4th Sunday of Lent - C (March 27, 2022)

 

God is Filled with Compassion

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

 

In the face of evils and suffering, we want to ask, “Why God?”  Or if God is a benevolent God, why would God allow evils and suffering?

 

This parable teaches us that it is we, like the two sons, who cause our sufferings and we cause others to suffer.  We do not see ourselves as God’s children.  We rebel.  We do not want to live in God’s house, or following God’s laws.  We treat each other as strangers. (In the parable, the younger brother only thinks of himself and his wants.  He has no consideration for his father or his brother.  The older brother complains to his father about the faults of “your son” but not “my brother.”)

 

When we cause our own sufferings, and when we cause others to suffer, God is “filled with compassion for us.”  God “comes out and pleads with” us to return to share God’s love, compassion, and joy with God and with each other.   

 

Image: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, www.wikipedia.org

3rd Sunday of Lent - C (March 20, 2022)

 

The Lord is Kind and Merciful

Luke 13: 1-9

 

These words of the responsorial psalm consoles and encourages us.

 

Imagine if God “dealt with us as our sins merit” (Psalm 103:10).

 

Instead, as Jesus teaches us through the Gospel parable, God creates us and continually sustains God’s gift of life in us. 

 

But we do not always live the way of God.  Even then, like the gardener, in our Savior, God guides and nourishes us with God’s grace, so that we, the fig tree, might bear fruits.

 

 Image source: www.agnusday.org

2nd Sunday of Lent (March 13, 2022)

 

Prayer

Luke 9: 28b-36

 

Jesus took Peter, John, and James to the mountain to pray.  The three were “overcome by sleep.”  Later, while “fully awake,” Peter spoke to Jesus, “but he did not know what he was saying.” 

 

Can we relate to those experiences in our prayer?  Sleeping?  Saying things that we do not know what we are saying?

 

We are consoled and encouraged to know that it is Jesus who leads us when we pray.  It is Jesus, the head, who prays in us, His body.  It is also Jesus who is speaking to us the words that God invites us to listen to.

 

As God spoke to the disciples, God still speaks to us.  In addition, whether we are awake or asleep, God’s presence and glory always embrace us. 

 

Prayer really does not depend on us and our efforts.  It is God’s initiative to draw us into relationship with God. 

Image source: www.agnusday.org

1st Sunday of Lent - C (March 6, 2022)

 

Jesus – Our Way and Power

Luke 4: 1-13

 

Our Christian life is a journey. 

 

While on that journey, we need regular opportunities to recalibrate our progress and direction. 

 

The annual observance of Lent offers us the opportunity to recalibrate.  And Jesus gives us the direction.

 

The direction of Jesus’ life is oriented towards God and humanity.  As seen in the three temptations in today’s Gospel, he did not use his power to serve his needs, to control others, or to supplant God. 

 

His life culminated at the cross.  There, he gave himself as the sacrifice of love that all humanity might live.  There, he offered the sacrificed of perfect obedience to God the Father. 

 

With the power of Christ’s gift of self in the Eucharist, may this Lent help us to recalibrate our Christian life according to how he lived and sacrificed himself for us.