Sunday of third week in Lent, Cycle C, March 11,2007
13:1-9
God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush by telling Moses that God
is who he is, and he will always be with Moses, and that he will be who he
will be. The name given is Yahweh and it is enigmatic and mysterious as a
name even to the experts who look at it linguistically and comparatively.
To get to the essence of what God is saying to Moses, one has to believe in
God, otherwise, this is just another human story about survival of a
people. In the first three Scriptures for today there are reflections on
the Exodus event and thus there is a relationship to the one who is leading
the people to freedom. That person is Yahweh or as we should pronounce it
with reverence and use the word ADONAI so as to leave the mystery of the
name alone and to show our love and awe for this name which is given the
title "the tetragrammaton" or the name consisting of the four letters of
the Hebrew alphabet YHVH. In the first reading Moses becomes the agent who
will liberate Israel from oppression in the long history of the Exodus from
Egypt to the Promised Land. God speaks directly in the first person to
Moses as a friend to a friend. Moses upon sensing the presence of God does
not die but becomes alive in his new call. For him this is a God-experience
that changes his life forever. God is concerned with each of us and at
times we too sense the affective and effective presence of our Creator. We
are comforted to feel that abiding presence of God who tells us he is the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. They are seen as
living in the presence of God not only then but now as the process of
salvation history continues in each of us and our planet earth. Each of
these holy patriarchs are separated in the grammatical use of the God
of...then comes their individual name. "The repetition of God before each
name means that like the patriarachs each person should believe in God on
the personal investigation not merely on tradition." (Jewish Study Bible,
page 111). Not only is God the "one who is" but as the Psalm devoutly puts
it, God is kind and merciful. During this season of Lent we are to return
to our baptismal promises and to the meaning of that event in our lives
which gives us the faith in the Exodus that Jesus will undergo from Holy
Thursday through Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Let us celebrate both the
Exodus of our brothers and sisters at Passover time and also our own belief
in the Resurrected Lord Jesus who is our leader into the joys of eternal
life and the promised land of heaven and its eternity. Amen.
Saturday in Second Week of Lent, March 10, 2007:
Scripture: Micah 7:14-15,18-20. Psalm 103:1-4,9-12. Luke 15:1-3,11-32:
The theme of forgiveness is what comes through to us in our readings. In
the Gospel we have the powerful parable and story of the adventursome
prodigal young man and the merciful love of his father for both him and the
disappointed and dauer elder brother. The father loves both of them
intensely and somehow reconciles them, but that part of the parable is left
up to us who have both the prodigal and the complainer elder brother within
our hearts. One represents the Sacred Romance, the other the Arrows of
life's sorrows and disappointments. We all know this story and how it is
kept alive through spiritual writers like Henri Nouwen who gives us the
meditations and spirituality of the parable through is contemplation of a
painting of this parable. We all are a little like both of these brothers,
but usually one dominates us. Still we can always find the exhuberant love
and the magnanimous forgiveness of God in whatever role we take on in this
spiritual journey of our life. We have all taken risks and then been
disappointed. Certain past events mark what happens to us in our lives
today. Pain and sorrow often are present though we know of joy and
freedom. Some of our friends leave us; others die. We continue on with
our inner life of the prodigal and the rigid older one within us. Only God
seems to be the answer to both of these tendencies within us which require
of us a total surrender and return to the loving arms of our forgiving
father.
Our Psalm though not a parable is saying the same thing to us, "Not
according to our sins does God deal with us, nor does God requite us
according to our crimes...as far as the east is from the west so far has
God put our transgressions from us."
The prophet Micah, one of the most ancient of the prophets, has the
same message: "Who is there like you who removes guilt and pardons
sin...who delights in clemency and will again have compassion on us."
Lord, help us to respond to your loving arms which embrace us each moment
of our lives whether we be foolish or self-righteous. Amen.
Friday of second week in Lent, March 9, 2007
Scripture: Genesis 37:3-4.12-13.17-28. Psalm 105:16-21. Matthew
21:33-43,45-46.
Both the Joseph of Genesis and the Joseph of the Gospels are excellent
examples of how to live our spritual lives not only during Lent but also
throughout our whole existence. We know more about Joseph the son of Jacob
than we do about Joseph the husband of Mary and the legal or foster-father
of Jesus. Nevertheless, we do have these inspired texts which are like
precious jewels. In three of the Gospels Jesus is identified as the "son
of Joseph". It is only Mark who tells us in his theology that Jesus has no
father on this earth. He has only the heavenly Father, God. Joseph in
Matthew's Gospel is not the procreator of Jesus with Mary his mother. The
Evangelist carefully separates the male generator in the case of Jesus
birth of Mary and gives us the miraculous birth of Jesus through the power
and overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon the Virgin Mary. All of chapter
one is about Joseph and it demonstrates that he was one of the righteous
ones of God who responded with a "Yes" to God's difficult call to embrace
the mystery of Mary's pregnancy. (Carefully read Matthew 1:16, and then
1:18-25). Once Joseph named the child Jesus as his own then Jesus was
considered legitimate. Through the dream and his own pondering over the
mystery of Mary, Joseph does name the child Jesus or Savior in the popular
understanding of that name.
Joseph in the Hebrew Scriptures is featured from chapter 37 of Genesis up
to the end of that first book of the Bible. The stories about him are
among the best in the Scriptures. They show his adolescence, his dreaming,
his rejection by his brothers and then his slow but sure growth into being
the one who will both nourish and liberate the children of Jacob. He is
rewarded with seeing his father before Jacob dies and then of bringiing his
bones into the promised land of Israel. For me, both Josephs are great
examples for how to live integrated and holy lives; not wishy-washy soft
ones, but those that make good choices and remain faithful to those choices
that are made in union with God's will and good honest and intelligent
discernment. Both of these men show us how to be good and faithful
servants of the Lord who take care of God's people and protect the
innocent. In our teachng of the "Communion of Saints" we are able to
commune with these saints and ask them to remember us to our loving Creator
and Redeemer. Amen.
posted by Fr. Bert SM at 11:29 AM
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