BIBLE STUDY #126


FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

March 17, 2013





READING 1

ISAIAH 43:16-21



Thus says the LORD,

who opens a way in the sea

and a path in the mighty waters,

who leads out chariots and horsemen,

a powerful army,

till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,

snuffed out and quenched like a wick.

Remember not the events of the past,

the things of long ago consider not;

see, I am doing something new!

Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

In the desert I make a way,

in the wasteland, rivers.

Wild beasts honor me,

jackals and ostriches,

for I put water in the desert

and rivers in the wastelandnk,

the people whom I formed for myself,

that they might announce my praise.



for my chosen people to dri

The Word of the Lord



READING 2

PHILIPPIANS 3:8-14



Brothers and sisters:

I consider everything as a loss

because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things

and I consider them so much rubbish,

that I may gain Christ and be found in him,

not having any righteousness of my own based on the law

but that which comes through faith in Christ,

the righteousness from God,

depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection

and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,

if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.



It is not that I have already taken hold of it

or have already attained perfect maturity,

but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,

since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, I for my part

do not consider myself to have taken possession.

Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind

but straining forward to what lies ahead,

I continue my pursuit toward the goal,

the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.



The Word of the Lord



GOSPEL

JOHN 8:1-11



Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,

and all the people started coming to him,

and he sat down and taught them.

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman

who had been caught in adultery

and made her stand in the middle.

They said to him,

“Teacher, this woman was caught

in the very act of committing adultery.

Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say?”

They said this to test him,

so that they could have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.

But when they continued asking him,

he straightened up and said to them,

“Let the one among you who is without sin

be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

And in response, they went away one by one,

beginning with the elders.

So he was left alone with the woman before him.

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,

“Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?”

She replied, “No one, sir.”

Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.

Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”



The Word of the Lord



Reflection



Many of you probably had an Irish priest, sister, or brother, who was a positive influence on your faith life. We owe a great deal of gratitude to those who came to our country from Ireland to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. We need to keep them in our prayers.



St. Patrick is known for evangelizing Ireland, and we know the stories about shamrock’s and snakes, but did you know that St. Patrick was responsible for private confession and private penance?



Church policy and practice prior to St. Patrick required that all confession and penance be done publicly. After someone performed their public penance, they could never again seek forgiveness for their sins from the church, nor could they ever be a priest, which drastically limited the number of priestly candidates. This regulation led many people, such as St. Augustine, to put off baptism until late in life so they would always have the once in a lifetime forgiveness available. Many people who claimed to be Catholic in St. Patrick’s day weren’t even baptized.



In the late 5th century, contrary to church law, St. Patrick ordered his monks to give private penances to those monks in their community who came to them for spiritual direction. This led to what in now known as the sacrament of reconciliation (confession). Who knows what would have happened to the Church without St. Patrick’s innovation? Whether you like to go to confession or not, offering God’s forgiveness at any time certainly seems to follow in the compassion and love of Jesus.



Today’s Gospel emphasizes the fact that we are all sinners, sometimes great sinners, and we all need God’s forgiveness to grow in His grace.



The passage begins with Jesus on the Mount of Olives. This mount is not mentioned in the gospels except for Jesus’ passion. He leaves this place and goes to the Temple area, where Jesus sat to teach them. Sitting was the proper position for a teacher of that time period.



The Scribes and Pharisees (the religious leadership) brought a woman to him who had been caught “in the very act” of adultery. How did they catch her? Was she a prostitute, and did they follow her until she was committing adultery? The Gospel doesn’t say she was a prostitute, so my opinion is that the religious leadership set her up. They didn’t care about her, but were using her to entrap Jesus. And where was the man? Doesn’t adultery need 2 people?



The Scribes and Pharisees said that the Law of Moses commanded them to stone such women (actually, Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22 mention only death, but Deuteronomy 22:23-24 prescribes stoning for a betrothed virgin). In any case, they wanted her to suffer a horrible death.



They felt that they had Jesus trapped. If he said to let her go, he was breaking the law and they would be able to use this to discredit him with the people. If he said to stone her, he would lose his reputation for forgiveness and mercy.



But, as we see, Jesus turned the tables on the. He said, ““Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Now, notice what Jesus said and didn’t say. He never said not to throw a stone. He said that if you were sinless, then you could throw a stone. Since we all sin, then we can’t throw stones. At least, on top of everything else, the Scribes and Pharisees weren’t hypocrites. Jesus bends down to write on the ground, giving them time to think, and they went away one by one.



Jesus approaches the woman and asks her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” When she replies, “No one sir,” Jesus tells her to go and sin no more.



Jesus never condones the sin. Too often in our society, we try to say that there is no sin, that truth is what we say it is (my truth vs. your truth), because we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or make them feel bad. We do people a disservice when we do this, especially if they are feeling guilty about something. They know it’s wrong, they feel bad about it. What they need is for us to affirm them in the sin (sounds strange, but it works). People don’t need to hear a lot of nonsense, they need our honesty, they need to be forgiven, to be respected and to be supported as a human being.



In the late 1990’s, I trained for a project called Project Rachel, which is a post-abortion healing program. One of the precepts is that abortion is a grave moral evil and we tell them so. It came as a great relief to them because they felt horrible, and no one would tell her that she did wrong. Everyone tried to make excuses for her actions and make her feel better. In a way, it was affirming: we were affirming her feelings; way down she knew it was wrong and she was suffering terribly.



This was the beginning of healing. Sometimes it would take weeks for her to get her story out, but eventually, there came a time for forgiveness. Many times she felt that even God abandoned her, that even God wouldn’t forgive her; talk about entering into despair.



When she realized that she can be forgiven by God, she would ask to go to confession. What a great moment of healing and grace! God has forgiven her, and she can get on with her life, minus all the grief and despair. We were trained never to condemn; she didn’t need that, she was condemning herself. We were trained to treat her as a suffering, vulnerable human being who needed our help.



We don’t condone sin, but we don’t condemn the sinner, either. Jesus didn’t condone the sins of this woman nor did he condemn her. Also notice that he didn’t condone the sins of the Scribes and Pharisees, nor did he condemn them either.



This is a great lesson in compassion and humility. Every one of us is struggling on the road of faith. We make mistakes, and we sin. We need to confess our sins and to move on. We don’t need anyone condemning us, telling us that we are sinners, and telling us we are going to hell. We just might end up there anyway, but that’s no way to treat anyone. People who condemn others, like the Scribes and Pharisees did, are hypocrites who would be better off looking to their own sins rather than to others.



We need to hear the truth, but we need people who will love us and support us on our pilgrim way. We need people of compassion and humility who bring God’s love. We need to remember that we will be judged as we judge others (according to Jesus, anyway). As the saying goes, we hate the sin but we love the sinner.



This Gospel reminds me of our new pope, Pope Francis. He is a humble, simple man living out the gospel, concerned with the care of people, especially the poor. When some of his priests refused to baptize children of unmarried women, he told his priests last year, “These are today’s hypocrites; those who clericalize the church, those who separate the people of God from salvation.” He said that his fellow church leaders forgot that Jesus ate with sinners, and associated with prostitutes and lepers. He feels that church leaders, as well as the rest of us, should be about the church business of going out to the people and spreading the good news. Our main goal as a church is not to follow rules and regulations; it is not about control and manipulation; but our main goal is spreading the Good News.



I think God has truly blessed our church with this new pope. I feel greatly optimistic and hopeful, and feel that we will have a period of great renewal. I think many people will look to faith, and many will embrace it. I think Pope Francis is just what we need.



Let’s pray for the pope every day. Let’s not pray that the pope follow our agenda but that he will do god’s will. Let’s pray that God blesses and guides him, and that he will walk in the footsteps of our Lord.





Fr. Phil