Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

Fifth Sunday of Lent

I AM DOING SOMETHING NEW

            I do not remember my favorite subject during my elementary education; maybe I just wanted to hear the break bell and go and play soccer. But wait, I think I remember English Grammar. I would like to think that we are all familiar with our elementary school English Grammar lesson on “Present Continuous tense”. The present continuous verb tense indicates that an action or condition is happening now, frequently, and may continue into the future. I read today’s readings with a warm heart of hope and joy. At times in life, the challenges of life can become so tough that if care is not taken one may be tempted to turn his/her back to God and move on to seek other alternatives. As priests we meet hundreds to thousands of people every day who need reassurance from us whether life will turn out for the better for them. I can confess to you that in some cases, I am at a loss for words of consolation for people who come with various degrees of afflictions and challenges. But today’s reading is really well assuring.

            The prophet does not put God’s intervention in the past or in the future nor in the static present but in a continuous tense. The inspired writer wrote: “…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 prophet chose his words very well. One can realize that he used impossible things to announce how God is making things possible in the lives of his people.

            At times some of us take things for granted to the extent that we fail to see what God is doing in our lives. We live in every day’s miraculous intervention of God’s action. But it is not everybody who fails to see God’s intervention in their lives and today’s gospel cites one example. St John tells us how Jesus intervened to save a certain woman’s life who was facing mob justice. The mob had raised their stones ready to strike when a gentle but commanding voice of Jesus halted their actions. And I am tempted to believe that we may not have the spiritual eyes to see the kind of battles Jesus fights for us every day. There are a lot of forces at work in our world. It was the Lord himself who told us that we battle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and spirits. Principalities and demonic spirits exist but we have a God whose power overrides every power and force. In our world today, we have occultic agents all over, preying on weak and lose souls. But those who belong to Jesus are secured. Jesus assures us that even the hairs on our heads are counted (cf. Matt 10:30) and he will not allow harm to come our way.

            Jesus does not only physically intervene in our daily lives but he does most of the intervention spiritually. This is my strong faith and it always keep me at peace and secured. If one has Jesus, (s)he has everything (s)he needs in life. It is within this context that St Paul made that absolute statement in today’s second reading. The Apostle emphatically stated: “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…” Like St Paul I would like to beg you to keep your faith in Christ Jesus and he will never disappoint you because Jesus does not only work in the past or promise to work in the future but his actions can be felt in the “present continuous.” OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP PRAY FOR US.