FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
6 APRIL 2025
The
prophet Isaiah gives hope to his people in captivity in Babylon. He reminds them of God’s saving acts in the
past. God had led their ancestors in
their journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land through the Red Sea in. The mighty army of Pharaoh’s horsemen was drowned
in their pursuit. However, he tells his
people not to remember the events of the past.
God will do something new. God is
present to his people in captivity, and God will lead them in a new journey through
another desert to their homeland. God will
give them water, just as God had done for their ancestors.
Saint Paul is
also on a journey when he writes to the Philippians. Writing from his prison cell, he has lost
everything. He has lost his ministry to
the Gentiles and the freedom of traveling wherever the Lord led him. He had also lost the sinful parts of his
life, especially his original hatred for the disciples of Jesus Christ and for
his active persecution of the Church. He
accepts the loss of all those things, because he has found gain in Jesus
Christ. Because of that gain, he can let
go of what is behind him and strains forward to what lies ahead. He can continue his pursuit toward the goal
of achieving the prize of God’s upward calling in Jesus Christ. He is confident in his journey to share in
the fullness of the resurrection.
As we continue
our journey through the desert of Lent, the story of the woman caught in
adultery provides some direction. The
scribes and Pharisees bring a woman caught in the act of adultery. As Pope John Paul II asked, where is the
man? Instead of bringing both people, they
bring the more vulnerable of the two.
They could care less about this woman.
They use her to set a trap for Jesus.
They ask him if they should follow the law of Moses and have the woman
stoned. If Jesus agrees, they will
question his teaching about mercy. If he
responds that the woman should be shown mercy, they will accuse him of ignoring
the law of Moses. Instead of falling
into their trap, he bends down and writes on the ground with his finger. We have no idea what he is writing. Then he dares the one among them without sin
to be the first to throw a stone at her.
After they all go away one by one, he addresses the woman.
Instead of
using her as an object, as the scribes and Pharisees has done, he speaks to her
with love. Just as no one had been able
to condemn her, he does not condemn her either.
He does not minimize her sin of adultery. Instead, he tells her to leave that sin in
the past and not sin again. He invites
her to cast off the misery of her past sins to live without sin with him. The loss of her misery can be replaced by his
mercy.
We have no
idea what that woman chose to do. Did
she go back to her lover, or did she agree to allow Jesus Christ to journey
with her? Because this is the living
Word of God, the Lord invites us to deepen our trust in his presence and to
journey with him. In our journey, we can
recall the many ways the Lord has been with us in the past and give
thanks. We might be tempted to recall
the ways we have refused to journey with Jesus Christ and have turned against
him. Like the ancient Israelites, like
Saint Paul, and like the woman caught in adultery, we can count all of those
times as loss. Our common gain is our
relationship with Jesus Christ. It is
that gain which is being revealed in our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
In these
last two weeks of our journey through the desert of Lent, we can face a
wilderness of uncertainty, because God is before us preparing the way. He is doing a “new thing," which we can
embrace with hope as we walk with him through his passion, death, and ultimately
to his resurrection.
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