It’s fair to say, I think, that our society today is becoming more and more an unbelieving society that’s skeptical about God and Jesus Christ. Does God really exist? Did Jesus Christ really exist. Are the stories we hear about him in the gospels true? Why belong to a church anyway?

Let’s remember, first of all, that there’s nothing wrong with questions. People have asked questions about God from the beginning, because God is beyond what our minds can know. Jesus’ disciples did not understand him. They continually asked him questions. Mary questioned the angel, “How can this be?”

We learn by asking questions. We build up our faith by questions. Healthy questioning can help us know God more.

But listen to our first reading today. “In those days the princes, priests and people mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets.” (2 Chronicles 36, 16) Their questioning wasn’t healthy and their unheallthy questioning brought destruction and exile.

In our gospel reading Nicodemus comes to Jesus with questions, but he comes at night. He’s a Pharisee, a member of the ruling class of his time. He seems afraid to come to Jesus openly because of what his friends and others will think and what it may cost him as a member of the ruling class.

There’s a lot of fear like that today, isn’t there? Like Nicodemus people are afraid what their friends will say. In a world where religion is dismissed as irrelevant or meaningless, you can be looked down upon, and so people give up searching opening into the mystery of God. It become a night search.

The surprising thing our readings today tell us is that God doesn’t give up us. God doesn’t give up on an unbelieving society or reluctant believers like Nicodemus.

Listen again to our reading from John’s gospel.
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.”

God doesn’t give up on us. That’s because God loves us. We see God’s love in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Golden Rules

by Orlando Hernandez

The psalm that was read in last Sunday’s mass (3rd Sunday of Lent) is one of my most beloved: Psalm 19. The first half of this psalm reminds us to be open to the glory of God when we experience the beauty and power of nature. The second half (which was quoted in the mass) leads us to appreciate that this same beauty and power manifests itself in the ordinances and commandments which our religion offers us: “They are more precious than gold,/ than a heap of purest gold;/ sweeter also than syrup/ or honey from the comb.” (v. 11)

All those restrictions and rules? Come on! Maybe necessary, but “sweet” ?

Then, the readings from this third week of Lent, and from the previous weeks, expect even more from us. On Tuesday’s Gospel, our Lord Jesus commands us to forgive and keep forgiving, or else be handed “over to the torturers,” like the king did to the selfish servant.Jesus warns us: “So will my Heavenly Father do to you, unless each one of you forgives your brother from your heart .” (Mt 18: 35)

As for those Ten Commandments we read last Sunday, we must obey them in the name of Jesus, who says on this Wednesday’s Gospel: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Mt 5: 17) This fulfillment seems to come with more “rules” to follow. The eight beatitudes, though beautiful, pose a great challenge to us in order to get those heavenly blessings! And Matthew 25, invokes us to get off our sofas and go out and help our suffering sisters and brothers!

On this Friday’s Gospel He tells us to “Love the Lord our God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength .”
(Mk 12: 30), and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” (v. 31)

For years, the “teenager” in me chafed at all these admonitions. Frankly, all this would have been impossible for me if it had not been for God’s gift of prayer. In prayer the Lord somehow shows me again and again how much He loves me. It is this Love that gives me strength . It is this Love that leads me to truly follow that first commandment, for He has won my heart. It is this Love that helps me to begin to understand that all these “ordinances” are really ways to bring love (sweeter than honey!),compassion, peace, and justice to this world that suffers. These rules, which I believe are written in the hearts of every human being on earth are what keep us from utter chaos and destruction. In the end they are not burdens. They are graces that free us from the burden of hopelessness. Prayer, the constant seeking for that luminous, divine guidance, is the gateway to that Love, the power that helps us to believe that peace in this world is possible, that pushes us to work and fight for that peace, which is more precious “than a heap of purest gold”.

These two men that I really admire put it better than me. Fr. Robert Lauder wrote in “The Tablet” about the challenges of following the commandments :

“Of course it would be impossible if we were alone, but we are not. In our journey through life, which is an adventure in love, we have been given by Christ a companion. With the Holy Spirit forming, shaping and inspiring us, what we might have initially thought of as impossible becomes possible. The Holy Spirit is Infinite Love. With Infinite Love as our companion, can anything be impossible?”

Fr. Martin Coffey, in his keynote address to the St Paul of the Cross Province Assembly in January 2018, points to prayer at the foot of the Cross as the place where we find the meaning of, and the motivation to follow these” precepts “ that the Gospel urges us to observe:

“On the Cross God and humanity are embraced in a bond that can never be broken. Jesus is true God and true man. On the Cross the true God is revealed for our worship and the true man appeals for our compassion and love. The true worship of God and the true compassionate love of our brothers and sisters flow from the memory of the Passion.”

May the Passion of Jesus Christ be always in our hearts.

Orlando Hernandez

John 2,13-25

In Jesus’ time, the temple was the center of Jewish life and worship. Its long history began when King Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem, the city founded by his father, King David. Within it he placed the Ark of the Covenant, containing the stone tablets on which the commandments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai were inscribed.
The temple was a holy sign of God’s presence and continual guidance of his people.
The temple suffered a grave blow when it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Rebuilt by the Jews under the Persian ruler, Cyrus, it was threatened again in 167 BC when Antiochus Epiphanes tried to end Jewish worship in it and substitute a cult of his own. A fierce Jewish revolt under the Maccabees regained its possession and the temple was rededicated to the worship of God in 164 BC.
In 20 BC Herod the Great began a massive rebuilding of the temple on a grand scale as a sign of his own Jewish piety and to impress his overlords, the Romans. Herod’s temple– its ruins can be seen today in Jerusalem– stood till its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD. Jesus worshipped there, while it was still being built.
Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, which three gospels report, was a startling and provocative act. Certainly, his words about destruction triggered an alarm for the guardians of this venerable place and caused them to take steps to stop this trouble-maker from Galilee. If he overturned the tables in the entranceway and drove people out, what would he do next?
But Jesus claimed he himself was the new temple; he was the new lawgiver who came to fulfill God’s command of love. He is God’s presence; the Word dwelling among us and in whom we dwell.

As once you came into the temple, come to us, Lord Jesus,
and cleanse us from all that makes us unholy.
Silence the noise that prevents us hearing you, and help us see when we are blind,
Turn over the barriers that block your word, drive away the distractions that stop our awareness of you.
Give us the wisdom of your commandments. For you command only what is good,
We are temples of the living God,
help us to know who we are.