Fifth Sunday of Lent

A simple request - We want to see Jesus - but it requires a radical commitment. We must die to yourselves, uniting our life to the life and death of Jesus Christ, who frees us from sin and death for an eternity with His Heavenly Father. It means killing every inclination that leads us elsewhere, of putting to death all selfish desires and empty, false causes of happiness. It means nourishing that which leads us to deeper faith, hope, and love, of embracing the Lord.

Fourth Sunday of Lent

God loves us… This is the simple truth of the Gospel, a truth captured in today's Gospel. Sometimes, we can forget this love, take it for granted, or reduce it to meaninglessness. But God so loved us that He sent his Son to redeem us. No other god, no other religion makes such a claim! God, the Only God, sent His Son to die for us. Salvation is in Him alone! He desires us to come to faith in Him.

Third Sunday of Lent

Jesus cleanses the Temple, to restore it to its proper use for the worship of God. Over time, perhaps because of the renovation process that Herod the Great began and Herod the Tetrarch continued, sellers and money changers moved into the temple. While they provided a good service to the pilgrims (after all, who always has the proper offering or coins for the sacrifice?), it was not the place. Jesus corrects this.
IN our lives, there might be things, as good as they initially started out, that are equally out of place, preventing us from fulfilling our proper purpose. May the Lord cleanse our hearts!

Second Sunday of Lent

Jesus Christ reveals to Peter, James, and John His divine nature veiled by His Human flesh as a foreshadowing of what is to come. While Christ is to die on the cross, He will be raised from the dead because He is divine. This foreshadowing is one that is frequent - it is how God the Father, who wrote the history of salvation, gives hints of how he is going to save us, gave prophets and seers the glimpse. It is seen in the first reading as Isaac, bound and laid on the altar and nearly sacrificed, Is this not a foreshadowing - the Father will provide His only Begotten Son, who will carry the wood of the Cross, and be attached to it. The Father will raise Him up again, and through His Son, Salvation will be given.
The Father speaks to the apostles with a message for us, too: this is my beloved son - listen to Him!