Fifth Sunday of Lent

Fifth Sunday of Lent
March 22, 2015 Cycle B
by Rev. Jose Maria Cortes, F.S.C.E.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We are getting closer to Easter! In just two weeks, we shall celebrate the central mysteries of our faith. We need to intensify the preparation of our hearts for the celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus explains the meaning of His Cross by using the image of a grain of wheat: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24). He tells us with this image that in order to be fruitful, it is necessary to sacrifice.

Sacrifice seems unnatural to us. Because we are made for happiness, sacrifice seems to contradict or at least call into question our glorious destiny.

The culture of our time has great difficulty in dealing with sacrifice. We can see an extreme example in the recent legislation introduced in the Maryland General Assembly that would allow doctors to help the terminally ill commit suicide.

We may think that our technological civilization gives us everything but it does not give meaning to our suffering. We think that we are entitled to be free of suffering. It is true that we should try to do what is possible to avoid suffering. Christians are not masochists. However, it is not possible to live and love without sacrifices.

How many sacrifices parents make in order to raise their children! How many sacrifices a man and a woman make in order to remain faithful to the covenant of their marriage! Many family problems arise from the inability to make sacrifices. Marriage is impossible without accepting that to love the other, I have to die to myself.

Theoretically, we believe in Christ but there is still an “old man” in us who refuses to accept Our Lord and his Cross. We are afraid of losing ourselves. The “old man,” i.e., our pride, our false I and our selfishness, tries to resist what is perceived as the defeat of our former selves. We need to let the “new creature” that was born through baptism conquer the “old man.” This is the struggle of our Christian life. Our hearts are purified through sacrifices accepted as acts of love. Jesus says in the Gospel: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life” (Jn 12:25).

The difficulty in dealing with suffering has to do with failure to understand the meaning of sacrifice. Jesus brought the world a revolutionary and positive attitude toward suffering. Assuming our human condition, including our experience of suffering, Jesus transforms sacrifice into a means to achieve life in abundance. With Christ, sacrifice becomes fruitful. He talks about his Crucifixion as a path of glorification: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (Jn 12:23). Sacrifice lived in union with Christ opens our hearts to a heretofore unknown level of beauty and greatness. Sacrifice allows us to enter into the experience of the eternal, to begin to experience the glory of the Resurrection here and now. Sacrifice is a necessary prerequisite for us to possess what really fulfills our lives.

Let us pray that like the grain of wheat, which dies and produces abundant fruit, we may experience the fruitfulness of the inevitable sacrifices that life brings.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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