Sunday 21 March 5th Sunday of Lent 

Ist Reading Jer 31:31-34  The Lord promises a new covenant

2nd Reading Heb 5:7-7 Christ is the source of salvation for all who obey

Gospel Jn 12:20-33 Jesus foretells of his death and resurrection

Gospel Reflection Father Michael Tate

We want to see Jesus.

I can observe a baby, but the parents ‘see’ their baby very differently. They gaze with total fascination, trying to perceive what this little bundle of flesh is really all about, trying to get an insight into its personality, visualising a possible future, hoping for a response.

This Gospel passage begins with a request from some Greeks ‘to see Jesus’, surely in all the ways parents see their baby. They were trying to perceive what this Jesus was really all about, trying to get an insight into his personality, imagining a possible future, hoping for a response.

And there was a response full of allusions to the future.

Jesus was as a grain of wheat. He died and was buried in the earth and that death was fruitful for the whole of humankind. He foresaw being nailed to the cross which would be dropped upright into a hole in the ground.

Our Lord says of that scene: ‘When I am lifted up I will draw all people to myself.’ How were people drawn to this scene?

People saw the length to which Jesus was prepared to go in order to persevere in his mission to live out the message that his Heavenly Father was full of mercy and wanted all people to share in Divine Life. This led to his being lifted up on the cross, being buried in the ground like a grain of wheat, only to rise to new life.

We could take a moment to pray that we will shortly see all this with the eyes of faith as we participate in the rituals of Good Friday and Easter.

© Fr Michael Tate; mtate@bigpond.com

The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

The Solemnity of the Annunciation celebrates the coming of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to announce to her the special mission God had chosen for her in being the mother of His only son.

Mary has an important role to play in God’s plan. From all eternity, God destined her to be the mother of Jesus and closely related to him in the creation and redemption of the world. We could say that God’s decrees of creation and redemption are joined in the decree of Incarnation. Because Mary is God’s instrument in the Incarnation, she has a role to play with Jesus in creation and redemption. It is a God-given role. It is God’s grace from beginning to end. Mary becomes the eminent figure she is only by God’s grace. She is the empty space where God could act. Everything she is she owes to the Trinity.

Mary is the virgin-mother who fulfills Isaiah 7:14 in a way that Isaiah could not have imagined. She is united with her son in carrying out the will of God (Psalm 40:8-9; Hebrews 10:7-9; Luke 1:38).

Together with Jesus, the privileged and graced Mary is the link between heaven and earth. She is the human being who best, after Jesus, exemplifies the possibilities of human existence. She received into her lowliness the infinite love of God. She shows how an ordinary human being can reflect God in the ordinary circumstances of life. She exemplifies what the Church and every member of the Church is meant to become. She is the ultimate product of the creative and redemptive power of God. She manifests what the Incarnation is meant to accomplish for all of us.

Source Franciscan Media 

Mrs Christine Meharg