The first foretelling of his Passion immediately follow’s Peter’s Confession that the Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the living God.
The second foretelling comes after the Lord’s transfiguration and the healing of the demon possessed boy.
The third foretelling, which we heard today, precedes the request for James and John to sit at the right hand of Jesus in the heavenly kingdom.
In each of these three cases there is some revelation—some insight into Jesus’ identity, along with the news of his Passion. He truly is the Son of the Living God, as Peter asserts. He is glorious divinity as is seen on the mount of transfiguration and the one to overthrow the powers of the devil as he does when he descends the mountain. And he is the one to sit on the throne of heaven, as James and John’s mother rightly claims.
But Jesus shows that divinity is not about power, wealth, and fame, it is about love—self-sacrificial love. God loves us enough to take on the our humanity, and to suffer—to be handed over to the Gentiles, to be mocked and scourged and crucified. It is by willingly embracing sacrificial love that demons are cast out, that death is destroyed. Sacrificial love is sanctifying love—divinizing love. By it we are redeemed and made holy in the eyes of God.
Catholics show such great devotion to the crucifix of our Lord, placing it in all of our churches, school classrooms, and homes because by it we are reminded of the source of our salvation and also the life we’ve been chosen to lead.
We are to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and that love is not a matter of lip service or a sentiment an emotion, but allows Jesus to teach us the way of self-sacrificial love, to fill us with his spirit of self-sacrificial love.
Lent is such an important season in the life of the Church for one because we contemplate the depths and God’s love for us in all that Jesus suffered, but also because the Lenten program of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving conditions us to embrace and practice that same form of love. Fasting conditions us to sacrifice the things we enjoy to achieve a higher good. Almsgiving as well, forms us in that practice of looking to the needs of others and sacrificing our goods for their good. And prayer, places us at the font of love, it contemplates love, drinks deeply of love, that we may have the courage and fortitude to practice love, to become love for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
That our Lenten observances will bring about profound renewal in our parish and in our lives and relationships.
That God will rescue all those who live at a distance from him because of self-absorption or sin, that this evening’s diocesan wide celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation will bring about a return of many hearts to communion with God.
That all families will recommit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness.
That this Lent we will be faithful to fasting and to all the ways that the Lord sanctifies us. We pray to the Lord.
For generous giving for the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those who are sick, unemployed, victims of natural disaster, terrorism, war, and violence, the grieving and those most in need.
For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory…
Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.
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