Fifteen years ago already, actor, director and producer Mel Gibson released a film depicting the final hours, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ called The Passion of the Christ. I saw the film during my semester abroad in Rome, and it was during Holy Week, and I remember being deeply and tearfully moved by this highly realistic presentation of Jesus’ passion. It definitely changed the way I pray the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and the stations of the cross, the graphic bloodshed and suffering etched in my memory.
Particularly difficult to watch was the scourging of Our Lord at the pillar and when the crown of thorns was shoved onto his forehead, and when he fell underneath the weight of the cross on the road to Calvary. Difficult to watch, not just because the amount of blood and suffering was gross or morbid, but as the film progressed I got that growing awareness that his suffering was because of my sins.
I remember tears nearly squirting out of my eyes at the scene depicting the 4th station of the cross where Jesus meets his mother. Amidst the mockery and beatings from the roman soldiers, Jesus meets his mother, looks at her, bloodied and beaten, and says words we find in the book of Revelation, “See Mother, I make all things new.” All of the suffering, all of the blood, the hard road of the cross was for the purpose of ushering in something new.
Both the first reading and the Gospel this weekend made me think of that powerful utterance. In the first reading, Isaiah seven hundred years before the crucifixion of Jesus, speaks a word of hope to the Jews in exile. In a sense, Israel had been bloodied and beaten by its captors. God’s people suffered the humiliation of living in a foreign land, under foreign rule. The promises of God seemed ever so distant; it looked as if God’s enemies were victorious.
And in the darkness, God sends a prophet, Isaiah. And through his prophet, God says, as we heard in the first reading, “see, I am doing something new!” God is promising that He is going to break-in to creation in an unexpected way, he’s going to break the bonds of our captivity. He’s going to usher in a new unheard of era of freedom from the powers of darkness and evil, a new way of walking in friendship with God, a whole new order to creation.
Certainly this is the kingdom Jesus establishes: in his Church, through the Sacraments, Jesus makes souls new, he makes human relationship news, he even makes new God’s relationship to us in making God present to His people in a way he had never been before, so that our very bodies and souls become temples of the Holy Trinity.
So many of the Gospel stories brim with that newness. In the Gospel today, it looked like it was the end of the road for the women caught in the act of adultery. She was guilty of a capital crime. Yet, Jesus does something new. He stops the momentum of this violent crowd and forces them to consider something new, to consider that they too are sinners, and that should change how they treat each other. As the crowd walks away dumbstruck, Jesus then invites the sinful women to a new way of life—a life without sin made possible through His mercy.
Last week, I talked about the Sacrament of Confession, how God the Father embraces us in His mercy there. With this week’s Gospel in mind, we could say that in Confession, God makes us new. Though our sins be as scarlet, we are washed clean, our sins absolved. And in Confession, the priest dismisses us, much like Jesus in the Gospel today, Go and sin no more. Something new is possible through the Sacrament of Confession. The slate is wiped clean. It’s a new start, a fresh start, with God’s promise that He will help me overcome the sinful tendencies I’ve just confessed.
Lent challenges us to seek that newness God wants for us. The very word, Lent, refers to the springtime lengthening of days, in which new growth emerges from the dust of the earth. Our Garden Club, knows well that Spring is also a time for clearing away dead branches, and pruning—cutting away the less healthy branches so that new growth can occur. Lent helps us to identify unhealthy attitudes and behaviors that need to be cut back, so new growth can occur in us. All that keeps us from loving Christ and loving as Christ should be counted as rubbish, as St. Paul says in our second reading today.
For me, the hardest part about Lent, isn’t so much the fasting or the prayer, but the willingness to make the break with unhealthy attitudes and behaviors. We’re all struggling with that aren’t we, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” so we better be patient with each other, and give each other the benefit of the doubt that we’re trying, shouldn’t we. To not be so quick to condemn. Humble awareness of our own inner flaws should bring us greater more patience, not less, with the flaws of others. We should seek to learn all we can from others, instead of condemning them.
Speaking of new things. This week, Holy Father Pope Francis, issued a new apostolic exhortation, titled, Cristus Vivat! Christ is alive. The document is dedicated to young people, and the opening lines are so powerful. Pope Francis writes: “Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world, and everything he touches becomes young, new, full of life.” The words new and renewal are used 104 times in this document. The Holy Father promises young people that the answers to the new questions of modern life can be found in Jesus. How Jesus always invites us to make a new start when we’ve fallen. How when we look to God we find the beauty that is ever ancient, ever new, the beauty our heart longs for. How young people, in facing new and difficult modern challenges, not to be supported by us, taught the truth of the faith, so that they can be equipped with the Gospel.
Certainly, one of our challenges here at St. Ignatius is to ensure that we continue to be a community welcoming to all people who are seeking renewal and refreshment in Christ and especially young people and young families who are hungering for that newness of life, that truth, goodness, and beauty ever ancient, ever new. We have a long history here of being a parish where a rich diversity of people gathers in Catholic worship, and we seek to continue to be faithful to that heritage. Our individual duty, then is to constantly be seeking that inner renewal that comes through a vibrant relationship with Christ, so that Jesus might draw all people to himself through us.
Pope Francis writes to young people and to all of us: …God loves you just as you are…but he also keeps offering you more: more of his friendship, more fervor in prayer, more hunger for his word, more longing to receive Christ in the Eucharist, more desire to live by his Gospel, more inner strength, more peace and spiritual joy.”
Next week, we shall begin the Week called Holy. Hopefully, we’ve taken that call to seek that something more, that something new, in our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, so that we can experience the Paschal Mysteries with new eyes and new heart and with new gratitude for the depths of Jesus love for us in his willingness to suffer and die for us.
May we open our minds and hearts to all the ways that God wants to do something new in us—new ways of serving, new ways of praying, new ways of doing penance, new ways of spreading the joy of the Gospel—for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
