'If you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!' Third Sunday of Lent Year C, 7 March 2010
Submitted by FatherSean on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 10:07.
THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR C
Moses before the burning bush, Domenico Feti, 1613-14
Readings
New American Bible (Philippines, USA)
Jerusalem Bible (Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland)
Gospel (NAB)
Some people told Jesus about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?
By no means!
But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!
Or those eighteen people who were killed
when the tower at Siloam fell on them—
do you think they were more guilty
than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?
By no means!
But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!”
And he told them this parable:
“There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard,
and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none,
he said to the gardener,
‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree
but have found none.
So cut it down.
Why should it exhaust the soil?’
He said to him in reply,
‘Sir, leave it for this year also,
and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;
it may bear fruit in the future.
If not you can cut it down.’”
Biblical Reflection for 3rd Sunday of Lent C
By Father Thomas Rosica, CSB
TORONTO, MARCH 2, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Today's first reading from Exodus (3:1-8a; 13-15) carried me back to my first visit to Mount Sinai and St. Catharine's Monastery in 1990, during my years of study in Jerusalem. I remember well that awesome experience of standing on "holy ground" in Sinai, at the place where God gave humanity his Law, the Ten Commandments of the Covenant.
I also recall the moving words of Pope John Paul II spoken at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai on Feb. 26, 2000, during his historic Jubilee Pilgrimage to the places of our salvation: "How many have come to this place before us! Here the People of God pitched their tents (cf. Exodus 19:2); here the prophet Elijah took refuge in a cave (cf. 1 Kings 19:9); here the body of the martyr Catherine found a final resting-place; here a host of pilgrims through the ages have scaled what Saint Gregory of Nyssa called 'the mountain of desire' (The Life of Moses, II, 232); here generations of monks have watched and prayed.
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Vegetation of all different sorts makes frequent appearances in the scriptures; between the Tree of Life in Genesis and the Tree of Life in Revelation, there are mustard plants, vines, lilies, grass, oaks, palms, wheat and corn, olives and the fig tree, as in today's Gospel. Given that the natural world shows God's creative, loving power, it is fitting that it plays a part in the drama of sin and redemption. Beautifully, the leaves of the Tree of Life in Revelation are 'for the healing of the nations.'
The first reading today reminds us of another very important type of plant in the history of salvation, the thorn. Although our text doesn't specify that the bush from which God speaks to Moses is a thorn bush, by the time Jesus was born this was an accepted fact in the story. The burning bush was a thorn bush, and it was from this lowly and harsh plant that God spoke to Moses, to reveal nothing less than his Name, and to begin the process of liberating his people from Egypt. God in the midst of the thorns.
