Accepting this Unconditional Love: The Second Sunday of Lent, 2024

                                            Accepting this Unconditional Love:

The Second Sunday of Lent, 2024 

February 25, 2024

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Genesis 22:1-18; Psalm 116; Romans 8:31-34; Mark 9:2-10

 

The Church provides us with two meaningful events in our faith through these readings. The Church puts the faithfulness of Abraham at the start of Lent because his fidelity to God was pivotal in God’s choice of Abraham as the Father of the nations. His faithfulness was the response that God needed to make a covenant with a particular tribe and nation. Abraham’s response foreshadows the response of Jesus who won us salvation because he was faithful until death. It is the obedience of the faith of Jesus that saves us, just as it was Abraham’s obedience that saved Isaac and spared his life. 

 

The Church also gives us the Transfiguration of Jesus as the moment in which the obedience of Jesus would be put into action. It is during this point that the preaching of Jesus stops. He no longer teaches in parables, heals, or exorcises demons, but he sets his face to Jerusalem, as it is the sacred city in which people would have to make a decision based on their faith – accept the reign of God as proposed by Jesus or hold tight to religious convictions of old. This is the moment of affirmation that Jesus needs to present his place to all of Israel. He risks it all – either people will come to believe, or he will be killed by the religious elders. 

 

When you look at both stories, there is a common point. It is that God commits to Abraham and to Jesus. God affirms their choices of obedience. God definitively commits to each of these men. God builds a nation of faithful people around Abraham and God builds a community of friends around Jesus. Where do you think we fit into this story? We must imagine God saying to us the same words, “I love you unconditionally. You cannot earn that love, and you cannot lose it.” It changes everything, doesn’t it, when we fully accept those words. These words resound throughout Scripture and yet we act like we still must earn that love.

 

If we truly accepted these words, would we relax a bit more? We cannot earn salvation. Jesus already won it for us. We cannot lose the love of God. That means that sin and failure will not keep us away from God’s love. It does not mean that we get to act recklessly because we would want to respond to God’s love responsibly and in worship. Nothing though can separate us from this love. What Jesus did for us on the Cross over 2,000 years ago means that the sins we have done have been forgiven, and any sin we should happen to commit in the future are likewise erased. God does not focus on our sin. God focuses upon our strivings and our generous response to love. We would be a church that focuses less upon rules and restrictions while doing our best to welcome others in so that they can know of God’s love for them too. Our job as a church community is to make certain that we increase that love for others through our hospitality and compassion. The Eucharist and our communion are our signs to God that we care for one another and share our life in common as God intends. The Eucharist is the sacrament of daily life where we get to put God’s love into action. It is always an aid for people to come to know God more intimately. 

 

Can we accept the reality of this unconditional love that can never be lost? For us? For others whom we judge? God has already fundamentally committed to us, and that can never be negated. We just have to figure out how to live on in this love. Abraham accepted it and placed his complete trust in God. Jesus accepted it and he was able to bring us closer to the heart of God. What might happen to us if we accept it? 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Daniel 9) We have rebelled against you God and sinned, but you have remained faithful to us in the covenant. You, O Lord, have justice on your side. 

 

Tuesday: (Isaiah 1) Wash yourselves clean and make justice your aim. Obey the commandments and take care of your neighbor.

 

Wednesday: (Jeremiah 18) The people of Judah contrived against Jeremiah to destroy him by his own words.

 

Thursday: (Jeremiah 17) Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings. More tortuous than all else is the human heart. The Lord alone probes the mind and tests the heart.  

 

Friday: (Genesis 37) Israel loved Joseph best of all, which created resentment among his brothers, who later sold him into slavery for twenty pieces of silver. 

 

Saturday: (Micah 7) God removes guilt and pardons sins and does not persist in anger. 

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 6) Jesus said, “Be merciful,” and “Stop judging because you will be judged by the way you judge.”

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 23) The scribes and Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Be wary of someone’s teaching if they have no integrity between their words and actions. 

 

Wednesday: (Matthew 20) As Jesus went up to Jerusalem, he told his disciples, “Behold. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests, condemned to death, handed over to Gentiles, an crucified, and will be raised on the third day.”

 

Thursday: (Luke 16) A rich man dressed in purple garments died shortly after Lazarus, a beggar. In heaven, Lazarus was rewarded and the rich man was tormented in hell. He appealed to God to spare his family, but was told that they would not listen to Moses or to anyone who was raised from the dead.

 

Friday: (Matthew 21) Jesus told the parable of a vineyard owner, who entrusted the land to servants, but these men seized the land and possessed it. They killed the servants and the heir. When the owner returned, he cast the wretched men into a tormented death. 

 

Saturday: (Luke 15) Jesus is accused of welcoming sinners and eats with them. He then tells the story of the prodigal one who was well received by his father upon his return. The one who was lost has been found. 

 

Saints of the Week

 

March 1: Katherine Drexel (1858-1955), was from a wealthy Philadelphian banking family and she and her two sisters inherited a great sum of money when her parents died. She joined the Sisters of Mercy and wanted to found her own order called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to work among the African and Native Americans. Her inheritance funded schools and missions throughout the South and on reservations. A heart attack in 1935 sent her into retirement. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• February 25, 1558. St Aloysius Gonzaga received tonsure at the Lateran basilica. Within the next month he would receive the minor orders. 
• February 26, 1611. The death of Antonio Possevino, sent by Pope Gregory XIII on many important embassies to Sweden, Russia, Poland, and Germany. In addition to founding colleges and seminaries in Cracow, Olmutz, Prague, Braunsberg, and Vilna, he found time to write 24 books. 
• February 27, 1767. Charles III banished the Society from Spain and seized its property. 
• February 28, 1957. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps began. 
• March 1, 1549. At Gandia, the opening of a college of the Society founded by St Francis Borgia. 
• March 2, 1606. The martyrdom in the Tower of London of St Nicholas Owen, a brother nicknamed "Little John." For 26 years he constructed hiding places for priests in homes throughout England. Despite severe torture he never revealed the location of these safe places.