4th Week of Lent – Thursday C

The truth is, we get stuck in our old ways, and although we know something is good, and even from God, we have a hard time embracing that good thing due to our fallen human nature with its corrupt inclinations. So in the first reading, we see how the Israelites exchanged the true and living God with a molten golden calf which they had made out of all their collected jewelry. I false god, which came to them at a price. Yes, our slave masters, the false gods we allow to control us, the idols of this world, and the wickedness we make out of money, often has a whip in hand and delights in torturing the wayward, almost like a preview or a scene you would see happening in hell itself where Lucifer enslaves all beneath his hypnotic and diabolical power. This is why, brothers and sisters, our sins are not a joke, for they turn us into immoral creatures, rather than those who praise and thank their Creator. God says to Moses, “Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, 'This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!'” Moses, however, implores the Lord to have mercy, and the good Father that he is, the “LORD relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.”

Once again, in the gospel from John, we see Jesus almost pleading for the trust of the people he came to save – those who knew only goodness from him. He affirms that if the scriptures have any life, it’s because they refer to him continually, and yet the people themselves remained stubborn and hardened of heart to listen and to go to him. He says to them, “You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life.” At this point, they’re once again scandalized with his clear affirmations of possessing divinity. We too, read the scriptures or hear them read to us, quite often actually if we are practicing and Church-going Catholics, and yet how much of it do we allow to transform our hearts so that we begin choosing more and more to go to Jesus and to spend time with him?

And then, Jesus drops another bomb for us to reflect on: “I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?” He truly speaks the truth doesn’t he my brothers and sisters? How many times have we admired and praised singers, and actors and politicians and certain athletes, and have delighted when someone of high rank has noticed and even praised us in some way? Yet none of this praise can compare with that which God esteems as praiseworthy. Jesus is therefore inviting us, as we close off the weeks of our Lenten journey, to continue to seek our praise from God. That is, to continue to seek to do his will; things like, forgiving those who have wronged us, and showing love to those who are going through a difficult time… this is what the Father finds praiseworthy. Some of us do it in abundance. Others are still very far, but for each and every one of us he has shown benevolent mercy time and time again.

As we continue with our day, let us each continue to cry out to him from the bottom of our hearts, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner, and thank-you for everything you have done and continue to bless me with in my life.” Amen.