FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT – PASSIONTIDE

Passion Sunday is the fifth Sunday in Lent, marking the beginning of Passiontide. In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church deleted Passiontide from the liturgical calendar of the Mass, but it is still observed in the Church by those who celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass.

The readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent are about FREEDOM. Each passage from Scripture teaches us how our God, over and over, releases us from physical or legal or spiritual bondage so that we can be God’s greatly loved children.

READING I – ISAIAH 43:16-21

Thus says the LORD, who opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen, a powerful army, till they lie prostrate together, never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.
Wild beasts honor me, jackals and ostriches, for I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.

READING II
PHILIPPIANS 3:8-14

Brothers and sisters:
I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having any righteousness of my own based on the law
but that which comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God,
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

It is not that I have already taken hold of it
or have already attained perfect maturity,
but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,
since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I for my part
do not consider myself to have taken possession.
Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

GOSPEL
JOHN 8:1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,
and all the people started coming to him,
and he sat down and taught them.
Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman
who had been caught in adultery
and made her stand in the middle.
They said to him,
“Teacher, this woman was caught
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?”
They said this to test him,
so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
But when they continued asking him,
he straightened up and said to them,
“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one,
beginning with the elders.
So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

In the first reading (Isaiah 43:16-21), the Lord recalls rescuing the Israelites from enslavement in Egypt by drowning all of Pharaoh’s mighty army in the waters of the sea, thus allowing the chosen people to escape into the desert. In the desert God continues to protect the Israelites as they wander for forty years and eventually enter the land promised to them. They have been freed from Egypt’s control in order to found a new nation whose task is to bring knowledge of “I Am” to the world. God explains what they are to do:

Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers. Wild beasts honor me, jackals and ostriches, for I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.

The chosen people did not always live up to their responsibility of revealing the one true God to other nations. Time after time they fell into idolatry. They broke their covenant with God and each time foreign nations conquered them. The Jews (as the Israelites eventually were called) were taken into captivity by the Babylonians and the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. During their time in Babylon, the Jews once again renewed their covenant with God, and attributed their release to their divine protector (Psalm 126):

When the Lord brought back the captives of Zion,
We were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
And our tongue with rejoicing…
The Lord has done great things for us,
We are glad indeed.

In John’s story of the woman caught in adultery, (GOSPEL) Jesus speaks only four sentences to the accused woman. Yet she is set free in two ways. She is physically saved from a painful execution and, since Jesus says he doesn’t condemn her, she is released from her sins.

We are God’s chosen ones, made in God’s image. Down through the ages, God has freed us from slavery and other physical trials, from legalistic theologies, from infidelities, and from our various moral weaknesses and sin so that we could return God’s love. We cannot fathom the depths of God’s love for us. And yet, in two weeks’ time, we will celebrate that love made visible on a hill outside Jerusalem.

Excerpt from greynun.org

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, who showed compassion to the woman caught in sin, grant us the grace to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Help us to forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, always seeking to know You more deeply and to share in the power of Your resurrection Restore our fortunes, O Lord, that we may reap with shouts of joy. Amen