Fifth Sunday of Lent
(Reflection based on Cycle C Readings)
Today’s first reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah announces something new for Israel. The imagery shows that Isaiah envisions a new exodus event which brings water to the desert. This oracle shares similarities with the vision in Jeremiah 31 of a new covenant God will make, again depicting it as a new exodus event. In St. Luke’s Gospel, and elsewhere, Jesus’ mission in Jerusalem, His passion, death, and resurrection, is depicted as that new exodus event.
It is on account of this vision in Isaiah that the prophet is able to say, “Remember not the events of the past” (43:18). Reading this account in light of today’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, that we can understand Isaiah’s message fully in light of Christ.
The wonderful good news—the gospel—is that the sins of our past have been washed away. We continue experience the freshness of our new life in Christ through the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. The Sacraments also teach us that we are in continual need of Jesus.
Today’s Gospel reading from St. John’s Gospel is the famous passage concerning the woman caught in adultery. Notice how Jesus forgives her. A lot could be said about this passage, but I want to limit myself to focusing on the forgiveness itself. Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more” (8:11). This is her experience of absolution, where Jesus applies the merits He would achieve through His future death and resurrection to this woman. In the Gospels, Jesus is found again and again forgiving the sins of others. When our sins are forgiven through our baptism (in the case of adults, all of whose past sins [including active sins] are forgiven in baptism—infants cannot commit active sins) or through Confession, we must not think on them anymore. Conviction of sin from our conscience should lead us to Confession, but once absolution is given, we need not feel guilt over past sins. Rather, with the grace given to us in the Sacrament, and motivated by the love and knowledge of God’s infinite loving mercy which we have experienced, like the woman caught in adultery, we are called to sin no more. And when we do sin again, we must come back to the living water in the desert which God has given to us.
Lent is a desert season, but we must remember that this desert of ours has streams of living water. We can go to confession whenever we need to during Lent. We can attend Mass and receive the Eucharist. We can pray at any time and in any place and for any reason; prayer is a real tangible way we can turn to God, and in the presence of God, partake of the water which has appeared for us in the desert.
The penitential practices we undertake, like fasting, can be a form of spiritual feeding. Lent is a desert period, but it’s a desert period where, as with the Israelites in their desert wandering, God feeds us with spiritual food and gives us to drink spiritual drink. We have all of these practices, and especially the Sacraments, which are there to aid us even when times are difficult.
In this our desert period, and in all the deserts of our lives which we will experience during future Lents and in other seasons unexpectedly, let us come to the waters which God provides us, knowing that through the Sacraments our sins can truly be forgiven, and that through prayer and works of charity, we can have an encounter with the living God, our Spiritual Water. Let’s try to make full use of the means God has provided to guide us through the desert.
- Jeff Morrow