those wounds after his resurrection to the Apostle Thomas and even encourages him to touch the wound in his side to prove that he is really the resurrected one who was crucified and had died. We too are made aware of those wounds not only by the Gospels but also by the many times we look at the Crucified one on the many symbols of that mystery of his death. We see Jesus'wounds on the Cross in our Churches, on our rosaries, on the cross we use when placing it over the burial of someone we knew, or even on the Paschal Candle. During Lent we are encouraged to return to the sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance/Confession) and to allow the Wounded Healer to attend to our wounded soul because of our sins and offenses against one another, self, and against God. The Wounded Healer has not come for those who have no need of a Healer but for us who do. Let us thank the Lord for the gift of such a loving Son of God who is our Wounded Healer. Amen. Friday, March 16, 2007: Scripture: Hosea 14:2-10. Psalm 81:6-11,14,17. Mark 12:28-34. Psalm 95 is an excellent "wake up" Psalm. It reminds us not to harden our hearts and to listen to God our Maker and our Shepherd. For me it acts like a daily cup of coffee in the morning and I use it each day to begin my Morning Praise. It is an invitatory psalm of praise. Then as I read Deuteronomy, I realized it is telling me what not to do today. I must keep focused on the covenant made with God and live it out in the spirit of the advice given both in the psalm and in Deuteronomy. Knowing what not to do is also helpful for our spiritual journey with Jesus just as it helped the Israelites as they travelled through the desert after the Exodus. We are not to turn our backs on God. This is a good definition of what sin is--turning away from God while turning toward God is where we experience love and forgiveness. We are encouraged in all parts of the Scripture to keep our orientation toward God by remembering that God is our Rock, our Savior, and our Creator. He is ever present to us when we pray and believe in God's presence. Jesus, too, is our Emmanuel or God-with-us. During this season of Lent we are to show our appreciation for this constant ever present loving-kindness of our God. Our Psalm reminds us to reflect and think upon God's presence and not to turn away as the Israelites did in the desert at Meribah and in the temptations of Massa in the desert. We are to realize that God's grace and favor permeate our lives whenever we become aware through faith and love that God is there for us at each moment,hour, and every day. Jesus tells us not to be divided in our allegiance with him but to realize that he is our healer and redeemer. Like the Psalm indicates, we need to surrender to the voice of God and the Son of God and listen attentively. "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Amen. March 14,2007: Scripture: Deuteronomy 4:1.5-9. Psalm 147:12-16,18-20. Matthewe 5:17-19: Jesus does not take away anytning from the Law or the Prophets; he has come to fulfill them even to the smallest detail. He understands the Torah and the Prophets as the words of His Father; he not only reads them and listens to those words but does them with love and enthusiasm. We are led by his example to appreciate God's word and to reverence it. We recall how on the first Sunday of Lent, we saw that he does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Our selection from Deuteronomy bears this out and has a joyous tone about the way it is written and handed down to the People of God. Jesus too is within the great spirit of this encouraging book of the Torah. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them." I believe Jesus intends these words for us who gather as a community, as an assembly of worshippers. Jesus calls us to be as wholesome about fulfilling the words of God and to be as perfect as God is perfect in the way he communicates with us through the divinely inspired words of the Bible. Such fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets brings about understanding and wisdom among those who realize this is the way God wants us to live and has shown us how to live through the example of his Son, Jesus. I see the joy and beauty on the faces of those Jews who are observant of these commandments. They fulfill 613 of them without seeing them as a burden while many of us have difficulty in living out ten of the commandments! For those who love God such ease about doing what God has commanded us is no burden. We should strive during this Lenten season to have this same spirit in fulfilling the commandments of Jesus which are the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, the beatitudes, and, of course, the ten commandments of the Torah. Amen. March 13,2007 Scripture: Daniel 3:25.34-43. Psalm 25:4-9. Matthew 18:21-35: The Prophet Daniel shows us how to formulate and make a great act of contrition. It is based on the covenant made with the People of God and the liberation they have experienced in the Exodus Event. His words resonate with the greatest of the penitential psalms (Psalm 51). It is called after its first words, "Miserere... or Have mercy!" The central message given to us from it today is, "let us be received with a bruised contrite heart and a humble spirit." By acknowledging before God and one another our sinfulness does humble us. We know this is necessary for only God can heal our bruised and broken hearts. We pray with the Psalmist, "Remember your mercies,Lord. Remember that your compassion is from old. In your kindness remember me." Jesus is showing us that God always is forgiving us and hence we must be ready to forgive and be forgiven up to seventy times seventy! In other words, always and often. The parable in Matthew illustrates that God is the Master-Forgiver and we are to learn from the Master how to forgive. Lord, today, I will keep these words of Jesus and the Psalmist before me and within my heart. Help me to be healed of my bruised and broken heart by trusting in your love, kindness,mercy and forgiveness. Let me always forgive others as you have always forgiven me. My Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me a sinner. Amen.