23 March 2025 - 3rd Sunday of Lent "C"
Ex 3, 1...15; 1 Cor 10, 1...12; Luke 13, 1-9
Homily
In the collective memory of the people of Israel, the exit from Egypt and the crossing of the desert had remained privileged moments in their relationship with God, and the account of these events had gradually been enriched with marvellous elements. The people had fled Egypt by crossing the sea in a miraculous way. In the desert they had been guided by a miraculous cloud that protected them from the sun by day and illuminated them by night. When this cloud stopped, they pitched their tents and when it moved, they set off again. Along the way, they were fed with the manna that fell from heaven and the water that gushed from the rock after Moses had struck it with his rod.
Saint Paul alludes to all these things in his letter to the Corinthians when he says: "Our ancestors were all under the protection of the pillar of cloud, and they all passed through the Red Sea... They all ate the same spiritual food and drank from the same rock... Yet most of them did nothing but displease God..."
We have all been baptized and confirmed and received other sacraments. We receive the Eucharist regularly and we probably do most of the things that a good Christian or a good nun or monk is supposed to do. Are we pleasing God? -- How do we answer such a question? -- The Gospel tells us that we please God if we bear fruit. And, fortunately for us, the same Gospel teaches us that God is patient. He is always willing to give us more time, but He expects us to bear fruit.
This whole history of Israel, which is also our own, and which began with Abraham, reaches an exceptional spiritual climax in Moses' encounter with God, as recounted in the first reading. Moses had been brought up in the house of Pharaoh, in Egypt, as a son of Pharaoh. He was destined for the highest responsibilities in the administration of the country. One day he took the risk of defending one of his brothers and this act cost him his career. He soon found himself in exile, with no future but completely free because he had nothing left to lose. It was then, as he sank deeper into his solitude, that he met God. God revealed himself to him as a loving father who had seen the misery of His people and wanted to free them from it. A dialogue is possible between God and Moses, because both share the same concern. God even wants to give Moses the mission of freeing His people. Moses then asks two fundamental questions: "Who am I?" and "Who are you?" - "Who am I to do such a thing" and "Who are you?" so that I can say who sent me." To the first question God simply answers "I will be with you" and to the second he answers that he is "I am".
This is the same patient and merciful God that Jesus reveals to us in this morning's Gospel. It would be foolish and even blasphemous to think that the cataclysms that can occur today like those mentioned in this Gospel text are divine punishments (private revelations presenting natural cataclysms as divine punishments have all the signs of non-authenticity!). He is a patient God, who wants us to bear fruit, but He knows that fruit needs time to grow and ripen. Lent is given to us so that we can bear the first of all fruits, that of conversion, which is itself a gift that God wants to give us.
