GOD’S PATIENCE AND MERCY

God’s patience and mercy are all we need to live a grace-filled life in Christ Jesus. God doesn’t punish us for our sins but there are consequences for every action or decision we make or take in life. Hence, the tragedies that befall us are not God’s punishment. They are warning signs for God’s abundant time to repent and adjust our lifestyles.

Simply the tragedies and brokenness of life tell us of the brevity and fragility of our human existence. Therefore, we are called to take advantage of every instance of life to live to the fullness of our potential.

GRACE OF REPENTANCE: GOD’S MERCY AND PATIENCE

Truly the Lenten season is not just a moment of prayer, penance and charity, but also a time of repentance, reconciliation and renewal of our relationship with God and our brothers and sisters. It is a time to get closer to God’s grace and mercy through Christ Jesus.

Equally, it is a moment of seeking reconciliation with God, others and ourselves. It is a time to mend broken relationships damaged by our pride, hatred, and insensitivity. Above all, Lent offers us a moment of total renewal to rise with Jesus into the newness of life. 

OUR THEME: MERCY AND PATIENCE OF GOD

Proverbs 15: 5 says, ¨only a fool despises parental discipline; whoever learns from correction is wise.¨ this is the antiphon of the readings of this Sunday of Lent towards the theme of repentance.

The predominant theme of this third Sunday of Lent is God’s mercy and patience. It is also repentance from our sinful ways or lifestyle to living and doing good.

The reading also points out God’s intervention in human events and histories as the moment of grace and salvation. They invite us all to take full advantage of such moments.

God’s purpose is to liberate us from slavery to sins, things, or persons so that we can live a life that is pleasing and conforming to his holy will. He is willing to wait and exercise patience for our little or no progress to live according to his will.

THE CENTRAL THEME OF FR. ANTHONY

The central theme of all three readings of today speaks of the mercy and compassion of God. It is visible how God discipline His children by occasional punishment while giving them another chance despite their repeated sins.

Although the love of God for us is constant and consistent, He will not save us without our cooperation. God invites us during Lent to repent of our sins and renew our lives by producing fruits of love, compassion, forgiveness, and faithful service.

FIRST READING: EXODUS 3:1-8, 13-15

God pities his people in Egypt and will free them through Moses, however, before Moises becomes an instrument of God to liberate his people. He must know and have an intimate experience of God.  We can never fulfil our mission without knowing God’s plan for us.

 Moses’ experience at the burning bush was a religious curiosity and personal encounters with God. It was a moment of God’s intervening grace to the horror of human suffering and brokenness.

Hence, God’s call for Moses to be a leader and mediator for his people was a complex task. One that needs assurance, though, Moises put on some resistance and eventually yielded to do the odious task; for God to save his people Israel from enslavement. For many of us, the step towards repentance is submission to the divine Will of the Father; so that salvation in Christ Jesus, the Moises can be guaranteed from slavery to sins.

PSALM 102 OR 103

Our responsorial Psalm reminds us of God’s unfailing mercy. “Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.”  Thus, the psalmist invites us to sing to the goodness and mercy of God. The Lord is kind and merciful to us; let us praise, thank and bless his mercy, goodness and blessings.

SECOND READING: CORINTHIANS 10:1-6, 10-12

The experiences and lessons of the past are meant to help us make good decisions and live better lives. St Paul made us understand history as interconnected and faith-based.

 In Moses and Israel, we see the figure of Christ with us. Hence, we must learn about the faith journey of Israel, especially the failures and unfaithfulness. Therefore, we must persevere in faith, grace and mercy of God to be saved.

LESSON FROM THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL

St. Paul recalls the historical faith journey of Israel in the light of God’s intervention and saving mystery. The failure to respond to such timing intervention; and the loss of grace by the chosen nation, the consecrated people and the royal race of priesthood.

For him, this unfolding cautionary narrative from Exodus demonstrates how the Israelites were stiff-nakedness in violating God’s covenant through idolatry. They had doubts about God’s providence in the desert even after experiencing liberation from slavery. The result or consequence was the total punishment of generations. Hence, St. Paul calls us to life steadfastness or faithfulness with God learning from the Israelites’ history of unfaithfulness and its consequences.

Indeed, Lent is a season of practising such discipline and steadfastness to grow in grace within God’s mercy.

THE GOSPEL: LUKE: 13:1-9

Jesus’ parable and the story of the victims of human-perpetuated evil and a recalling of God’s grace with patience and mercy.  That also invites us to be productive with his AMAZING GRACE in us all. A moment of salvation, reconciliation and renewal

 WHY DID THE JEWS BRING THIS STORY OR NEWS TO JESUS?

1.         Did they want him to express solidarity with the victims?

2.         Or did they want him to explain what sin those victims could have committed to merit such a shameful death?

3.         Or why God allowed them to be murdered in the sacred area of the temple.

Jesus rejects the popular myth that all misfortunes are divine punishments.  We are not to imagine a stern, punitive God who metes out sickness, accidents, and misfortunes in response to people’s sins.

Then he changes the topic and invites them to examine their lives and take advantage of God’s grace and mercy, especially in a season like Lent, when repentance and embracing God’s mercy are fundamentally significant.

TRAGEDY OF LIFE AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN

The gospel passage alludes to two tragic stories in the time of Jesus.

1.         The Galileans whose blood mingled with their sacrifices for resisting Roman dominance.

2.         And the tragic collapse of the tower of Siloam that killed eighteen people.

These are unfortunate events in human history. However, their interpretations could be crueller than the tragedies themselves.

This was the case of these events in Jesus’s time. They were to Jesus probably with the Jewish mentality that those victims deserved their fate because they were sinners: why?

 The Jews rigidly connected sin and suffering. Eliphaz had long ago said to Job, “Who that was innocent ever perished?” (Jb.4:7).

This was a cruel and heartbreaking doctrine that branded human suffering as punishment from God.

Jesus utterly denounced this religious cruelty and its insensitivity to victims of natural and human disasters especially demonising them as worse sinners. 

There is sin and its consequences for us, but that does not necessarily mean an individual or human suffering is punished due to sins.

Jesus’ calls for the repentance of Israel were a warning against national sin or rejection of God that would lead to national and personal suffering.

LIFE TRAGEDIES ARE NOT GOD’S PUNISHMENT

Tragedies caused by human and natural disasters are not motives to question God’s providence and goodness. Instead, they are opportune moments to reflect on God’s mercy, grace and love.

Hence, moments of tragedy are moments of protesting at God or denying his existence, but by doing our bit to mitigate suffering in our world. Then, maybe, our heightened awareness of the fragility or shortness of human life. The need to be closer to God.

THE PARABLE OF MERCY AND GRACE PACK WITH WARNING

The parable of the unproductive fig tree is connected to the call to repentance. Along with a more profound sense of warning or the consequences of a wasted life. Things to remember:

1. Sufferings and tragedies like: sickness, accidents, and misfortunes remind us of the shortness of life and the need to be ready always. 

2. Tragedies are moments of examining our own lives.  This implies an opportunity to listen to God’s call to conversion and a change of heart or lifestyle.

3. God does not seek our punishment through suffering, but some suffering is a consequence of our wrong choices.

4.  The mercy and patience of God seek to restore us to grace, not destruction or prediction.

5. God creates us without our consent: but he will not save us without our cooperation to be productive and fruitful in life.

6. There is no room for a wasteful lifestyle in God, but there is room for second chances to grow and be profitable.

7. The mercy of God is infinite, but his justice is also demanding.

8. Repentance is an ongoing process in us. It is never a thing of one time.

THE LESSONS OF LIFE ACCORDING TO FR ANTHONY KADAVIL

 (1) We must live a life of repentance because (a) we never know when we meet a tragedy.

(2). Let us turn to Christ, acknowledge our faults and failings and receive from his mercy, forgiveness and the promise of eternal life.

(3). There is no better way to take these words of Jesus to heart than to go to sacramental confession, and there is no better time to go to confession than during Lent.

(4) Repentance helps us in life and death. It enables us to live as forgiven people to face death without fear.

(5) We need to be fruitful trees in God’s orchards. Lent is an ideal time “to dig around and manure” the tree of our life so that it may bring forth fruits of repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and sensitivity to the feelings of others.

(6) We must make the best use of the “second chances” God gives us. Our merciful Father always gives us second chances. During Lent, too, we are given another opportunity to repent and return to our Heavenly Father’s love.

Are we nurturing our faith and trying to bear love, the kind of fruit God wants from us? How prepared are we to admit to our faults and failings to receive the mercy and forgiveness of God through the sacrament of confession, especially this Lenten season?

OUR PRAYER FOR THIS WEEK

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the visible face of God’s mercy. May this Lenten season of grace, reconciliation, renewal and salvation. Help us never to waste such precious and amazing grace but to capitalize on it, to celebrate a glorious victory and resurrection in our Christian life over sins and death.  Amen!