THIRD SUNDAY OF THE LENT - YEAR C

THE THIRD SUNDAY OF THE LENT – YEAR C: (Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15; 1 Cor 10: 1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9) Theme: We Are Invited to Produce Good Fruits In Our Daily Life Reflection: We are the Trees Planted and Nourished by the Eternal Gardner - Christian life is a tree: Today, we enter into the third Sunday of the Lent. We are coming closer to the great feast of Easter. In the preparations we make and in the spiritual journey we continue to make, we are nourished and sustained by the Word of God and the Sacramental Grace. Our Lenten journey started with the desert experience – an experience of inner journey into ourselves with the prayer and fasting. It has taken its course towards the mountain Tabor – an experience of being transfigured in the glory of the Lord. The Lenten walk takes another step ahead with this week. Today, we are invited to experience the care taking of the Eternal Gardener Jesus Christ. We are the seeds planted in the vineyard of the Lord: the seed is the baptismal profession of faith and rebirth into Christian life. We are destined to sprout up and grow: the seed is not destined to remain in the ground but to break the ground and come out. Our life is like a growing tree nourished and cured with the water and manure: the water is the Word and the manure is the Eucharist. The sustainment of the growth is enriched by the rays of the sun: the light is the Spirit. Our Christian growth is protected with the fence: the fence is the Church. - The tree is given all that it needs for growing: All the necessary requirements are supplied. We have no reason to keep indifferent. We have no excuse to escape the growth. No other way. We have to grow. Insofar we receive and accept the ground to stay, the spirit to breath, the nutriment to live, the walls to keep us safe, we keep growing. The failure of growth and incapacity to bear fruit happens only when we consciously reject what we are given. If we reject the ground on which we stand – we will not have any place to stay and the consequence will be this: we are uprooted and thrown away from the garden. If we neglect the breath and the nourishment we are provided with – we will not have any chance to live and he consequence will be this: we become unfruitful and barren. If we walk out of the fencing walls in which we are protected – we will not have any possibility for the redemption and the consequence is this: we are out of our proper place and we become pry to the enemies. Above all, if we throw all the providence of grace to the dust, we offend the Gardner who has planted us, taken care of us and finally protected us with the power of his presence. The Gardner is the origin of our life. He is the sustainer of our being. He is the goal of our moving. If we do not acknowledge our entrance, living and destiny, as the gracious gift of the Gardener, then we become wanderers and finally perished. - Gardener continues his loving care for his trees: The gardener who gives life to the tree and thus extend his garden does not want that any tree loses its life. He gives more attention to the fading tree. He enhances it with love and mercy. He stays with it and each second he safeguards its growth. He gives another possibility to bear fruit. He wants his garden not only beautiful with the colors of look but also meaningful with the calories of life. Each seed, each plant, and each tree is very dear to him. Each single fruit, be it small or big, gives him lot of joy. He wants that each single tree takes into itself and makes use well of the ingredients offered. He will that each single tree, extending its rams, produces the desired fruit. Until the tree grows to the level of bearing good fruit, he does not take rest. He keeps awake. He guards well. He makes the necessary amendments. He cuts what is growing wrong and provides what is lacking. He continues his care with love. His presence and his mission is only to take care of the trees entrusted to him. He puts his heart and soul for giving them growth and making them fruitful. He gives his own life to make them complete and perfect in their life. It is the love of the gardener “to be” for the trees. The trees that “receive his life” have to become not only fruit-giving-trees but also “care-taking-gardeners” to the other trees. Readings: Conversion – A Burning Within and A Bearing Witness - Conversion – A Burning Within (First Reading): We have an astonishing scene in the first reading. Moses sees a bush burning but not consummated. He wonders and wants to know what it could be. He goes ahead. As he comes closer to the bush, the voice of God stops him. The voice admonishes him: “Moses, Moses, do not come near. Remove your sandals because the place you stand is the holy soil.” From the burning bush, God calls Moses to be his weapon of liberation for the people of Israel. The burning bush and God’s call have been interlinked. Burning bush is the interior conversion and the God’s voice is the call. Moses is enkindled with the desire to see and experience the nature of burning bush. He is invited not only with external removal of the sandals, but also internal burning for God. This burning is not natural burning in which one becomes ashes. This burning is the supernatural or spiritual burning. It is the purification of the Spirit. One is just purified, not consummated utterly. Moses is called to undergo such kind of burning – interior purification, a conversion within. It is the first requirement to be worthy of participating in the design of God. Only after this God makes him clear his will of redeeming his people from the slavery of the Egypt. When we allow ourselves for the authentic conversion to the working of the Spirit, he will burn us from within, without making us condemned to the ashes. True conversion is always from within. It may appear externally as the burning bush but what really happens is an internal purification: the Spirit prepares us for the acceptance of God and his will. A burning within, the true conversion, thus means also “having a burning desire for God”. - Conversion – A Bearing Witness (Gospel): The conversion, a burning within, is only the first step. It is only the sowing of the seed. It needs to sprout up. It needs to grow into the tree. The interior conversion must bear the fruit. It has to be externally witnessed. Conversion does not remain hidden. It may happen within the closed door, in hidden and in secret. But the consequences of it do not remain locked up. Gospel proposes that the true conversion is a bearing an external witness for the internal change. The fruits of conversion have to be converted into the life-giving nourishment to the other. Jesus explains in the mode of a parable of the one who has planted a fig tree. The master of the vineyard expects a fruit from the tree. He has a right to look for the fruit, because it is with this destiny that he has planted and has sustained it with the proper nourishment. His plan is carried out only when the called tree bears the desired results. The master of the vineyard, in the Gospel, comes to the tree with lot of expectation and desire to taste the fruit of his creation. Three years pass by. No result. No fruit. No conversion. No change. The one who planted with the purpose has the right to cut it off if it does not grow well. The passage suggests once again that the nature of the tree is to grow and bear fruit of its kind. If it truly grows interiorly, the results of it will be seen externally. The conversion within cannot hide its essence. It will sprout into and it will bear the witness. In a word, the burning within (first reading) has to be transformed and elevated into the testimony of life (gospel). - Jesus Is Our Invitation To The Conversion: Through the readings of today, Jesus is inviting us to that conversion which has two equal directions: internal burning and external witness. The total and radical conversion of life – of mind, heart and soul – begins within and extends to the life-giving testimony of Christian growth. To put it in other words, the seed of faith sown deep within our hearts with the baptism, has to transform into the act of love as the opening and giving up of our life. The Lenten invitation to each one of us is the same invitation that Jesus offers to us: be converted in faith and bear fruit in love. - Jesus Is Our Intercessor With God: Though, we are planted and cured, as the fruit bearing trees, many times we fail to be so and to do so. It is because of our indifference towards Jesus invitation. It is because of our negligence of the nourishment he provides us with. Our creator asks from us the fruit. It is his right because it is only because of him we have our existence in the world. As the existing human beings, called and sanctified by the Creator, we grow and grow, not only physically but above all spiritually. It is our given responsibility. As being of knowledge and freedom, we need to be responsible. If we violate the right of God and if we forget our responsibility, the result will be our failure of bearing any fruit. In that condition, the Creator has the right to pluck us out and plant something/someone else. This is the situation we find ourselves often because of our cold attitude towards God and towards our own selves. But we have something more to be consoled. The end is not here. When we are faced with this situation, and when we have lost our possibilities to regain our life, there is Someone who stands-by us. It is Jesus Christ. He comes to our aid. He takes our word and our cry. He pleads for us. He becomes our intercessor with God. He opens the space for another chance. He calls upon the patience of God. He prays on our behalf: “Master, let us leave it for another year. I will dig it around. Put manure. Let us see whether it will bear fruit for the coming year.” Jesus is our prayer. Jesus is our hope. He is our Gardener. He will ask God for some more time. He will take care of us with little more attention. He will provide little more water of faith and little more manure of Eucharistic and spiritual strength. Let us not, thus, worry because we have failed. We have an opportunity to get up. We can still rise up. We can return to the fertile and fruitful state. In our helpless condition of barrenness, we have only one hope: Jesus Christ. He is not only our Eternal Intercessor but also our Eternal Gardener. In his presence and with his hands we can be re-formed into the life-giving trees. Conclusion: Conversion Is Our Only Answer To God through Christ and in the Spirit - To Be Christians Means To Be Exposed: The true conversion, as we have already examined, is the internal transformation extended to external testimony of life. It is, indeed, the nature of Christian life. Christians are not the hidden people. They are not the people who live in secret. Their life is to be open. To be Christians mean to be exposed to the world. Jesus did not hide himself. He comes to the public. He enters into the life of the people. He stays with the people and he touches them to the profound. Our Christian life is anchored in the faith, the roots are in the ground. It is true. Yet, it is testified in the love, the fruits are open and available for others. Our life is open and extended. Our foundation – the root – is God. Our destiny – the fruit – is the Spirit. Our life – the stem – is Jesus Christ. Love cannot be hidden. Hidden love is not ultimate love. Love needs to be open and extended. Christ, extends his love even to the point of death and resurrection. To be Christians means to be like him. as the Christians, our task is not only being the fruit-bearing trees, but also to be gardeners of the world. We are selected and sent to cultivate the garden of the world and provide it with the ingredients of our life so that it become both beautiful and fruitful garden of Eden where God is present with his people. In other words, the Lenten message invites us: To Be Fruitful and to Make Others Fruitful. - Conversion is our answer to God: God waits for us. He demands that we become fertile. He desires that we bear fruit. Moreover, when we fail, we shows his patience. He gives us another possibility through the intercession of Jesus, our gardener. The only answer we can give him, during this Lenten season, is the true conversion of the heart. It is the only answer that be elevated as the sincere sacrifice to him. In turn, it happens if we allow ourselves to the action of the Spirit. The Spirit burns us from within, without doing any harm. The conversion, according to the readings of today, is both becoming a burning bush and a fruit bearing tree. Let us ask the Spirit to sanctify us. Let us ask Jesus to strengthen us. Let us ask God, the Father, to safe-guard us in his love. Only then we can realize the theme we have taken up for today: we are invited to produce good fruits in our daily life.