God’s Fundamental Place in our Prayer: The Third Sunday of Lent, 2024

God’s Fundamental Place in our Prayer:

The Third Sunday of Lent, 2024 

March 3, 2024

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Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

 

The Book of Exodus lists out the Ten Commandments we are to follow because we have accepted God’s covenant, and these rules are intended to guide the moral life of any Jew or Christian. Interpreting them rightly in our contemporary context requires ongoing refined discernment. Jesus even interpreted them with his actions when he overturned the tables of the moneychangers at the Temple. He further reinterpreted what that Temple meant – the temple of his body that was to be resurrected. The Temple needed to be purified of actions that did not contribute to the Reign of God so that God’s presence could be seen by all in the place where all of Israel worshiped. 

 

Our faith is a curious one, as St. Paul notes. To know God, he says, Jews want proof in signs that attest to God’s presence; the Greeks and Gentiles seek faith through understanding, but Christian confuse the non-believers by proclaiming that God’s love was shown at the crucifixion of Jesus. The man who was the unique revealer of God’s mind and heart was killed by his own people. For all intents and purposes, his cause failed. It is in this failure that we see the power of God at work. 

 

Just as the People of God must continually adjust the Ten Commandments to daily life, and the place of God’s presence was redefined in the raising of the Temple, we may have to continue to wrestle with who Jesus, the Crucified One, is for us today. Some Christian Nationalists will redefine Jesus along their ideological lines; political parties do the same; the social world has cleaned up Jesus to make him to be nice and sweet and always fun-loving and compassionate. (Yes, the same man who angrily disrupted the commerce and economy of business entrepreneurs in the Temple.) We must take a hard look at Jesus and let him tell us who he is for us today because it is a world the confuses many. 

 

It is good for us to wonder how we know God. Certainly, our parents told us about their images of God, and we may have our favorite picture in the house or a bookmark that is meaningful to us. Our loved ones have helped shape and expand that image. Our prayer and spiritual experiences keep us aware of how God acts in our world. We also know that no organized religion has ever captured the essence of God and never will. God will be present to the world in personal and distinct ways, and we will never be able to fully know God’s mind in this lifetime. We can never in great confidence speak for God about many matters in the world.

 

We are gaining so much information about the contours of space and the solar system each day, and at the same time we are delving into the subatomic and cellular structures. We are amazed at our discoveries, and we continue to learn how little we know about our material world, and also our metaphysical and spiritual world. With each new discovery, we are filled with wonder at the miracle of the world in which we live, and it brings us to worship to thank God for our existence. 

 

As our pondering increases, we turn more intensely to prayer to ask about the nature of God and to understand our relationship better. We seek to know one thing: Where is God present in my life today? We ask God to show us. We want to know whether God still thinks of us. We want to know what God thinks of all the stuff happening in the world. Even while our image of God expands and we bring more questions to God, we often find ourselves returning to the prayers and images that we were taught as children, and we find contentment. We know deep down in our soul that God resides with us, communes within us, and gives us an eternal home in God’s consciousness. God can never forget about us. God has fundamentally committed to us, and that is the message that resounds throughout eternity. 

 

God is not what you think or even what you believe, because God is a word unspoken, a thought unthought, a belief unbelieved. So if you want to know this God, practice wonder and do what is good, and cultivate silence. The rest will follow. (Meister Eckhart)

 

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 7: Perpetua and Felicity (d. 203), were two catechumens arrest and killed during a persecution in North Africa. Perpetua was a young noblewoman who was killed alongside her husband, their young son, and their pregnant slave, Felicity. They were baptized while under arrest and would not renounce their faith. Felicity was excused from death because it was unlawful to kill a pregnant woman, but she gave birth prematurely three days before the planned execution. They were flogged, taunted by wild beasts, and then beheaded. They appear in the First Eucharistic Prayer. 

 

March 8: John of God (1495-1550), was a Portuguese soldier of fortune who was brought to Spain as a child. He was a slave master, shepherd, crusader, bodyguard and peddler. As he realized that he frittered away his life, he sought counsel from John of Avila. He then dedicated his life to care for the sick and the poor. He formed the Order of Brothers Hospitallers and is the patron saint of hospitals and the sick.

 

March 9: Frances of Rome (1384-1440), was born into a wealthy Roman family and was married at age 13. She bore six children and when two died in infancy, she worked to bring the needs of the less fortunate to others. She took food to the poor, visited the sick, cared for the needy in their homes. When other women joined in her mission, they became Benedictine oblates. She founded a monastery for them after her husband's death. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• March 3, 1595. Clement VIII raised Fr. Robert Bellarmine to the Cardinalate, saying that the Church had not his equal in learning. 
• March 4, 1873. At Rome, the government officials presented themselves at the Professed House of the Gesu for the purpose of appropriating the greater part of the building. 
• March 5, 1887. At Rome, the obsequies of Fr. Beckx who died on the previous day. He was 91 years of age and had governed the Society as General for 34 years. He is buried at San Lorenzo in Campo Verano. 
• March 6, 1643. Arnauld, the Jansenist, published his famous tract against Frequent Communion. Fifteen French bishops gave it their approval, whereas the Jesuit fathers at once exposed the dangers in it. 
• March 7, 1581. The Fifth General Congregation of the Society bound the professors of the Society to adhere to the doctrine of St Thomas Aquinas. 
• March 8, 1773. At Centi, in the diocese of Bologna, Cardinal Malvezzi paid a surprise visit to the Jesuit house, demanding to inspect their accounting books. 

March 9, 1764. In France, all Jesuits who refused to abjure the Society were ordered by Parliament to leave the realm within a month. Out of 4,000 members only five priests, two scholastics, and eight brothers took the required oath; the others were driven into exile.