PALM SUNDAY - YEAR B

PALM SUNDAY – YEAR B
( Is 50:4-7; Phil 2:6-11; Mark 14:1 - 15:47 )

Theme: We Walk Into Jerusalem to Glorify God with the Sacrifice of Our Life

Reflection

We are at the entrance of God’s glory

- The gate is opened for Jesus: We are standing at the gate/door/entrance of Jerusalem. We are waiting for Jesus who is coming. We are waiting with the palms in the hands and with the songs on the lips. We are waiting above all with the hearts that are beating for Jesus. Totally, it is a joyful waiting for the Lord. We are waiting not just to have a glance of Jesus who is about to enter into the city but to walk with him all along his path. This is the whole scenario of the entrance of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. Today, on the Palm Sunday, we are here to start our Lenten journey with intensity by entering into the Holy Week. Palm Sunday introduces us into the week full of Christ’s mystery of passion, death and resurrection. We are called here to participate to the fullness in this mystery. By participating in the mystery of Christ we also become holy and glorified. For this reason the Church considers these seven culminating days of Lent as “Holy Days”. All days of the earthly life of Jesus have reached their peak point. Until now Jesus’ mission was to preach and to teach the Good News and to manifest the power and efficacy of the Kingdom in his deeds of miracles. The three years of his public ministry has come to an end. Only one final act is remaining: to enter into Jerusalem and to die for the salvation of entire humanity.
- One final act to be accomplished: This One Final Act has its beginning today as he decides to enter into Jerusalem – into the hands of the wicked that are planning to kill him. He alone knows why his entry into Jerusalem is so important. The disciples or the people might think that Jesus is coming for the Paschal Feast in the temple of Jerusalem as he was doing also other times and other years. No one would expect anything dramatic in his stay in Jerusalem. He is well known by this time with his preaching and wonderful works. His name was on the lips of both common people and of the authority as well. In fact, people were waiting for his coming. On the one hand, people were planning to welcome him with the joyful songs and embracing gestures like palms. On the other hand, even the religious authority is waiting for him not with the word of welcome but with the ‘accusation against him’ and with the ‘plot to kill him’. Beyond the expectations of these two categories of people, Jesus enters into Jerusalem on himself. He enters with the decision of facing the ‘hour’ that his Father has prepared and has asked him to ‘pass through’ it now.
- ‘Hour of Glorification’: this ‘hour’ which will last for few days is, for Jesus, the ‘hour’ of glorifying God by giving himself totally in the fulfillment of His Will. The first moment of his glory was in miracle of Cana where he changed water into wine and his last moment of his glory is at the Last Supper where he changed wine into his blood, poured out for many. In the ordinary banquet water becomes wine and in the eternal banquet wine become the blood of Jesus. Jesus has made his journey from the first moment to the last. His journey was entering into its completion. His passage is from “my hour has not yet come” (John 2:4) to this day of “the hour has come” (Mark 14:41). Since his hour hasn’t come at the wedding of Cana he has only changed water into wine. Now the hour has come – the hour for which we has descended from heaven – to fulfill the act of glorification: the act in which he has to change the wine (earthly banquet) into his blood (eternal banquet). God’s glory is fully manifested in Jesus’ act of transforming this earthly joy into the heavenly joy.

Glorification only through the humiliation

- The people expected Messiah as the king who fights and enters into the glory with the victories. They considered Jesus as the Messiah when they have seen his wonders and his kind words. They thought that one day he would reject the Roman Empire and declare war and win it and thus establish his kingdom. May be this is thought that must be running in their minds when they sang “Hosanna” or praising the name of “Son of David.” On the contrary, Jesus takes the other way. Another root of entering into glory. He did not prefer the way that the people expected. His preferred way is the way of ‘abasement’ or ‘humiliation’.
o He allowed himself to be ‘handed over’ to the authorities who, otherwise, could not do anything (“Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled” – Mark 14:49).
o He permitted the sinners to take an upper hand for the moment after all he knows well that he is doing it all for them (“the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners” – Mark 14:41).
o He has given up himself for the human judgment. They have produced blame against him. They have mocked and insulted him. They have shouted at him with the cries of crufixiction. Even the thief at his left has tested him. He has undergone all this with the tolerance and with the kindness of heart.
o Finally, he made people to give testimony for the meaning of all that has happened, meaning for his innocent and humiliating death: “And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41), and ultimate acknowledgment little further by Centurion, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39).
- The two readings of today open for us this truth that the Son of Man has made himself small and helpless in his Final Act. The first reading of today expresses in the manner the servant of God is being put to the test and to the judgment: “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (Is 50:6). The highest form of his humiliation is proclaimed by Paul in his Christ-Hymn: “but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8). The words that Paul coins express the ultimate humiliation that Jesus allowed himself to undergo. “Emptying oneself” – “making oneself a slave” – “humbling oneself” – and learning to be “obedient” in spite of being God, these are the attitude that Jesus has manifested.
- It is through his power of his Father that Jesus has allowed himself to be crucified. Power of Jesus seems to be a slave to the human power or power of the world. In reality, his power is beyond human comprehension and surpasses worldly measure. It is the power which is appeared in humility. It is the power which is manifested in his abasement. It is the power which can offer itself to the powerless. And his power is God’s will and his love for the humanity. Power of love is not to over act or over look but to enter into the being that is in need of it. Man has become blind to know what the true power is. He has immersed in the mistaking the authority or superiority in the world as the power that can rule. The worldly power, in truth, can only dominate, destroy, exercise pride, and finally can only ruin the man and his nature. Alas! Man is not in the condition of understanding this truth. In his arrogance he closes his eyes. He refuses to see the truth. This is what exactly happens in the passion of Jesus. Man’s power seems to be playing with the divine power. But Jesus reveals the power of God’s ultimate love in his prayer from the cross – from his suffering and his pain: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). This is the actual power – divine power – that forgives all the limitedness of the human power.
- Jesus’ death if viewed from the eyes of common man only teaches that everything is over: Jesus has surrendered everything of what he is to the human power which is ultimately expressed in his death on the cross. But Jesus’ death if viewed from the eyes of faith will put in evidence the truth that: He has done all that his Father has asked him to do and once he has completed his Final Act on the Cross he gives Him also his spirit: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). He has accomplished his mission in the world: mission of standing in the place of the accused/sinner (for man), and thus paying all that man is in debt (shedding his blood) and finally leading the powerless (finite man) to the All Powerful and Loving God (act of reconciliation). It is here, in his final commending the spirit to his Father that Jesus glorifies God and receives at the time glorification by the Father as the “Name above all the name of the earth” (Phil 2:11). The only way to enter into the glory of God, according to the Christian faith, is the way of self-surrender, obedience and humility. Jesus proclaims this underlying truth in his message and in his miracles: “The one who exalts himself will be humiliated and the one who humiliates himself will be exalted.”

Jesus’ Passion is Our Strength in the Tribulations of Life

- Psychological solitude: In the passion of Jesus we find that more than the physical pains of scourging and of thorns, what he had to endure above all is the mental agony of being “left alone” – he is abandoned by all. He finds himself alone in the face of sufferings. None of “his own” was there to stand by him. This is what would have made him more sorrowful and painful. But he had to “carry” these burdens, certainly not for himself, but for others. He decided to endure then until the end without giving up. The psychological solitude created by those who followed him for almost three years is the first “cross” he has to carry on his mind and heart. In fear and in discouragement of being shattered their wimps and fancies, the disciples have isolated him. It is not just abandonment but a betrayal from the part of his partners that he could not digest and that which made him upset in mind:
o Judas Iscariot is the first one to betray him with the sweet kiss: a ‘kiss’ which is a gesture of love between the two beloved is now, for the first time, misused for the betrayal. The act of Judas is so painful not much because of his ‘agreement’ with the authorities to hand Jesus over to them. It became so hurting because Judas has betrayed him in the ultimate manner with the kiss of friendship. It is not just breaking the friendship but ‘destroying’ it by a cruel act. The same sign of love – kiss – is utilized to destroy the love. What could be more painful than this? The great Lover of the world is betrayed by the same love sign.
o All the disciples who have already celebrated with him the Eucharistic meal have betrayed him:
 First by failing to be awake with him in his agony: they could not understand what is going on in the heart of Jesus. They have their own preoccupations. They have their comfortable ways to sleep. Even when Jesus asked them to pray in this moment of ‘anguish’, they could not get what it means for him and for them. They failed in comprehending him and praying for him. They manifested that they are weak both in spirit and in flesh: in spirit because they could not participate in the agony of Jesus and in the flesh because they could not be awake at least for an hour.
 Then by leaving him all alone before the soldiers who came to arrest him. They have not taken courage to ask or to question why and what of it. They just escaped the scene immediately and helplessly leaving Jesus to his fate. Jesus must have been little happy that at least this man, Peter, would stay by him when he attacked one of soldiers. But this too lasted only for a moment.
o Peter’s denial is terrible: Jesus has already foretold it. Peter has promised that even if he had to die he would not go away from him. But when the actual moment has come to prove his loyalty he just had fallen into the temptation. He has not only denied him but above all, soothed him by saying that he never knew him. This attitude of Peter must have made Jesus more painful in the heart.
o Alone to the Calvary: though now and then there are few people who have come to his aid, like his mother Mary, Simon the Cyrene, Veronica and the women who wept for him, all his journey was ‘alone’. So much of physical tiredness is added to the burning psychological solitude.
- Spiritual solitude: until now Jesus was all alone from the Gethsemane to the Calvary. All his hope was in His Father who will take side of him. All of a sudden he finds himself deeply immersed in the spiritual solitude too. He experienced the abandonment also by his Father in whom he put his trust. His spirit became painful. He was enduring the pain of the body and of the mind and he had done this with the faith he had in his Father. Now his spirit is too suffering of the solitude. He could not bear this solitude. He cries out: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” This is not a simple repetition or praying of the Psalm or to fulfill it by reciting it. It comes out from the deeper pain that he undergoes in this spiritual solitude.
- His faithfulness to the Father is greater than his experience of solitude: Jesus commits himself completely to accomplish his Father’s will without looking for what would happen to him. He had done this at the beginning of his ‘journey of the passion’ in his prayer in Gethsemane: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36). From the first moment of his commitment towards his Final Act he is very firm in his attitude towards Father’s will. During the whole period of trial – arrest, judgment, scourging, cross, even in the moment of death – his only ‘food’/’nourishment’ was ‘fulfilling’ his Father’s will. And only for this he has come into the world. And for this he has entered into Jerusalem. And for this he has taken up his cross. And for this he breathes his last. And his last word reveals this: “It is finished” (John 19:30). He has accomplished his mission. His physical pain, mental agony, and spiritual solitude could not stop him in his mission. His firm faithfulness and committed obedience as the Son – Sent – into the World finally remained victorious.

Conclusion: reflection on the passion – re-living the Christian mission

- Hosanna is good but God prefers ‘Amen’:
o Palms would help us to sing “Hosanna” to the Son of God and Son of David and to the One who comes in the name of the Lord. But making the Palm Sunday a Sunday of Palms alone is not enough.
o We carry the palms. Make the processions. Prepare the crosses. Decorate them with the same crosses. And the Palm Sunday is over. Is it enough.
 Instead of palms - Psalms should be in our arms: the intimate prayer offered to God.
 Instead of procession – profession of faith should be our weapon.
 Instead of preparing cross – bearing the trial with cheerfulness should be our commitment.
 Instead of decorating the houses with palm crosses – bearing its on our hearts should be our journey of Calvary.
- Power is fine but God sides the ‘humility’:
o We long to grow and we need to grow. It is part and vocation of human life. We have to keep going and keep growing. In this vocation we also try to be ‘over’ the others. We strive to become powerful, authoritative and commanding. Indeed, it helps the individual and the community to grow well only if it used positively.
o But Christian is called to be ‘powerful’ but not in the sense of the world but in the sense of the spirit. Power should be manifested in the meekness and humility. We have to humble ourselves in front of the mystery of God and for the well-being of the society too. In humility we rise to the glory. In meekness we become powerful. This is the Christian mystery and this is what Jesus himself places before our eyes by his character and attitude. The one who wants to be the first should be the last. The one who wants to the master should be the servant of all. if we really understand this we are ready to follow Jesus.
- Participants of the Passion:
o We are not just listeners of the passion narratives. We have to revive and live them. Each step that Jesus has made is for our walk. We place our step in his steps so that we are secure to reach where he has reached: not just to the cross and death but to the tomb and resurrection.
o We have to learn to endure our trials: – be it created solitude by others/friends or family members, or be it physical illness, be it mental agony and also spiritual struggle between the will of doing good on the one hand and failing to do it on the other – we have only one model to follow: Jesus. We have to make God’s will “our daily bread” not only praying ‘thy will be done’ but ‘fulfilling his will’.
o To be successful in our Christian mission we have to participate fully in the passion of Jesus. And that’s what the Church is asking us to do by introducing us into the Holy Week. Therefore, with the obedience and firm commitment “Let Us Walk into Jerusalem to Glorify God with the Sacrifice of Our Life.”

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT - B

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT – YEAR B
(Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12: 20-33)
Theme: Let us journey inwards – into our hearts – a look into our spiritual attitude

Reflection:

Building the bridge

- Today, the fifth Sunday of Lent, the Church makes us reflect over our Lenten travel, not anymore outward, but inwards. We are asked to enter deep into our heart to see what we are and how we are in front the mystery of the passion and death of Jesus.
- We are asked to make a different gear of our life’s vehicle. We have gone forward enough and more looking at the cross of Jesus in the Sundays passed. Today we have to look into ourselves – with the deeper examination of the conscience – and measure our spiritual status. Let us make a journey neither forwards nor backwards but inwards. We need to guide our life’s vehicle not forward with the top gear nor backward with the reverse gear but with a different gear. Our Lenten life today and from today is to be a travel in the tunnel. Tunnel in which we see dim and the tunnel in which we slow down our vehicle. This dimness and slowness, yet, do not make us to stop our journey but to make it with lot of care and with profound look. This is what we are asked to do: a profound look into the tunnel of our Lenten life.
- We have arrived to this tunnel not just jumping here and there in the void. We have arrived here always preparing ourselves to this type of tunnel journey. For this we have prepared in the period of four weeks gradually and step by step. To recall how we have come here and standing in front the tunnel we have to make small retrieval of the past. To start this retrieval: we have made our journey on the first Sunday of lent, from the desert of desperation to the garden of resurrection of hope. On the second Sunday our journey was from the mount of transfiguration to the mount of glorification. On the third our passage is from the Law of the Lord on the Mount Zion to the indwelling of the Spirit. And finally, in the fourth Sunday, our journey was from the Cross of the Lord on which Jesus was lifted up to the bosom of God’s love for whole humanity, thus participating in the love of God through the daily cross we carry.
- This retrieval seems to have the character of repetition but all the more it has the character of building the bridge. By recalling the reflection of the previous Sunday we make a bridge between the last Sunday and present Sunday so that our travel is not a ‘jump’ but a true passing from what was before to what is now. In turn, this bridge will help to make our journey flexible either to go back into recollection of what we have done or to go forward with the experience of the past into the hope of future. What happens if this bridge is not built with continuations of meditations? We jump wherever we want, finally losing the ‘chain’ or ‘the steps’ of the laden. It will make the Christian reflection of life difficult because we fail to connect our present to the past in backward direction and to the future in the forward direction.
- Christian life has to be always in these both directions: backward into the memorial of Jesus life for us and forward into the participation of our in that of Jesus’. Otherwise we miss the real content of our existence. Only when these two directions are given due importance our present life will take journey inwards. Journey towards these two directions, firstly, provide the necessity of building the bridge for the present life and secondly, give the possibility of entering into profundity of our life. This is what we are asked to make. A journey inwards. A passage into the tunnel. A deeper examination of our spiritual life.

The Law of the New Covenant is written inside and on the Hearts

- The question we face here is: Why should we journey inwards? An answer would be in two movements/or two moments.
- First movement: to participate in the death and burial of Jesus Christ: we are approaching very fast to the important day of passion, death and the burial of Jesus. Until today, with our Lenten preparations, we have looked up with the open eyes to see the suffering Jesus on the cross in our past reflections. We have looked around with the open minds to see the needs of others. We have looked straight with the open heart to see follow Jesus with prayer, fasting and charity. This looking “upwards”, “around”, and “straight” have made us participate in the passion of Jesus. But our journey should not stop here. It has to continue not only to death but to the burial. Our Lenten travel is not only to the cross of Christ but to the Tomb of Christ. With the Good Friday we fully participate in the death and the burial of Jesus. We have to be buried with Jesus. This is the final point of the passion of Jesus. Only after this death-burial, follows the resurrection. We are not stopped with the death but we have to go forward till the burial in the tomb. This aspect of “inward journey” reminds us, first, our participation in the death and burial of Jesus. Therefore, our journey is from the suffering and passion to the death and burial of Jesus. This reality of the tomb has the character of “entering into” and thus a journey deeper and inward.
- Second movement: to see the inscription of God’s love in our hearts. This is the fruit of the first reading of today. God promises a New Covenant that He would make in the future. God announces this though the prophet Jeremiah. By the arrival of this prophecy, people are in the slavery of Babylon. They have been punished with the deportation into Babylon just because they have ‘neglected’ and ‘destroyed’ the Covenant that God has made with them through Moses. God has already made an alliance between him and his people by giving them the Law in the form of two tablets of Ten Commandments. He assured to his people his continuous fatherly presence if only they are faithful to this covenant. But soon people have given up their fidelity to Him. They have transgressed his ways. They have travelled a long way away from Him. They have ‘Broken’ the bridge of the communion with God by ‘becoming unfaithful’ to the promise they made to Him. With this the Covenant of the Law is broken. But God is never unfaithful. His fidelity towards his people is for ages and forever. He wanted to bring these people back from the cries of slavery. He wanted to lead them out from the bondage with the promise of another covenant which will last long. With the failure of the Covenant of the Law, God has decided to make a Covenant of the Spirit. That’s what God promises through the prophet Jeremiah. He promises that the day/days will come (in those days – v.33) when He would stabilize and conclude forever the relationship with his people with the ‘New Alliance’ (this is the alliance – v. 33). In this alliance there is no place anymore for the Law that passes away, but for the Spirit that lives forever. With this alliance the law will not be anymore “outside” but “within”/ “inside”: “I will place my law inside them, I will write it on their heart” (v. 33). There is a need, thus, for us to make our journey inwards: to lean down to read and to live the law that is written in our hearts. There is no more law outside. We find, however, the outside ‘prescriptions’ of the predications, outside meditations of the Word of God (scriptures), and outside law that appears in the church and in the community of faithful. But all these ‘outer’ – ‘outward’ – expressions will help us and they only act as pointers for our ‘inward journey’. The authentic life always starts from within the heart and with the following of the spirit’s will inside us. That is the reason why the church asks us to ‘make our journey inwards’ – to examine our spiritual attitude in the confrontation with the passion-death-burial of Jesus.

Grain of wheat in the earth – gain of life in heaven

- Our inward journey, as we have already meditated, leads us to the profound and full participation in the death-burial reality of Jesus. This truth is explicitly explained by Jesus in the gospel passage of today. Jesus brings here an analogy that takes us deeper into the comprehension of not only Jesus’ death, but also its meaning for us today.
- We can, without dealing much with the exegesis, immediately enter into the most touching verse of today’s gospel: “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (v. 24). Its context is that Jesus has already entered into Jerusalem and it is his final entry into it before dying. In fact, it is with the view of “facing the death” that he has come to Jerusalem. This passage falls within this immediate context of Jesus’ entry (John 12:12-19). As soon as he entered some Greeks wishes to see him (vv. 20-21). But the truth of his death is not directly revealed to the Greeks who came to see him but to the disciples who mediated them (v.22).
- Jesus explains “his hour of glory” (v.23) and at the same time “his hour of losing his life” (v.25). His hour of glorification has just started with his entry into Jerusalem “symbolically” and “prophetically” with the braches of palm trees and with the recalling of the prophecy (John 12:13-14). And after a while He would go forward to “lose his life” (“those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” – v.25), by inviting the death by giving himself up to the soldiers.
- Between these two “hours” which his in reality “the same hour” of glorification and death, there is a discourse about the grain of wheat which falls into the earth and dies. Jesus comes the way round: in the usual understanding, there should be first falling, dying and then glorification; but here, Jesus starts with hour of glorification (v.23) and bearing fruit (v.24) and only after this, the loosing of life (death – v.25). We may understanding two aspects from this:
o First, that these three elements – glory-fruit-death – are not the three different realities which stand opposing each other but they are of the same one reality of Jesus passion-death-resurrection;
o Second, that it is in the view of glory that Jesus is going to bear much fruit by his death. Though his glory comes first in the discourse it is actually the motivating (which gives courage and hope) element that makes him to face the passion and death. Apart from this, we find in every word and deed of Jesus on earth, ‘glorification’ has been given the priority.
- Jesus himself has made his journey “inwards” – into the tunnel of tomb: Like a grain of wheat which has fallen and has produced much fruit, Jesus also entered into the tomb – under the earth – and has produced a fruit of life for all and life in abundance. He has remained in the womb of the earth for three days. He has sprouted again from there breaking forth the hard earth – the power of darkness. His final victory over the death and evil has come only with his entrance into tomb and with his ‘stay’ in the earth for three days. We understand two things here: first, it was necessary to enter into the womb of the earth in order to rise up again; and second, this period of darkness is temporary.
- This entrance of Jesus “inwards” or into the earth is a spark of hope for all to face similar situations. As the seed ‘break open’ in order to sprout, even before he breaks open the earth, the power of darkness, Jesus ‘splits’ the death itself. The split of the seed or the split of death finds its pre-figuration in the OT. Out of the ‘split of the waters of the red sea’ God has paved the way to his people into the New Land of milk and honey. So also out of the split of the seed of death Jesus has prepared a sure way to all those who believe in him to enter into new life of resurrection. Two splits at the same time of the seed that falls into the ground: it breaks open itself first and it also breaks the earth. The first split is the victory over death and the second split is the victory over the powers of the earth. It is for this purpose Jesus already proclaims that “When I am lifted up from the earth… I will attract everyone to me” (v.32). The seed is buried and the death is buried, not to remain there forever, but only to ‘sprout’ into new life. This is the mystery of the passion-death-burial-resurrection of Jesus. We are called here to participate in this mystery and for this we are preparing ourselves. All will be possible for us if only we become the seed buried in the ground.

‘Soiled seed’ has the character of transformation – we are the seed fallen in the ground

- For the seed there is no death. What seems to be death is not a real death. It is only transformation. Seed does not die. It only ‘breaks open’. The seed that is soiled takes another form. In other words, the grounded seed becomes transformed into the plant. Therefore, the ground in which the seed is soiled is a place of transformation and the time that the seed needs to split is the time for maturity. It seems to be having all negative shades: seed that is small/ devalued, ground that is dark and hard, its growth is uncertain since it is invisible. But on the contrast and in reality, it has only positive angle: to transform itself and to get matured.
- When we are in the suffering or difficulty or loneliness or in any kind of problem which leads us to darkness of desperation, it is, in reality, a time/place for our transformation. It is no more time for crying but a time for preparing ourselves to be strong. It is no more a time for pain but a time for change.
- It is a time for the spiritual purification: A seed enters into the soil in order to be there for some time until it gets its time to sprout. In the Christian faith we can mean that when we are in this kind of situation, we also set out for the spiritual growth. We have to consider it as the ‘time offered’ for our personal assessment, examination of our attitude, correction of our behavior, above all, to become strong in spirit.
- Here we have Christian meaning for the suffering: It is the time for our journey inwards – journey deeper into our hearts. It is a chance to measure our strengths and weaknesses. It is an opportunity to put full stop for the weakness that we have acknowledged and to develop our possible strengths. It is time to be in the ground of spiritual preparation. It is a possibility given to us so that we become spirit empowered. And we know that this burial in the ground (like the seed) of suffering is only for bearing much spiritual fruit.
- For this reason, we should never worry about inviting these sufferings or to confront them with faith when we find them on our way. Jesus has done exactly this way. He has invited the cross and he went to face the death without fear. Christian attitude should be exactly opposite to that of the world. The world does not understand this. The people who cling on this world and its goods do not have any sense for this kind of reality. They just consider this as the fate or as the untimely happening or devil’s work. They either cry over it or shout at it. They either blame God for doing this or they condemn themselves. They either lose their personal and emotional balance or they become arrogant and play over others. For us, who believe in Christ who has allowed this reality to take place in his life, it is a participation in the same footsteps of Jesus that we also arrive to the reception of the crown of life.
- The only thing that the Church is exalting us to do is: to make our journey inwards – into the inner life. There we find solution for our problems. There we find resolutions for our further life. There we find consolation for our present life. Because, it is there we find the law of the spirit written; because, it is there the word of God cuts through and enters as the double edged sword; because, it is there we find the starting point for our sprouting to new and transformed life. Let us therefore, as the Lenten task and preparation, journey inwards – into tunnel of our hearts – and it is a look into our spiritual growth that will enable us to fully participate in the death-burial-resurrection of Jesus.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT - YEAR B

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT – YEAR B
(2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23; Eph 2:4-10; John 3:14-21)

Theme: Our Journey from the Cross of Christ to the Bosom of God’s Love

Reflection

- To our surprise this fourth Sunday of Lent is named or celebrated as the “Sunday Laetare” or rejoicing Sunday: Sunday of Joy. This Sunday appears exactly in the centre of our Lenten preparation. Before this there were three Sundays and after this there will be three Sundays which includes also the fullness of Joy: Joy of Resurrection. The Church thus presents this central Sunday to be a ‘day of rejoicing’ amidst our intense preparations. It is for reminding us that we have successfully completed the half of our preparation on the one hand, and to boost us forward with refilled energy to fulfill the Lenten task ahead of us on the other hand. It is a day also for looking backwards with satisfaction of doing something worthy and for looking forward with responsibility of meeting the destiny of the Joy: the day of Resurrection. The Church also provides the alternative for the Sunday vesting of the celebrant. Usually for the whole period of lent the celebrant puts on violet but this Sunday there is also the option to put on ‘rose’ vestment for make the celebration little lively, joyful and thus giving little lightness to the intensity of the Lenten preparations. Though on one side we have the rigor to complete forty days of preparation with intense prayer, abstinence and charity, on other side, this Sunday helps us to sit back and examine how far we have come and to empower ourselves little more to continue our journey. This is the day of ‘reviewing’ of what we have done. This is the day also of ‘gathering up’ of energies to move forward. In the usual terminology, it is day of rest and rewind. Therefore, the celebration of this Sunday of Joy, give us both satisfaction for what has been done and the responsibility of completing it without looking back.
- Our Lenten journey, however, continues. Though we have one ‘liberal Sunday’ (if we might say this way), it is not to stop our journey. It is only to ‘take up again’ our journey after a while of rest. Therefore, today the Church by providing us today’s readings asks us to make our movement “from the Cross of Jesus to the Love of God”. Better that we understand how we have come to this movement. The whole Lenten preparation is a Journey towards meeting the Risen Jesus. With this we have actually started our journey and all the Sundays we were just making this pilgrimage from what is ours to what is God’s. In this connection, our journey of the first Sunday of the Lent was from the “desert of desperation to the garden of hope” which reminded us that we have to make a move from our life desert to the life of hope in the resurrection. Our journey of the second Sunday of Lent was from the “vision of transfiguration on the mount Tabor to the mission of glorification on the Calvary” which reminded us that we have to make a move from being transfigured in Christ to the participation in his glory. Our journey of the third Sunday of Lent was from the “writing down of the commandment of the Lord on mount Zion to the being of the temple of God” which reminded us that we have to make a move from just following of the Law of the Lord to the becoming of the indwelling of the Spirit of the Lord. We have come to this Sunday with the same inspiration of the Lenten journey and thus our movement today is from the “Cross of Christ to the Love of God” and this reminds us that we have to embrace the cross in which we see the ultimate love of God. This means that we do not remain just under the cross but arrive to the bosom of God’s love from which cross takes the great significance of “God’s ultimate self-revelation.” Once we arrive at this point of God’s love in and through the Cross we are ready to take up the cross and follow him until we also reach the same bosom of God’s love. Thus this journey demands both ‘self-denial’ and ‘taking up of the cross.’ This also means that we have to leave behind what belongs to us and to take up what belongs to God. In a word, it reminds us of our mission of the cross and mission of the cross is nothing but ‘carrying the cross for the love of God and love of neighbors.’

Limited Human being in front of Almighty God

- The questions arise here: how can this journey be ultimately possible from the cross of Christ to the Love of God? Is human being really limited? If so in what way and in which he is confined to? Who is man and what is man in facing God?
- Answers are still surprising possibilities: Indeed, this journey is possible from the cross of Christ to the love of God if only the man “knows” and “accepts” himself and his nature. Though his nature always transcends from the present to the future – with further developments of mind, reason and science – man has to know that he is still a finite being who is not in the condition of not knowing everything. There is a limit for his reasoning and understanding. He is blocked somewhere, somehow in his comprehension either psychologically or even physically where he has to meet death – a complete stop for his self-transcendence. From this self-knowledge of his limitedness he has to “accept” himself incapable. This is the inner struggle that man has always in himself: his capability to transcend himself and yet his incapacity to knowing everything. In this way and still more in facing God. Man is always finite being with the will of becoming infinite or mighty in his knowing and reaching God. This is the basic spiritually – experience of moving towards the unlimited One – that man has in his being. It is only a spiritual desire at the most because he is still limited and incapable in himself/by himself of reaching to the Almighty.
- Let us start our journey from Man: man is autonomous and self-transcending but towards what is the important question to be asked. The dignity of man is in his Intelligence, in his Freedom and in his capacity to Love. This is the ‘nature’ and ‘dignity’ of man. Whether this nature and dignity are manifested or not is a different question. Some remain indifferent and passive and take life as it comes without taking any risk themselves to develop. Some manifest this in achieving some ranks and positions in personal and social life. Some others manifest them all most perfectly and they become saints and great personalities of the world to be models for others. This shows that man is endowed with this capacity to transcend himself and reach to God by using his Intelligence, Freedom and Love. In fact, he is unlimited in these. This is something that is happening in the recent developments of technology and sciences. Then the question arises: If man is unlimited in his capacities where does the problem lie and in which he is incapable of reaching the Almighty? The answer is that man is incapable of utilizing them properly and for the good purpose.
o His intelligence is unlimited and goes beyond and beyond and it develops day by day so rapidly. There is doubt about it. But he is still limited and incapable of searching for the right and useful thing. The true intelligence discovers what is good not only for the self but for the others. Is this happening with the sciences and technology of modern age? Human brain is reaching to the sky in its thinking but the same human being is falling to ground surrounded by various clutches of daily living: hunger, thirst, poverty, class and race distinctions. Thus, man has the capacity in his nature of Intelligence but he is still limited in utilizing it properly and he is still incapable of choosing right thing or working for the common good of the world.
o His Freedom is unlimited and it is the nature of man that distinguishes from other beings. Man is free to do whatever he wills. He is endowed with this. There is no second thought about it. But still he is limited and incapable of growing with the other. He is incapable of knowing what the true freedom is. True Freedom is to live and make others live. Is this happening with the ultimate freedom of thought, word and deed that man enjoys? Man started doing whatever he wants in the name of freedom/liberty. On one hand, he tries to be on the peak of self with his freedom but on the other hand, he makes himself distant from others. Becoming distinct is positive but becoming distant is negative because in the prior man attracts the others and in the latter he rejects the others. This kind of enjoying freedom makes man selfish, proud, and leads him to elimination of himself form others or throwing out of other from his life. Is this true freedom? Thus, man has the capacity of enjoying ultimate freedom but he is still limited in proper use of it and thus man closes his door and lives for himself with his personal life. But this is not the true freedom. He is incapable of enjoying true freedom of reaching out to others and to be with and for others.
o His capacity to love is unlimited. Only man is the being of love. He has the capacity to offer his love others with intelligence and with freedom. He is gifted with this virtue of love. But he is still incapable of knowing and practicing an authentic love. He has not yet realized well his capacity to love and diffuse love to others. In what sense? Love has not confines. But man always tries to put boarders. He always makes his life confined to himself or to his own. He loves really his own and it is wonderful thing. Does he really love them is the question. Can he accept them in their freedom and in their intelligence without any prejudices? Can he reach out to them with whole-hearted will even at the sacrifice of his time, his energy and his capacity? True love contains this aspect of ‘donating oneself’ and offering of the self even at the cost of loosing oneself. Is this happening with growing intelligence and freedom? Man love only till if he is not disturbed in his personal free life. If this boundary is crossed he becomes arrogant and intolerable. Love consists in going beyond the self and in the total offer of the self for others. When this does not take place in the intelligent-free-closed system of present society how we can say that man is a loving being. He has the capacity but he is not in the ‘condition’ of living it properly. He is limited and incapable in this field of practice of love.
- If it happens like this in the sphere of ordinary society and in the ordinary living, man’s condition will be unimaginable in his confrontation with the Almighty God. He is utterly finite and limited being in front of God. He cannot, thus, by himself reach out to God. Though he has the capacity to reach beyond he is not able to reach it because he is limited in his intelligence with his indifference to others, is limited in his freedom with his selfishness, and is finally limited in his capacity to love with his pride and jealousy. Now what is the way out for him to reach God? God knows that with this condition man cannot reach him and for this reason He decided to come to man and to become man.

God in Search of Humanity

- Today’s reading are the best examples to show that God willed to be with humanity – “God with Us” and he comes down in search of this limited/finite being:
o “The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place” (2 Chronicles 36:15 – first reading).
o “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5 – second reading).
o “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16 – gospel reading).
- God never abandons his people: It is he who has chosen them in and through Abraham. It is he who made his covenant through Moses. And it is he who has led them back time and again when they have gone away from him through the prophets and made them one flock under the kings appointed by him. His people failed in their fidelity towards him but He never failed in his faithfulness to them. Such is a God of Israel. He always holds back for himself his people in spite of their disobedience and unfaithfulness.
- He makes himself present amidst them: he is so “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4) that he has come to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10) like a “Good Shepherd” who leads his flock to the same fold by giving them the “abundant life” with the “laying down of his own life” (John 10:10-12). Such is a God of love who goes out to meet them and to make himself a presence with them and for them. He always calls his people by name so that they would accept this donation of life.
- He gives them all that he has – all his life and glory of His Son: his movement towards man is tremendous and unlimited. He has done this not to condemn man with judgment but to show the mercy. He shows the mercy in the manifestation of his unlimited love for man. This love is revealed in his Only Son Jesus Christ. This love has the consequence/fruit of giving life and life for eternity (John 3:16).
- Let us start our journey from God: Here we can find the Unlimited Wisdom, Ultimate Freedom and Unconditional Love of God for the humanity:
o His Wisdom, which goes beyond intelligence, is unlimited because God does not live for himself but he reaches out to the other and this other is human being. His intelligence is not selfish one for is completely utilized for creating, electing and redeeming man.
o His Freedom is ultimate. His is not conditioned to become man or to be with man. In his freedom he has chosen to make this movement towards man. He has bent himself to take the hand of man. He has made himself little and small (not in the sense of limitedness) so that he could be with this man. This is an act of ultimate freedom. He is not only for himself but for the man. In his freedom he does not want to close his door but to open the possibility so that he can reach man and man can also reach him.
o His Love is unconditional. We need not give so much explanation for this. We already experience this in “making himself servant and to die on the cross” (Phil 2:6-10) and thus “donating his life” for others (John 15:12-14). In the paschal event of Jesus, His Son, God’s unconditional love is manifested. He does not become arrogant or he does not become proud when he is rejected and misunderstood. He knows only one thing: to love. His only will is to offer himself to others. This is the love that is without measure.
- The Wisdom, Freedom and Love of God take their ultimate expression in the death of his Son on the Cross. This is the Wisdom that was hidden for the ages. This is the Freedom that makes God to decide to make himself closer/nearer to man. This is the Love that is revealed in pouring out his life for the man. Man’s condition is limited and thus God’s takes the initiative to enter into human history and thus the history of God and the history of Man have their meeting point in Jesus Christ.

Cross of Jesus Christ: Meeting Point of God and Man

- In the cross and in the Person of Jesus Christ God makes himself so down to earth (even to the under the earth with his stay there for three days) that he reaches to the core of human being. God meets man in his place of limitedness, sufferings and death. God touches the sphere of man. He leans so much to stand on the ground of man. With the cross He grounds himself in the very nature of man. This is the transcendental humility of God before man whom he loves unconditionally.
- In the cross and in the Person of Jesus Christ the way is laid and the door is opened for the man to reach God. He has no need of going anywhere. If he looks into himself he can see the God who is grounded there. He has not initiative to take. Everything is taken by God himself. He has to do only one thing: to touch his own self with true intelligence, with true freedom and with true love. This is the greatest commandment: to love your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength and with all your soul. Here, in this love, man has the possibility of meeting God.
- These two movements, God towards man and man towards God, meet in the very cross (+) of Christ. The pierced side is the centre of the cross and it is the meeting point of God and man: the very heart of Jesus Christ. The heart which is offered in sacrifice for whole humanity. Cross is thus no more a wooden beam but the very heart of Jesus which is broken open to pour out to man the ‘capacity’ to reach God with intelligence, freedom and love.
- It is for this reason we find an answer for every problem of our life in the cross of Jesus:
o If physically we are with the illness/sickness we can look at the cross of Jesus where his body is torn into pieces.
o If psychologically we are abandoned and isolated (left alone by the family or misunderstood, or rejected) we can look at the cross of Jesus where his cries reach out to heaven but with firm hope.
o If spiritually we are falling again and again into the temptations and into human fragility we can look at the cross of Jesus where amidst so much of ‘insults and questions of proving his image’ Jesus commends his spirit to his Father’s will rather than falling into the hands of the mockers.

Today’s Journey: from the Cross of Christ to the Love of God

- Thus, we are called today to make our journey to the love of God by imitating the cross of Christ. Not that we have leave behind us the cross but with it we have to enter into the bosom of God’s love.
- For this, to summarize in brief, we have to acknowledge our human limitedness, meditate on the love of God who has come in search of us – at this moment through his Word and his Eucharist - and finally accept the mission of the Cross. Mission of the Cross is not something to reflect on the passion and death of Jesus but to accept them and carry forward till we reach the day of resurrection: that is, the bosom of God’s ultimate love.

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT - B

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT – YEAR B
(Ex 20:1-17; 1Cor 1:22-25; John 2:13-25)

Theme: We are the living temple of God in the world

Reflection:

Lenten movement:
From the Law of the Old Testament to the Spirit of the New Testament

- We are in the third Sunday of Lent and our Lenten journey continues. Each Sunday we are nourished by the scriptures for our further movement. Today the church reminds us to become the holy and living temple of God. We are called to replace the temples and churches built with stones. We have to replace them by making ourselves the dwelling places of God. Our life should become the grace for others just as the temple/church is the place of grace for all. This is the new significance behind all the readings we have heard today. We have to arrive to this point. Thus, we have to make our journey from the ‘law received’ from God to the ‘law lived’ in spirit of God’. That means, we have to move from the mount of Sinai to the temple of the Spirit. This is the Lenten walk we are called to make today. Even the weeks that went before have made us reach here.
- Little retrieval would help us to deepen our reflection: In the first Sunday of the Lent we have mediated that we have to make our Lenten journey from the desert of desperation to the garden of resurrection or hope of eternal life. In the second Sunday of Lent, last Sunday, we have reflection on the theme that we have to make a passage from the Mount Tabor to the Mount Calvary. That is from the mountain of transfiguration to the mountain of glorification participating in the same condition of Jesus. Being transformed into his image and likeness we have arrived to this point of being the dwelling place of the Spirit.
- Every journey has a point of departure and a point of arrival. So also our Lenten journey. We are not stopped with the participation in the passion of Jesus. The reflection of it is only a point of departure. There is certainly the point of arrival, the fruit of participation in the passion of Jesus. It is the participation in the resurrection and glory. Let us take the pain of passion so that we have the gain of glory. Let us take the thorns of sufferings so that we have the flowers of the joy. Let us enter deeper into his death so that we will rise very high with life. This is the content of the journey we are making. Therefore, we should not be discouraged in our travel even if there are hurdles. We have an assurance of the way that is paved by Jesus himself: the way of the cross. The way of the cross may be in the form of accepting and observing the law of the Lord. But it will certainly reach us to the victory over pain and death and makes us ‘rise again’ from our fall. Once we become participants in the life of Jesus we become the indwelling places for the Holy Spirit. In this way we become temples of the Spirit. Cross leads us to the Temple.
- What is the beauty of the temple? What is there in the church? These questions arise as reflect further. The answer is simple. We come to the church every Sunday not because we want to have some relaxation or recreation. We come to the church because of our desire to become ‘renewed in the spirit’ as the children of God. If we do not this destiny of being God’s property we have no meaning of sitting here and whiling away the precious time. We come to the church because we want to receive something from God. We come to the church because we know that God wills to tell us something and to give us something extraordinary.
o This is the beauty of the temple of the Lord: God speaks and God gives:
o God gives his word: he indicates the way; he instructs with the scriptures; he fills us with his ‘life giving word’. Peter would confess in front of Jesus: “Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
o God gives his food: he gives his food; he gives body and blood of his Son Jesus as our spiritual nourishment; he feeds us fully with the satisfying pastures; he provides his bread, that is, ‘life-giving bread’: Jesus would acclaim and proclaim: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35) and “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6:54-55).
- Once we come to know the temple/church as the place of God’s sharing of love through the word and through the Eucharist, another question arises: what is the purpose of coming to the temple? And what is the fruit of participation in the liturgy of the temple? The answer is again simple: so that we become the real temple of the Lord. Yes, indeed, we make a passage from being ‘the listeners of the word of God’ and from being ‘the recipients of the spiritual food’ to the being ‘the messengers of the word’ and to the being ‘the providers of the spiritual nutriment’. This is the great passage we have to make: from participation to the becoming of the temple; from receiving to the giving; from taking to the offering; thus, in a word, from being in the temple to become the very temple of the Lord. In the temple we are filled to the full with the word and with the spirit. Being the temple we become the word and the spirit. Others around us should acknowledge and receive from us the word and the nutriment of love. They should see the very presence of God in us. They should experience God’s efficacious life and love through us. The significance of becoming the temple is this: we are the carriers of the word and life of God to others. In a way, we become the mirrors of God for others.
o The testimony which I got from one of the confessor is this: he comes every time with the quotation from the scriptures and applies to his life and basing on that he confesses his sins.
o Observing him well for a long time I asked him how and why he does. The answer he gave is very impressing and meaningful. He said: “father, the word of God is like a mirror through which we look into ourselves, especially, what we are and where we are regarding our relationship with God.”
o It is true that even the church proposes the basic scripture readings for the preparation for the confession. It is because of the reason that we have see our life in the light of the words (the commandments too) that God gives us.
o But many of us neglect this aspect of viewing our life and our attitude with the background of the scriptures. When this man has testified through his regular renewal of the soul through the good confession in the light of God’s word, I am really inspired.
o Yes, indeed, God’s word is a mirror. In this we see our image, our status, our whole being of how we look like, not anymore physically, but spiritually. This is the meaning of being the temple also. In the temple, the presence of God, we know ourselves well.
o Becoming the temple means becoming ‘a mirror’ for others. Others have to make use of life as a mirror for their life. We have to be the image of God through which others too become image of God. This is the deeper meaning of becoming the temple of the Lord: not only transmitters of the word and work of the Lord through us but more than that being the mirrors of God’s image.
- The immediate question that arises after knowing the task of becoming the temple of the Lord is: How can we become the temple of the Lord? What are the means that makes us living temple of the Lord? Answer again is simple if only we observe well. It is God’s word and liturgy itself which make us temple of the Lord. Today’s readings elevate us in becoming ourselves “a place of God’s law and love.”

Lenten passage:
From the Law to the Love, from the temple of stone to the temple of the spirit

- The first reading exalts us to be the observers of the law: In fact, God does not give commandments. Our God is not the God who dominates and commands. He is God who wills to be with us. God with us. Since He wishes to be with us and one of us, He only communicates the way how it can be possible to be with him. Event the first verse of today’s firs reading tells us that “God spoke all these words” (Ex 20:1).
o God’s word is for the good life of the believer: God speaks, not orders; God communicates not commands; the law which comes in the form of ‘his words’ is for the well being of us; those who listen to it will have the possibility of ‘remaining with him’. It is only the invitation of God to the people of Israel to observe his words and thus to have life in him. A call to follow his instructions. A call to put into practice the law given. It is for the good of the people only.
o God invites them into the bond of alliance with him: the ten pronouncements that God made, the Decalogue as we understand it from the teaching of the Church, are the part of alliance God makes with his people; therefore, the Decalogue contains the double relationship: the vertical which is between God and man (the first three commandments) and the horizontal which is between man and man (the rest of the seven commandments). This shows that the vertical relationship between God and man is complete if the horizontal relationship between man and man is missing.
o God invites them to the bond of love: love between Himself and man; and between man and man. In other words, God finds himself present in the man who is relation to other beings with the communion of love. His bond of love is perfect only with the triangular relationship: God – Man – world (other human beings and also the cosmos). This is the fullness of love. In this way, the Decalogue has also the aspect of love.
o The church has already found this aspect of love in the Ten Commandments. It is for this reason that she has compressed all the Ten into Two Commandments of Love: Love of God and Love of Neighbor.
o In this way: law is transformed into love; commandments into the spirit-filled life; this way we become also the mirrors of God’s love and thus we become the very temples of the Lord. No more temples of the stone (the law) but the temples of the spirit (the love).
- Second reading of today reminds us that the Cross of Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1Cor 1:24). In single word we can say that the ‘Cross’ becomes the ‘Spirit’. And this wisdom is not beyond the human science and knowledge. Paul speaks of this: “But we proclaim Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (v. 23).
o In the Cross God has manifested his power and his wisdom: His Power of victory over the sin and death and His Wisdom of unconditional love poured out for the salvation of humanity. Paul speaks to the Corinthians who are the mixture of both ‘Hebrews’ and ‘Gentiles/Greeks’. The community of Corinth is mixture of sings and sciences.
o On the one hand, Hebrews always demanded a sign for the proving the validity for the cross; on the other hand, Greeks who are always go with the reason and science have questioned the authenticity of the cross. In this context, Paul exhorts to the Christians who are in the middle of this confusion and refusal of truth of the cross that for those who believe the cross is no more a scandal but ‘mysterious wisdom of God manifested in the human conditions.’
o He announces that in the centre of Christian message there is God who, in the scandalous manner for the human understanding, wants to be near to man event to the moment of lowliness and death on the cross as a slave. This love of God who makes himself man for being with man and for man is so incomprehensive that it is considered to be ‘untrue’ and ‘unacceptable’ because God cannot become anything according to the sciences.
o It is only the faith that makes us digest the value of the Cross and that makes us live with the same sacrificing figure of Jesus that we will also become ‘the dwelling’ for the Spirit of God. As it was possible for God to become man, so also it will be possible for man to become the temple of God by surrendering to the pain and glory of the cross.
- In the Gospel passage we have an account of the cleansing of the temple by Jesus. It is a passage that we have heard many a time. We have number of elements to understand this deeply. The main aspect is that this passage is connected to the ‘rising of the temple of his body’: resurrection from the damage of death. Thus cleansing the temple materially leads us to understand purifying the life spiritually.
o Cleansing of the temple: Is Jesus has gone out of mind? Ask some people the same question. Marketing at the temple surroundings is not a matter of scandal of the time. It was in the temple of Jerusalem which is known for the only temple of God to which people flock for feast from the long distances. For these people who come from faraway places it is customary that they get their offering articles there in the temple itself which will make their journey easy. It is for this purpose that there are people who sell goats, rams and doves and who also change the money. It was just necessary for that time. It is no strange case. Even Jesus knows it. But why did he send them away?
o It is because of just one reason: market is replacing the temple. People who come to have an adoration of God are stopped there outside immersed in the shopping. The importance is not given to the feast of the Lord but the business and making money. This marketing is blocking the way to reach the Lord. The authorities of the temple and the money changers and sellers have misdirected the people into the business purpose than ‘giving due importance’ to the feast and the celebration of the glory of the Lord. Market was important and necessary but it should be only at the service of the people who come to adore God. But the situation was different. Market had become more popular and often frequented place than the temple of the Lord.
o Market has overtaken the temple and sacrifice has overtaken the zeal for God: This attitude from the authorities who has made the temple for the marketing and making money has made Jesus furious. For this reason, Jesus has whipped them out throwing down the tables of the money changers. He wanted to elevate again the value and significance of the temple of the Lord.
o Jesus, with these gestures, proclaims that God cannot be present in the material temple but in the temple where there is adoration in “spirit and in truth”. The word of God goes this way: “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
- Jesus asks us to move from the peripheral observation of the law to the true worship of God in Spirit. This is what we are called to be today. To be the bearers of the Spirit of God: the temple of God.

Lenten call and task:
Our mind is a market - purify and make it a temple of the Lord

- Preoccupied mind is a market place: very often in the life we make our mind a market place. We have lots of preoccupations in the mind. Our mind is completely diverted from being fixed to one thing. Even in the church we feel and do the same. We come here to be with Jesus and to participate in his life through the liturgy of the word and sacrament. We come here and sit. But often and immediately our mind will be somewhere else. It goes its way. It moves around. Many thoughts, which may be important for our daily living, take control of us. We lose the concentration. We are present physically but we are very distant in mind and in heart. Like in the market place we have the play of mind. We turn as it directs us. This is the reason why we hear the word but we do not understand it. This is the reason why we participate in the Eucharist but we do not experience its effect.
- Market is necessary but the church is more valuable: it is human to be always filled with preoccupations. It is normal that we are not that easily avoid the situations. But once we are willing to experience God in spirit and in truth we can make anything possible. It is the zeal for the presence of the Lord. One thing that we need to have is the zeal for the Lord. This zeal and want will make us present ourselves to the Lord. We can control our mind and offer it to know and to love God only if we give priority to the temple of the Lord. We have to make a balance between the need of the market and zeal for the temple. The prior is necessary for our ordinary life. The latter is a must for our extraordinary life.
- Christian Life is an ordinary life with extraordinary way: Christian way is not normal one as the world measures. The way is extraordinary. We are in the world but not to be sticking to the world. We are living our daily life but not to be in the usual way. For example: All move to fall in the pit of attraction of the various marketing goods and pleasure; but our attitude towards the same is quite different; we have to move to use them in a different way; we use them as the stepping stones for the higher purpose of reaching the Lord; we do not allow them to take control of us; we do not become a pry to them; instead, we are ready for both, either to have them or to reject them if unnecessary; Jesus, our Master, has one this: he lived a usual life of the society but in the unusual way; this unusual way is ‘giving priority’ to the will of His Father and this is what made him say: “My food is to do the will of God”: He neither said that food is not necessary nor did he say that it is only thing in life. When two things are in the fight he mixed them; when there is a question of food and the will of God, instead of seeing them as opposite poles, he combined them into one thing in the extraordinary way: food is necessary but my food is not ordinary material food, instead, it is the same will of God. This is the way we too are called to form our mind and our attitude towards both the temple and the market. We need market but our market should be the same temple of the Lord; we called this way to live an ordinary life with an extraordinary Christian way. We put away the preoccupations which block our access to God. We have to keep aside and throw down all the things that disturb and hinder the way to the Lord. We clean our minds and fill it with the zeal for the Lord. We have to purify our hearts and make them the temple of the Lord.
- Preparing our body and soul as the temple of the Lord: temple is the place of prayer and the place of interaction with the Lord and with one another. We have to be that place where we give possibility to all for the experience of love of God and love of neighbor. We are the mediators between these vertical and horizontal dimensions of love. In a word, we are the place of love – or – indwelling of the Spirit. Let us keep in mind the effect and fruit of Jesus’ Cross which made us “the temples of the Spirit” and let us make our spiritual journey, thus, from the mountain of Sinai to the temple of the Spirit, from the law to the love, and from the confusion of the market to the participation in the mystery of passion of Jesus. Thus, both our Lenten call and task is: to prepare ourselves to be “the living temple of God in the world.”

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT - YEAR B

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT – YEAR B
(Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Romans 8:31b-34; Mark 9:2-10)

Theme: Let us climb to the Calvary, the Mountain of the Glory of Jesus on the Cross.

Reflection

- We have started the season of Lent. We are already in the second week. We have already made few steps forward in our Lenten journey of participating in the passion of the Lord. As the spiritual nourishment of the week, we have reflected last Sunday on our journey from the Desert to the Garden. The journey was from the desert of temptation to the garden of the resurrection. The Journey made by Jesus himself after his own baptism in the river Jordan by John. Therefore, this journey was his own task of ‘fulfilling’ his Father’s will. In this journey Jesus was always accompanied by the Spirit. It was the Spirit that had guided him into the desert to overcome the temptation with prayer and fasting. It was the same Spirit that has empowered him to overcome the suffering and death with obedience and with the acceptance of the cross. Finally it was the same Spirit that has made him enter into the glorious life of the resurrection.
- This is the same journey we are asked to make in this season of Lent. The journey from the Desert of pains and sufferings of our present life to the Garden of joy and bliss of our future life. The present and future of life is not of something of the time, now and later. It is now and here. In the Christian sense the past, the present and the future are compressed in one moment of our being with Jesus. All our tenses of time and the tensions of life are in him, Jesus, who has become our savior by giving his time and his life for us. Therefore:
o On one hand, while bearing and living the pains we move towards the joy of overcoming them: the pain leads us to joy.
o On the other hand, we are full of joy of the Christian Spirit that makes us live, easily and without blaming anybody, the sufferings we get in life: the joy that makes us to endure the pain.
- In this way, the deserted life and the gardened life go hand in hand in our Christian vocation. We are at the same time in the desert and in the garden. We are at the same time depressed and joyful. We are at the same time people of the cross and the people of empty tomb. We are at the same time people of death and the people of resurrection. It seems to be contradiction and it is contradictory life. Yes, it is true that our Christian life is a contradiction, because we are not the people who belong to the world yet we are in the world. It is true because we are the people called to the divine life yet we are ‘entangled’ in the earthly pleasures. It is true because we strive to for the heavenly bliss with our daily trials, yet we are dragged down to the desperations and discouragements. We rise up and fall down. We fall down and rise up. It is not only for us. Our God himself has underwent and won over it and has shown the way to live and confront this contradiction. Therefore, the contradiction of Christian life can be overcome with Faith in our Lord. Faith makes us accept everything even if we do not understand it. We get this faith only from the deeper meditation of the mystery of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. This is what we are called to do in this time of lent: to participate fully in the mystery of the life of Jesus.
Climbing the mountain: experiencing the presence and the vision of God

- Today, the second Sunday of the Lent, we are asked to make our journey to the mountain of the Lord. The journey is from the mountain of the transfiguration to the mountain of glorification. Therefore, the journey is from the mountain of Tabor to the mountain of Calvary: from the mountain of the vision of glory to the mountain of the participation in the glory of the Lord.
- What is a mountain? And how and why should be climb on it? What will be the fruit of reaching it? From the ancient times the mountains are considered to be the ‘chair of gods’. Also for us Christians the mountains have the same importance: they are the place of meeting the Lord. The better example we could indicate here is the mountain of Sinai where the presence of the Lord is seen and experienced by Moses. It is the place where God comes to meet his people and people climb to arrive to have the vision of God. Even in the life of Jesus we see this significance. Jesus has gone to the hills and mountains to pray and to be alone with God, his Father.
- The fatigue and the fruit of climbing the mountain is:
o Physically, climbing demands a tiresome and painful journey. It demands time. It demands patience. It demands concentration. Above all it demands commitment. This is only the aspect of the fatigue that one makes to climb. There is another side of it. The joyful part. The fruit of arriving to the peak: the possibility of looking into heights. Looking into heavens. Looking into God’s bosom. Looking into life with the Lord and life of the Lord.
o Spiritually also climbing has a notable significance: climbing means moving above from the place we are. It means leaving our normal platform. It means renouncing all that we were holding before. It means sacrificing of our usual life, our usual attitudes, and our usual tasks. It means striving for something unusual and something transcendental. It means following not any more our footprints but of the one who has gone before us paving the way. It means that our spirit is no more attached to the worldly thoughts and earthly interests but is raised above. It means that we are clinging onto the spiritual empowerment by which we look towards Jesus and participate in his sacrifice of love.
o The fruit of both physical and spiritual climbing is the same: experiencing the presence of the Lord, that is: Meeting the Lord and Enjoying His Vision.

Abraham on the mount of Moriah: God’s abundant blessing of offspring

- The same experience of the mountain that Abraham had in the first reading and this is the experience of Jesus in the Gospel:
o Abraham has followed the instruction of the Lord. He has no second thought. He clearly understood that it is His God himself who is asking for the sacrifice of his only and beloved son.
o He has put God’s will first. He gave importance to the design of God. He did not understand why God has asked back the son whom he has received in this old age. Yet he did not want to question God. He believed though he did not comprehend it well. He obeyed though it is very painful to give away his son.
o He started out his journey towards the place of Moriah to offer his son there on the one of the mountains that God himself will indicate (v.2). He must have experienced on the one hand, the bodily fatigue and tiresomeness and on the other hand, they mental agony of sacrificing his son. In fact, the pain of the latter would have been more. Still he did not hesitate. His only aim is to do what God willed. He did not think of the cost that he was demanded to pay. He had in mind only one thing: faith.
o Trusting God is a property of Abraham. His belief is tremendous. It is not the faith of today. At the first instance itself, when God called him to move out of his land and go to the land which he would show him, he demonstrated his faith in God silently followed his words. This faith was always a guard to him and to the people who followed him. He was tested and tested many times and in many modes. But he was victorious because of the faith. In faith and with faith Abraham has overcome every obstacle. His faith has saved him. For this he became the “father of faith”. Even today, in this particular test of God, this same faith saved him. when he was about to lift the knife to offer his son, angel of God interrupts and says: “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (v.12).
o One who has trusted God has never been tested beyond endurance. Abraham manifested such a faith which has gone beyond our human natural comprehension. The fruit of it is found on the mountain and during the manifestation of faith: the blessing of God - for his obedience of His voice (v.18) and the blessing is: “I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore” (v.16). This is the promise and the blessing that Abraham received in his mountain experience with the Lord.

Jesus on the Mount Tabor: the Transfiguration

- Jesus also had the same experience of the mount – mount Tabor. This is not the first time that Jesus has gone to mount. He often goes to the mount to pray. But this time Jesus did not go alone. He has taken his disciples with him. Not all of them but the chosen three: Peter, James and John.
- Whenever Jesus goes to the mountain he goes to be with his Father all alone. He experiences his intimacy with the Father. He discerns what his Father wills for him. He renews his mission of completing the task. In the spirit he returns to the ordinary life in order to manifest to the people God’s presence in and through his words and deeds.
- This shows that every time when Jesus is with His Father on the mountain and in prayer he is being transfigured. His transfiguration into knowing and committing himself to follow God’s will. He becomes the figure of God’s splendor and glory. It must have happened whenever he comes aside to be with His Father. The true transfiguration is participating in the glory of God and in the prayer in happens always.
- Only this time, he has shown his transfiguration to the disciples: “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them” (v.2). This time his transfiguration has a purpose and a missionary aspect. Personal transfiguration of the glorious splendor of God is usual for Jesus in his personal prayer. But here it is another thing that “his transfiguration has something to say to his disciples”.
- His chosen disciples are called apart to have the experience of the vision that would be offered to them if only they endure their discipleship until the end. It is the mission that is placed before the three disciples in particular. Here the transfiguration has a double effect:
o Vision of the transfiguration: on the one hand, the disciples are revealed the vision of the future glory. Mystery of glory is unveiled to them. They are given the possibility of ‘foretasting’ crown of splendor. It is only a fruit for the task completed. It is the fruit that is consumed at the end of one’s life of discipleship. The eating of the fruit requires the fatigue of reaching to it. This fatigue is to be manifested in undistracted/undisturbed journey towards the climbing: both physical fatigue and spiritual sacrifice as we have already seen above.
o Mission of the transfiguration: on the other hand, the glory is not an easily achieved condition. It needs lot of sacrifice, may be sacrifice of one’s own self. It demands the unconditional faith through which one never looks back after placing his hand on the plough of the Lord, the cross. In order to put on “the garments of glory” one has to be stripped off the clothes already put on. In order to put on “the crown of glory” one has to give up his mentality and attitude and has to put on the ‘mind of Christ’ (Phil 2:5). This is the mission of transfiguration.
- Vision paves the way for the mission. Vision encourages the mission. Vision gives the joy of enduring the struggles of the mission. The vision of the transfiguration which the disciples had now will push them forward to carry on the mission of carrying the cross. This is what is indicated by the discourse of the Moses and Elijah with Jesus. Jesus in order to participate in the ultimate transfiguration – the glorification – he has to carry on the mission of the passion and death of and on the cross.
o Luke presents in the parallel account of the transfiguration that “they (Moses and Elijah) appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31).
o John also brings about the same mission of Jesus: “his departure from this world to the other” (John 13:1 – “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father”).
o Jesus is ready to accomplish the mission of entering into the glory. He is ready to depart towards Jerusalem in order to be ‘stripped off’ his splendor and glory in the humiliation and dishonor. All this is the mission which will lead him finally to the ‘glorification’ (Phil 2:11 – the fruit of the completion of the mission of the cross: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father”).
- This glory of the resurrection is the glory and the splendor manifested in the transfiguration. Therefore, the transfiguration of Jesus is the anticipation of the glory that will be the fruit of accomplishing the mission of suffering and death in faith and in obedience.
- The same vision and mission of transfiguration is offered to the disciples. One has the task of fulfilling the ‘climbing’ the mountain with the daily cross on the shoulders and in the foot prints that Jesus has already paved. Once he endures this difficult and arrives on the mountain the fruit is ‘prepared’ for him: the joy of resurrection, the life of glory and the splendor of God’s beatific vision.

Our Lenten journey: climbing the Calvary

- What is the mountain of the Lord for us? It is Calvary. It is Calvary because it is on this mountain that the love of God is ultimately manifested on the cross. Jesus’ entry into the world has no meaning if it is not ended here on this mount Calvary with the sacrifice of his life. This is what Paul reminds us today in the second reading: “God did not withhold his Son, but offered him on the cross for the salvation of humanity” (Roman 8:32). God has stopped Abraham and rescued his son from the sacrifice. But God did not rescue his own Son. It is his will that he himself has to reveal the unconditional love for bringing man back to his ‘original glory and splendor’. He has manifested this in his Son Jesus Christ.
- We are called to climb this mount Calvary. Lenten message and Lenten task is this. Jesus himself asks us: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mathew 16:24-25). This is the invitation that Jesus extends to us in our journey towards the Calvary:
o If only we want to be or to become his disciples: Because disciples already have the vision of glorification: they have the crown of glory awaiting them. Disciples have the participation in the master’s joy and glory. If Jesus has entered into the glory of the Father, even the disciples take part in it.
o Deny themselves: the disciples have to leave everything of their belongings. They now have no personal property. They are, by their will of following Jesus, the possession of God. This is the sacrifice that is demanded in order to climb the mountain. We have to unload our burdens. We have to free ourselves of our heavy fatigues. We have a long way to move. We have to be alighted in the Spirit. This will make our journey easy and destiny comfortable. This is what Jesus again asks us to do: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mathew 11:28-30).
 Denying means leaving everything aside in order to embrace something more valuable and significant;
 Denying means giving up of our attachment to the things of the world in order to give priority to the things of the heaven: “first you seek the kingdom of God and the rest will be given to you” (Mathew 6:33) is the voice of Jesus that should echo in our hearts.
o Take up the cross and follow me: it is the only means of entering into the glory in the Christian faith because Jesus has done this and asked us to do it. He has carried it to the Calvary and he has revealed in the ultimate mode how God loved the world/humanity: “God so loved the world that He sent his only son so that who believe in him will not see the perdition but has eternal life”.
o Therefore, the mount Calvary is a mountain of sacrifice (mount Moriah of Abraham’s sacrifice), mountain of splendor and glory (mount Tabor of Jesus’ transfiguration) and finally mountain of ‘Life and Love’ to which we are called to climb in this Lenten season. Therefore, let us climb up to the mountain of the Lord: Mount Calvary: the true mountain of Pain and Suffering, true mountain of sacrifice and obedience, true mountain of splendor and glory.

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT - YEAR B

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT – B
(Gen 9:8-15; 1Pet 3:18-22; Mark 1:122-15)

Theme: We have to make a passage from the desert of the pain to the garden of joy

Reflection

Lent: A Time for prayer – fasting – charity

- We have just begun the ‘time of Lent’ and today is the first Sunday of the Lent. With the Ash Wednesday we have initiated our ‘journey of spiritual renewal’. Inspired by and taking origin from the word and life of Jesus, the Church has placed before us the three important Christian practices for the Lent: the prayer, the fasting and the charity. One of them is a virtue through which our Christian life is nourished and enriched.
o The prayer makes us to be near to God and to discern the will that God has for us. It helps us to reach the altar of God and become closer to him. It is the gesture of our coming to God and to be with him. We leave aside all our daily worries and preoccupations and give a ‘space’ for God. It is through prayer, especially in silence and in mediation, that our spirits to cling on to God always. In prayer we become God’s children and God’s possession. In prayer we see God’s will coming to us and our response of faith moving to God. God and We become one in prayer. It is the reason why the greatest prayer that becomes the meeting point of both God and Us is: ‘Let your will be done’.
o The fasting is the gesture of sacrifice or foregoing something for the better cause of interior spiritual growth. In the material sense the fasting is the sacrifice/foregoing of the food we eat so that we keep aside what we are saving and give to the needy. In the spiritual sense it is the sacrifice/foregoing of our priorities and our dominant egoistic attitudes so that we give importance to others and make ourselves pleasant and peaceful in our relationships. If in prayer we become closer to God, in the fasting we become closer to ourselves. We have the possibility of knowing what we are, where we are and where we are heading to. In hunger we look into ourselves. In sacrifice we realize our power and potentiality. In foregoing what we hold onto we develop our personality. We form ourselves by the ‘entering into the knowledge of the self’. In the fasting we have this possibility of entering deep into our mind, heart and the spirit. But on the other hand the sacrifice either of food or of our immature attitudes, the fruit of fasting, is not for us alone. It is for other. Our interior formation of the mind, heart and soul is to reach out to others and make them walk towards the same faith in God. It is the reason why the greatest act of fasting is: ‘pruning our proper self and soul’.
o Charity is the gesture of a help extended towards the needy. While prayer makes us closer to God and the fasting makes us closer to ourselves, the charity makes us closer to others. This charity/extension of the arms to our needy brethren is possible and become easier after the encounter with God in prayers and the encounter with the self in the fasting. Once we know the will of God and once we have the knowledge of our identity (prayer and fasting), it is very conducive to reach out to others. It is for this purpose that the ‘act of charity’/love becomes the meeting point of the three: We, God and others. Only here our life and its destiny find their realization of ‘being in love’ and being love itself. The pruning of our self and soul through the prayer and through fasting is culminated in the charity and in the loving deeds. If this final virtue of love is not the motive of the former two, prayer and fasting, then they do not have much significance. Therefore, the ultimate meaningfulness of Lent is to extend our interiorly profound life of faith to the exterior testimony of love of works.

Lent: A walk out of desert of desperation and into the garden of hope

- On this first Sunday of the Lent, the Church exhorts us to make our passage from the life of desert to the life of joy. Why a desert? Why to be in the garden? What is the significance of both of them in our life? And how the word of God enlightens us today? These are the questions that arise immediately and we deepen our reflection by trying to find out reasonable answers.
- Human life is a desert: In the normal sense, our mind very easily moves to imagine the desert as a place of dryness, as a place of fruitlessness, and as a place of perdition. Thus, it is a place of lifelessness. In the spiritual sense, the desert is a place of loneliness, solitude and meditation. It is place in which the silent discernment of our rapport with God is possible. In this way it becomes the place of ‘interaction’ between God and the believer. Accordingly, does not our human life often find itself deserted? Often we find ourselves depressed, discouraged, isolated and helpless. In a word, we find ourselves deserted. This is the normal sense. In the spiritual sense, though the desert of the solitude and being in prayer helps us to know and develop our relationship with God, our unity of love with God should be transformed into the testimony of life which is possible not mere in the desert but in the midst of the people. In both senses, the deserted life leads us either to the loosing of God or to the communication with God alone. In both cases we do not have any contact with others/fellow beings which is not natural for the community life.
- Human life is a garden: on the other hand, human life is not meant and made for the deserted life. It is made for the garden life. It is the plan of God in the creation and in the salvation too.
o In the creation God has created the human beings, man and woman, and place them in the garden asking them to enjoy ‘the life and the fruitfulness’ of the garden of Eden.
o In the salvation history, God has led his people Israel from the desert to the land of milk and honey, from Egypt to the Cana and in the spiritual sense, from the land of pathetic/desperate situation of slavery to the land of sympathetic/hopeful condition of freedom of God’s children.
o In the mystery of Christ, the fulfillment of the promise of salvation, Jesus is risen from the dead and his resurrection from the tomb happened not in the desert but in the garden. In the garden he has offered to man a new life that was lost with the consequence of being ‘out of the garden’ or ‘out of the life of God’.
o From this we know that the destiny of our life is not a desert but a garden, not a condition of losing life but the possibility of gaining the divine life back. That does not mean that we do not have any experience of the desert. God never promises a life without difficulties. He only promises the spirit and the strength to confront these difficult situations with the love for God and for the neighbor and for the glory that is awaiting us. As long as we are in the battle with the world and its attractive pleasure we experience the ‘life of the desert’ with the situations of hopelessness and helplessness. Amidst all this we should not worry and we should not lose heart. There is one person who is before us: Jesus - one who walks before us; one who prepares a way for us; one who leaves his foot prints so that we follow them; one who takes all our desperate moments of suffering and pain on to his shoulders and carry; one who, thus, makes us free of burden and the invites us to reach him, to learn from him and to carry the cross with courage and hope. Jesus calls us: Come to me, you who are heavy burdened. I will give you rest. Learn from I am meek and humble. You will find peace. Take my yoke because it is light (Mathew 11:29ff). There is a way to overcome and to win all these with the example and imitation of Jesus and thus to reach into the lift of joy, peace and love, in a word, to the life of a garden of spiritual renewal. Thus, now let us imitate what has Jesus done and how the Church helps us to understand the same Jesus’ desert experience.

Jesus: tempted by the Satan and served by the Angels

- We have today a passage from St. Mark’s gospel in which, as in the first Sunday of every Lent, meditate upon the ‘temptation of Jesus in the desert’ and how he has overcome it with the total commitment to the will of God.
- Spirit leads Jesus into the desert: it is noteworthy to observe that it is not the devil that leads Jesus into the desert but the Spirit of God himself. It is the work of the spirit to lead a person to enter into the closer encounter with God. Here the Spirit guides Jesus into the loneliness and solitude and to be with God alone. The first work of the baptized is to be fully immersed in the life of God with the discernment of His will. Jesus has just received baptism by John the Baptist and immediately the Spirit pushes him gently into the ‘experience of God’. The baptized is set out to carry on what he has just promised in the reception of new life: being faithful and being a testimony. Here too Jesus is set out when he has just begun his public appearance and ministry. For this first step is to find out what God really will for him and the plan of carrying it out. This is possible only in the silent and prayerful interaction with God. In the midst of the noise and the rumors of the normal public life this is not easily possible. He needs a space for solitude. Therefore, Jesus moves into the desert always in the guidance of the Spirit. In the desert Jesus has become so strong in doing of the will of His Father that no temptation, however powerful it is, could stop him and we see in the parallel accounts of Mathew and Luke how the Satan leaves him after finding itself helpless with the spiritual empowerment of Jesus (Mathew 4:11; Luke 4:13).
- Jesus remains forty days in the desert: Forty days is a ‘fixed period of time’. It is the partial and particular moment of Jesus life. Desert is not his place of living. Desert is not his place of preaching. Desert is not the place of mission. Desert is not the place of his sacrifice of life too. Desert experience is only partial. It is not his whole life. It becomes only a part of Jesus’ life. Still it is very important starting point, though not a centrality of his life. From here we understand at least two things:
o That, in the desert Jesus has spent only few days of his entire life. This period of forty days of prayer and solitude will come to an end and immediately there follows the living of the experience with the ministry. This teaches us that there is a period of temptation and pain. But it is only short one. It remains only for few days. It is not the whole life. There will be the turning of this desperation into hope. The desert experience will be followed by the joyful life of God.
o That, in the desert Jesus has started descending and accepting the will of God for him. It initiates him into the public ministry. It encourages him into the fulfillment of salvation process that he has come to do. Thus, it is not a less important moment of his life. It is very important and of course, it was not there, his public mission would have taken another shape/another mode. But God willed this way and that is the reason why His Spirit has guided him into this desert experience. It is the ‘starting’ point of his life. This teaches us that we have to accept this desert life and remain in it with the spirit of sacrifice and renouncement. With this experience we become strong in the spirit that we can face any material difficulty with ease and with positive confrontation.
- Jesus is served by the Angels: Another element of desert experience. God never leave his children alone. He always takes his side with the presence of his angels. We see here the beautiful and encouraging expression of the service of the angels. Jesus is surrounded by the angels who guard him and who assist him. The Spirit has done his work of leading Jesus into the desert. Jesus has fulfilled the plan of God by remaining in the desert without giving up in the middle. Father has done his work by sending his angels in support of him. This happens in every desert experience. We get lot of power to live our own deserted moments of life. We are not alone. God cannot leave us alone. His love and mercy is so amazing that he takes our side. If we remain with him he remains with us. His angels are always present with us in our temptations and in our difficulties. That is the reason why Paul tells us that God will not make us tempted beyond our strength. When we lose our ground his powerful hand takes hold of us. Why to worry? There is no need for any preoccupation. We are always assisted by the angels of God. We should never bypass this presence of God with us in the form of the service of Angels. It is the Spirit who leads us to the desert experience because we need this to become strong in the spiritual life. And it is the Angels who help us, by their presence and protection, to the fruitful carrying of our mission.

Lent: forming ourselves as a sign of God’s mercy in and to the world

- With the spirit of Lent we have the call of forming ourselves as the sign of God’s love. We have to form ourselves into that destiny where we become ‘the symbols’ of Jesus mercy and love. Those who meet us have to see in us the presence of God for their life of desert. We have become strong in the spiritual life and thus we have the task of bringing all those who are still in the desert of discouragement and difficulty to the garden of vitality in Jesus. In order to fulfill this task we need to become a sign of God for them. We have this notion from the same readings of today especially from the first two readings.
- In the first reading we observe the alliance/ covenant that God has made with the family of Noah. The flood has destroyed whole face of the earth. God has saved only Noah and his family because of the faith of Noah. Now God renews his covenant of leading them to the ultimate salvation which cannot be destroyed by any further flood. As the sign of his faithful and his covenant God places his ‘bow’/rainbow in the skies. His promise is: “I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh” (v. 15). We observe here two points: God’s covenant with the family of Noah, his chosen race on the one hand, and His covenant with the whole creation which surpasses the remnant of his people and thus becomes the universal in its character. God’s love is for his people and his people are not of a selected section but the whole humanity. The important point here is: There is both a person and a sign between God and his people. The person is Noah and the sign is the rainbow.
- In the second reading Peter recalls the waters through which Noah and his family is saved as the waters of baptism through we are all called to new life and salvation. Here the symbolism is the blood of Christ in which all our sins are washed away and we are made again the children of God. Through our participation in the death of Jesus we become also the partakers of his resurrection. In other words, when we partake in the desert experience of Jesus Passion and Death we are also raised to the glory of new life in the garden of God. God renews again his promise and covenant and brings it to the ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The important point here is: There is both a person and a sign here also between God and his people. The person is Jesus Christ and the sign is the Cross.
- Today we are called to be sign of God in the world. We form and reform ourselves. We transform our life into the sign of God’s love to the world. Noah and the Bow are the person and the sign that God placed between Him and his people in the covenant after the flood. Jesus and the Cross are the person and the sign that God placed between Him and Us after the death and resurrection to New Life. Now, today, it is we and our love that God places between Him and the world as the person and the sign. Thus we, the Christians, have the great responsibility of ‘being the person and the sign’ of God for the world that is hopelessly moving towards perdition of the desert.
- Lent is a ‘favorable hour’ and ‘redemptive hour’ (2 Cor 6:2 – “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation”). It is the time in which we have to ‘convert’ our words into merciful deeds, our prayers into actions, and finally our deserted life into the fruitful garden. For this we are called and for this we are offered this ‘gracious moments’ of the Lent. Therefore, let us make a passage from the desert of the pain to the garden of joy and once we are in the garden of life we become sign of God’s love to the world so that the whole creation enters into the ‘joy of the gardened life’.