Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year B - Sunday, March 14, 2021 (EPISODE:283)

Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year B - Sunday, March 14, 2021

(EPISODE:283)

Readings for Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year B
FIRST READING: 2 Chr 36: 14-16, 19-23 (diff)
Ps 137: 1-2, 3, 4-5, 6. "Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you! "
SECOND READING: Eph 2: 4-10
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (John 3: 16). Glory and Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. God loved the world so much, he gave his only Son. That all who believe in him might have eternal life.
GOSPEL: John 3: 14-21

Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed. stock photo ID: 1191951055. hiding in the dark. By ozrimoz

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Please listen to the audio-recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year B - Sunday, March 14, 2021 by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-ep-282-lent-4-b-2021/s-LwHNGU47WJF  
(EPISODE: 283)
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* (Prologue:  Fr Paul Kelly)
We are now at the three-quarter mark of Lent…..   our Lenten journey does not have long to go, before Holy Week is upon us……

So, during this week, it is a good time to take stock and see how we have been going in the area of  "Prayer, Penance and acts of kindness and works of loving and practical charity…."

The gospel this weekend gives us a very helpful test to assist us in our taking stock of ourselves… ……. "The daylight test"…. How do our actions, our behaviours, and our priorities stand up to the bright light of day; -  to the searching light of clarity…..  

To see how closely we are really adhering to the values of the gospel….   Just let us ask ourselves… how would it really appear, if my secret words, actions and behaviours were revealed in plain sight…  In other words, would we be peaceful if our words, actions and priorities ended up on the front page of the Gold Coast Bulletin this weekend? 

In the clear glare of the bright light of day…  would I be at peace with what I have done..?? 

As I said last week…   take a look at any difference between how we drive when people can recognize us, and how we might drive if we believe we are anonymous, in the dark…   unrecognized. or when no one seems to be looking… How do we act when no one can see us…? Are we consistent?  
I was visiting the hospital the other day, and I was parking my car and walking up to the hospital, humming a little tune.  I noticed a pedestrian just in front of me, walking quietly and calmly back to his car and getting into it..  perfectly sedately, but then I was surprised;  because as soon as he got into it. It is like he turned into something else… he reversed quickly…  revved the car loudly and sped out of the 40km carpark area at a really fast rate…   it is as if merely getting into that car turned him into a completely different (and a lot crazier) person….//   I could not believe the difference or the transformation!!  Is it possible that most of those revving, impatient, impulsive, aggressive, angry drivers we see on the road… get out of their cars and turn back from crazy Mr Hyde… into mild-mannered and friendly Dr Jekyll ??…  I think, sometimes YES. 

 

The thing about that is, even if being a crazy and impulsive driver is not who we are 99 % of the time; it is still, according to the scriptures today, a really important test of how integrated we are, as a whole person…    and those acts of craziness when we are not identified or fairly anonymous"  say more about the true state of our inner hearts and dispositions than we might care to admit.   But lent is a time for seeing admitting and submitting these contradictions, to our merciful, loving God.

 

It's the same in those situations where we all gather for a beautiful mass and we sing and we pray and we greet each other, as brothers and sisters in Christ….  And then we go back to our cars and the next minute we hear beeping and yelling and abuse…   whoops??  What's happened there…   peace be with you indeed!!   These are the contradictions we must lay before the Lord, and ask him to pour his healing love upon…  to make us more and more consistent and loving and compassionate inside and out…  in public and private..   a holy person is a whole person, who is consistent inside and out…   this is what Our Lord is calling us towards…  and we need his mercy and love to attain it. Slowly but surely.   

God invites us to be always and everywhere strive to be people of the light..  whose behaviour and choices are wrought in the light…  and not in the shadows of darkness, concealment or double-standards.

All we have to do is respond in faith, humility and trust to Jesus invitation… how we respond to Jesus is decisive… 
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Homily – Fr Peter Dillon.   4th Sunday Lent Year B 2021

 

T.S. Eliot in the third of his 'Four Quartets' writes, 'We had the experience but missed the meaning'. He was referring to the struggle we have to grasp the significance of what happens in life, particularly its important moments. He admits that even for the poet, whose task it is to be a wordsmith and elicit such meaning, 'words strain, crack, and sometimes break asunder under the burden'. Profound experiences leave us speechless, or reduced to banalities, or even frustrated and angry by our ineffective attempts to put such happenings into language.

 

 By the time John was writing his gospel, he was well aware of the difficulties which lay in the paths of early Christians in the following of Christ. The new communities faced persecution and misunderstanding from the outside. They also faced internal conflict as they came up with different interpretations of the story of Jesus and his message. John's response was to try to focus the eye of the believer on the person of Jesus as the unique cause of salvation, He tries to raise Jesus up so that we can see him clearly.

 

The initial image of the bronze serpent today comes from the Book of Exodus and from a story of healing. Moses erects a bronze serpent, and all who have been bitten by the plague of serpents may look on it and be healed. John relates this image to Jesus on the Cross. Once again the seeming source of destruction becomes the fount of healing and life. The difference is that we are asked to look on Jesus with the eyes of faith. John is well aware that his readers are no longer in the situation of the first disciples, who saw Jesus in the flesh. In John's vision of things, when we look at Jesus on the cross with the eyes of faith, we are not just healed, we receive the gift of eternal life. We enter into a different way of being, for Jesus brings us the life that is his with the Father.

 

If we refuse to believe, if we refuse to receive this gift, then we place ourselves outside the beam of his light, and our actions reflect this. The sun still shines, but we have placed ourselves in the darkness and behave accordingly. It is as though, because of the narrowness of our vision, we resist, and even reject, both the experience and the meaning. But John wants us to give ourselves up to the moment of vision and allow ourselves to see clearly - to have both the moment and the meaning.

 

Most of us have areas of concern that have not been brought fully into the vision of new life described by John. We have our doubts, our downtimes, broken relationships, misunderstandings, prejudices, blind spots. Sins. We sometimes feel that God does not want to know us because of such blocks on our part.

 

God's love, however, is not conditional. His love is always there. The question is how we bring our sins into the sphere of his influence so that they may be healed, resolved and transformed. Our sacramental life offers us the ever-flowing fount of Christ's love. We might even say that the sacraments make God's love too liberally available to us. We think it cannot be that easy, and so, resistant to change, we fail to allow the contact to be made between our brokenness and the healing brokenness of Christ on the Cross. It is the risk of faith that frees us to try out the alternative approach. Once we raise our eyes to Christ on the Cross, it is his magnetism that persuades us to hand over all that we hang on to of our evil and despair. It is the risk of faith we allow ourselves to be seduced by his love.

 

Emerging from the darkness into light does take some adjustment and brings with it a certain amount of risk and fear. Perhaps we would come into the light more readily if we believed the light we are entering is not the light of condemnation or judgment.  What we now know is that the purpose of Christ's light is to enlighten, not blind us. God wants to see us in the light, clearly and honestly, since "we are God's work of art, created in Christ to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live".

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References:

HOMILY – FR PETER DILLON 

PROLOGUE - Fr Paul W. Kelly

**Barclay, W. (1975). The Gospel of John. Part I. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press.

DeBona, G. (2014). Between the Ambo and the altar. Year B. 1st ed. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press.

Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed. stock photo ID: stock photo ID: 1191951055. hiding in the dark. By ozrimoz

Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year B  (Sunday, March 14, 2021)  (EPISODE: 283 )
The Lord be with you.
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{{Kindness and grace  to you all}} welcome everyone, we gather -  To take time to reflect upon the meaning of God's word for our everyday lives

Coming together as brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pause and reflect upon our sins, in order to celebrate the Holy Eucharist.
Lord Jesus, you were lifted up to draw all people to yourself: Lord, have mercy//You shouldered the cross, to bear our suffering and sinfulness: Christ, have mercy// You open for your people the way from death into life: Lord, have mercy//
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.
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Ps 137: 1-2, 3, 4-5, 6. "Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you! "

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (John 3: 16). Glory and Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. God loved the world so much, he gave his only Son. That all who believe in him might have eternal life.

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Memorial Acclamation
1. We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.
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PREFACE: Lent I

EP II   or reco

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{I pray this week brings you an ever-deeper experience of Our Lord's compassion and love}

Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.
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Archive of homilies and reflections:  http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email:  paulwkelly68@gmail.com

To listen to my weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here:  https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks

You are welcome to subscribe to Fr Paul's homily mail-out by sending an email to this address: paulkellyreflections+subscribe@googlegroups.com

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 -  2021]

May God bless and keep you.
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