A - Third Sunday in Lent - Scrutiny Mass

The readings we will hear in select masses over the next three Sundays are called the scrutiny readings and are part of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. They are meant in a special way for those who will be joining the family of God this Easter. The themes for the three scrutiny gospel readings are conversion, healing, and the promise of eternal life.

Today in our gospel reading we read about the Samaritan woman. Quickly we may recognize ourselves in this woman. Like her we go about our lives as if nothing is up, everything is fine, we stay busy with the normal things of life. Yet something is amiss since sin has condemned us to being less than fully alive. Sin, big and small, can bring us low and limit us to a life that never quite takes off, because the chains of sin can be so very heavy. We were designed to soar like an eagle, but sin has made us crawl on the ground. The Samaritan woman would have to go to the well at noon – the hottest part of the day, so no one would see her. She was embarrassed, felt awkward, felt the weight of sin, perhaps even unacknowledged sin, and so had separated herself from her own community. Persistent sin requires us to make accommodations for it – to live differently than we would otherwise do. Like the Samaritan woman we may ostracize ourselves or go out in the noonday sun unable to even consider the possibility that we can soar.

But God wants us to soar and to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48). To confess our sin and to seek forgiveness in confession is but a step in the right direction but it does not end there. God’s desire is for us to be a new man or a new woman, not only free of sin, but healed, whole, complete and transformed; brokenness repaired, tears of sadness - now tears of joy, isolation - now full communion. Our heart ache is remade into something powerful and positive. “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” What is this water if not the Holy Spirit – the source of spiritual life and of the transformation of the believer. We are to drink deeply from this well and to allow the Spirit to do his work in us. We give the Holy Spirit access to the deepest recesses of our souls, so forgiveness can be accompanied by healing. This is the perfection God is looking for - our perfection, our wholeness, our completeness, with the wounds of life healed over. But we have to let the Spirit in, to let Christ in.

Pope Saint John Paul II said we are all like that rich young man who followed all God’s commandments but was sad because he was told to sell what he had and to give the money to the poor. Like the rich young man, we are a little afraid to go “all-in” with Jesus. A little afraid to give him everything. To fully trust him.

Jesus knows us completely and does not turn away but rather meets us in the heat of the noonday sun. He offers to us water that itself then becomes a spring, that wells up into eternal life. By means of this water we are forgiven, we are healed, we are transformed, we are born anew. The heavy chains of sin are broken and the path to perfection, wholeness, completeness, opens before us. Like the Samaritan woman, we now run joyfully into Town and acclaim that truly He is our savior, and the savior of the world. So, we turn to him, or return to him, and then, as Pope Saint John Paul II, gently encourages us, we go, “all-in”.  

Deacon Peter Bujwid
St. Agnes Church, Arlington, Massachusetts
Sunday 23rd March 2025

C - Third Sunday in Lent

Today is the third Sunday of Lent and so we draw near to the midpoint of our Lenten journey. Before we know it, Holy week will be upon us. Having made the effort to keep to our disciplines, to pray, fast and to be more charitable, we may have changed - even if only a little. We may have learned a little about ourselves. Do we have the stick-to-itiveness to remain disciplined? Are we able to be resilient in the face of many and varied forces, both spiritual and other, that pull us away from encountering the graces that appear to be abundant at this time? If not, the simple solution is always to start again.

By means of the disciplines we may experience two things: a desire to know God in a deeper way while interestingly, we recognize ourselves to be only less perfect, less worthy. For example, we want to pray more and to experience God more intimately, but prayer becomes difficult, distracted, or not how we thought it would go for us. We can draw comfort that perhaps this may be the expected experience. We begin to see ourselves for who we are, as we begin to recognize God as Holy God. Our readings today confront our modern-day idea that God is, but a friendly face and I don't have to worry so much, since God will forgive me, right? That is not wrong, we are loved, but the reality and impact of mortal sin is very real, and it can destine us for hell. In our first reading Moses encounters God and God tells him to remove his shoes for he is standing upon holy ground. God is holy, and nothing dirty will trespass on holy ground. Just as nothing unclean will enter the New Jerusalem or heaven, as we read in Revelation (21:26). God is Holy and we are his creatures. Because God is the great I AM we must acknowledge his holiness, and respect the holy places, such as this very sanctuary.

Our second reading from Corinthians warns us, not to be complacent, satisfied with ourselves, or to feel secure just because we are part of the church. The reading notes that the blessings of God were on all the ancestors, all were baptized, and all ate the spiritual food, and all drank the spiritual drink, just as we are and just as we do. Yet God was not pleased with many of them and so many were struck down. The reading goes on to say that this was an example for all and for us. God requires us to leave sin and evil behind. To believe we are somehow preserved due to just being catholic, would be the same mistake the Pharisees and Sadducees made by assuming that because they were descendance of Abraham, their salvation was assured. John the Baptist calls them to repentance and to show the fruit that corresponds to it. Just as we are called to repentance and to show the fruit of being a true disciple of Christ.

The Gospel reading reinforces this point. “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?” “No, they weren’t.” Jesus tells us, and goes on to warn us, that if we do not repent, we too will perish as those who died in Siloam. Bible scholars, reading the Gospel of Luke in Greek, tell us that the two uses of the term, “if you do not repent”, use two different verb tenses, with one noting a need to repent once and for all, and the second referring to a continuing repentance.

God is perfectly Holy; God demands repentance if we are not to be lost. Being simply a declared catholic is not enough. These are stark truths. Our Lenten practice can make us more sensitive to them. But the Lord is Kind and Merciful as we all just declared in the psalms. He pardons our inequities and heals our ills. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. And so, He holds back the hand of the gardener who is ready to cut down the fruitless tree. Graces will abound to help each of us become trees that bear fruit.

“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, we read in Philippians 2:12. Repent and believe in the Gospel, we heard spoken to us on Ash Wednesday. So, we return to the sacrament of reconciliation often, we eschew complacency and make of our catholic life one that bears much good fruit. Our continued Lenten practices, despite the challenges, help us to do just that.

Deacon Peter Bujwid
St. Agnes Church, Arlington, Massachusetts
Sunday 23rd March 2025

C - Ash Wednesday

Gratitude is the natural response to a gift.  We see this particularly at Christmas or on birthdays when family and friends gather, and gifts are exchanged.  We respond to these gifts with gratitude, words of thanks, hugs and kisses.   No one, however, can surpass the gifts of God, the greatest of which we recall and celebrate at every mass - God’s gift of his one son.  The Divine son who teaches us, that, ‘greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’.  This gift breaks the chains of sin.  This gift enables us to know the freedom of forgiveness in this life and to taste the peace and joy waiting for us in the next.  God has given us great gifts and we should reflect on these and, as we do at Christmas or on a birthday, we should express our thanks.  We have so much to be grateful for. 

Now, as we begin our Lenten journey, it is time to make a greater gift of ourselves.  Lent is a time to journey further and in a more purposeful way into the mystery of God by wondering off the well-worn worldly trail and into the foothills of holiness.  During Lent, we are told to pray, fast and to give alms.

We commit to prayer.  So often prayer time can become a checkbox item.  But with a renewed sense of gift giving, we can place ourselves before God despite all the demands of our busy lives.  We should begin our prayers with the attitude of gratitude and with words that say, “this time, these ten or twenty minutes, I give to you dear Father despite the distractions and inevitable interruptions.  Time is a precious gift, and we only have so much of it, or so little of it.  By giving God our time, we acknowledge him as Lord of our life and make clear that we place Him first.

We fast.  Christ’s church asks so little of us; today and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence.  And Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.  But should we strive for the minimum or should we do more?  What other gifts of fasting can we offer?  Perhaps we can fast from entertainment, the endless hours of TV, of sports, or YouTube?  We can also fast from some of the usual activities of our day, by committing to daily mass, or to reading scripture, the lives of the saints, or other spiritual books.  So, we pray, we fast. 

We also perform works of love and charity, quietly and unseen by others.  This can be gifts of money, gift cards for the needy, and so on.  Having practiced giving our time to God, we now give time to our neighbor and to the stranger.  A phone call to someone that needs to hear a friendly voice, a chance meeting with someone needing a friendly ear to really listen to them.  Love is willing of the good of the other.  During Lent we commit to seeing others in a new light and to love them.  For what we do to the least of these we also do to our Lord.

Our Father has given all things to us including his one and only begotten son, our brother.  We should consider this truth deeply.  By reflecting on God’s gifts to each of us, we hopefully respond in gratitude and with a growing freedom to give more of ourselves.  Our practices of prayer, fasting, and alms giving, give praise to our God, help transform our hearts and our lives. They prepare us to celebrate the Easter season with joy.   A joy that extends into every aspect of our lives, here and now, and goes on and into eternity. 

Deacon Peter Bujwid
St. Agnes Church
Arlington, MA
March 5, 2025