Fifth Sunday of Lent Read more
Fifth Sunday of Lent
First Reading
Jeremiah 31,31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbour or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Psalmody
Psalm 51
Antiphon
Lord I trust in You because You are good.
Why do you boast of your wickedness,
you champion of evil
planning ruin all day long,
(your tongue like a sharpened razor),
you master of deceit?
You love evil more than good;
lies more than truth.
You love the destructive word,
you tongue of deceit.
For this God will destroy you
and remove you for ever.
He will snatch you from your tent and uproot you
from the land of the living.
The just shall see and fear.
They shall laugh and say :
'So this is the man who refused
to take God as his stronghold,
but trusted in the greatness of his wealth
and grew powerful by his crimes.'
But I am like a growing olive tree
in the house of God.
I trust in the goodness of God
for ever and ever.
I will thank you for evermore;
for this is your doing.
I will proclaim that your name is good,
in the presence of your friends.
Second Reading
Hebrews 5,7-9
During his life on earth, he offered up prayer and entreaty, with loud cries and with tears, to the one who had the power to save him from death, and, winning a hearing by his reverence, he learnt obedience, Son though he was, through his sufferings; when he had been perfected, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation
Reading of the Gospel
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
John 12,20-33
Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in Galilee, and put this request to him, 'Sir, we should like to see Jesus.' Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together went to tell Jesus. Jesus replied to them: Now the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me, must follow me, and my servant will be with me wherever I am. If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him. Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name! A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it.' The crowd standing by, who heard this, said it was a clap of thunder; others said, 'It was an angel speaking to him.' Jesus answered, 'It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours. 'Now sentence is being passed on this world; now the prince of this world is to be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself.' By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Homily
The Gospel of this last Sunday of Lent comes to us as a precious gift and puts on our lips the words of a group of Greeks: "We wish to see Jesus."
The first great gift we receive is putting ourselves at the very presence of Jesus through his word. And the Lord continues to tell us: "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." And to further clarify his thought he brings the example of the grain of wheat: if the grain that falls to the ground does not die it remains alone, but if it dies it produces much fruit. It is a metaphor that encapsulates Jesus' entire life. For he did not come to save himself, as so many will cry out to him under the cross; he did not come to be served, but to serve. We are about to enter the great and holy week of passion, the very week during which the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies. It is Jesus who did not love his life; indeed, he lost it for his friends. That is why God preserved it for him in the resurrection, the fruit of which has come down to us. But it was not a painless passage. Faced with his life being lost - and we will witness this in a few days - Jesus' soul is troubled, and he prays: "And what should I say- "Father, save me from this hour"? No, it is for this very reason I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." John writes that a voice came from heaven and said: "I have glorified it and will glorify it again." It is the voice of the Gospel that has also come for us. And every time the Gospel is proclaimed, the hour of the Lord comes. Yes, the hour has come, and this is it, says Jesus. That is why Jesus exhorts those who listen to him to follow him: "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also." Following Jesus means obeying the Gospel, it means letting oneself be guided by the Word of God. He himself is the first to give us an example of this. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered." Obedience to the Gospel is the way of perfection to which Jesus' disciples are called; listening to the Word of the Lord makes us perfect too, because it teaches us not to love ourselves, and to cling ever more closely to the Lord.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
