III Sunday in Ordinary Time
God Continues to Save his People
By our Pastor, Fr. Carmelo Jiménez
We are already in the third Sunday of Lent and we are presented with a strong call to conversion as we look toward celebrating Easter. Easter is the most important faith event for every believer.
In the first reading we hear: “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Ex 3:7-8) One of the first elements is the vocation of Moses as the one sent by God to free his people from slavery in Egypt. God has chosen and prepared the one he sent. God makes himself present in the history of humanity sharing in a way the suffering of his people. Even today, God continues to protect and liberate his people. Pope Francis in his Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee “the Face of Mercy” in paragraph 15a affirms: “How many uncertain and painful situations there are in the world today! How many are the wounds borne by the flesh of those who have no voice because their cry is muffled and drowned out by the indifference of the rich! During this Jubilee, the Church will be called even more to heal these wounds, to assuage them with the oil of consolation, to bind them with mercy and cure them with solidarity and vigilant care. Let us not fall into humiliating indifference or a monotonous routine that prevents us from discovering what is new! Let us ward off destructive cynicism! Let us open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help!”
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” (Lk 13:2-3. 5) Pope Francis in his homily in San Cristobal de las Casas affirmed: “On many occasions, in a systematic and organized way, your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society. Some have considered your values, culture and traditions to be inferior. Others, intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them. How sad this is! How worthwhile it would be for each of us to examine our conscience and learn to say, “forgive me!”, ‘forgive me, brothers and sisters!’”
“The gardener said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down’” (Lk 13: 8-9). We are challenged as Christians to live our faith in order to bear fruit. It is Pope Francis in his Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: Misericordiae Vultus who tells us in paragraph 15b & part of 15c: “It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy. Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.
We cannot escape the Lord’s words to us, and they will serve as the criteria upon which we will be judged… In each of these “little ones,” Christ himself is present. His flesh becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured, the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled… to be acknowledged, touched, and cared for by us. Let us not forget the words of Saint John of the Cross: «as we prepare to leave this life, we will be judged on the basis of love»”
I conclude with the end of the Homily of Pope Francis in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas: “We rejoice in the certainty that «The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us» (Laudato Si’, 13). We rejoice that Jesus continues to die and rise again in each gesture that we offer to the least of our brothers and sisters. Let us be resolved to be witnesses to his Passion and his Resurrection.” Amen.