3rd Sunday of Lent

Our readings for the third Sunday of Lent (using Cycle A for the RCIA scrutinies) are:

1. Exodus 17:3-7
2. Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
3. Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
4. John 4: 5-42
   

• Trust me
  
• God doesn't seem to tell us much about what's coming.  You may be tempted to think He's making it up as He goes.
• Have you ever been afraid that God wasn't going to come through?
• What made you afraid?  Did you think that God had abandoned you after leading you to a precarious position?  Did you wonder whether it was actually God who got you to this precarious position?  Did you maybe think that God was punishing you for something that you had done earlier?
• How did God eventually provide your needs?
• Did you change your mind about what you really needed in the course of this experience?
• How did all of that affect your relationship to God?
  

• Attitude of Gratitude
  
• Living the life of nomads must have been a big change for God's people in the Sinai desert.  Day by day, week by week, they had to put their trust on God for the next watering hole, the next pasture.  But God had proven over and over that He was looking out for them.  They just didn't focus on what they should have been grateful for.
• What are some of the miracles that God has wrought in your life?
• How have those (either individually, or as a collection) changed your attitude towards tough times in general?
• Do you feel as though you have more trust now, than you did 20 years ago (assuming that you're that old)?
• What do you think you could do to improve/increase your trust in God?
  

• Building hope
  
• Faith, hope, and love are the three cardinal virtues.  These form the foundation upon which the other virtues rest, the font from which all virtue springs.  Yet, somehow, we don't hear much about hope, and where it comes from.
• What you you hope for?
• What/whom do you hope in?
• What would have to happen to you before you lost all hope?
• What are some experiences that have strengthened your hope?
• How can you bolster the hope within you?
  

• Jesus revealed
  
• Jesus was frequently a scandal.  He crossed borders that no one thought could be crossed.  And He did so in perfect humility.  No grand gestures, no patronizing words.  He never played to the crowd.  It was all about the individuals that He ministered to.
• There are lots of boundaries.  Some are ethnic, some cultural, some economic, others are in place simply by force of habit.  What are some boundaries in your life?
• Can you imagine Jesus reaching across that boundary, touching those "on the other side"?
• Pick one particularly tough boundary that you face.  Picture Jesus reaching across that boundary and touching someone on the other side.  How is Jesus touching them?  What is He doing for them?
• Imagine yourself, standing next to Jesus, following His example, participating in that outreach.
• Imagine now that you are the only one in that scene who can see Jesus.
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. How is God calling me to participate in loss in my life?
   
2. Where can I be more honest with and more trusting of God?
   
3. Where is God transforming my life experiences into hope?
   
4. Where is God calling me to transcend my own limitations?

Learning the Rosary

My in-laws loved to go to Mass at Little Sisters of the Poor.

When my mother-in-law passed, I started visiting my father-in-law regularly.

We would always go to Little Sisters for Mass because I knew it meant a lot to him.

If we got to Mass early, we would catch a few decades of the rosary.

Reedy, quavering voices celebrating decade upon decade of God's faithfulness.

An outpouring of trust from those whose end was in sight, glory emerging among the walkers.

At first, I didn't see it.  All I saw was a bunch of old people in a care facility.

Gradually, I got to know a handful of them, hear their stories, learn their quirks.

Feel the depth of their perseverance, find the quiet strength in their weakness.

They taught me about my arrogance rooted in my own fading middle-age.

They taught me that God's faithfulness is in the long haul, the life long.

They taught me that memory serves best when it serves to remind us of God's Presence.

I remember that community every time I hear or say the Rosary.

Their devotion calling me to prayer and in prayer a shedding of the unneeded.

They whisper to me "see, it wasn't so bad to lose your fear of aging."

I hope that I learned a lesson among that community that I can apply elsewhere.

That God often reveals Himself in unlikely places, through unexpected people.

That God lives in and for the boundaries, those who are often invisible, forgotten.

That true strength often blossoms in abject weakness.

That faith, hope, and love grow in the rich soil of trust and faithfulness.

And that the seeds from which saints grow will often show themselves slowly.

Shalom!