We hear in our First Readings and Psalm for today, the Third Sunday of Lent, the next step in our pilgrimage with the Chosen People, our short course in Salvation History. We started off Lent two weeks ago with the first covenant, the story of Noah. Last week we heard about the intense test of Abraham in the binding of his son, Isaac, the fruit of the second covenant God made with humans. On this Third Sundy of Lent we recall the central act of the Old Testament as God establishes his covenant with his chosen people through Moses at Mount Sinai following their Exodus and crossing of the Red Sea. Today or sometime this week would be a great day to make a set of tablets of the Ten Commandments and place those in your prayer corner. This would also be a great day to watch DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt if you haven’t done so as a family already this season. I have been spending time with my students helping them to understand how the Jewish feast of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, marked the giving of the Torah/Law. What began as one person having an intimate and life-changing encounter with God on Mount Sinai (Moses in the burning bush) has led, through Moses’ obedience, to a whole nation being set free from slavery and brought into that same intimate covenantal relationship with the Lord at the very same mountain! How much more will the one, Jesus Christ, lead to share in his same divine sonship we whom he has set free from sin through the saving waters of Holy Baptism!
In our Gospel this Sunday our pilgrimage with Jesus has also reached a summit—the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where God has chosen to dwell. Last week we received a glimpse of Jesus’ divinity as we journeyed up the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John and with them were overshadowed by that glory cloud which once filled the original Tabernacle and the subsequent Temple. With Peter, James, and John we arrive this week accompanying Jesus at the Temple Mount, the very same Mount Moriah where Abraham was told to go to offer his own beloved son. (We read in 2 Chronicles 3 that King Solomon chose this as the site for the first Temple). As we come to these central weeks of Lent the Church pauses our reading of the Gospel of Mark and provides us with the Apostle John’s account of Jesus’ time in Jerusalem. This week we begin with Jesus’ cleansing/harrowing of the Temple. We see Jesus, full of zeal for the House of the Lord, not only overturn the moneychangers who have polluted the sacred space of worship, but also him prophesying his own crucifixion and Resurrection as the necessary consequence of Israel’s failure to uphold their end of the covenants. Jesus is fully the priest and prophet. Jesus goes even further and proposes that his own body is the true Temple. It is in him that the glory cloud abides as he is God incarnate. And the Pharisees are having none of it thus setting the stage for our soon entering with Jesus his Passiontide. You might this week make a model of the Jerusalem Temple and place that in your prayer corner as well! Some project blocks of Legos (or even a printout from Minecraft) would be great. See this video from The Bible Project https://youtu.be/wTnq6I3vUbU and this visual representation of the Second Temple: https://youtu.be/QQQyNVw8Pf4 for more inspiration. Our teens have been learning about their bodies likewise being created to become Temples of the Holy Spirit, the place where God desires to abide, to pitch his tent, and dwell in our hearts. This Theology of the Body reminds ys that what we do with our bodies matter because bodies matter to God!
The aforementioned readings will be proclaimed today at St. John Vianney but some other parishes may be hearing the Year A readings which include the account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the Well (John 4) as called for with the celebration of the First Scrutiny for the Elect. Join me in praying for all our Elect through the intercession of St. Photina! Their celebration of the Scrutiny, a minor exorcism, is meant to uncover and heal whatever is impure (brought into the light) and strengthen whatever is good and upright (bearing the light to others). Seeing the way in which The Chosen brought to life this story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well and how this depiction helped those whom I was leading through the catechumenate at St. Michael several years ago was what first turned me on to The Chosen as a powerful way to open others to the Gospels: https://youtu.be/ordhsDeAt60 You might want to check out that scene of the Woman at the Well from The Chosen this week as part of your Lenten preparation for the renewal of your Holy Baptism! What is it that you are most longing for in life? What things are you longing for which only a relationship with Jesus Christ can satisfy? Pray this week for Jesus to satisfy that thirst in you. Then consider how that experience might lead you to share that Good News with others! You might then place a bowl of water in your prayer corner this week and think about the longing for water that the Israelites had as they wandered I the desert too.
In addition to these scriptural focuses and your ongoing Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving which you and your family are continuing to focus on this week, there are some notable women on the sanctoral (memorials of saints) whose example we can emulate and whose intercession we can seek as we begin Women’s History Month. If March 3 was not the Third Sunday of Lent we would mark this date as the memorial of St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955). St. Katharine Drexel was the heiress of a large Philadelphia fortune and spent her money and time on serving the poor. On a family trip to the West she became aware of the plight of the indigenous peoples and gave her life over to what was then known as the Black and Indian Missions. St. Katharine founded Xavier College of Louisiana, the only Historically Black and Catholic college in the U.S. St. Katharine Drexel was the second American to be canonized a saint! On Thursday, March 7, we remember the martyrs St. Perpetua and St. Felicity. Both were killed for their Christian faith in 203 in Carthage, North Africa and, while many martyrs are known only by their names, St. Perpetua wrote of the persecution facing her and fellow catechumens. Eyewitnesses to their martyrdom completed the account of their martyrdom which circulated among early Christians and gives us a powerful example of faithfulness in the midst of persecution. These two holy women, St. Perpetua the wealthy Carthaginian (probably Berber), and her servant, St. Felicity, are included in the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I). On Friday, March 8, is the optional memorial of St. John of the Cross; however, I am going to focus on that as the day the film Cabrini debuts in cinemas. Check out he trailer here: https://youtu.be/lihCRaOj0Lg Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) was not only the first U.S. citizen to become a saint but also her fingerprints are all over Seattle from St. James Cathedral and the medical complexes that now dot First Hill to educational institutions (such as Villa Academy) and charitable organizations serving immigrants. The Northwest Catholic recently ran an article about her: https://tinyurl.com/5hbcec6u I would hope that the buzz around Cabrini and its release on International Women’s Day (March 8) would be a good way for us to be challenged to never underestimate the power of those whom God has called to serve him, to encourage us to care for the poor with even greater courage, and be on occasion for each of us to share about our faith and how God has called us with those who do not yet know Christ. Finally, on Saturday, March 9, we keep the memory of St. Frances of Rome (1384-1440). St. Frances of Rome was a wife, mother who buried two of her sons who died of the plague, widow, and patroness of Benedictine oblates. St. Frances of Rome served the poor of Rome and has left a legacy of her mystical writings during a time in the early 15th century when lay spirituality was growing. Each of these holy women loved Jesus with all their hearts and from that love overcame obstacles and cared for the poor in their midst. From St. Photina who encountered Jesus at the Well in Sychar to St. Katharine Drexel who found him among the disenfranchised African Americans in the U.S. nearly two millennia later, we see in their unique charisms a response not of despair but of unwavering love. How can this Lenten season lead you and me to do the same? How can we as a parish show forth to our wider Vashon community this same kind of love which overcomes oppression and conquers fear? What concrete steps in our pilgrimage can we take by moving toward the margins and becoming a Church, a bride of Christ, fit for the poor?
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