+ Due to a funeral, there will be no 9:00 a.m. Mass.

+ Stations of the Cross at 7:00 p.m.

+ Confessions from 7:30-9:00 p.m.

     

     Over the past week or so, I have gone to the bedside of two 90-plus-years-old men of our parish as their lives ebbed away from them. I anointed them and celebrated the last rites of the Church with them. The men were John Crecca and John Grayson. One of them is yet to be buried.

     Being with them and their families gave new meaning to me of today's Gospel, especially, and the covenant dimension of the Ten Commandments, where God tells Moses that he will be bestowing his mercy “down to the thousandth generation on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.” So that's the important thing for us to remember about those commandments: they represent the response God calls us to if we wish to know his mercy. It is a covenant relationship we enter into with him.

     From what I know of those two parishioners who have died in this week, they were keenly aware of what God asked of them over their long time on this earth and what he had in store for them when their earthly journeys were complete. May we learn from them what the Christian life is really about.

     The covenant relationship is also a part of the meaning of today's Gospel, when Jesus drives the money changers from the temple just before the time of Passover. When questioned by the Jewish observers that he was speaking of the temple of his body, and, therefore, he said, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And, most importantly, they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

     But there's more to that, because many came to believe only because of the signs he was doing. They weren't really interested in him or entering into a covenant relationship with him. They were just in it because of what Jesus could do for them. Yes, as it said in the gospel, Jesus understood human nature well—then and now too.

     So, then, what is the bottom line for us on this Third Sunday of Lent? At its simplest, it is this: that God wants to enter into a covenant relationship with us, and that in keeping and observing the Ten Commandments, we are doing our part. Then the Gospel builds on that. The reading is clear that a reciprocal relationship between Jesus and true believers must exist. It means that, like those Jews who were with him in the temple that day, that we too must believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. And because of that truth, we too can look forward to all being raised—and we need not fear death.

     Last week Jesus was transfigured on the mountain to prepare his three disciples for the resurrection that would follow his passion and his death. He wanted to steel them for what was ahead. And we too need to be steeled for the resurrection of our own bodies when death takes us. Today’s scripture is meant to help us live in that truth.

     I know that both Johns believed that in the core of their being...and I pray that it may be so for all of us when the death of our own bodies approach. To do so echoes what St. Paul proclaimed in our second reading: that “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

     And so, may God then help us to be so foolish and so weak as we continue our Lenten journeys.