Preparing for the Mass - March 29, 2009

The Fifth Sunday in Lent (cycle B)

The Readings (NAB)

Reading 1 Jer 31:31-34
". . . . I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
This “new covenant” that God writes “upon [our] hearts” is spelled out in the gospel in an unexpected way. The law is not precepts merely to be obeyed, but is a way of life: die to self.


Responsorial Psalm  Ps 51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15
Create a clean heart in me, O God.
This psalm, the Miserere, is the most famous of the penitential psalms. It takes up and turns into a prayer Jeremiah’s prophecy that under the new covenant the hearts of believers will be inwardly transformed, so that their sins will be forgiven and they may walk in the law of the Lord.




Reading II Heb 5:7-9
. . . . "Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;
and when he was made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him."

Gospel  Jn 12:20-33   
. . . . Jesus answered them,
"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
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.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me. "

First, For the children.

Now for us BIG KIDS.
The goal of Lent and of all Christian living is voiced by the Greeks: “We would like to see Jesus.” We truly “see” Jesus when we are faithful to his law written on our hearts (see first reading).
 
And this is his “law”: become the seed that dies, the life that loses itself, and the servant who follows.

Our lives glorify God (as did Jesus’ life) when we willing give our lives for the sake of others.

When we struggle with dying to self, we are in good company: Jesus himself was “troubled” (gospel) by this and cried out to be delivered from it (see second reading).

sources:
Center for Liturgy Index Page - choose date
Working With the Word  (The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota) 
 Living Liturgy: Spirituality, Celebration, and Catechesis
for Sundays and Solemnities Year B - 2009, p. 93.
Joyce Ann Zimmerman, CPPS; Kathleen Harmon, SNDdeN;
and Christopher W. Conlon, SM