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Collect:
Father of peace, we are joyful in your Word, your Son Jesus Christ, who reconciles us to you. Let us hasten to our Easter with the eagerness of faith and love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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March 26, 2006

Fourth Sunday of Lent

And 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. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:14-18).

This Sunday was formerly called "Laetare Sunday" since its mood and theme was one of hope and rejoicing that Easter was near. In the reformed calendar this Sunday is not different from the other Sundays of Lent even though the entrance antiphon for the day still begins with the Latin word "laetare" and the vestments worn by the celebrant are rose-colored, not violet. The day is important because it is the day of the second scrutiny in preparation for the baptism of adults at the Easter Vigil.

The Station at Rome is in the basilica of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, one of the seven principal churches of the holy city. It was built in the fourth century, by the emperor Constantine. The emperor's mother, St. Helen, enriched it with most precious relics, and wished to make it the Jerusalem of Rome.

Sunday Readings
The first reading is taken from the Book of Chronicles 2 Chron:36:14-16, 19-23. It refers to the edict of Cyrus, the king of Persia, permitting the exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, which had been burned by the Chaldeans as a punishment from God for the infidelities of the Chosen People.

The second reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians 2:4-10. In today's extract St. Paul is emphasizing the gratuitousness of the gift of faith which the Ephesian converts have received. This gift which God gave them, even when they were sinners, had united them to Christ, and has given them the right to share in His glorious resurrection and inherit heaven with Him and through Him.

The Gospel is from St. John 3:14-21. This man Nicodemus had a half-open mind as regards Jesus. He was moved by his teaching and miracles. He defended him when his companions were out to have Jesus arrested. He helped to have him properly buried when his enemies had him put to death, but that was as far as he went, apparently. There is no mention of him in the first Christian community of Jerusalem. What held him back, what kept him from giving himself fully to Jesus who spoke so kindly and told him so clearly that he himself was indeed a teacher who had come from God, that he had been offered by God as the sacrificial victim who would save the world? All Nicodemus had to do was to accept his word, "believe in him" and be baptized and he too would have eternal life.

Why did he not do this? The answer is given in the beginning of his story "He came to Jesus by night." He was one of the leading Pharisees and evidently was afraid of what they would think of him had they seen him associating with Jesus. How much more so did he dread what their reactions would be had he become a follower of him whom they called "this impostor." Nicodemus had only half of his mind open to the truth, the other half was closed and barred by his fear of what his own class—the leaders of the Jews—would think of him. He risked his own future happiness in order not to lose the present respect of his sinful associates.

What a foolish man we would all say! Yet, are not many of us often like Nicodemus, when it comes to living up to our following of Christ? There are Catholic men who would like to, and should, go much more often to Holy Communion but are afraid of what their fellow-parishioners, who receive but rarely, would think of them. There are many, far too many, Christians who will not defend or stand up for their religion when it is insulted and attacked in their place of work or in a saloon. There are Christians who stand idly by, and give at least tacit approval, when grave injustices are being carried out by individuals or by local or national groups. These and many more like them are Christian types of Nicodemus, who through fear of losing the approval, the worthless esteem, of their sinful associates, are prepared to forfeit the esteem of God and their own eternal welfare.

Nicodemus probably thought he had made reparation for his lack of openness to Jesus when he assisted at his burial. What value, however, had that work of mercy for one of his frame of mind? There are amongst us today, humanists, most of them ex-Christians, men and women who make assisting their neighbor, while excluding Christ and God, the essence of religion. While the assistance the neighbor receives will benefit him materially, what spiritual or religious value can it have for the humanist who excluded God and our Savior Jesus Christ? Humanism or concentrating on our neighbor to the exclusion of God, is an imitation of religion and a very false imitation at that. Helping our neighbor because he is a son of God is part of our true religion, and the second of the two great commandments of love; but helping a neighbor from whom we have effaced the image of God has not and cannot have any religious value or significance whatever. It is as meaningless as lighting a candle before the photograph of a wife one has deliberately deserted.

Thank God, we have accepted Christ with our whole heart and our whole mind. It is through him that we have been made sons of God. It is through him that we have learned to love God and learned of God's infinite love for us. Because all men are God's sons also, and our brothers in Christ, we will gladly help them whenever and wherever we can because God has commanded us to do so. This is true humanism which sees in the neighbor the workmanship of the almighty Creator, and what is more important still, the elevating effects of the divine Savior, as well.

Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.

Homily of the Day

Homily of the Day

Title:	It Takes More Than Just Knowing the Rules
Author:	Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
Date:	Sunday, March 26, 2006

Chr 36:15-16, 19-23 / Eph 2:4-10 / Jn 3:14-21

There's a law in physics that a pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it's released. In fact, because of friction and gravity, it will fall just a little short of the release point. Each time it swings, the arc gets smaller and smaller till it finally comes to rest.

A physics teacher had just taught this lesson when a student decided to get even for all his bad grades. "Teacher," he asked "do you really believe that?"

"Of course I do," huffed the teacher. "I've been teaching it for twenty years!"

"Well, then, let's just put it to a little test." And with that the student made a huge pendulum by suspending 300 pounds of weight-lifting disks from the ceiling. He brought the weights right up to the teacher's nose. "Now, sir, if the law of the pendulum is true, when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and then back, and stop just a little short of your nose. Sir, do you believe that?"

"Yes," said the teacher, looking not at all certain.

The boy released the pendulum. At the far end of its arc it paused just a moment and than swung faster and faster back toward the teacher - who had disappeared under the desk! He knew the law of pendulums, but when the crunch came, he wasn't willing to bet his nose on it!

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In Sunday's Gospel, Jesus says, "Whoever believes in me will not die, but will have eternal life." He's saying, in other words, that faith in God is a matter of life and death for us! So we'd better get very clear about what faith is.

First of all, it's a lot more than just knowing and signing off on the big dogmas: One God, three persons, died for our sins, and so on. They're important and true, but signing off on them isn't the essence of faith. Real faith in God is a relationship in which we entrust ourselves into God's hands.

Now why would we entrust ourselves to someone we can't even see?

Because ever so quietly, God has been showing himself to us in thousands of different ways every day: In the majesty of a sunset, in a glistening dewdrop resting on a rose, in the forgiveness and understanding that come our way so often, in the round little faces of our children and the wrinkled faces of our dear old friends, and best of all in the face of our brother Jesus.

How much he wants the best for us. And so, when it finally sinks in, we whisper, I believe. I know you love me and I can trust you, Lord. So I give myself to you.

If those words have deep roots, they will bear fruit in peaceful hearts and in confident hearts that know how to relax in the Lord. If those words have deep roots, they will bear fruit in hearts that know what matters and what does not, hearts that don't falter or pull away when heavy weights bear down upon them, hearts that are ready for everything because they are connected to the Lord.

Those are the strong and peaceful hearts we want for ourselves and that God wants for us. So speak from deep inside the words he's been waiting to hear: "Lord, I know you love me. So I give myself to you! I give it all and I'm holding nothing back."

Peace and strength will follow!