Collect 5th Sunday of Lent Year C

COLLECT SERIES.

THE MASS: COLLECT AND GOSPEL REPLECTION

The Collect for the 5th Sunday of Lent Year C is as follows:

By Your Help we beseech You Lord our God,

May we walk eagerly in that same charity

with which, out of love for the world,

Your Son handed himself over to death.

Though our Lord Jesus Christ, Your, Son

who lives and reigns with You

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God for ever and ever.

   

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

                                       
In making this prayer tangible for during the week, the following reflections questions emerged:

1.   What are the areas in my life that I need help from God?
   
2.    Consider the love with which Christ handed himself over to death. What personal response do I make to Jesus for this enormous love.
   
3. Beseech-implore, entreat, press, demand: all synonyms for beseech. How does using these words make a difference to my reading of the first line of the Collect.
   
4.  When can we ‘’die’’ eagerly out of love for someone else?
   
5. How does the willingness of Jesus to hand himself over to death out of love for me change me this coming week?

GOSPEL REFLECTION.

The Gospel is from St. John, 8:1-11 and is about the woman caught in adultery.

When the scribes and pharisees quote from Moses, they conveniently misquote leaving out the fact that if a man and woman are caught in adultery, they are to be stoned. In other words, both parties are involved not just one.

We also notice the 2 voices of Jesus- one which indicates His sense of injustice and perhaps even disgust because He is fully aware of their malicious intent to blame the woman and let her take the stoning and they wanted to trap Him. Remember the scripture says’’ they were looking for something that they could use against Him’’

Then there is the just and merciful voice of Jesus.  He provides the woman to own the sin that she has committed, and does not condemn her.  The key however which is often overlooked in homilies and commentaries is this point ‘’ Go and sin no more’’. Jesus had allowed her to accuse herself and own her sin, had been merciful in not condemning her in full view of the crowd, but when they were alone releases her from the burden of the sin by saying ‘’neither do I condemn you’’.  The crucial part is’’ Go and sin no more’’. In other words, her sin was forgiven but with that comes the responsibility to begin again and attempt to sin no more.

 Jesus, who is the just One, does not condemn the woman; whereas these people are sinners, yet they pass sentence of death. God's infinite mercy should move us always to have compassion on those who commit sins, because we ourselves are sinners and in need of God's forgiveness.

So how does this Gospel passage affect us at this stage of our Lenten journey?  What difference will it make in our lives this week?  We can examine the times we

1.    accuse others leaving out details to suit our own agenda,

2.    play the blame game,

3.    are self-righteous in our thinking rather than humbly acknowledging we are sinners,

4.    have not provided merciful response to family, co-workers, parishioners, those we meet.

5.    Continue to commit the same sins without addressing the cause or making the effort to ‘’Go sin no more’’.

As we listen to this Gospel today at Mass, why not choose our course of action of how we may put this Gospel into our lives in a practical way throughout this week.