Forth Sunday of Lent, year ’B’

God wishes to make of us a furnace of Love, coming to seek us out in all our misery. This is what we need, for we are unable to raise ourselves up by ourselves. God’s torrential Love will carry away humanity’s distress with this Tide. God’s Infinite Love is rich in Mercy. What joy it is to welcome Jesus’ Mercy coming to join us, in the wake of the prophets. The prophets, who were sent to make Light known, will be laughed at and made fun of. Their words are despised. As we are sent after them, Jesus invites us believe in Him, to welcome freely this New Love He is offering us. He reveals to us how in Jerusalem there will be much to suffer. And so he takes as an image the bronze serpent raised up by Moses :’ Man must be raised up.’ This announces the manifestation of the Cross. We ask for the grace to be able to penetrate into Jesus’ Sacred Heart and thus understand the feelings in his Heart so as to ucopme to an understanding of all the Love which His Heart wants to offer us. “For God has sent his Son into the world, not so that the world would be judged, but that, through Him, the world will be saved. Whoever believes in Him escapes Judgement; whoever does not believe will be already judged, by the fact that he hasn’t beleived in the Name of God’s Only Son. And this is the Judgement : the Light came into the world, and men prefered darkness to light, because their works were bad.” We are saved by having a confident faith in Jesus. He has ’welcomed’ our humanity that rurned away from his Heart and he has ’taken it up again’ in an even greater Love. The misery of his people is faced with God’s Infinite Love, rich in mercy. He gets us to recieve the Holy Spirit enlightening our heart. And so we are adjusted to God by the grace he pour down upon us. The Holy Spirit accomplishes a work of recreation so as to work within us a new humanity, in the image of Jesus. Through faith, by welcoming the Holy Spirit, we participate in Divine Life. This Divine Life animates us in the innermost parts of our being so it be made apparent on the outside. God, in His Goodness, wishes to show the Infinite wealth of his grace.

“Whoever does evil hates the light : he doesn’t come to the Light, out of fear that his works be denounced; but whover does truth comes to the Light, so that it is seen that his works are accomplished in union with God.” We come to reralise our incapacity to bring about teh good we desire. In order to enter into teh salvation Jesus offers to us, we recognise that we are hurt, wounded people. This suffering hoolows out within ourselves a space which leads to a space where God’s grace can dwell within us. Raise up our eyes to Jesus, Our Crucified Lord, and this will allow us to receive the Salvation from God and the grace of His forgiveness. And so we can celebrate God’s mercy that comes to us. Jesus, Crucified out of Love for us becomes the Sign , and the Cross takes on all of its meaning : ’The Son of man must be raised up.’ It is by accomplishing a work of Truth in our lives that we come to God’s Light. And so our lives shine forth with the gentle Presence of the Spirit dwelling within us.