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[cappie]

We live in a technology-centred world. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. Even advanced technology is morally neutral; it is a useful tool, either for doing good or for doing evil. Indeed a new study has discovered a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and how much of a "socially disruptive narcissist" you are—giving us one more reason to tone down our Facebook addictions. So our experience of the power of technology to solve material difficulties can pose a danger to our spiritual lives. We can forget that as Christians, what matters most is not what we are able to do for God or for ourselves, but what God has done and wants to do for us. Jesus is first and foremost our Saviour, not our consultant.

Jeremiah makes this clear in today's First Reading. Through the prophet's words, God explains that he will make an everlasting covenant with us; he will plant the law of freedom and interior peace within our hearts; he will forgive our evildoing and remember our sin no more.

The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us of this same truth. Jesus doesn't point out how to reach everlasting happiness and then send us on our way, as if we could make the journey by our own efforts. Rather, through his life, death, and resurrection, he himself becomes the "source of eternal salvation."
And in today's Gospel passage, Jesus himself explains that his total love and obedience, up to the point of his humiliating death on a cross, is the turning point of history.

With his self-sacrificial crucifixion, "the ruler of this world will be driven out." In other words, Christ's faithful love will undo Adam's original sin and conquer the devil's sinful rebellion, the source of evil in the world. By announcing this beforehand, he shows that he is going to suffer it willingly, freely fulfilling his Father's plan of salvation. And this - what God has done for us - matters more than anything we can possibly do for God.

POPE BENEDICT XVI in an address to bishops said:
"It is easy to be entranced by the almost unlimited possibilities that science and technology place before us; it is easy to make the mistake of thinking we can obtain by our own efforts the fulfilment of our deepest needs. This is an illusion. Without God, who alone bestows upon us what we by ourselves cannot attain (cf. Spe Salvi, 31), our lives are ultimately empty. People need to be constantly reminded to cultivate a relationship with him who came that we might have life in abundance."


St Elizabeth Ann Seton exemplified this loving dedication to Christ the Saviour marvellously.
She was a beautiful and elegant young woman from a prominent Episcopalian family. Her parents, wealthy members of New York's social elite in the late 1700s, provided her with the very best education. She became an excellent musician, an accomplished equestrian, a fluent French speaker, a model of fashionable good taste, and a favourite conversationalist among New York high society. She married William Seton and had five children, but then William's finances crumbled, forcing them into bankruptcy. Then her eldest son became seriously ill. Then her father died of yellow fever and her husband contracted tuberculosis. They were advised to travel to Italy for a change of climate. Instead, they were quarantined in the port where they anchored, due to the yellow fever epidemic. Forty days on the boat in freezing cold, cramped and wet quarters and with minimal nourishment killed her sick husband.
Elizabeth spent the next months in Italy, where she began to fall in love with the Catholic faith (especially the Eucharist). Upon returning to New York and joining the Catholic Church, she was ostracized by her former friends. Living off handouts and struggling to provide for her four children, she received an invitation from the bishop of Baltimore (John Carroll) to come and start a school for girls. Thus began the parochial school system in the United States and a new religious order, the Sisters of Charity of St Joseph.

In Baltimore life was still difficult. She lost two sisters-in-law and two daughters to tuberculosis, suffered from extreme poverty and an unwise spiritual director, and continued to be publicly humiliated by her former friends. Through it all, to the lasting benefit of her Church and her country, she persevered. How? By understanding that Jesus was her Saviour, and that nothing matters in this life - not comfort, not success, not wealth - except following him.

Here's how she put it in her own words:
"What was the first rule of our dear Saviour’s life? You know it was to do his Father's will. Well, then, the first purpose of our daily work is to do the will of God; secondly, to do it in the manner he wills; and thirdly, to do it because it is his will."
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The more we experience Jesus as our Saviour, the more we will experience the abundant life, the interior peace, wisdom, strength, and meaning, that comes with his salvation.
But because our culture is so secularized, we have to make an effort to let him be our Saviour.
Two of the key activities for Lent (which is almost over!) can help us do that.

First, we can choose to spend time with him in prayer, even if, from a practical, technical standpoint, prayer may seem like a waste of time.

Second, we can choose to spend time serving others who are suffering and in need.

The traditional name for this kind of Christian charity is almsgiving.

We all know people who are suffering. They may be suffering economically - their marriage and family life stressed by financial pressures beyond their control. They may be suffering physically - their body and mind weakened or ravaged by disease, injury, or old age. They may be suffering emotionally - working through an experience of betrayal, infidelity, or loss. They may be suffering existentially - wondering why they are on the planet and where they can find a reason for living.

As Catholics, we experience those same forms of suffering, but we know what to do with them. We bring them to Christ, our all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Saviour; we grip our crucifixes; we offer them to the Father for the salvation of souls and the reparation of sins.

In the few remaining weeks of Lent, let's reach out and help lighten someone else's cross, just as our Saviour constantly helps lighten ours. Let's show-and-tell, with our actions and words, someone else about the Saviour they are looking for. Who knows, maybe by sharing the good news of God's love with others, we will come to believe it more deeply ourselves.
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[cappie]

Congregatio Pro Clericus:

"We should like to see Jesus." (Jn 12:21). In this fifth Sunday of Lent, the Church helps us to take another significant step along our journey of spiritual combat which is now drawing to a close.
The Greeks, turning to St Philip, the Apostle to whom they were closest by name and geographical origin, have a question which is disarming in its simplicity. "We should like to see Jesus!" They ask for neither an abstract concept nor an idea, nor for an ethical teaching but simply a meeting. They do not ask Philip to tell them about the Lord or his teachings, or how to do His will. They just want to see Jesus directly.

"We should like to see Jesus." The simplicity of this question reminds us of the touching prayer of Psalm 50 - "create in me, O God, a pure heart". The psalmist, acknowledging his own sin and recognising his need to be renewed, asks to be transformed so that he can be 'new', alive and free in his relationship with God.

"We should like to see Jesus." This newness, this life and freedom for which the psalmist searches cannot be obtained by humans through our own strength, nor even, by doing what is ethically right. Indeed, even what is ethically right is ultimately empty and sterile in comparison to the renewal of life that comes, not from ourselves, but as the gift from the God who saves us.

"We should like to see Jesus." It is not for us to decide the circumstances, the manner or the form of this gift. Man can’t ‘decide’ what can save him or even permit another to decide it on his behalf or else we become enslaved by the latest psychological recipe, the urgency of those dominant influences that time after time direct our attention and that of our families or of colleagues. Man can only ‘request’ this salvation, awaiting until we meet it and then respond by leaving everything in order to finally embrace it. This is what happened to the Apostles, men profoundly open to Christ’s eternal uniqueness and who, after leaving their families and their work, followed Him. They shared Christ’s company, tasted the sweetness of a life lived in communion with Him and so became the means by which others could encounter Christ.

"We should like to see Jesus." The Greeks’ cry is the same as that of all Christians and is, in fact, the same as that of all mankind. The Redeemers’ response is mysterious yet He had listened attentively to the question posed by Andrew and Philip and replied saying: “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." (Jn 12:24) Above all else this seems to speak of a general rule of human existence: the one who doesn't die remains alone; but the one who dies produces much fruit.

At the same time as the meeting with Christ was announced to the Greeks it was also announced to each one of us. He who is ‘the grain of wheat which falls to the earth,’ the Eternal Word made Man, assumed in Himself that natural law written in the man’s heart by the Creator, which He fulfilled in this journey on our behalf: ‘Although He was Son, He learned to obey through suffering’. Jesus is not content to be met in a superficial way, but as he dies on the cross, he wants to meet us more deeply and thus reveal God's glory. "They will no longer teach their friends and relatives, “Know the Lord!” Everyone, from least to greatest, shall know me." (Jer 31:34)

Blessed Virgin of the Annunciation, the first to see the face of the Son of God who was born of you, accompany us as we say the same "yes", and as we lose our life so that we might find it again. Show us, O Clement, O Loving, O Sweet Virgin Mary, after this, our exile, the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Amen.