SUNDAY READINGS - 3rd Sunday of Lent - March 7th 2010

FIRST READING: Exodus 3:14, 13-15. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and Lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.”

Then he said, “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am who I Am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you.”‘ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’, this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

EXPLANATION: God calls Moses and appoints him to lead the Chosen People out of Egypt where they were being systematically persecuted and gradually exterminated. Moses through God’s providence had escaped the consequences of the cruel Egyptian law which ordered all male Hebrew children to be put to death. He was adopted by a daughter of Pharaoh and given a liberal education. Later in life he killed an Egyptian who was maltreating a Hebrew. To escape certain death he fled to a neighboring country, Midian. He married a Midianite and settled there, little thinking that God had a most important role for him to play in the great story of the Exodus.

and came to Horeb: The whole range of mountains in Sinai, or one particular mountain of the range.

mountain of God: Because it was here that God spoke to Moses and it was here that he later made the covenant with the Chosen People and promulgated his Law.

bush . . . not consumed: Moses saw a fire flaming out of a bush but the bush was not consumed. Curiosity, inspired by God, made him go to examine this extraordinary incident.

Moses, Moses: As Moses approached the burning bush, God called him by name.

put off . . . shoes: A sign of reverence, still practiced by Muslims and Jews when entering their holy places of worship.

the God of Abraham . . . Jacob: God speaks to him and tells him he is the God of the Patriarchs, the God who had called Abraham from Haran to make him the father of a Chosen People. Evidently the Israelites handed down their history from generation to generation, as Moses knew what God meant.

afraid to look at God: God evidently appeared in a human form. It was a common belief that no one could look at God and live.

affliction of my people: The Israelites were God’s people—he had made them his own in order to fulfill his plan of universal salvation.

heard their cry: He was interested in their temporal welfare.

I have come down to deliver them: He planned in his mercy to set them free from the life of slavery which they were enduring in Egypt, and he intended to put them into a rich land—the land of Canaan which he had promised to Abraham centuries before (Gen. 15:7).

what is his name: God had told Moses that he had chosen him to set the Israelites free. When Moses objected that he was unsuitable for such a task, God’s answer was : “I will be with you”—the power of God will do what human strength cannot. This formula is repeated down through the Old Testament and is the guarantee which seals the final command given by Christ to his Apostles (Mt. 28:20).

I am who I am: God has already told Moses that he was the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. In other words, he was the God who had made the Israelites his Chosen People. In answer to Moses’ request he gave a special name, a descriptive one, Yahweh. From its grammatical Hebrew form (third person Hiphil) it means: “He who causes to be,” the “Creator” namely, of all being. And he who is the cause of all existing beings must be Existence itself.

This my name forever: The name stands for the nature, the essence. God declares he is the infinite existence—the source of all being—the causa causarum, and so he wishes to be known forever.

APPLICATION: In Lent we are preparing for the death and Resurrection of Christ. It is the central, the crowning act, of God’s love in the divine drama of our liberation from sin, and our admission to citizenship of our new exalted and everlasting homeland. The Exodus, the liberation of the Chosen People from the slavery of Egypt and the beginning of their journey into their promised land, Canaan, was a type or prophecy of our great liberation and exaltation to the status, not only of Chosen People, but of sons of God.

For this reason Christ chose the Jewish feast of Passover or Pasch—the beginning of the old Exodus, as the day on which he would begin our liberation. He was the real Lamb of God whose sacrifice would redeem us from the slavery of sin and death, and whose precious blood would mark us for eternity as the chosen sons of the Father.

It is to remind us of this that we are told today of this story of God’s mission to Moses. The liberation of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt and their eventual establishment in the Promised Land of Canaan were outstanding proofs of God’s deep interest in those he loves. But they were only types and shadows of what he has done for us. It was not a mere man, like Moses, but his own Divine Son that he sent to liberate us. He came not to give us a few years of temporal freedom in a little corner of this planet, but to give us a new supernatural life in his own everlasting kingdom of unending freedom and happiness.

With infinitely more reason than the Psalmist who lived before Christ came, can we cry out: “Lord, what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him?” What am I that God should care for me and go to such extremes in order to make me truly happy forever? From my heart I can say: ” Lord, I am not worthy.” But I also know that he who made all things can make me worthy of the future he has so generously prepared for me, if only I cooperate, if only I do the little he asks of me.

There is no road-block on my journey to heaven. There is no hindrance on my way into the Promised Land, which I cannot remove, with the help of grace, which is there for the asking. Will I sit idly on the roadside bewailing my weaknesses, or will I roll up my sleeves and start casting aside the cardboard barricades set up by my own selfishness and spiritual laziness? Today is the best day to answer that question. There may not be another chance.

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SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12. I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. We must not grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

EXPLANATION: On Corinth and this letter of St. Paul, see Second Sunday of the Year. St. Paul, in this section of his letter to his Christian converts in Corinth, is advising them to avoid overconfidence. They have been baptized, they have the faith, but more is needed. The Israelites of old were freed from the slavery of Egypt and helped miraculously on their journey to the Promised Land, but most of them never reached it because they failed to do what was asked of them on the way. This can happen to us Christians too, St. Paul says.

our fathers . . . all under the cloud: All Christians are children of Abraham and the Patriarchs, as Abraham’s election by God was for all nations and not only for his blood descendants. All Abraham’s children (our ancestors therefore) were protected by God in their exit from Egypt. He covered them with a cloud in daytime and led them with a pillar of fire at night (Ex. 13: 21).

were baptized into Moses: God opened up the waters of the Sea of Reeds to let the Israelites pass out of Egypt. St. Paul sees in this a symbol of Christian baptism—we pass through the saving waters into Christ’s kingdom of freedom from the slavery of sin and spiritual death.

ate the . . . supernatural food: The manna which fell from the sky around the camps of the Israelites in the desert and the water which came from the rock struck by Moses, were symbols for St. Paul of the Eucharist, which is the Christian’s spiritual nourishment through life.

“rock which followed them”: This is not in the story of the Exodus, but was a Rabbinic legend, namely, that the same rock followed them all through their wanderings in the desert. St. Paul makes use of the legend to stress the manna and water as types and symbols of the Eucharist which we have for our nourishment all our lives.

the rock was Christ: As Christ rose, came out of, the rock of the tomb and is therefore with us all our lives as our heavenly food, so symbolically he was the rock from which the water flowed, and which was with the Israelites in the desert.

with most of them: Notwithstanding all the miracles that God worked to bring the Israelites of old out of slavery into their own homeland, they forgot his kindness. They broke his laws. They even adored pagan idols. Because of this, most of them never even saw the Promised Land much less entered it.

these things . . . warnings for us: St. Paul now tells the Corinthians that the disloyalty of the Israelites, and the fate that followed from it, can and will happen to Christians too if they imitate these disloyal, ungrateful people.

not to desire . . . as they did: We must not desire and search for things that are forbidden by our Christian faith and conscience.

we must not grumble: The Israelites regretted having been liberated from Egypt; the majority of the spies sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan brought back very discouraging and false reports. For this they were punished with instant death and the people were punished with forty years of hardship in the desert. Indeed, because of their murmuring against the good God (Nm. 14: 1-38), they all died during these forty years in the desert. The next generation, however, reached the promised land.

as a warning: St. Paul tells his converts that these facts were preserved in the Bible so that we should learn from the mistakes of the past, and avoid similar mistakes, or correct them if we are making them.

upon whom the end of the ages has come: With Christ came the messianic age, the time of fulfillment. All the centuries that preceded Christ’s coming were the ages of preparation. The next big intervention of God in the affairs of this world will be the general judgment—the end of the world. The universal chronological system of dividing the history of the world into B.C. and A.D. is Christian and a reminder of this.

who thinks . . . stands: Humility is one of the basic Christian virtues. No true Christian can boast that he is close to God. The more virtue he has the more he realizes how great his human weakness is—but he trusts in God’s fidelity to see him safely through.

APPLICATION: This admonition of Paul, given to the converts in Corinth, but applicable to all of us, could not be more timely. During Lent we are, or should be, thinking of all God did for us, and of how mean is our response. We read of the wonderful things he did for the Israelites, getting them out of Egypt, feeding them in the desert and leading them towards their own national home. We see the return they made him: ingratitude, forgetfulness, betrayal by turning to false gods who did not or could not help them. We very naturally conclude that they deserved all the punishment he gave them.

But who are we to pass judgment on the Israelites? They did not know God as well as we do. They had witnessed God’s love, mercy, and kindness in their regard, but, compared to the divine love and mercy we have witnessed in the Incarnation, what God did for them was relatively little. Yet like the Israelites we lust too often after evil things, we let the pleasures and wealth of this world come between us and God. We do not perhaps set up a golden calf as our god, but how often does something more trifling, the silver dollar, become the center of our lives and of our devotion?

We, too, tempt Christ when we presume we shall get to heaven by means of a few mumbled prayers and a hasty Mass on Sunday, while the rest of our week is spent in the service of our pagan worldly idols. And how often do we murmur and complain against God when things do not go as we’d like them to go? If our health is not always the best, if our work is not quite suitable, if our husbands or wives are not the true and best partners in life we expected them to be, if our children are disobedient and wayward, we murmur against God and blame him. Often, if not always, the fault lies with ourselves.

Today, I would ask each one of you to stop, look and listen, before you take your next step on your road of life. Stop and take an honest look at yourself and at your Christian attitude to life. Are you expecting heaven here below or are you one of those who wants to have all the goods and pleasures of life and heaven too? Christ won for us and promised to those who would follow him a day of resurrection to an unending life of blessed happiness, but he told us very definitely and very clearly that the way to the resurrection is over the hill of Calvary.

Listen today to St. Paul’s admonition. We too, Christian though we be and far better educated in the things of God, can, like the Israelites, fail to reach the eternal homeland he has prepared for us, if we imitate the Israelites in their ingratitude and their forgetfulness of all that God did for them.

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GOSPEL: Luke 13:1-9. There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And, he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should I use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.”‘

EXPLANATION: About the Galileans: Some people from Galilee had evidently been offering sacrifice in the temple, and because of some disturbance they caused, or some crime against the Roman authority, Pilate had them massacred where they stood. If we believe Josephus, the Jewish historian, Pilate was capable of such a rash act.

these Galileans were worse sinners . . . other: It was a very old and common opinion among the Jews that sudden or serious misfortunes were caused by the sins of those who suffered such misfortunes (see the Book of Job). Evidently those who brought the news of this misfortune had implied this, but Christ says no. He does not say they were not sinners but that they were no worse than others.

unless you repent: He now reminds all his hearers that they are all sinners and have need for repentance.

you will all likewise perish: Sinners who refuse to repent will perish, and more than the temporal death which all must face one day is implied here.

those eighteen: Our Lord himself refers to another accident which had caused the sudden death of eighteen men, and very likely this accident had also been attributed to the grievous personal sins of those involved. He points out that there were many other citizens of Jerusalem who were just as guilty, if not more so, than these unfortunates. And again he urges repentance unless they wish a worse fate to befall themselves.

a man had a fig tree: Our Lord now tells a parable about a man and a fig tree. Although he does not apply the parable, the meaning in the circumstances is clear. The Jews were God’s fig tree; he had planted them and cared for them and expected fruit but they produced none. He now decides to cut them down. But the gardener—evidently a figure of Christ himself—pleads to give them one more chance, one more year in which he would do everything possible to change their attitude. If they then failed God could deal with them. We know the result.

APPLICATION: Although the incidents collected together here by St. Luke are not logically or chronologically connected there is one theme and lesson running through them all. It is the need, namely, for repentance. Some sinners are punished in this life, but an earthly punishment is no proof of greater sin, nor is it the real punishment that must be feared.

The parable of the useless fig tree, while it applies directly to the stubborn Jews of Christ’s time, has a lesson for all time and for all sinners. God’s mercy is infinite but man’s earthly life, during which he can obtain that mercy, is very finite. God’s mercy can forgive sins no matter how grievous, but it cannot forgive even less serious sins unless the sinner is sorry and asks for forgiveness. Christ, our true mediator with God, is continually interceding for us, but unless we do our part by repenting and changing our behavior, his intercession will be of no avail to us. No man is lost because God so wishes it, but no man is saved unless he himself wishes it and works for it.

Think on this parable of the fruitless fig tree today. If your conscience tells you that it applies to you, think also that Christ is interceding for you. He has obtained for you a moratorium, a period in which you can prove yourself fruitful. Use that gift of God with gratitude and you shall obtain the result that God wants, and that, in all good sense, you should want as well.-c122