Reflection on the 5th Sunday of Lent
My friends, in the Gospel on the 5th Sunday of our Lenten pilgrimage, Jesus tells Phillip and Andrew — and us — that the “grain of wheat” must die in order to bear “much fruit,” for the salvation of others and the world, a reference to his own dying and rising. One part of the Gospel that particularly struck me is when Our Blessed Lord says, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life … will preserve it for eternal life.” In the original language and context, the word translated here as “hate” is better rendered as “love less than.” In other words, we must love the Lord, his Gospel and others more than anything else, and we must give of ourselves to God and others if we want to find the meaning of our lives.
The world often tells us that we find the meaning of our lives through self-love and self-aggrandizement. Jesus tells us that instead of this, we only find ourselves through giving ourselves away in love to him and to others. This is a hard, and at times difficult and even dangerous route (think of what Christ and his prophets and martyrs had to go through), but it is the only road to true happiness in the end. When we look at the lives of the holy men and women throughout the ages, we see this truth lived out so well. While our own circumstances are unique to us, as theirs were unique to them, we, too, share the call from God to self-gift. We are invited by the Crucified and Risen Christ to follow in his footsteps, in looking into what we can put into life, instead of what we can get out of it. The more we focus on what we get out of life, the more unhappy, restless, irritable and discontented we will be. But if we instead, with the grace of God, one day at a time, looked at what we can put into life in love, wouldn’t our lives and our world be a little better and a little more ready for the coming of our great King?
May Mary, Our Mother, model of humble service and love, teach us what it means to give of ourselves in love to her Son Jesus and to others, one day at a time.
We Praise You, Jesus, and give You Thanks, for by Your Cross and Resurrection You have set us free!!
Father Malachi F. Clark is Parochial Vicar of St. Mary’s and St. Anthony’s in Cortland; St. Margaret’s; St. Lawrence Mission, De Ruyter; St. Patrick’s Oratory, Truxton.
