Growing in the Knowledge of Christ - 3rd Sunday in Lent Year A

Sometimes and ordinary encounter can have a much deeper meaning than the surface may initially reveal. We can all recall instances where we encounter a person who reveals to us the presence of Christ. I recall meeting a man outside a church I was entering for a time of prayer. He asked me for a ride to his doctor, as he was running late and it wasn't far. I agreed to do so after I made a short visit to the church, but he said I need not help; he would find another way. I was only in the church a minute when I felt guilty about not helping the man, and I rushed out of the church, realizing that God was present in the man who had this need. I searched everywhere for him, but I could not find him anywhere. It was at this point that I learned what God had revealed to me: prayer before the real presence of Christ should lead us to see Christ in others and to serve them as Christ served us.

The Samaritan woman in today's Gospel reading has a similar experience. A simple conversation about water leads to a profound realization about the identity of Jesus. When the story begins the woman addresses Jesus with a slur, calling him a Jew. As the story progresses she then refers to Jesus with more respect, calling him 'sir'. Then, after Jesus tells her about her irregular life, she comes to see Jesus as a prophet, and later wondering whether Jesus is the promised messiah. By the time the story is over, the entire village of Samaritans comes to regard Jesus as the savior of the world. What is more, the woman leaves behind her water jar, never having filled it with water.

This Gospel text is the first of three passages from the Gospel of John we will encounter through Lent. Each of these texts is a step along the road to initiation into the Church for those preparing for baptism at Easter. The entire Church is asked to consider anew our understanding of the identity of Christ as we walk with the catechumens toward the font of baptism. What does it mean for us to assert that Jesus is savior of the world?

At the time in which John wrote his Gospel text the early Christian community was experiencing their first widespread persecution from the Roman Empire. This persecution arose because the Christians no longer had the protection of the Jewish synagogues from the requirements to offer sacrifice to the emperor. They had been expelled from the synagogues and were no longer considered Jews by both the Jewish community and the Roman authorities. Thus, the Christians now were required to offer the sacrifice for emperor worship. The title "savior of the world" was the title of the Emperor. Thus, when John ends this story with the Samaritans declaring Jesus to be the savior of the world it represents a firm act of faith in the face of severe persecution: the Church would not betray her faith in Christ amid the pressures of the world.

We might well ask ourselves why the Church faces so little overt persecution in our nation. Is it because our nation has become fully converted and is a Christian nation, as some would suggest? Hardly. The reality of abortion on demand, the widespread proliferation of pornography, the xenophobic hatred of immigrants, and our materialistic culture would indicate something other than a Christian nation. Perhaps our lack of persecution has more to do with our general acquiescence to the larger culture, as polls on most subjects shows Catholics to follow the general attitudes of the wider population.

Lent is a time for catechumens and candidates to prepare for the sacraments of initiation, where we are asked whether we reject Satan and all his works, and whether we believe in God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church which is Christ's spouse. The whole Church prepares with them to renew these vows and to recommit to living a fully Christian life. We pray together in our repentance: "Let us pray to the Father and ask him to form a new heart within us. God of all compassion, Father of all goodness, to heal the wounds our sins and selfishness bring upon us you bid us turn to fasting, prayer, and sharing with our brothers. We acknowledge our sinfulness, our guilt is ever before us: when our weakness causes discouragement, let your compassion fill us with hope and lead us through a Lent of repentace to the beauty of Easter joy. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

The Limits of the Law - First Sunday of Lent Year A

When I was a teacher I had a number of students who suffered from test anxiety. This phenomenon manifests itself in the following way. We could have activities, lessons, and other strategies to learn material and the students would know the material cold. Yet, when the "test day" arrived, some of them froze and could not remember the material in order to succeed on the test. Thus, they would do poorly. So, when I decided to call the assessment exercise something else and change the atmosphere of the former test day, the students did much better. Once we eliminate the bad word 'test', their fear went away and they could succeed.

In a certain sense, this same dynamic is taking place in the second reading from Paul's letter to the Romans. Paul recognizes that the law has been unable to help God's people to achieve success. In fact, the law has had the opposite effect: it has caused people to sin. Paul uses the history of Israel to demonstrate this point. From the time of Adam to Moses death reigned because sin was in the world, though in that time people did not sin as terribly as the original fault of Adam. Once the law entered the history of Israel at the time of Moses, sin abounded all the more. The responsorial Psalm is the prayer of lament from David after he committed the double crime of murder and adultery. David is the paradigm of the law, and yet the law failed even David.

The original sin of our first parents is recounted in the first reading for today's liturgy, and once again we find a law in existence: do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While it seems like a simple law, our first parents were not able to keep this law. The serpent found it quite easy to fool Eve, and Adamn gave even less resistance when offered the fruit by her. Once sin entered the world, the history of sin becomes the history of the world, and even the greatest gift of God to the Jewish people - the Law - failed them in the thought of Paul.

Paul offers the death of Jesus as the victory over sin and death, and through the death of Jesus the entire human race is now able to overcome sin in our lives. Our text from the Gospel of Matthew recounts the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Matthew carefully constructs the story to mirror the temptations of the Israelites in the desert after leaving Egypt. In each of those original temptations the people failed God; Jesus, however, will not fail - and in this victory over Satan we find an example to follow. In each temptation the devil presents Jesus with a passage from the law, and in each reply Jesus too uses the law to provide an example of faithfulness to God.

What the people of God lacked in their history was not a law to obey but an example to follow. In the person of Jesus we have the example of the only one who lived the law to perfection, and yet obedience to the law is not sufficient to find salvation because we cannot earn our salvation. Salvation is solely a gift of God offered to us, one that comes to us in the person of Jesus and through his death and resurrection. Paul uses the word 'gift' four times in the selection from Romans to highlight this fact.

In this time of Lent we seek to repent of our sins and to follow Jesus more closely. Let us remember that, in the words of the spiritual writer Fr. Paul Coutinho, "Repentance is a consequence and not a condition of God's love." We do not earn God's forgiveness through our repentance; we repent as we respond to God's love in recognizing we are not worth of it and we often fail in responding to love with love. And so we pray with the Church as we begin this Lenten season: "Let us pray at the beginning of Lent for the spirit of repentance. Lord our God, you formed man from the clay of the earth and breathed into him the spirit of life, but he turned from your face and sinned. In this t ime of repentance we call out for your mercy. Bring us back to you and to the life your Son won for us by his death on the cross, for he lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen."