Fifth Sunday of Lent Cycle C

 March 13, 2016

Review the Readings used at Mass with no RCIA scrutinies

Listen to the Readings at Mass with no RCIA scrutinies

 

Review the readings used at Mass with the RCIA Scrutinies

 

 

 The reflection below is on the readings at Mass with no RCIA Scrutinies

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gospel  is about the woman who committed adultery.

In spite of all the judgments made against her, this woman is willing to come to Christ knowing her sins and asking for forgiveness.

 

 

It is in front of the Lord that she finds forgiveness.

 

 Do we have the courage to come before the Lord with our sins?

 

 

Or are we like the Pharisees who only judge and are ready to cast the stone at those that we see as sinners?

We are called, like Christ, to have mercy, forgiveness, and compassion  rather than to judge.

 

 

 

We all know the story about SaintPaul who discovered how much mercy God had for him. Remember he was once a  Jew who persecuted and probably killed some of the early Christians. But he discovered God's great love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness He has toward him.  Will we have the courage to see our sins and failings or will we see ourselves without any sins?

 

 


He writes this letter to encourages the Philippians to pick up their cross and follow Christ daily. He knows that that includes some suffering, persecution and rejection.

 
It is a real temptation for each of us, like the early Christian Community of the Philippians, to reject the cross, our unavoidable struggles, and follow Christ. But St. Paul  experienced that his struggles were the way to eternal life.

 
The cross, that is sufferings, persecutions, and rejections, make no sense to the world today.  We are encouraged by the world to not pick up for cross, but to find pleasure and escape from the cross, e.g. the struggles and difficulties.

 

 

 

 
Paul tells the Philippians that he knows that  the cross is the way to eternal life. He encouraged the Philippians and he certainly encourages each of us to pick up and carry the cross daily and to see its value as a part of our journey to eternal life now.

 

 

 

The prophet Isaiah in the first reading recounted for the Israelites all that God has done for them when  took them out of their slavery in Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land where they now were.

 

 

God's great love and forgiveness was there for the Israelites in spite of their abandoning God many, many, times.  God never gave up on them and he will never give up on us.

 

For sure at times we will fail and sin, but the important thing is to come before God asking for forgiveness, and He certainly will forgive each of us as the readings of today indicate.

Lent has been that discipline to help us see our sins, our lack of mercy, our lack of forgiveness, our lack of patience, our lack of going out of our way for the other person, and the list could go on and on.

The sacrament of reconciliation, penance, is a way, like the adulterous woman, to come before the Lord and ask for forgiveness, which He will always give.

Do we have the courage to do that?

 

It is so easy to judge and in doing so we sin.  We need to continually pray for the grace not to sin.  

 

 My Homily given in 2009...click here to listen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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