5th Sunday of Lent - Year B

Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-30

I tell you, most solemnly, unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain...

What was it about the Greeks who went up to worship at the festival? As soon as Jesus is told of their request (we would like to see Jesus) he seems to be plunged into a painful struggle with himself, almost a presentiment of the agony in the Garden. Now the hour has come ... now my soul is troubled.

Just as in the Garden, there is here the same human dread of death and the same appeal to the Father: What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? - followed immediately by his humble submission to the Father’s will: But it was for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name!

Can any one of us understand the awfulness of Jesus’ suffering? Surely this struggle must have repeated itself time and time again in the life of the Master?

And so, in his solitary place of pain, even while surrounded by his loving but baffled disciples, Jesus rehearses the words which give meaning to what he is about to undergo: unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain...

• In the Gospel of Mark (14:35 ff.) Jesus throws himself to the ground as he begins the Agony in the Garden: And going on a little further he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, this hour might pass him by.

• In the Gospel of Luke (22:44) his sweaty blood falls to the ground in great drops, watering the earth: In his anguish he prayed even more earnestly, and his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

• In the Stations of the Cross Jesus falls three times beneath the weight of the Cross.

• While in the Gospel of John, which omits direct reference both to the Last Supper and to the agony in the Garden, we have just this saying which clearly brings the two omissions together: I tell you, most solemnly, unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.

Our bodies die all by themselves; they need no help. There is, however, another death which we must die and which doesn’t happen automatically, a death which is our responsibility. It is far more painful, with an agony far more protracted, than our physical death – it is the death we must choose to die – the death to self.

We must die to ego, to self-will, to assertiveness, to power over others and, consequently, power over ourselves; to the need to control and dominate our future.

The cross of Jesus is the clear, unambiguous image of this death - of this total, absolute powerlessness. As a friend once put it, ‘On the Cross there is no room to wiggle.’ And surely, this is why we avoid it; it is a call to do what is so difficult for us – to give up our ambition of being God.

From his Cross Jesus seems to say: If a man serves me, he must follow me; wherever I am, my servant will be there too. The cross is an invitation to become like the Master, who is our true Life.

In the beautiful song THE ROSE Bette Midler sings ‘It's the one who won't be taken, who never learns to give. It’s the man afraid of dying who never learns to live.’ Jesus was never afraid of dying – he threw himself to the ground many times throughout his life and finally, of his own will, entered the darkness of the tomb. We must all choose to do this for ourselves, no one can do it for us; it’s our responsibility, we must choose to follow. There are no spectator disciples, no part-time Christmas-Easter disciples. There can be no dabbling in discipleship.

Of course, the Christian mystery of it all is that in dying to self we find new life. Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life.

Finally, let’s get practical. How do we die this death to self on the Cross, or to put it another way, how do we begin to live for Christ?

The struggle with self begins the very instant we begin to follow something other than self - Jesus Christ. This is already such a great act of freedom. And not surprisingly its first consequence is a discovery of the chains which hold us back; not a pleasant experience.

The moment we wish to be good is the moment we discover how bad we really are.

• When we begin to fast we discover our attachments to food.
• When we try to be silent we discover how addicted we are to talking.
• When we want to give generously we discover our selfishness.
• When we try to be humble we discover how ego-centred we really are.

Our first step towards the Master is the moment we begin the 'death struggle' which brings growth and freedom and life. God will be there always - supplying his strength. If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him.

In the following we are set free, in the dying we are reborn, and if we can be faithful to 'the process' we will notice that we begin to draw others to Christ as his death drew us.

4th Sunday of Lent - Year B

2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21

In the movie Gandhi the Mahatma is speaking to a reporter and says: What you cannot do is accept injustice ... You must make the injustice visible and be prepared to die like a soldier to do so. This statement, of course, would prophetically come to sum up his own life; through his non-violent opposition to British injustice he made the injustice visible and he died doing it.

Towards the end of the movie we have the extraordinary scene in which the Indians try to gain access to the salt mine at Dharasana. There is a Royal Monopoly on the manufacture of salt and it's illegal to make it or sell it without a Government license. The British knew that their absolute control of the salt was a control on the very pulse of India.

A huge crowd of Indians approaches the gates and asks for permission to enter. The atmosphere is electric. Permission is denied. So now they begin to move gently forward to take what is theirs by right. Let me quote from the transcript of the film:

And with the volunteers a foot from them, the police strike with their lathis (batons). A groan of empathic anguish from the waiting volunteers, but then ... the next row moves forward and the horror of the one-sided mayhem proceeds - heads are cracked, faces split, ribs smashed, and yet one row of volunteers follows another, and another into the unrelenting police, who knock bleeding bodies out of the way, down into the dip, swing till sweat pours from their faces and bodies.

And through it ... the Indian women rescuing the wounded, carrying them on stretchers to be bandaged ... And always the volunteers coming, never stopping, never offering resistance.

At first the reporter looks away in horror but suddenly the truth of what is really happening becomes clear to him. He rushes to the telephone to make his report and declares to his editor: India is free!

I remember being quite stunned by this statement the first time I saw the movie. How could it be? In the midst of this terrible carnage how could this reporter suddenly declare that India is free?

Within the structures by which the English monopolised salt in India lay a deep injustice - a violation of the fundamental rights of the people to the salt in the waters of their own seas. This injustice lay hidden in the routine processes of governing the country, and protecting the injustice was a savage violence. This is why everything appeared peaceful and orderly.

The Indians called out the violence, drew it out of hiding, and so made the injustice visible - in their own blood.

When you make evil visible it loses its ambiguity and it is defeated because very few of us willingly support evil. And so the task of the good man is to make evil visible and to be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.

Which brings us to the Cross. Jesus said: The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

We lift things up when we have something to show; something to let people look at.

Jesus 'lifted up' makes visible, something that is usually invisible, something that is intimately mine and yours. Can you guess what it is? And in showing this to us in the only light in which we could bear to look at it, the light of his mercy, he defeats it by taking the burden of it upon himself and suffering its consequences in his own blood.

Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.

3rd Sunday of Lent - Year B

Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

Many chapters of the Book of Exodus concern the preparations for setting up the Tent of Meeting which the Hebrews carried around with them and set up each time they made camp in the desert.

Inside this Tent, in the most holy and inner part of it called the Tabernacle, was kept the Ark of the Covenant.

Moses himself received very detailed instructions from God for setting up this Tent of Meeting which was the precursor to the Temple Solomon built in Jerusalem.

Moses erected the tabernacle ... spread the tent over the tabernacle ... took the Testimony and placed it inside the ark ... brought the ark into the tabernacle and put the screening veil in place... .

He placed the table in the Tent of Meeting ... and on it arranged the loaves before Yahweh. He put the lamp-stand in the Tent of Meeting ... put the golden altar in the Tent of Meeting in front of the veil ... put the screen at the entrance to the tabernacle (Ex 40).

With infinite care to follow God's instructions Moses sets up the Tent of Meeting. When he finished we are told: The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because of the cloud that rested on it and because of the glory of Yahweh that filled the tabernacle.

Every aspect of the setting up of the Tent of Meeting, and later, of the building and commissioning of the Temple, is done according to the instructions God gives. Everything is ritually purified and so are the priests, Aaron and his sons. The extraordinary detail of the rules for purification have a very important function - they bring home to us the truth of our need for purification; our unworthiness before the face of our holy God.

Moreover, it is only by reading Exodus carefully, following each step of the process of the setting up of the Tent containing the Ark, that we come to appreciate the sacredness of this place in which God dwelt among his People. And it is only by absorbing this reverence that we can begin to appreciate the outrage Jesus felt when he came to the Temple and saw the money-changers and animals defiling the holy Place.

What had happened? How had the Jews changed so much they now took little account of the sacredness of the Temple and had allowed it to be defiled?

The answer to this question cannot be given in one word but there are some simple principles we can point to.

One of the answers to the question 'How did they come to lose respect?' must surely be 'Slowly, step by step.'

I cannot retrace the journey from awe and reverence for the holiness of the Temple to careless disregard for the presence of God there but I do know that the history of a people, like the history of an individual human life, involves countless little decisions, little steps, leading one by one to glory or disgrace, or perhaps to sad mediocrity.

The drug-overdosed teenager dead in a public toilet did not, most probably, get there by making just one decision. His journey to his personal tragedy would have started at school, with one decision, followed by many others. Who knows the potential greatness of that young person - to which he must have said no numerous times.

The champion athlete, the medical student, the apprentice tradesman, the seminarian or religious novice, they too had to make innumerable decisions to reach their goal.

I believe the Jews simply made a series of wrong decisions, each one taking them closer and closer to the point at which even the wrongness of these decisions became obscured.

And what made these wrong decisions possible? A parallel question is 'What is the biggest enemy of a truly spiritual life?'

Selfishness? Anger? Pride? Dishonesty? Laziness? Jealousy? I think it is - bad memory!

Why did we fail to keep the good resolutions we make the night before? ... in the hurly burly of a busy day we just forget.

Why do we eat meat on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday? … we forget.

Why did the Jews in the desert make a golden calf? … they forgot the God who had led them out.

Moses' biggest fear was always that the people would forget their God. If you read the books of the Old Testament the common, tedious refrain is always: Remember the Lord your God, do not forget the things he has done for you ...

Do you think the religious leaders of the time maliciously decided to turn the Temple into a market place? I don't think so. Their disgrace is that they were not vigilant. They didn't do their job of protecting their sacred heritage and step by step they arrived at the precipice.

And we too forget:

• our prayers
• our Holy days of Obligation
• how many beers we’ve had
• to fast for one hour before Holy Communion
• the sins we need to confess
• the day of our death

Lent is a time for thinking of these things without getting discouraged; our God is patient and forgiving. Let's pray for a renewed enthusiasm for growing spiritually during this wonderful time of grace .. and for the special grace of regular daily prayer which brings the gift of 'remembering'.

2nd Sunday of Lent - Year B

Genesis 22:1-2,9-13,15-18; Romans 8:31-34; Mark 9:2-10

Children ‘show forth’ their parents in many different ways. The child who swears like a trooper clearly proclaims the kind of language it hears at home; the child who speaks with courtesy and respect bears witness to another kind of upbringing. Examples could be multiplied infinitely and all would testify to the principle that, wittingly or unwittingly, children disclose to the world the quality of their parents.

Naturally enough, good parents will require of their children that they behave well and not bring disgrace to the family. God especially requires this. In last Monday’s Mass we heard God say to Moses: Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” As God’s children we must not disgrace our heavenly Father through our conduct.

Of course Jesus is the best example of a faithful Son of his Father and revealed him to the world with impeccable faithfulness. Jesus did only the works his Father gave him to do and spoke only the words his Father wanted him to speak; he was truly a ‘revelation’ of the Father.

We too are called to manifest God to the world through our lives. To put it in a simple (and limited) analogy, we should be like shop windows displaying God. Of the man born blind Jesus said: he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Moses was asked at one time to ‘speak’ to the rock to give water at Meribah and instead he ‘struck’ the rock. God was angry with Moses and declared he would never enter the Promised Land because of this transgression. What had he done that was so seriously wrong? Was it just his disobedience? God himself said, it was: because you did not display my holiness among the sons of Israel.

It is by obeying God’s word fully that we show our respect and ‘fear’ of God; we then show him forth as he really is. This is a little understood truth in contemporary society which sees God almost exclusively in terms of its own thinking. For all too many God is always ‘nice’, never punishes, and accepts even the worst of us into the Kingdom without question. In the Church, too, there is no shortage of individuals ready to preach a God of their own making.

We do well to remember simple incidents such as when Uzzah stretched out his hand to steady the ark as it was being brought into Jerusalem; the oxen were upsetting it. The Lord, who had said that no one was to touch the ark, became angry with Uzzah and struck him; he died there in God's presence, because he had laid his hand on the ark (cf. 1Chron 13:9).

The prohibition against touching the ark was to show forth the holiness of God who had plainly stated no one must do so. Even King David was taken aback by the Lord’s anger but he grew in humble fear of the Lord.

Today’s Gospel shows us Jesus doing all in complete conformity to the Father’s will. As he stands in dazzling whiteness on the mountain between Moses and Elijah he offers us a concrete image of this obedient love. It is the Father’s plan, the Father’s will, the Father’s love which Jesus shows forth so majestically. Indeed, only of Jesus could the Father ever say with perfect truth and confidence: This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.

And so finally we come to Abraham reaching out for the knife fully intending to sacrifice his son, his only begotten, beloved son. Isaac lies on the altar fully expecting to receive the blade into his heart. Both men are fully obedient to the holy will of God. What an awesome scene, what a fearful scene! This is not the God of the liberals, this is not the God of Nice, this is not the God who permits anything and approves of everything; this is the awesome God of the Hebrews who requires our free acceptance of his Lordship.

Nevertheless, having seen the loving submission of Abraham and Isaac to his divine will I can well imagine God the Father coming down to stand beside Abraham and to proclaim proudly to all people of all time: ‘See this man, see how he displays my holiness? He is acting out most faithfully and fully what I myself will do for my people when I offer my own only-begotten Son Jesus. He is doing for me what I will do for all of you. He is wholeheartedly and lovingly prepared to sacrifice his son in honour of my greatness.’

And I can imagine the Second Person of the Trinity coming to stand proudly beside Isaac and saying: ‘Do you see this wonderful lad, innocent, pure, obedient to his father? Do you see how he displays my greatness by offering himself to God as I will one day offer myself?’

I wonder if at that moment, with knife poised to strike, Abraham and Isaac were transfigured, so that their clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them? Certainly they were showing forth the holiness of God in a awe-inspiring moment of complete surrender to God.

We, too, every one of us, young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick are called, in our own lives, to manifest the holiness of God. This is why, just for starters, it is essential that we obey him. Obedience, even when one’s heart is cold, is already a great sign of love, very pleasing to God.

When Peter, James and John saw the transfigured Jesus they saw something of the glory of God; may others see the same in us.