FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT  - 2018

The readings today invite us to look into our heart, and see how is our Lenten journey going. 

Truly that conversion is a matter of our entire life, but the church offers us some especial times, in which it may help us, as a community, to walk toward the Lord, to renew our enthusiasm and our mutual love. 

 

FIRST READING: Chr 36:14-16. 19-23.

Ø  The people of Israel represented by their leaders have accumulated sin over sin, infidelity over infidelity.  

Ø  The prophets that God has sent them have invited the people to conversion, to change their ways, to be faithful, but all had been in vain. 

Ø  A powerful king of a great nation: Babylon has defeated them and taken them as prisoners to exile. The text says that it is God who has done this, this is the way the people of the bible understood life, for them good and bad came from God.  

Ø  If we reflect on this we will realize that what was happening to the people is the consequence of their actions, of their behavior: they lived as if God did not exist, as if the Law had not been given to them for their happiness and freedom.  

Ø  And in the same way that a powerful king took them to exile, another powerful king gave them the permission to go back to their country, to rebuild it and the temple as well.  

Ø  What are our infidelities to the love of our God and savior? 

Ø  What are the difficult moments in our life, and what caused them?  

Ø  What are the happy moments which we have experienced, and what caused them?  

Ø  Have we been able to acknowledge in our life the loving and provident presence of our Father? 

RESPONSORIAL PSALM:   Ps  138:1-2,3,4-5,6

This is the psalm of those exiled in Babylon who remember their beloved country.  

«  Far away from their country the Israelites remember their country and weep.  

«  Their oppressors make fun of them and ask them to sing their sacred songs to entertain them. 

«  But, how can they sing a canticle of God in a foreign land, a land of gentiles?  

«  If we were capable of profaning our love to God, may we become mute and paralyzed.

R. (6ab) Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
By the streams of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
we hung up our harps.
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
“Sing for us the songs of Zion!”
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
How could we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand be forgotten!
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
May my tongue cleave to my palate
if I remember you not,
If I place not Jerusalem
ahead of my joy.
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you    

GOSPEL:  JOHN 3: 14-21

      The reading is taken from the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. 

      Nicodemus is a Pharisee who is in the Sanhedrin, the religious government of the people of Israel. 

      In the Gospel of John each character represents a given human group. 

      Nicodemus represents the Jewish religion closed to the newness of the Messiah. 

      John the Baptist on the contrary represents the Jewish religion opened to that newness which Jesus brings to the world. 

      Nicodemus is a historical person, but the conversation with all its details is a composition of the evangelist. 

      Let us go back to Nicodemus  

o   In the passage before today’s reading Nicodemus is surprised and does not understand how one can be born again. Does he really need to be born again to be able to accept   Jesus as the Messiah?  

o   Jesus tells him that as the bronze serpent was lifted up in the desert, and all those who looked at it were healed, thus the Son of man will be lifted up, and who believes in him (= look at the serpent in the desert) will have eternal life.  

o   John continues to narrate the conversation  

§  God loves so much the world, created by him, that he has sent his Son.  

§  The Son has come not to condemn but to save the world. 

§  The separation between saved and condemned is faith (in the desert it was to look at the bronze serpent)  

§  There is a constant trial in this world: the light has come to the world, but men have preferred darkness. 

§  Because who does evil looks for darkness, and who does good comes to the light. 

o   The main dimension in the gospel of John has a vertical orientation.  

§  The cross of Jesus on Mount Calvary has this vertical orientation toward the sky, toward heaven. 

§  This cross makes the division between the two sides of the mountain. 

§  On one side are all those who accept and acknowledge him Christ Jesus as the Messiah and thus follow and come to the light.  

§  On the other side are all those who avoid the light and seek darkness, close themselves to the Messiah, do not accept the salvation which Christ Jesus offers us.    

SECOND READING:   Eph 2:4-10

ü  God is rich in mercy, someone has said that the only thing that God knows how to do is to love and to be compassionate. 

ü  God gave us life in Christ when we were dead due to our sins

ü  He raised us up, in Christ.

ü  All of this for pure love, pure gift, through faith all those wonders that God does can be ours. 

ü  It is neither our doing, nor a recompense for what we might have done, IT IS GOD’S GIFT, thus no one can boast.  

ü  We are his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus, to lead us to a life of good deeds. A life  which he has prepared for us.    

BIBLIOGRAPHY  

CLARET, ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET,  Autobiography.

CASTRO SÁNCHEZ, Secundino. Evangelio de Juan, compendio exegético-existencial, 2da. Edición. Comillas, Madrid 2001.

LA BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO, comentarios de Luis Alonso Schökel. Misioneros Claretianos, 2010.

PARIS, MARIA ANTONIA, Autobiography.

RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras.  Doble Comentario de las lecturas del domingo. Año B.  San Pablo, Bogotá,Colombia 2005.

Our Lord was very pleased with this act of humiliation that he infused in me since my first years and the next day He deigned to wipe my tears because very in the morning they called me to the parlor for my confessor, Rev. Fr. Currius sent by the archbishop had told him that he was commanding me in virtue of holy obedience to tell him if I like it as it was  or it was necessary to add or to remove something. God has always consoled my soul according to my taste, that supplication which was directed by the finger of God. María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 208.

 I remained in the capital, where I inaugurated the pastoral visitation, starting in the cathedral and then going through the parishes  Every day administered the Sacrament of Confirmation. There were a great many to be confirmed, and so, to avoid confusion, I had some forms printed and distributed the right quantity of them to the rectories the day before confirmations. These forms were then filled in with such data as the names of those to be confirmed, their parents, and their sponsors. This helped avoid confusion and crowding and made it easier to record the data later with greater accuracy and leisure. I always followed this procedure, and it worked quite well with all those I confirmed – and that came to no less than 300,000 persons during my stay of six years and two months on the island. St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 515

  

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT  – 2018

«  The readings for this Sunday put in front of us God’s Law, and Jesus as the incarnation of the Law and of the Temple. 

FIRST READING   –  Ex 20:1-17                                                                                                                                  

Ø  The people that had been liberated from Egypt by God, and that made a covenant with God on Mount Sinai, is called by his God to translate this covenant into a behavior which reflects this love between God and his people, and the response of the  people.

Ø  The Law, the Torah is about the behavior towards God, towards the other persons and towards the whole of creation.      

Ø  The covenant has been made between God and the people. From now on there will be no more sins against God and sins against the people, all sins will be against God. 

Ø  This explains why Jesus in his farewell to his disciples gave only one commandment, the commandment of the fraternal love, because this love presupposes the love of God.   

Ø  The gratitude towards Yahweh who loves and liberates is the reason for living the Decalogue, if we separate the Decalogue from the covenant it loses its value.    

Ø  The biblical morality goes from the love of thanksgiving to the Lord, to a marital commitment and then to the morality of imitation.   

Ø  The people of Israel have to continue in the world the liberating work begun by God.   

Ø  With its fidelity to the covenant manifested in the content of the Law, it will help its brothers and sisters, members of the human race, to discover, through the witness, the God who loves them.  

Ø  The code of the covenant is formulated in the negative form. It is the most ample way to express the precept, much more than the positive way.   

Ø  The negative formulation of the law allows all the other actions which are not prohibited.  

Ø  This way to formulate the law makes it universal and forever, no matter what culture, what time. This law is valid always and for all.  

 RESPONSORIAL PSALM –Ps  18: 8. 9. 10. 11

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul;
The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the command of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eye.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true,
all of them just.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
They are more precious than gold,
than a heap of purest gold;
sweeter also than syrup
or honey from the comb.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

v  This psalm is a hymn to the Law of God, to its beauty, its perfection, its power to give us joy.   

v  In this four stanzas the law is:    

o   Perfect and it refreshes the soul   

o   Clear and enlightens the eyes and gives joy to  the heart  

o   pure, permanent, just

o   more attractive than any other appealing thing. 

SECOND READING  1Cor 1:22-25

«  The Jews asked Jesus for a sign to be able to believe, or to accept his message. 

«  The Greeks, so full of human wisdom, ask for what they call  ”wisdom” 

«  But Paul says that Christ is this “wisdom” of God, which seems foolishness or a scandal. 

«  And Paul adds something very hard “the weakness of God=Jesus on the cross” is more powerful than men.    

«  Christ on the cross on mount Golgotha is the Covenant which is expressed in the New Law, the Law of the scandal of the cross. THIS IS OUR LAW!!! THE LAW OF THE FOLLOWERS OF THE CRUCIFIED AND RISEN CHRIST!!! Fable, scandal, foolishness…   

GOSPEL Jn 2:13-25

      This Gospel has two parts: the purification of the Temple and the sign that Jesus gives 

      This episode takes place during    

o   The first Passover of Jesus during the first year of his ministry   

o   John mentions three Passovers: that of the Temple, that of the Bread of Life; and that of his death and resurrection.   

o   The synoptic Gospels  speak of only one Passover, the last one, and they introduce this episode of the purification of the Temple during that Passover.   

§  Jesus at the same time that he overturns the tables of the money changers (they changed the profane currency, that had the image of Cesar, by the sacred currency to  give it to the Temple) says some words from Scripture: “stop making my Father's house a marketplace. “

§  The evangelist John adds that his disciples recalled the words of the Scriptures “the zeal for your house consumes me.”  

§  “To recall: it is not to look back but, to make present, it is to enter into the meaning of the words, that is what  the disciples did after the resurrection.   

o   The second part of this reading has to do with the sign they asked for:   

§  Jesus gives a mysterious and provocative sign.  

§  The destruction of the Temple and its being raised again.   

§  John says that only after the resurrection did the disciples “recalled” and understood that He was speaking of the temple of his body.  

§  Jesus is    

·         The true Temple where God is truly adored.

·         The Temple where we worship God as the first word pronounced on Mount Sinai says.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

·         But Jesus is also the Law, the fullness of the Words spoken by God on Mount Sinai.   

·         Because God is the LAW, and Jesus is the Word=the Son=the Second Person of the Trinity made man and thus He is the Law made visible among us.  

·         From the moment the Incarnate Word=Jesus has come among us, we do not have any other LAW than His WORDS echo and fullness of the WORDS OF LOVE PRONOUNCED BY YAHWEH ON MOUNT SINAI.  

  

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• GUILLÉN TORRALBA, Juan, “Éxodo” en Comentario al Antiguo Testamento I. La Casa de la Biblia, Estella Navarra, 1997.
• LA BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO, comentarios de Luis Alonso Schökel. Misioneros Claretianos, 2010.
• LOZANO, Juan Manuel, Escritos María Antonia París, Estudio crítico, “El Misionero Apostólico”.   Barcelona 1985.
• RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras.  Doble Comentario de las lecturas del domingo. Año B.  San Pablo, Bogotá,Colombia 2005.

§  VIÑAS, José María cmf y BERMEJO, Jesús, cmf.  “Autobiografía ” de San Antonio María Claret.   

 CLARETIAN CORNER  

I was very attentive, overwhelmed to what was happening, and it seemed to me that I was reading the Holy Law of God, but without seeing any books nor letters; I  was seeing it written, and I was understanding it so very well, that it seemed to me it was imprinting in my soul but in a particular way the book of the Holy Gospels, which till then I had never read, neither  the Sacred Scripture (O.T). After, by God’s grace, I have read something and I have seen it written word by word, as our Lord taught it to me from the holy tree of the cross. It seems to me that the words I understood were coming out from his host holy mouth.  Maria Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography  5). 

 From the very beginning I have been thrilled by the preaching style of Jesus, his likenesses and parables. And how He was persecuted! He was a sign of contradiction, persecuted for his teaching, his works, and his very person. Finally, they took his life amid affronts, torments, and insults, making Him suffer the most shameful and painful death imaginable.

 (St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 222)

                                                                                                                                                                                           

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT  – 2018

«  On the first Sunday of Lent we contemplated Jesus tempted, to help us to see his vulnerability as a member of the human race. 

«  In the second Sunday we are invited to contemplate his glory, his divine being.   

«  We need to meditate and contemplate both realities to able to follow the Lord unconditionally.   

 FIRST READING  – Gen 22:1-2.9.10-13.15-18.

Ø   The cycle of Abraham ends with the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.  Frightening story which poses a great number of questions, probably because we read it literally, in a fundamentalist way. 

Ø  According to a commentator the biblical author uses a legend to give a message on the meaning of faith, on the value of life and that God is the God of life, and does not want human sacrifices. A legend which fits well with the behavior of Abraham.   

Ø  Another commentator thinks that Abraham in his process of learning to know God who has spoken to him, has called him and has made promises to him, wants to offer to God the best he has, even if this entails that the promises will not be able to be fulfilled, or God will provide.  

Ø  A third commentator says that the story is about a believer who discovers, through the tortuous way of the divine silence, the promise of a complete salvation. 

Ø  In the Old Testament God is portrayed in contradictory ways, sometimes with the tenderness of a parent and other times with great rigor. Sometimes God promises and later on asks to do something different.   

Ø  In truth it is not God who is ambivalent, but the faith of human being who in his/her process of maturing understands  God  better little by little.  This is what the writings of the different authors of the Old Testament reflect. The Bible is in truth the story about God who seeks the human being, and the slow and sometimes contradictory response of that same human being.     

Ø  Let us try to draw something from the great theological richness of this text, to nurture our faith.     

Ø  Abraham does not have Ishmael anymore because he has sent away the mother with the child. The warranty of having descendants rests now on Isaac. 

Ø  Abraham understands o believes that God calls him and he responds quickly “Here I am.” 

Ø  He thinks that God wants him to sacrifice his son that he gave to him. And he makes himself ready to fulfill God’s order.   

Ø  But this will entail that the promises will not be able to be fulfilled, there will be neither descendants nor land, nor promises. Everything will be over. 

Ø  Abraham will lose what is the support of his faith, and in the darkness of her heart he is ready to execute what he believes is the will of God, and thus he will become the father of all believers from all times, who will trust even without seeing, who will hope against hope.  

Ø  God stops the arm of Abraham. God condemns the sacrifice of children or of any other human being.  

Ø  Abraham, guided by God, does not sacrifice his son and instead he offers a goat

Ø  The people of Israel, influenced maybe by this account, understood that the first born belongs to God, and thus they recue him offering a sacrifice, the paschal lamb on the night of the Passover.  Like  Abraham who offered the sacrifice of a sheep in place of his son.  Remember also the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the parents offer   two turtle-doves and two pigeons as a ransom for the son.  

Ø  We are called to live our faith, our intimate relationship with God in every situation of our life, in the light and in the darkness when everything seems lost and we are alone facing the abyss. This is the    moment of unconditional love, of faith without seeing without light.  Truly it is the most shining moment of our life.    

Ø  Abraham understands that God does not want human sacrifices. The happiness he experiences when God stops his hand, seems to be reflected in the words “for having done this, for not having denied your only son to me… because you have obeyed…   

Ø  I transcribe beneath something I have read and which I find very interesting and clarifying. The author of the  book According to the Scriptures quotes from the book Temor y Temblor of the Danish philosopher  S. Kierkegaard  the following words:

“When the child has to be weaned, the mother dyes her breast with dark color. It would be cruel if the breast continued to be desirable when the child has to be weaned. Thus the child thinks that the breast has changed. But the mother has not changed at all, she continues to be the same, her eyes are filled with tenderness and love, precisely in the moment when she takes away  the child from her to help him or her grow.”   

Ø  There are two important points in Abraham’s story:  the faith of Abraham, the call to a trusting faith in Yahweh,  and the name of the mount “The Lord will provide” which continues to be a profession of unconditional faith in the God of the promises.   

Ø  Who is our Isaac? Are we willing to give it to the Lord? Even if this entails a radical change in our life? Or,  maybe it will require the acceptance of darkness that frightens us, because we think that in darkness we are without the Lord? but the truth is that he is always there.   

SALMO RESPONSORIAL 116,10.15.16-17.18-19

I WILL WALK BEFORE THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

I believed even when I said

I am greatly afflicted

Precious in the eyes of the Lord

Is the death of his faithful ones.

O Lord, I am your servant

The son of your handmaid

You have loosed my bonds

To you will I offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving

And I will call upon the name of the Lord.

My vows to the Lord I will pay

In the presence of all his people

In the courts of the house of the Lord

In your midst, O Jerusalem!

ü  The words of the first stanza might  reflect the feelings that filled the heart of Abraham when he thought that God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac. 

ü  In the second stanza, the author declares himself the servant of the Lord who has loosen his bonds. Yes the Lord broke the chains, freed Abraham from anguish, when he revealed to him that he was not asking for the life of his son.  

ü  His reacts with joy and thanksgiving “I will offer to you a sacrifice of praise, I will invoke your name.”   

ü  Thus he will sing, he will be faithful and trustful in the Lord in the midst of the faith community.

GOSPEL OF MARK  9:2-10 

Ø  Six days after the first announcement of his passion, Jesus is transfigured in the presence of his disciples, as a announcement of his glorious resurrection. 

Ø  The two magnificent pictures that today’s liturgy offers to us happened on a mountain. In the first narration from the Old Testament it is Mount Moriah which the tradition identifies symbolically with mount Zion where the temple of Jerusalem was built.   

Ø  Moses represents the LAW and Eliah the PROPHETS (The Hebrew  Scriptures are organized into two sections the Law and the Prophets). 

Ø  Jesus takes with him to the mountain Peter, James and John, they will also be with him during his agony in the garden, during his defeat and vulnerability like every other human being. These men will be able to testify to Jesus man and God.  

Ø  Peter, as usual speaks in the name of the other disciples. How good it is to be here Lord! To be in the glory without passing through the darkness of faith, the cross, the desolation. Peter does not want that Jesus go back to where they came from, it is better to stay here, we will build the necessary tents.  

Ø  Again the voice from heaven is Heard “This is my  beloved son, listen to him

Ø  In two different occasions the Father tells us that Jesus is his beloved son. Moments when we are reminded of the glory of this son, who in the daily life is not noticed and he is considered as a simple and poor man. These occasions are: his baptism and his transfiguration.   

Ø  The cloud reminds to us the cloud that covered the meeting tent in the desert. The cloud which is the symbol of the presence of God. From the cloud the voice is heard, the disciples are frightened.  

Ø  But when they lift up their eyes, they see only Jesus.      

Ø  He tells them, do not say what has happened to anyone. Why? Because they will not understand until the resurrection, then you will say it, now is not the time. 

Ø  Like the disciples, we also wish to be in the glory, in the joy without passing through the darkness of faith, through the difficult way in the following of the Lord who goes to the cross.   

SECOND READING FROM THE LETTER OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS 8,31-34

      With this hymn to the love of God, Paul ends the central section of his letter.   

      The dark faith of Abraham, in his journey to Mount Moriah, the place of his son’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of all his hopes, is the trusting faith of this hymn.  

o   Who will be against us? Who will accuse us? Who will condemn us? 

o   If God is with us nothing and nobody can harm us.  

      This is the security of the believer, even if everything around him or her shout something different. Nothing and nobody will separate us form the unconditional love of God in Christ Jesus.  

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• GUILLÉN TORRALBA, Juan, “Génesis” en Comentario al Antiguo Testamento I. La Casa de la Biblia, Estella Navarra, 1997.
• LA BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO, comentarios de Luis Alonso Schökel. Misioneros Claretianos, 2010.
• LOZANO, Juan Manuel, Escritos María Antonia París, Estudio crítico, “El Misionero Apostólico”.   Barcelona 1985.
• RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras.  Doble Comentario de las lecturas del domingo. Año B.  San Pablo, Bogotá,Colombia 2005.

§  VIÑAS, José María cmf y BERMEJO, Jesús, cmf.  “Autobiografía ” de San Antonio María Claret.   

CLARETIAN CORNER 

God was preparing me with so many troubles to receive the great, the indescribable joy which had to flood my soul with the arrival of the Bull from Rome on July 16, 1855, as rapidly as I was expecting and I had told the Archbishop every time he presented me so many difficulties.

            The fights and quarrels, tears and sighs that the foundation of this first house is costing me. Only God, who is pleased with the sighs of a heart distressed for his love, knows them.

When the Royal permission came from Madrid, the Archbishop and the procurator saw the mistake that they despised before as the advice of- in their opinion – an ignorant and hallucinated woman.

The procurator came to read the Royal permission to me in the parlor and, without paying attention to the laws, he fixed the day for my profession, but I, without contradicting him was laughing  inside, because even though I am unlearned, God had told me  already how they had to proceed in these things and I was sure that my profession depended on or had to come from Rome, but this, in the opinion of the procurator , was a heresy.

herejía. (María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 202-204)

With the help of the Vicar General I got rid of many grave abuses in chaplaincies. I saw to it that those chaplaincies I could dispose of were awarded to native sons of good character who were resident seminarians and showed some expectations of eventually becoming good pastors.

I increased the number of parishes and saw to it that pastors taught Christian doctrine and either preached or read to the people every Sunday.

I established the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and, from the very outset of my stay in Cuba, insisted that seminarians be sent about to all the churches of the diocese to teach Christian doctrine. Every Sunday we had a children's procession, which used to stop in the courtyard of the church, where two tables had been set up, facing each other. A child would get up on each of these tables and in their clear, high voices ask each other their catechism questions. The first two would be followed by two others, and so on. The people who crowded around just for the novelty of it would also learn some sorely needed Christian doctrine in the process.

I also established a convent of nuns dedicated to teaching girls, and I bought them a house that cost me about 12,000 duross. (Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 558-561)