The Word today, Lent3B24
- Admin
- Mar 1, 2024
- 3 min read
March 04 - March 09, 2024
St Casimir
2 Kings 5:1-15 A very lively, realistic story prepares us for the Gospel reading. There are comic elements: the disappointment of Naaman and the utterly sensible advice of his servants.
Luke 4:24-30 Our reading is really the second part of an integrated scene in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus preaches in Nazareth and is initially well received. What we really have here is a symbolic tableau, giving us the whole Gospel story of Jesus in a nutshell. The last elusive line points to Easter.
St Kieran, bishop
Daniel 3:25, 34-43 The context for this wonderful prayer can help a great deal. The book of Daniel was written during a time of brutal persecution under the Syrian ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Under the guise of the time of the earlier Babylonians, the book of Daniel really reflects this later, highly dangerous situation. The three main characters have been thrown into the fiery furnace and one of them, Azariah, prays this great prayer.
Matthew 18:21-35 Our first reading was a prayer for mercy from God. The Gospel is also about mercy, but in another perspective. Mercy is given to a great debtor, who begs precisely for mercy. But he in his turn refuses mercy to a fellow servant, who begged him. It is all a comment on the words we pray everyday: forgive us out trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9 Our reading reflects on God’s grace to Israel and on the consequent responsibility of the Israelites to live lives consistent with that grace. It was true long ago in Judaism; it is true today in our Christian proclamation.
Matthew 5:17-19 Matthew can disconcert with his quite conservative attitudes. It is important to remember that the Law (the Torah) meant three things at the time: the Pentateuch, the moral law and the ritual. The moral law is, if anything, sharpened.
Sts Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs
Jeremiah 7:23-28 The ministry of Jeremiah encountered tremendous opposition. In fact, his book is divided into two parts, the first devoted to a rehearsal of the collapse of the independent kingdom of Judah. Within that, Jeremiah points out that the very faithlessness of the people was one of the causes of that calamity.
Luke 11:14-23 Just as the prophets encountered opposition, so did the Jesus. In the case of Jesus, the opposition accuses God’s prophet of aligning himself with the forces of evil. Already in Luke’s Gospel, we hear the story of the temptation, wherein Jesus resolutely rejects the devil.
St John of God, religious
Hosea 14:2-10 Hosea wrote in the 8th century BC, at a time of immense pressure from Assyria. He can be trenchant but is also a marvellous poet of the love of God. Listen by letting any of the moving metaphors touch our hearts.
Mark 12:28-34 This great passages takes us to the hear to of the preaching of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah.
St Frances of Rome, religious
Hosea 5:15-6:6 This is really a sarcastic reading. But, behind the biting sarcasm, is the beating heart of God, reaching out to us again and again.
Luke 18:9-14 The risk for us in reading this parable is that we find ourselves sitting in judgment on the Pharisee—that is, copying him in sitting in judgment on the tax collector. The heart-felt prayer for mercy is at the centre: can I make it my own?
References
-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (2024v, March 3). Third Sunday of lent. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030324.cfm
-Sunday readings. (n.d.-s). Hearers of the Word. https://www.tarsus.ie/SundayReadings/
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