Third Sunday of Lent. C - Sunday, March 23, 2024 (EPISODE: 523)
m
Readings for Sunday, March 23, 2025
FIRST READING: Exod 3:1-8a, 13-15
Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8+11. "The Lord is kind and merciful"
SECOND READING: 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (Matt 4:17). Glory to you, Word of God, Lord Jesus Christ. Repent, says the Lord. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
GOSPEL: Luke 13:1-9
Image Credit- https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/OHray3DkSy5QPreSTp12/moses-kneels-down-in-front-of-the-burning-bush?ru=Paul-Evangelion
++++
Please listen to the audio-recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for Third Sunday of Lent. C - Sunday, March 23, 2025 by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-third/s-OQSaam9gnaw - (EPISODE:523)
+++++
* (Homily: Fr Paul Kelly)
Set My People Free
In the second reading today, Saint Paul has some very strong words for the community in Corinth. He warns them very sternly, to be on their guard and lists three great dangers that can poison any community: Complacency, Self-indulgence, and culture of Complaint and negativity.
Each of these three vices is absolutely lethal to any community. Criticism, gossip and complaint in a community will rip the community apart and render it useless.
The readings this weekend also highlight the vital connection between God's nature and the 'doing of justice,' and between our God of love, who acts on that love in practical ways, to help those who suffer. [FHL]
+++++++++
* The first reading is beautiful!
God sees the need of his people, who are being mistreated, and God is fed up and is determined to do something about it, to free them from their terrible situation. God does not want people bowed down, imprisoned and in slavery.
And God acts definitively in history, at his perfect timing, by calling on his servant Moses, set my people free. And God doesn't stop at that. The Lord then works with and through Moses, his brother Aaron, and the people of Israel to achieve that freedom God desires for his people.
It's God's action, with our cooperation, the cooperation of the people who are open and positive to God's will and are willing to listen and put themselves aside and hear God's ways, which sometimes are very challenging. Sometimes it doesn't make sense, and we might think, oh, I think I know better, or shouldn't we do this instead? But it's God who's leading us. Many people throughout history have asked, how can God stand by and see so much suffering and so much injustice in the world and do nothing? But in reality, God does something.
God is at work all the time. God sees and cannot stand wrongdoing and injustice in the world. God has done something and continues to do something about it.
Particularly, God calls and commissions people of goodwill, like Moses, and like us, to do something about what's wrong. As the saying goes, God has no other hands on earth now, but ours. God wants to use our hands, our heart, and our voices, and our actions, to bring a helping hand and a just response to those in need.
God is to be found in the hands and the hearts of all people who are helping in times of disaster and need. The message is, God is with you. And it's found even in God's name, which God reveals to Moses.
God's very name, which is mysterious and unable to be fully and completely translated. And it's so holy, we don't just go using the name all the time out loud. In fact, we avoid saying God's actual name out Loud. Instead, replacing the name with the description: "Lord." [The name of God]
But God's very name means many wonderful and mysterious things. Basically translated, God's proper name can't be actually translated properly, but it's like, "I Am." It also means, among other things, "I am with you."
God promises to be with all who strive to work for justice in the world. God is also with the people who are suffering and in need. God's main way of relating to us is compassion, that is suffering with.
Not over, not behind, but with and in us. God is suffering in and with the people as close as possible to those who are enduring these experiences. We can't have anything closer than that, and it's mind-boggling.
Jesus really makes another very important point. There is no connection between sin and the misfortunes that might happen to us or others. Whether the cause is human willpower, like Pilate killing worshippers, or an accident, a tower collapsing on people.
Insult is added to injury by this very wrong suggestion that's quite old, but it still exists to this day, that somehow the poor and the sick or victims of crime or accident or disaster have somehow brought these situations on themselves or are somehow being paid back by God for their wrongdoings or deserving of misfortunes that happen to them or their dear ones. What a terrible thing to say or to suggest to people who are absolutely crushed and burdened already with suffering. Jesus makes it quite clear, this is not payment for sin.
If so, everybody would have a tower falling on them. Everyone would be struck down, and they're not. And the good suffer, and sometimes those who've done really bad things, get away with it, seemingly, (in this life anyway).
Our Lord shows that He always cares very much about the poor and the suffering, and He points out that if it really was the way of God, everyone could expect a building to fall on top of them when they did the wrong thing. For there are many, many great wrongs throughout our community and in our world, and most of those wrongs are not visited with any kind of divine or natural human disaster. So it's clear that that's not God's way of acting.
So Jesus in this gospel is really clearly freeing us from a misconception. On one hand, it stops us from facing the real causes of evils and wrongs befalling us. When people wrongly attribute disasters to some kind of fatalism which plunges us into not being able to do anything, so that we can only accept what's happened as something we deserved, that's disastrous.
To advocate an image of God as one who works through malice of others or natural disasters to punish the wicked is really a terrible distortion of the true image of God and His love and His life. And Jesus rejects that suggestion in today's gospel quite clearly. God has in His wisdom given humanity freedom, true freedom, but He wants us to use that freedom to build up, not to tear down, to heal, not to kill.
So God has made a world of freedom and it's unfolding, but it doesn't mean that God is willing bad to happen, but it does allow for all sorts of things that do happen and God then is there with the people to assist them. Unavoidable disasters or events or even bad things happening at the hands of malicious people is not a sign that the victim is punished. Absolutely not.
If one wants to see where God's hand is at work, it's not there. God's hand is at work in the middle of a tragedy, but don't look to God as the cause of the disaster. Rather, look for God's hands in the those rallying to offer help, practical help, in times of disaster and loss.
We see Christ in the loved ones and friends and even strangers who are helping and embracing mourners, bandaging the wounded, feeding the starving, rebuilding fallen structures and so on. That's where God's at work. A more helpful sign of the results of sin is the failure to bear fruit in situations where it should be possible.
Our Lord states this in the parable immediately following in verses six to nine. In the gospel, Jesus reminds us that God is not filled with anger, vengeance and summary justice, but God is a loving parent, long-suffering, greatly forbearing. God is patiently waiting for and at work encouraging our deeds for the good fruits of our faith, hope and love.
Jesus is not the God of punishment, but of patience, mercy, justice and love and willing fruitfulness and encouraging it. God is so patient and we are grateful for that, and we do not take it for granted.
+++++
References:
Homily –Fr Paul W. Kelly
Gutiérrez, G. and Dees, C. (1997). Sharing the Word through the liturgical year. 1st ed. Maryknoll: Orbis Books)
Image Credit- https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/OHray3DkSy5QPreSTp12/moses-kneels-down-in-front-of-the-burning-bush?ru=Paul-Evangelion
Third Sunday of Lent. C (Sunday, March 23, 2025) (EPISODE:523)
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
+++++++++++++
{{Peace and Patience to you all}} welcome everyone, we gather - To offer or praise, prayers and intercessions to our loving God
my brothers and sisters, to prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our sins.
Lord Jesus, you call your people to turn away from sin: Lord, have mercy//You teach us wisdom, and write your truth in our inmost heart: Christ, have mercy//You forgive sins through the ministry of reconciliation: Lord, have mercy//
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Memorial Acclamation
3. Save us, Saviour of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PREFACE: Lent II
EP III
(theme variation: 3 )
++++
{Thank you for giving generously of your time and prayer.}
Go forth, the Mass is ended.
++++++++
Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
To listen to the weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks
Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly
Prayers and chants — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)
Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)
"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009, The Grail - Collins publishers.
Prayers of the Faithful - " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'. E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993). (Sydney Australia).
"Quiet Time." Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.
Lenten Hymn: "Have Mercy" inspired by Psalm 50(51). Music by Paul W. Kelly. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2020.
[ Production - KER - 2025]
May God bless and keep you.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
