The Call of the Living God: The Third Sunday in Lent

                                                  The Call of the Living God

The Third Sunday in Lent

March 20, 2022

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

predmoresj@yahoo.com | 617.510.9673

Exodus 3;1-8, 13-15; Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9

 

          The season of Lent is to prepare ourselves to have an experience of God in order that we may remain in better relationship together. Lent begins with the appeal: Return to me with all your heart. We give ashes with another appeal: Be faithful to the Gospel for that is what gives one life. Today, we hear of Moses’s encounter with the Living God, the God who eternally exists and is not consumed by the world’s forces. It is into this mystery of God that we enter during this sacred time. It is into this liminal place where we hear God’s cry for the world.

 

          Whether or not we realize it, we stand before God’s presence each day and behold the holy. In the readings, God told Moses that God hears the cries of the Israelites who are suffering injustices. Today, God also hears the cries of the people of Ukraine and all people who suffer from violence and force at the hands of humans who choose selfish gain over the dignity of others. Our call to prayer has to be an active mission, one that does not take us away from the cares of the world but animates us to bring to God the pain and concerns of the world. As we bring our prayers to God, God gives us his beating heart to bring into the chaos around us. 

 

          We have heard pious platitudes like “prayers and good wishes,” and some people want more than that because it does not seem as if prayers have the power to change individuals or history, and yet, if this is a Living God, and our prayer is living, it releases something from within that touches upon our fundamental mission and it allow us to be troubled by the plea of all those who suffer. We cannot be afraid of touching the wound of others because they are the wounds of Christ. 

 

          The Gospel speaks of such misfortune, and it tells us about the fig tree that did not bear fruit, and our need for patience for fruits to unfold. Just as God reveals who God is to us during prayer, God is able to make us who we are to be when we have a sacred experience. It involves a disposition of being open to experience God and allowing ourselves to be loved, even when we think we are unlovable because of our past actions or those things that remain unreconciled in life. On our own, we cannot transform those areas of ourselves, but God is able to do it by gazing upon us and calling us into deeper friendship. Sometimes all we have to do is to gaze upon God like Moses did at the burning bush, but it is also God gazing back at us. God called Moses forth to lead his people out of exile. What is the liberation you need to be truly who you are? Even if you cannot put your finger on it, God knows and is working to tease it out of you. 

 

          Be patient with yourself and do not work at it too hard. Trust that God will lead you to something real, to something meaningful, because this is the Living God, who never stops loving you, and even if our earthly life were to come to an end, God is going to keep calling the fullness out of you, for this God of ours is the God of the Living, and we will always be alive to God. 

 

          Wherever you find yourselves today, step into the silence, the stillness, the sacredness of the moment, and ask, “Where are you present in my life today, O God?” Show me, as you showed Moses. God will be there with you – right by your side. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (2 Kings 5) Naaman, the king of Aram, contracted leprosy. A captured girl wanted him to present himself to the prophet in Samaria. Naaman was instructed to wash seven times in the Jordan River and his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child.

 

Tuesday: (Daniel 3) Azariah asked for the Lord’s deliverance. He asked that the Lord deal with them in kindness and with great mercy.

 

Wednesday: (Deuteronomy 4) Moses spoke to the people asking them to hear and heed the statutes and decrees he received from the Lord. Do not forget the things the Lord has done.

 

Thursday: (Jeremiah 7) They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.  

 

Friday: (Hosea 14) Return to God, who forgives all iniquity. The Lord will heal their defection and love them freely for his wrath is turned away from them.  

 

Saturday: (Hosea 6) Come, let us return to the Lord. It is love that I desire, not sacrificed, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.  

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 4) Jesus reminded people that a prophet is without honor in his own land and he called the mind the story of Naaman, the foreigner from Syria, who was cured.

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 18) Peter asked Jesus about forgiveness. He said to forgiven seventy-seven time because unless each person forgives from the heart, he will not be forgiven. 

 

Wednesday: (Matthew 5) Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Each commandment is to be observed; the one who does it will be the greatest in the Kingdom.

 

Thursday: (Luke 11) Jesus drove out a demon that was mute and was then accused of being in league with Beelzebul. Jesus explained to them how that does not make much sense. 

 

Friday: (Mark 12) A scribe asked Jesus to declare which is the first commandment. Love the God with you whole soul and your neighbor like yourself. The scribe was well pleased.  

 

Saturday: (Luke 18) Jesus told a parable about prayer to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. The one who is humble is favored by God.  

Saints of the Week

 

March 23: Toribio of Mogrovejo, bishop (1538-1606) was a Spanish law professor in Salamanca who became the president of the Inquisition in Granada. As a layman, he was made the Archbishop of Lima, Peru and became quickly disturbed at the treatment of the native populations by the European conquerors. He condemned abuses and founded schools to educate the oppressed natives. He built hospitals and churches and opened the first seminary in Latin America.

 

March 25: The Annunciation of the Lord celebrates the announcement that God chose to unite divinity with humanity at the conception of Jesus. God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary to inform her of God’s intentions to have her conceive the future Messiah. The boy’s name was to be Jesus – meaning “God saves.” This date falls nine months before Christmas Day. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• March 20, 1602. The first "Disputatio de Auxiliis" was held before Clement VIII. The disputants were Fr. Gregory de Valentia SJ and Fr. Diego Alvarez OP. 
• March 21, 1768. In Spain, at a special meeting of the Council of State in the presence of King Charles III, the Suppression of the Society was urged on the pretense that it was independent of the bishops, that it plotted against the State, and that it was lax in its teaching. 
• March 22, 1585: In Rome, Fr. General received the three Japanese ambassadors with great solemnity in the Society's Church of the Gesu. 
• March 23, 1772: At Rome, Cardinal Marefoschi held a visitation of the Irish College and accused the Jesuits of mismanagement. He removed them from directing that establishment. 
• March 24, 1578: At Lisbon Rudolf Acquaviva and 13 companions embarked for India. Among the companions were Matthew Ricci and Michael Ruggieri. 
• March 25, 1563: The first Sodality of Our Lady, Prima Primaria, was begun in the Roman College by a young Belgian Jesuit named John Leunis (Leonius). 

March 26, 1553: Ignatius of Loyola's letter on obedience was sent to the Jesuits of Portugal.