March 4, 2018
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Note: Because of the Scrutinies of the Elect, there were two different sets of readings, and therefore two different homilies.
3rd Sunday of Lent (Cycle B)
“Seeing Another Side of Jesus”
Msgr. Thomas Gervasio
If you think you know someone very well, try travelling with them for an extended time. You really get to see another side of them and that would not be a bad thing. You would come to a fuller, more realistic, a truer image of them. Married people can surely agree…after a while together, they get to see another side of the spouse they wed and they make the necessary adjustments!
The same can be said of our relationship with Jesus. The more we stay with Our Lord in prayer, the more we read and contemplate the Gospel, a fuller, richer, truer image of the Lord is revealed to us. Consider how the Gospels present to us Jesus who is merciful and loving, a gentle shepherd, a healer, the Lord who reaches out to the outcast and sinners.
- He brought Zaccheus down from the tree and his life was changed.
- A sinful woman wept at his feet and Jesus scolded those who thought she was unworthy to present herself to him.
- Jesus touched the unclean leper and cured him to the amazement of the crowd.
- Jesus confounded the accusers of the woman caught in adultery and who sought to stone to death.
Jesus clearly condemns sin but profoundly loves the sinner and desires his salvation. This is comforting news!
I mention these events, because they stand in stark contrast to the episode in today’s Gospel. Another side of Jesus is revealed. If on the one hand, we find in the Gospels, a Jesus who is merciful toward outcasts and sinners, here we encounter an angry, severe, controversial, and even inflexible Jesus. And he directs this anger toward those who frequent the Temple, the religious people of his day! He is merciful toward the stranger and severe with the religious. Why? Because they should know better!
From Our Lord’s justified anger let’s extract a few lessons.
The first: The temple is the Lord’s holy dwelling, a house of prayer and not a market place. Our temple, this very church is a sacred place for prayer and worship, a place to encounter God and we should witness to this reality by the way we act within these walls, by our reverence and respectful silence. Marketplaces are noisy. Churches should not be.
A market is a place of commerce and so I must add that while financial matters are presented and collections are taken up here, we must be careful to also tie these to our mission of evangelization. Pope Francis also reminds us that the Church must live simply and care for the poor.
The second lesson: The strong and decisive attitude of our Lord in the Temple reminds us that our love, our zeal for others should not be confused with a “lovely-dovey” permissiveness. Love also means being strong, clear, decisive, and yes, even justifiably angry while always avoiding giving offense. Permissiveness is not love. Allowing anyone to do anything is not love but a road to unhappiness.
We often hear about tough love and parents must practice this from time to time. It is nonetheless true love. Good parents (and good pastors) encourage, affirm but also admonish and correct.
The angry Jesus in the Temple is still the merciful Jesus but he shows us that there are times that we should not and cannot be neutral. Neutrality in the face of the serious problems of life is not a sign of respect or good manners but an indication of a weak spiritual life, a lack of zeal. When the saintly monk, Charles de Foucauld recalled his adolescence, he regretted the attitude of his teachers. He said: “They did me harm because they were neutral.”
May Lent bring us to a fuller knowledge of Jesus and of his desire for reverence in God’s House and to help us follow his example of tough love which is true love!
3rd Sunday of Lent (Cycle A) Mass of the First Scrutiny (RCIA)
“No Ordinary Well Water!”
Msgr. Thomas Gervasio
You may have noticed a change in our readings today. Today and the next two Sundays of Lent, we shall be conducting the “Scrutinies” rituals by which the Church leads her Elect, toward sacramental initiation at Easter, that is Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. The readings of these three Sundays of Lent—the Samaritan Woman, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus are especially important in regard to these sacraments. They convey the themes of water, light and life.
Today we consider the significance of water. In the first reading Moses strikes the hard rock and water gushes forth. The Psalmist makes a plea that we should not harden our hearts but open them to receive God’s word.
St. Paul’s words underscore this when he says that God’s love must be poured (like water) into our hearts.
Then we come to the radical and profound conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It is radical because Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans. They were considered racially inferior and heretics. It was radical in that a Jewish man would never speak to the woman in public. It was radical since the woman was an outcast in the community, a public sinner and she still engages in conversation. This is why is comes to the fetch water at noon. She would not go in the early morning when other women would be there.
Jesus and woman initially speak on different levels. Her practical mind is centered on the water in the well. Jesus speaks rather about the living waters of grace. Basically Jesus is saying to her, “I have something for you that is as basic and necessary spiritually as water is. The water I can give you is life giving. It does not depend on what is happening outside of you.”
So often we absorb our definitions of happiness from the world, material comforts and physical pleasure. Creature comforts are nice but they fail to fulfill our deepest human needs, they fail to quench our thirst. The woman at the well was always searching for fulfillment and peace outside. Our Lord wants to direct the woman elsewhere.
Their conversations don’t seem to connect and so Jesus takes a different course to “get” to the woman. He touches on the most painful issue of her life—her irregular martial situation—once with five husbands and now with a man not her husband!
This recognition of her pain touches her heart, opens her mind to the mystery of God and she comes to believe and is quick to share her discovery with her town’s people. This encounter was both life giving and life changing and so are the waters of Baptism! What a tremendous gift the Elect will receive at the Solemn Vigil of Easter!
“Cradle Catholics” have to renew their appreciation of this tremendous gift and make its fruits visible in the world. I like the way Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia describes the challenge for us:
“Knowing ‘about’ Jesus is not enough. We need to engage him with our whole lives. That means cleaning out the garbage of noise and distraction from our homes. It means building real Christian friendships. It means cultivating oases of silence, worship, and prayer in our lives. It means raising children in the love of the Lord. It means fighting death and fear with joy and life…sustaining one another against the temptation of weariness and resentment.”
This we can do if come to well, the well which is the Church and drink of the living waters that Christ offers us in the sacraments.