Do We KNOW MORE...but BELIEVE LESS?

Do we KNOW MORE...

... but BELIEVE LESS?

Are we more in the dark...

than we think?

March 18 - 4th Sunday in Lent

A general theme of this Sunday's liturgy is the struggle between light and darkness in which the Son of God, sent by His Father's love for us, intervenes decisively.

The First Reading gives us plenty of darkness and no light if you except the fires set by the enemies of Jerusalem as they consume the Temple, demolish the walls and destroy the palaces and everything else of value. The enemies (Babylonians) were really agents of a very angry God Who had looked on with dismay as priests and people engaged in "shameful practices." Many residents of the devastated city were taken into exile in Babylon and remained there for upwards of seventy years.

Faced with this picture of desolation, we are not surprised that the Responsorial Psalm is one of the most downbeat in the entire liturgy - if not, it is certainly up there with the "downs."

Another quote from St. Paul in the Second Reading which ties in with the others? Well, yes, but somewhat indirectly. St. Paul underlines the supreme - though not always appreciated - value of the Passion and Death of Christ (and this is hinted at in the Gospel). We could also perhaps say that if we have the cross in our own lives in the sense of conforming honestly but with some difficulty to God's rules, then we have in this Reading a certain parallel with the First Reading. In any case , parallel or not, the thought is basic: "those who have been called " (and we people have been called twice, in our Baptism and in our Profession ) know where their true interests lie.

The  Gospel, which otherwise has little to  do  with either Reading,   is  instead  very  relevant  in  terms   of the  Lord's upcoming death but  even more  in terms  of his  upcoming Resurrection: " Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" These very words will be used to nail down his conviction when he is on trial for his life.    But, we might add, even if he had explained, as John explains, that he was talking about his
resurrected body . . . would that have made any difference? The Evangelist concludes this Gospel passage with the significant lines: " many believed in his name when they saw the signs   he gave", but Jesus was not interested then (and is not interested now) in a faith founded on signs and remarkable manifestations.
For us today the Lord has suffered and died and risen and is living and active in the Eucharist and the Gospel. Do we believe this today? Did we believe it in former times? It's a good question and even an embarrassing one: perhaps in the past we believed more though we actually knew less; today the danger is
to know more but to believe less. The atmosphere of mystery has disappeared from our religious lives and we may well feel that nothing has come to substitute it.

~March 2012 Concord