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WORD FOR MISSION Every week CIAM offers
to lay, religious people and priests an itinerary of reflections on the
Sunday Liturgy in a missionary prespective. These are elements for a
missionary meditation, individual or in community, on the Word of God ,
which constantly and surprisingly continues to enlighten, strengthen
and sustain the missionary journey of the Church, for the life of the
World
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Not stones, but regenerating love
V Sunday
of Lent Isaiah
43,16-21 “At daybreak” (Gospel), in the open area of the temple of Jerusalem, a new life began also for a woman who had been arrested in the act of adultery. (v.4). According to the law, a woman to be stoned. She is thrown in front of Jesus like a rag, the only person accused of a crime that, by its very nature, should have had two guilty partners; but the other has managed to slip away… Jesus saves her from the hail of stones by his surprising attitudes, that turn the situation right over: first of all a silence disconcerts the accusers, then the illegible (rather, never-explained) writing on the ground, and lastly, the challenge to throw the first stone that shows up the hypocrisy of all those pitiless accusers. In the end, the woman and Jesus remain there alone: ‘misery with mercy’ as St. Augustine puts it. Jesus speaks to the woman, whom nobody had addressed until then: they had bundled her along with insults and accusations. He speaks to her politely, softly, not with coarse words but with respect, recognising her dignity; he calls her ‘woman’ , as he often did with his mother (Jn.2:4, 19:26). Jesus makes a distinction between her, a weak woman certainly, and her sin, of which he does not approve, of course. Adultery is, and remains, a sin (Mt.5:32), even in the case of dishonest desires (Mt.5:28 and the 9th Commandment). Jesus condemns the sin, but not the sinner; he does not dwell on and analyse her past, but projects here into life again, re-opens the future to her. The kernel of the account is not the sin, but the Heart of God who loves, and wants us to live. This is the image of God-Love that Jesus wants to hand on: the woman must know, by experience, that God loves her as she is. Hence she feels in herself that she is respected, loved, and so it able to take on the urging of Jesus not to sin again (v.11). Love is the first and only commandment. God saves by loving. Only love can convert and save! (*) This ’uncomfortable’ episode in the Gospel had a difficult history: it was left out of several antique codices, and is moved elsewhere in others. Some think that it is not part of John’s Gospel, but of Luke’s, given the style and the message that are so similar to the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Son’ or rather the Parable of the Merciful Father (Lk.15: last week’s Gospel). The woman is like the younger son; the Scribes and Pharisees are in the role of the elder brother; and Jesus is in the perfect role of the Father. A modern writer, Olivier Clément , ponders on it: “An impossible text, left out of a number of manuscripts. The moral conscience, and even the religious conscience of many cannot accept that Jesus refused to condemn the woman… She was caught in the act; she had committed one of the gravest sins recognised by the Law… Christ confounds the accusers by reminding them that evil is universal; even they, spiritually, are adulterers; even they, in one way or another, have betrayed love. ‘The one without sin…‘ Nobody is without sin, and He concludes with the words: «Go and do not sin again»: words that open up a new future”. The Gospel reading is an exciting programme of missionary methodology, with proclamation, conversion, education in the faith and in life’s values. Love generates and regenerates a person, makes them free; Jesus educates us in a love that is lived in freedom and spontaneity. It is when these conditions are recognised that the need to let the stones fall from our hands - the very stones we wanted to throw at others. The fact that people slipped away, beginning with the oldest (v.9) shows the sense of sin, of shame -- so of having learned the lesson. Lastly, it becomes clear that anyone who works and struggles for equality between men and women has an outstanding, ideal precursor in Jesus, and also an ally. The Pope’s words (*) «Conversion is never once and for all but is a process, an interior journey through the whole of life. This process of evangelical conversion cannot, of course, be restricted to a specific period of the year: it is a daily journey that must embrace the entire span of existence, every day of our life. In this perspective, for each Christian and for all Ecclesial Communities, Lent is the favourable spiritual season for training ourselves to seek God with greater tenacity, opening our heart to Christ. St Augustine once said that our life is a unique exercise of the desire to draw close to God, of becoming able to let God into our being». Benedict XVI General Audience at the beginning of Lent: Ash Wednesday, 21.02.2007 - 26/3/(1967): The publication of the Encyclical “Populorum Progressio” of Paul VI on the development of nations. - 27/3: St. Rupert (circa. 718): of Irish origin, he was a great evangeliser in Bavaria and became Bishop of Salzburg. - 28/3: Blessed Christopher Wharton (+1600); 29/3: John Hambley (+1587); 31/3: Christopher Robinson (+1597) and other priests martyred during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. - 30/3: Bl. Ludovico da Casoria A. Palmentieri (1814-1885), a Franciscan priest and educator. Along with others he worked intensely to liberate African children from slavery. - 30/3: St Leonard Murialdo (1828-1900), a priest from Turin, educator, founder of the Institute of the “Josephites” for the education of abandoned children. - 31/3/1767: Expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and Portugal and from their Latin American colonies. Six years later (1773) the Company of Jesus was suppressed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Compiled by Fr. Romeo Ballan, mcci - former Director of CIAM, Rome Translated by Fr. J.M. Troy, mccj Website: www.ciam.org “The Word for Mission” ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
