17th March, 2013: 5th Sunday of Lent: Year C.
THE CALL TO JOURNEY WITH HOPE
A roadmap for the Journey:
Persevere through Problems...
as Israel did, to walk through the desert...and find the promised land across.
Prioritise Christ...
as St. Paul considers, everything else as a loss, before the surpassing value of knowing Christ.
Progress as Pilgrims...
forgetting the past, focussing on Christ and Progressing towards that fullness brought and promised by Christ... to that home where God our Father and Mother, awaits us... to progress as pilgrims, with joy and with hope
A Call to Journey with hope: The roadmap for the Journey.
We are at the end of such
a significant week! We have loads of thoughts to reflect on and take to heart. Expectations,
Celebration, Gratitude, Mystery, Wonder, were the feelings that dominated the
week that has passed! And today the dominant note is one of HOPE. The Liturgy
of the Word too invites us to the same sentiment of faith. Last week the
Liturgy called us to Celebrate. Every celebration is to reinforce the energy
within a person or the community to go on with life – and following it right
on, the Liturgy today calls us to Journey with Hope.
Holy Father Pope Francis,
when he greeted the faithful gathered at St.Peter’s Square said it in simple
words, “Iniziamo un cammino, il vescovo e popolo!” – Let’s begin a journey as the
Bishop and his people! A journey, he said!
In his first homily as the
Supreme Pontiff, at the Eucharist celebrated with the Cardinals, he presented a
beautiful project, in three words – “Camminare, Costruire, Confessare” – To Journey
(walk), to Build and to Profess! Journey…
is the central theme today, it is the central theme for a Christian
Spirituality. St. Paul points it out in his letters with various terms, we run,
we journey, we press on, towards to goal, with hope.
A Journey needs a roadmap…
and today’s Word of God provides us with the Roadmap in three words, in three ‘P’s
– Persevere, Prioritize and Progress.
For the Hebrews under slavery
and burdensome labour, the prospect of journeying to the promised land, a land
flowing with milk and honey, was a fantasy. When they actually undertook it,
they could not believe their own selves. The Psalmist expresses it so well, “When
the Lord restored the fortunes of Israel, it was like in a dream!” (Ps 126:1)
When they embarked on that journey it was in no terms easy… they were faced
with the endless desert, with no food and no water, they were faced with a sea
with freedom on the other side and death approaching them from behind, they
were faced with treachery within and immorality that abounded…but those who
stuck on to the journey crossed the Jordan into their promised land. Persevering
through Problems, is an important ingredient towards success in faith. We see,
in the first reading today, how this faith was rewarded for the people of
Israel. The journey of Christian life is not different – with its own share of deserts
and seas and temptations and death – but a disciple of Christ is called to
Persevere right through these problems, and journey in faith.
What if we lose the vision,
the direction, the energy… it is St. Paul again who instructs in various words…set
your hearts on the thing above and on grace that Christ brings, he instructs. I
consider everything as a loss, as a trash, as a garbage… because of the
surpassing value of knowing Christ. The second dimension of the roadmap to real
faith, is Prioritising Christ above anything or anybody else in our daily life.
When our self considerations of comfort and career, or our considerations of
attachments and allegiances become more important than God, Christ and all that
pertains to our circle of faith, we can easily lose direction, lack vision and
get lost in the mire of daily concerns and personal glory. What we need to do
is fix our gaze on Christ, look to Him and be radiant (Ps 34:5). Thus we will
journey on!
The third dimension of the
roadmap is the most important! With the lost direction, with the lost time and
with the negative experiences we can be caught up in the past. We see today a
group of people who brought that lady to Jesus today… they we so impressed with
themselves that they caught that lady sinning, they were so caught up with the
law of the Moses given in the past, they were so involved in the fact that Jesus
had insulted them so many times in so may ways, all things of the past… that
they failed to see what was going on in the mind of that woman. The grief that
was crying out from her eyes, the shame that was constricting her heart and her
body, the anger that was swelling in her mind, the guilt that was tearing her
apart – nothing mattered to those people who stood with stones in their hands. Jesus
saw what they did not see! The person who was there on the ground waiting for
the stones to be pelted, thinking to herself, it was better to die than to
live, it was better to be stoned than to be looked at with the past in
reference. It would have been easier for Jesus to send those self made judges
away than to reassure that woman of her worth! Without a word on her burdensome
past, Jesus tells her – Go and sin no more! Go… Go… Go on… To go on, with Christ
in focus, to press on forgetting the past and to progress in the path of Christ…that
is the call today!
With the hope that God
awaits us where we are headed to, we are called to progress. Falls, faults,
failures and fake successes…let them not deter us. To rise, to restart and to
resume our journey is an act of hope. That is what Jesus calls us to. To journey
with hope, to never be discouraged but persevere through problems, to
prioritise Christ without losing our focus, our vision our direction, to
progress constantly towards that fullness that Christ wishes to offer us. Like
pilgrims set on a journey towards the house of grace, we are called to journey
on!!! The Compass is set… Christ is the coordinate points… Christ is the
direction… God our Father and Mother awaits us at home… lets journey in the
path that Christ has traced, with joy and with hope.