A Proper Posture Before God: The Third Sunday of Lent 2025

                                               A Proper Posture Before God:

The Third Sunday of Lent 2025 

March 23, 2025

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

 

The readings speak to us of our proper attitude before God. Moses approaches the burning bush to learn that God is revealing a central characteristic to him – that God is a living God and cannot be adequately named. Moses takes off his shoes and bows down before the presence of God. We, therefore, are also to take off our shoes, take down our masks, forget about our roles and self-perceptions, and to realize who we are before this infinite being, the ground of our being. 

 

Jesus also speaks about our posture before God. He tells us that we ought not to see God as one who intervenes in human events or human choice and freedom. God does not cause accidents or bring about woes or suffering, but that God is present in the suffering and daily events. He tells us that when we consider who God is and what God does, we must repent of our failings and realize that we are one part of God’s created world, and that God wants to experience life in its fullness and to realize we are subject to natural laws. If we do not understand what God is doing, then be patient and wait. We are not to make hasty judgments, and we are to see God’s long-approach over time. The fruitless fig tree may not blossom this year, but perhaps in the year to come. 

 

Moses learned that God was not merely the one who historically created the world but continued to exist. God was relating to Moses the same way God related to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the one who called everything into life and is continuing to create, continuing to become, and all creation moves forward into a future reality. We often do not understand the value of time and patience, for we do not have the ability to see the future with God’s perspective. We must not be hasty in making judgments.

 

All life is in flux. Today, we are a snapshot of ourselves. We are not the same person as we were years ago, and we will continue to evolve through our choices and experiences. We do not see how much we change. At Mass, we may receive the consecrated host and not feel any different, but when we look back on how we have changed over five years of consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, we may find a remarkable difference. Throughout our life’s history, we continue to strive and to move forward, to be a better person, and we must not be too hasty in judging ourselves. 

 

God is alive and at work in us, the same way God worked with Moses. We are a people who are becoming, a pilgrim people who are moving forward in faith, a people who know that we are mortal and subject to the laws of nature, but our life is also a future life with God. The God who lives in us now is the God who will keep us in eternal life. In this God, physical death does not lay claim to eternal life. We will be with a God who burns within us, and like the bush, will not consume us, but will remain the life force of goodness and hope. It is to this God that we bow down, take off our shoes and garments, show our real selves, acknowledge our humility, and then, almost in disbelief, we can sit back and watch how God raises us up and lives fully within our souls. 

 

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 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. 
• March 27, 1587: At Messina died Fr. Thomas Evans, an Englishman at 29. He had suffered imprisonment for his defense of the Catholic faith in England. 
• March 28, 1606: At the Guildhall, London, the trial of Fr. Henry Garnet, falsely accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. 

March 29, 1523: Ignatius' first visit to Rome on his way from Manresa to Palestine.