FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Whoever serves me must follow me, says the Lord;

and where I am, there also will my servant be. JN 12:26

JEREMIAH 31:31-34 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

In this night of our lives that has descended on the world like a poisonous miasma, and cloying to everything with the stench of death and decay, Your Word, uttered through the lips of the prophet Jeremiah, are a soothing balm to the soul.

How can we ever thank the Father for loving us even though we are unworthy of it. Over and over again since the dawn of creation, we have been disobedient, rebellious, sinful, disobedient, wayward, hard of heart, and cold in spirit, and have stubbornly walked away from God. 

And now, after breaking covenant after covenant, He remains steadfast in His love and makes a final and lasting Covenant with us with no other than His only beloved Son. You, the Eternal Word of the Father is now imprinted on our very soul, and sealed in Your Blood and the Holy Spirit. It is irrevocable and it ensures our salvation in and through You. 

Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest – it is the Lord who speaks – since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind.

PSALM 51:3-4,12-15 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Long, long, ago the plea of the psalmist found favor in the heart of God and You gave us the most healing of all the Sacraments after Baptism, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Through this Sacrament, we are guaranteed that sin will never again separate us from God.

You instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation and every time we approach it with humble and contrite hearts and confess our sins to the priests, we hear You utter those blessed words of restoration, "Your sins are forgiven, go in peace and sin no more. 

You create a pure heart for us every time. You have mercy on us. In Your compassion, You blot out all ours sins and offenses and we are made a new creation in You once again. 

You restore our relationship with the Father and we are filled once again with the joy of the Holy Spirit. May every confession we make help us to truly strive with Your help to sin no more and avoid the near occasion of sin. 

HEBREWS 5:7-9 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

You teach us that every prayer offered to the Father in Your Name in obedience and humility will always be heard. This is the assurance given to all who believe in You. 

You are our Model in prayer. You show us how to approach the Father with our prayers of praise, adoration, thanksgiving, intercession, and petitions. Perfunctory prayers made out of dull routine and do not involve our whole being will never be heard. Prayer involves leaning on the heart of the Father with the confidence of a little child, and opening our whole being with utter simplicity to Him. 

No favor we ask is too great. No prayer will go unheard no matter how inconsequential it may seem it is not so to our Father. He gives us His total attention. He is always available. He is wholly present to us when we approach Him in Your Name. But may we never ever forget that we must approach the God of all mercy and compassion with humility and obediently embrace suffering. It is through suffering that we are purified and make perfect. 

If we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect we must learn from You who, as St. Paul tells us, 'Although he was Son, he learnt to obey through suffering; but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation.'

JOHN 12:20-33 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

St. John's Gospel invites us to pay attention to every detail of the scenes he is reconstructing for us and invites us to direct our gaze to the many signs that reveal who You are. 

Today, on the 5th Sunday in Lent, a week before Passion Sunday, he reveals details of Your presence in the Temple in Jerusalem. The place is thronging with people both Jews and Gentiles who have come to Jerusalem for the festival. Among them are some Greeks who approach Phillip who in turn goes to Andrew and together they come to You to of these men who wished to see You. It is significant that the Greeks have heard of You and wish to see You and You recognize that the 'hour' which You referred to from the beginning of Your public ministry is finally approaching.

‘Now the hour has come
for the Son of Man to be glorified.' 

No sooner do You speak of Your glory You speak of Your death linking the two. 

I tell you, most solemnly,
unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies,
it remains only a single grain;
but if it dies,
it yields a rich harvest.

Paradoxically to live one must lose one's life and to gain eternal life one must hate his life in this world. If we desire to serve You we cannot do it worthily if we do not follow You and anyone who serves You will be honored by Your Father. What a privilege! What a wonderful assurance.

But eternal joy and eternal union with God demands a price - the price of suffering. You were fully human and fully divine knowing full well the extent of the physical agony You were to endure to make expiation for the sins of the whole world Your whole being naturally recoiled. But You were also aware that it was necessary, it was what Your Father willed for You, this is the way the Father chose to reveal His great love for us, His weak, sinful creatures, this was the way in which we would be made part of the family of God. We would be adopted by Him through You. All for Your Father's glory - You would submit in perfect obedience to glorify Him and He, in turn, would glorify You by drawing the whole world which was thus far under the influence of Satan, back to God. A voice from heaven confirmed that all glory would rebound back to God through You and through Your suffering.

The world would lift You up above the earth just as the fiery seraph was raised above the earth. You would draw the sins of the whole world to Yourself, crucify it, absorb it and pour out from Your pierced side forgiveness, mercy, and pardon for all humanity.

Thank You, Lord!