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Live
Letters Third Sunday of
Lent |
The Catholic Telegraph
March 1, 2002The introduction to the Lectionary (no. 97) tells us that the gospel readings for the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent for year A are all concerned with the theme of Christian initiation. For that reason, they be used in years B and C in Masses where there are "elect," i.e., persons who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil. The Old Testament readings for these Sundays carry forward the account of the history of salvation "from its beginning until the promise of the New Covenant" (ibid.). The second readings are supposed to "fit" the first and gospel readings and to serve as a connection between them. Our live letter for this third Sunday of Lent certainly does that, as we will see.
But there is still another theme at work in our second readings for year A. In one way or another these readings are all concerned with salvation, with the meaning and qualities of justification/uprightness/righteousness/justice/sanctification/reconciliation/liberation/redemption. They provide a kind of mini-course in soteriology (i.e., the study of salvation.)
The reading for this Sunday is from Romans, Paul’s theological masterpiece. He has been pointing out to his readers that Abraham was justified because of his faith, not because of his observance of the law. So also we are justified by our faith in the dying and rising of Christ.
Our reading now provides an overview of some of the principal results of this justification that comes through our faith.
We are now in a relationship of calmness and tranquility with God. This comes to us through Christ, through Whom we are also put in touch with God’s generous gift of Himself ("grace"). In addition to that we have hope, the right to expect that, when our salvation reaches its final fullness, we will share in the glory of God.
All this comes to us through God’s love for us. This love is expressed through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us by the Father and through Christ’s death for our salvation. Dying for somebody is a rare thing, although one person might die for the other if the other were particularly virtuous. But Christ died for us when we were still sinners, still helpless, still ungodly. That’s how much He loved us.
This reading from Romans is about God’s generosity. The salvation that God so liberally gives us includes peace, grace, hope, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and the love of Christ in spite of our unworthiness.
Our passage gives some further meaning to the first reading, in which we see God being generous to His first chosen people in the desert in spite of their lack of faith and hope in Him. It also throws some theological illumination on the gospel reading about the Samaritan woman to whom Christ related so magnanimously and to whom He promised a whole new kind of relationship between God and God’s human creatures ("worship ... in Spirit and truth"). These three readings teach us that generosity has been characteristic of God’s relationship with those He loves for a long time. Generosity is an essential ingredient of God’s plan of salvation.
There are two further lessons for us as individual believers in this passage from Romans. First of all, the reading reminds us once more that we cannot earn or deserve God’s attention. We become eligible for salvation not because of our observance of any moral code or ritual regulations. We become eligible for salvation by our acknowledgment of our own helplessness and by our willingness to accept the new life that Christ offers us in spite of our own unworthiness. Being saved means being willing to be loved by a generous Father who does more for us than we can ever imagine or appreciate.
The other main lesson for us in these verses is that faith and salvation and the generosity of God involve hope. Hope is the confident expectation of future good. Hope means that there is still more to come.
Our salvation is already present and active in our lives. Even now we live the life of the risen Christ. Even now the Holy Spirit has been given to us. But in many ways, we are still in a state of transition, of potentiality, of negative or positive development.
We can move in the direction of negation. We can change our minds about being willing to accept what God offers us. We can return to our sins. We can take for granted or overlook what God has given us and live a life of superficiality.
In a more positive direction, we can strive to develop what God has given us. We can respond deliberately and consistently to what God’s generosity has made us to be.
The virtue of hope assures us that the negative potential that still remains in us need not have the final word. It also reminds us that, no matter how receptive we have been to God’s gifts in the past, God’s giving never stops. There is always more to look forward to until we have been definitively taken into God’s glory.
This reading invites us to celebrate the unmerited abundance of the salvation that God offers us.
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Conversation Questions.
How do I experience the abundance of God’s love for me?
What role does hope play in my life?
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