Our Lady of Lourdes Church and School

Today’s readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent invite us to consider the nature of our relationship with God against the backdrop of two powerful stories. The first story is taken from the Book of Chronicles, and it reminds us of the experience of the people who had wandered so far from God in their lives that they ended up in exile, completely disconnected from their own homeland and their own people. The imagery here is pretty powerful, even thousands of years later. How easy it is for us to find ourselves overwhelmed in life, and ever so slowly, and even against our own better judgment, to allow our connectedness to God to be diminished. Our days are full with the responsibilities that fall to us, and we barely make it through one day when the next day is upon us. We trip from one chaotic day into the next, never seeming to be able to catch up or to get a break. Slowly, we begin to forget to acknowledge God’s presence in our day. We neglect our morning prayer. We are so exhausted at the end of the day that our intentions to pray at night fall by the wayside. We become so busy during our day that we become less and less attentive to the needs of others around us, and we become consumed with taking care of ourselves, and those closest to us. There is no time or energy left for the ‘extravagance’ of caring for anyone else. The image of ‘exile’ might seem stark, but it might be a very appropriate image. It doesn’t take much for us to wander, and to suddenly find ourselves  completely disconnected.

Our first story of exile in scripture is the exile of Adam and Eve from the garden. Their exile was the direct consequence of their neglecting their relationship with God. As they neglected their relationship with God, their relationship between themselves also suffered. The Book of Chronicles narrates for us the effects of this kind of exile not only for individuals, but for the whole nation, for the whole of society. Our community is always lessened, it is deprived of the fullness of blessing when we let our relationships get “out of whack” - our relationship with God, our relationship with one another, our relationship with our immediate family, our relationship with our world… It goes on and on. In a very vivid way, this reading reminds us that there is really no such thing as a ‘sin’ that is completely private. There are always consequences beyond ourselves, even if we can’t readily see them or observe their effects immediately.

In the passage to which we listen today from the fourth Gospel, we are also invited to reflect on this theme of the consequences of belief in the Good News of Jesus Christ. We start out with the most quoted passage from the New Testament: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” This simple, powerful, truth of the Gospel sums up the desire God has for every human being. The Baltimore Catechism said it with this language: “God made us to know him, to love him and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next.” It’s an affirmation of the same truth. But why, then, we might well ask, if such a deal is on offer… eternal life in God… freely given by God for us without any cost or price, why then can it be such a struggle in practice? Is it conceivable that created free, as we are, we can always choose other than God’s desire for us. Perhaps it often happens that people struggle to balance God’s deepest desire for us with competing desires we have of our own?

The evangelist reflects on this question, and puts it this way: “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” He goes on to point out that there are consequences to our choices: “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light.” It’s all well and good that God desires nothing but the fullness of life for us, but if we have other ideas… well, we see where this might take us. This statement might sound a little harsh, but perhaps putting it out there like that is the evangelist’s way of startling us into some reflection on the importance of the choices we make and the consequences which flow from our choices.

The GREAT News is, however, that dare we but trust, and turn our hearts toward Him, God is always there for us.