Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B

Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33

THEME OF THE READINGS
All three Readings are linked by offering us, each in its own way, the underlying theological explanation of the Paschal mystery of Jesus� suffering, death and resurrection. It is no historical accident, but the key element of God�s great plan of salvation. By this sacrifice God will create in his people a new heart, free from sin and ready to embrace his law ("a willing spirit", Psalm) not as something foreign and imposed, but as the law of the heart itself (First Reading and Psalm). Obedience to God�s plan, expressed in his law or otherwise, is a source of suffering for man – even for Christ - but it is simultaneously the source of our salvation, which follows the paradoxical law of life springing from death (Second Reading and Gospel). Like Christ, the one who freely gives up his "life" in obedience to God�s will recovers it in all its fullness.

DOCTRINAL MESSAGE
Countercultural values. Jesus� words for some who wanted to see him appear cryptic: "unless a grain of wheat dies…". In reality, he is repeating the message he has constantly tried to transmit to the people: if you are looking for a triumphant Messiah, you will not find him, because the real Messiah is a man who must suffer and die in lacerating obedience to the will of the Father.

Revelation is in permanent conflict with human thinking; it is especially at odds with a culture that prides itself on having shaken off the "shackles" of faith and built itself a tower of human shortsightedness and smug arrogance. Today�s readings are a corrective to "values" that, being already inclined to them by the "heritage" of sin, concupiscence (Catechism 377, 2515), we have all imbibed from the secularism, hedonism and individualism of our culture. It turns out that things strongly rejected by our culture are the currency of the kingdom: they purchase our salvation.

Mystery of obedience. Going back to Adam and Eve, obedience has never been popular, and it has been even less so since the sixties; though you would think we might have learned by now that disobedience to God just doesn�t pay off. If you believe in God – and that God is God, and you aren�t! - obeying him is simply the intelligent thing to do. Not because "he�ll get you if you don�t", but because he is our Father whose plan represents always, infallibly, the very best for us.

If there were any doubt about the value of obedience, the life and death of Christ could be said to be designed just to dissipate our doubts. Whatever about others, any Christian for whom obedience is a non-value is either hopelessly superficial, or stupidly proud (perhaps all of us have to admit to both). St Paul�s implication, as the Fathers of the Church understood it, is that since Christ saved us by his obedience not only did he become "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (Second Reading) but that all who obey like him become with him a source of salvation for others. (See also the Second Reading of Palm Sunday, and CCC 615).

Mystery of suffering. The grain of wheat that wants to "save itself" remains completely sterile. Only the grain –and the person- that is willing to come undone, and rot in the ground to produce a shoot of new wheat, will be fruitful. Suffering in and of itself has no value. It is human to flee from it. But from the moment God used the suffering of Jesus in his passion and on the cross to redeem us from sin, suffering united to Christ is of incalculable value: what it achieves –salvation- is so far out of proportion to "how much it hurts" that the person who believes sees it as much more of a good than an evil.

Catechesis: Christian obedience implies the, for some, "teeth-grinding" recognition that God�s will is mediated to us through multiple instances, and has multiple applications (CCC 1897-1904; 2216-17; 85-87, 892, 2032-40).

PASTORAL APPLICATIONS
We owe God a double "obedience": of faith and of life. The second is really an application of the first. Both can be a struggle; Jesus himself was only able to obey after "loud cries and tears". By "the obedience of faith", "man completely submits his intellect and his will to God" and what he reveals (Catechism 143). What is it you have difficulty accepting? Well, Jesus had difficulty accepting that his Father actually wanted him to give up his life in such a horrendous form. Try some serious conversation with him during these next two weeks; offer him one thing in which you are going to "submit your mind and your will to God". Make a change in your life that expresses that. Ask him for the strength to do it.

Reevaluate suffering. Like the Greeks who spoke to Philip, we too "would like to see Jesus". But how can we if we only want to know a Christ without the cross? Of course, it�s not just his cross we have a problem with: we realize it implies our cross, and our own readiness to "lose our life" (Gospel). "Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified", St. Paul said, "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1Corinthians 1:22-24; 2:1-2). You could wonder if, when he wrote that bit about the "stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles", he thought of saying something about a lot of us Christians too. Wouldn�t sound as good, I suppose. At any rate, between now and Easter, we all need to reflect on the real gospel, and develop a completely new attitude towards the cross.

Suffering is endemic to being human. We cannot avoid it. Without Christ it is senseless. Thanks to his suffering for us, our suffering, great or small, is no longer useless, absurd, pure frustration. In fact, it is the most surefire contribution we can make to the salvation of the world (CCC 618).

Finally we also need to see Jesus, love and serve him in all those whose cross is particularly heavy and painful today.