OMELIE / Omelie EN

03 mar 2024

03/03/2024 - 3nd Sunday of Lent - B

03/03/2024 - 3^nd Sunday of Lent - B

1st reading Ex 20:1-17 from Psalm 18 2nd reading 1Cor 1:22-25 Gospel Jn 2:13-25

When St Paul was writing, there was a deep divide between the Jewish world and other peoples, a divide determined by the knowledge of God. The Jews were sure of their monotheism, while all others, in their uncertainty, feared a plurality of gods, even unknown ones. The Jews, who, already on their exit from Egypt, had experienced the presence of a protective God alongside their ancestors, whose ally he had made, boasted of his omnipotence and were certain that he still manifested himself with wonders and miracles.

The others, the pagans, were only sure of their own reasoning, which gave space and substance to their own ideas and feelings, personified in the various deities.

The former therefore expected miracles from their God, the others comforted themselves with the reasoning of philosophies adapted to their own convictions.

St Paul says to the Christians, who were formerly partly Jews and partly pagans, and who nevertheless live in daily contact with one another: "We proclaim Christ crucified. It does not matter if we are considered foolish, incapable of reasoning, or even if we are considered ungodly. The wisdom of God will make its way into the hearts of men: for God has given us and manifested his greatness, and thus his glory, in the love for us that Jesus lived and bore on the cross.

Jesus was also thinking of the cross when he entered the temple in Jerusalem. He knew that the true temple of God, the place of his presence and manifestation, was himself: he therefore suffered from the fact that the place venerated as a temple was degraded to a place of commerce and profit. It should have been the sign and prophecy that prepared hearts for his coming with the worship that detached desires from earthly riches and money. Instead, it had been transformed into a place where attachment to wealth and money emerged.

Jesus' indignation finds us in complete agreement. It is an indignation that should also find us consenting when we realise that we do the same thing. We were created in the image and likeness of God, indeed, to be his children, and instead, by disobeying his teachings, we turn our lives into a cripple. We consider ourselves children of God, but if someone wanted to try to know the Father by going back to our way of thinking, speaking and living, they would be forced to imagine a master god, or a speculator god.

The first reading re-proposes to us the recommendations or commandments that, if obeyed, preserve our personal, family and social lives from the aberrations that alienate us from both the Father and men: the Ten Commandments!

How much suffering would be spared if we did as God commands, or rather, suggests! He gives us his Ten Words for our good, to spare us those tribulations in which our society drowns. Just think how much less suffering there would be if we obeyed the Sixth Commandment 'Thou shalt not commit adultery': how many children would have the security of the presence and mutual love of their parents, how many families would still be united, how many women and men would be serene, despite the burden of bearing some defect in their spouse, how many children and young people would be joyful, without the atrocious suffering of seeing their parents divided, if not in discord, how much suffering and fear children would be spared if they did not have the misfortune of being raped by their grandparents or uncles or cousins!

And if there were obedience to the command 'Thou shalt not steal', would we not all live more serenely, without the worry of padlocking every corner, and hiding everything, including our hearts?

Let us proclaim Christ crucified, accepting the call to carry some of the weight of his cross, the one we ourselves put on his shoulders today with our sins!