March 17, 2013

5th Sunday of Lent

First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21

    Thus says the LORD, who opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters, Who leads out chariots and horsemen, a powerful army, Till they lie prostrate together, never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick. Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers. Wild beasts honor me, jackals and ostriches, For I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, The people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.

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Second Reading: Philippians 3:8-14

   Brothers and sisters, I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. It is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity, but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God's upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

Gospel Reading: John 8:1-11

  Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No one, sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more."

Reflection: Fr. Sahaya G Selvam

   In the gospel passage of today we see Jesus writing on the ground. What was Jesus writing on the ground? There are many suggestions: most traditional -ists think that Jesus was writing the sins of those men who stood at the scene with stones in their hand. Some feminists might suggest that Jesus actually wrote a question on the ground: “Where is the man?”  Because, the same texts of the Law (Dt 20:22; Lev 20:20) also say that a man caught in adultery with the wife of another man, deserves the same punishment. However, I would like to think that Jesus wrote two words on the ground: Grace and Truth.
   The evangelist John, in his prologue to the Gospel, which is like an overture to a musical, says, “For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17).  This is one of the central themes of our Christian faith – a theme that has been so powerfully demonstrated in the gospel-story of today. The scribes and the Pharisees want to condemn the woman using the Law of Moses, but God in Jesus wants to embrace the woman in his Grace and Truth. This is what our Lenten journey is about. It is a moment to experience the Grace of God.