(JOHN 3: 14-21)
How are you doing in our Lenten intention to give up something? Have you failed a couple of times? The Church has made plans for that failure!
This is how it works. The time of Lent is a time of conversion. What you may give up is only secondary to the change of mind and heart that we are called to on Ash Wednesday: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
The daily Gospel readings of the first three weeks of Lent are all about Jesus’ calling us into a new world of love, reconciliation and service. Giving up ice cream, Miller Light or Disneyland is not the burning issues. In fact, if we fail, it can be a big help!
The failure can help us learn that we need help. We cannot do this sacrifice, and all the more, embrace the Gospel message of conversion by ourselves. We need help and we need it big time.
The Church gives us an answer. Keep your eyes on Jesus. To help us do this in these final weeks of Lent, we are presented with a new theme in the daily Gospel readings in the fourth and fifth weeks of Lent.
The readings are taken from the Gospel of John. They are actually selection from chapter four to chapter twelve that are not used in any other readings for the rest of the year.
We are called into the mystery of Jesus. We are invited to encounter Jesus as our savior. We are presented, as always, with the Gospel message of love. For in the end, it is only when we realize and embrace the reality of Jesus’ love that we can move forward on the Christian journey and have the change of mind and heart that is true conversion.
So the message of the fourth and fifth weeks of Lent is to embrace our weakness and turn to Jesus. In this way we prepare to celebrate the great wonder of our faith in Holy Week, the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
We are all invited to journey on the road to Jerusalem. We are given the daily passages from John to help us on the way. Our task is simple: “Keep our eyes on Jesus!”
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