Irondequoit Catholic Communities
5th Sunday Of Lent C

Celebrating 100 years

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Cycle C

Q260: Why didn’t Jesus take this opportunity to speak out against sins of immorality in this gospel passage (Jn 8:1-11)?

There is a very subtle but very important link between the First Reading (Is 43:16-21) and our gospel lesson about the woman caught in adultery. It has everything to do with our own Lenten journey and spiritual renewal.

Let’s start by looking at the gospel. Jesus tells the woman’s accusers to go ahead and stone her to death – but the stoning has to be started by the one who is sinless. Dead silence! And then they all slink away, until no one is left to accuse the woman, who stands alone before God (although she doesn’t know that). Now let’s come back to the First Reading. The Lord tells us through the prophet Isaiah, “Forget all about the terrible past. Your past has resulted in a barren life, dryness, like a desert. But I am doing something new! I am making rivers in the desert! I bring new life, for all of you, my chosen people!”

This prophecy is fulfilled in today’s reading. Jesus brings “new life” to the woman, gives her another chance. He does not condemn her; after all, the Father sent the Son to save the world, not to condemn it (Jn 3:17). He does caution the woman, however, never to sin again (Jn 8:11). The message continues today for his followers. We are to condemn no one. In fact, the very measure we use to judge others, will be used to judge us (Lk 6:38)! Instead, we are to encourage everyone to avoid sin and return to God’s ways. That is evangelization - spreading the Good News of God’s forgiveness, mercy and unconditional love. Rivers of life flow from the side of Jesus on the cross, pierced for our sins and for our redemption!

Know Your Catechism! Are you ready to be judged by God, using as a sole criterion the very way in which you yourself judged others? It is absolutely critical to understand that judgment about actions is within our responsibility, but not judgment and condemnation about people – we leave the latter to the justice and mercy of God (CCC #1861). The limits of critical judgment concerning individuals must never stoop to defamation (CCC #2497).

Formed in the pattern of His death

A good saint to think about in Lent is St. Gemma Galgani. Within just a few years this modern Italian laywoman (1878-1903) achieved a remarkable likeness to the suffering Christ.

Gemma was a mystic - one of those rare souls called to so high a level of communication with God that we ordinary Christians simply cannot comprehend it all. Her vocation was to suffer with Christ. To the physical trials of spinal tuberculous were added many super natural trials. For instance, over several years she bore the stigmata of Christ's passion: not only the marks of His nails but of His scourg ing and His crown of thorns. She even experienced His bloody sweating. Constant meditation upon Jesus' death won for her a sense of His constant presence; and while in these ecstasies she had many conversations with Him in a low, sweet voice.

Now, the Church does not canonize people just because they are mysteriously marked with the wounds of the Passion. On these phenomena she passes no official judgment. When Pope Pius XI declared Gemma Galgani a saint in 1933, it was because of her gentle patience, her heroic virtue during years of pain.

Still, God does occasionally give to the world, it seems, a certain holy people who resemble Christ even more in being given the marks of His agony and crucifixion. Some think St. Paul may have been the first to receive this heavenly "branding". At all events, Paul says (in today's second reading): "I wish...to know how to share in His sufferings by being formed into the pattern of His death."

Why so? Because it is only by uniting ourselves with Christ in His death that we can deserve to be united with Him in His resurrection. The whole paradox of Lent is "dying in order to live." In that sense we can say that St. Gemma Galgani was Lent personified.

-Father Robert F. McNamara

Q. 416: What ever happened to the concept of “tough love”? Jesus seems to be making it too easy for the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).

I remember my friend Fr. Jerry Fuller (†) saying once that those who hate the Catholic Church (or at least try to ridicule the Church) always point to our Sacrament of Reconciliation (“Confession”). They allege that we Catholics sin with abandon; go confess our sins every Saturday; and then we are free to sin all over again! They are unable to fathom how sinners can really feel sorry for their sins, confess them, and then fall into sin again.

You don't have to be a bishop or a doctor of philosophy to recognize that Jesus came to save us all, and that he accomplished our salvation by dying for our sins. Even on the cross, instead of turning against his torturers in anger, he spoke words of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!”

The most obvious characteristic of this God of ours, manifested in Jesus Christ, is his loving mercy. It overwhelmed the mind of St. Paul so much, as he stood in awe of such a merciful God, that he was compelled more than once to teach the stupendous fact that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (e.g., Rom. 5:7-8). The history of the Israelites through the centuries, as demonstrated in the Old Testament, is one of repeated failures in observing the Covenant. Catholics (and all humans, for that matter) also fail repeatedly, even after being forgiven over and over by the sacramental grace of God.

There is the constant challenge: to “go and sin no more,” just like the adulterous woman was counseled by Jesus. Then come those soothing words of relief, “neither do I condemn you”! This is what true forgiveness is all about. We must forgive, perhaps giving that person another chance to hurt us again. Isn't that what Jesus did for each one of us?

Know Your Catechism! It is through the sacrament of Penance that the baptized can be reconciled with God and with the Church (CCC #980). This sacrament is necessary for salvation for those who have “fallen” after Baptism (Council of Trent).


Page last modified on October 17, 2007, at 05:38 PM