Commentary
The Price of God’s Love
This Gospel
passage continues and brings to climax the great themes of God’s boundless love
and forgiveness. This has been one of
the themes of the Sunday Gospels during Lent for this Cycle C taken from Luke.
We have heard God’s
love and forgiveness from Jesus’ teaching on God’s patience in the parable of
the fig tree (2rd Sunday of Lent).
The theme of God’s love continues with the image of the father’s
boundless love for the two sons who do not appreciate it (3rd Sunday
of Lent). Then, God’s love and
forgiveness becomes tangible in the flesh in Jesus when he forgives and opens
the path to relationship with God to the woman caught in the act of adultery (5th
Sunday of Lent).
In forgiving
sinners and in sharing with humanity God’s love, Jesus Christ reveals himself
as the true Son of God (this identity of Jesus was introduced in the Gospel passage
of the temptation in the desert (1st Sunday of Lent) and the
transfiguration (2nd Sunday of Lent)).
Jesus now shares
a meal with Peter and the other disciples, who are sinners. [1] They are people with human brokenness, lack
of understanding, fear…. One of them will
betray Jesus. Another will deny knowing
him. The rest will abandon him.
Moreover, for
them, for the two criminals crucified with him, for the high priest, the
rulers, the soldiers, and, indeed, for all sinners, Jesus gives his life.
To the Father,
the Son offers his life for the forgiveness of all sinners. On the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what
they do.”
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[1] Francis J.
Moloney, The Gospel of the Lord, Reflections on the Gospel Readings
Year C. Collegeville, MN. Liturgical Press, 1991; p. 83.
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