Jer. 31:31-34; Ps: 51:3-4, 12-15; Heb. 5:7-9; Jn.12:20-33
Prayers and supplications create a clean heart to know the Lord and “cleanse us from our sin”. Jesus the Christ offered prayers and supplications with “loud cries and tears” in his troubled heart and he “learned obedience from what he suffered”. Suffering is a great teacher. It reminds us of our mortality, it brings about a need for “other” recognizing we cannot do it alone. It humbles in order to learn something greater outside of ourselves. Suffering may even be a gift of grace from God to unite us to his suffering when we offer it up to him for a greater good.
Suffering to the world is an evil against self-indulgence. It prevents us from the freedom of our human inclinations to do more, have more, risk more. Without suffering we would continue our habits not realizing the harm our actions may be causing. Suffering has a purpose for the soul just as pain has a purpose for the body. The pain of a fever serves as a messenger in the natural law warning us something is attacking our body and we must act before it becomes worse. Suffering is a messenger to the soul as a call to action, a call to prayers and supplications and a call to learn obedience to the natural and spiritual laws of God.
In one of the gospel readings from this past week from the book of John, chapter 5 there was a man who had been “ill for thirty-eight years” at the “Sheep Gate” by the “pool called in Hebrew Bethesda”. It reads, “When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be well?’” Imagine what kind of a question is this for someone who has been ill thirty-eight years waiting in hopes of getting into a pool believed to bring healing to the sick. I picture today going to the waters of Lourdes, seeing the long lines of people waiting to get into the water that started with the appearance of our Blessed Mother in Lourdes to Bernadette and her digging with her hands to drink of the water coming out of the dirt that today brings millions from around the world in pilgrimage.
Is Jesus asking a rhetorical question or does he mean what he says and says what he means. When it comes to sin, do we want to be well? Have we become so normalized in our own sin that we don’t even see the sin in our lives and live with our suffering from sin separating the suffering from the source? Do we want to be well? In my work in the field of addictions half of the people who come to treatment are not seeking to “get well”. Many come with other motivations under pressure from family, the court, an employer. When it comes to “getting well” they are in a pre-contemplative state of motivation with no intent of stopping their favorite drug of choice. They want to continue their lifestyle and avoid the consequences of their actions. What is our “drug” that binds us in sickness and suffering? Is it money, work, power, control, greed, lust, food, alcohol, narcotics? We can turn anything into a “drug” of choice even a sinful relationship when we allow it to become our obsession.
Jesus heals the man by the pool and later tells him “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” What could be worse than thirty-eight years of lying on a mat in sickness unable to care for yourself? The answer is the death that comes from sin. While there is suffering and sickness there is hope of healing our mind, body and soul. Death from sin is hell. Jesus is asking us “Do you want to be well?” Prayers and supplications create a clean heart to clean us from our sin.
When we pray, do we believe we are being heard or are we left wondering does God hear our prayers? God hears our every word and thought coming from our reverence. It is sometimes said prayer is like “having a conversation with a friend”. Do we revere our friends, do we give them high respect by being transparently honest and lovingly compassionate? Then yes it can be like having a conversation with a friend. It can also lack in reverence when we want to make our point and have it our way with selective memory and self-justification. Then we are not giving reverence or being a friend. We have a friend in Jesus who calls us his friends meaning he gives us his great love. We must give him our reverence with deep devotion and love.
It is always interesting to me to see the reverence given to a funeral procession in silence as cars pull over to give respect to the dead but see an ambulance with its sirens blasting and nobody wants to slows down for the living. The Mass is a call for reverence to the mystery of faith, a profound love of Jesus before us. It is not the memory but the living presence of Jesus. Reverence is beyond simply respect for, it goes from veneration to worship and adore. We will venerate the cross on Good Friday for all it represents as a sign of our worship and adoration of Jesus Christ. Our reverence, that is our outward gestures give witness to our inward faith and God sees and listens to our prayers coming from the heart.
How is Jesus the God-man “made perfect” when God is perfect? It was through his obedience for the purpose he came into the world to be “lifted up from the earth” that is to be hung on a cross that he glorified the Father and was made perfect in obedience to the divine will. This is how we are to be made perfect when our cries and tears lead us to walk in faith knowing God has heard us and now, we must go forth trusting in his divine will to his promise to be with us until the end of the world. We are made perfect in obedience to his Word as the Holy Spirit speaks to our heart and mind. Our works that give glory and honor to God make perfect our faith.
In the celebration of the Mass our Lord is lifted up in the body and blood of the Eucharist having been made perfect for us to receive him in reverence with prayers and supplications. The Mass is a unity of prayer to glorify the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and our prayers are heard when our hearts are ready to receive his word. If our hearts are ready then his word becomes incarnated into our hearts as he promised “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts” and he will be our God. God is with us.
When we are troubled our prayer is often more of “save me from this hour”. Jesus prayer was “Father, glorify your name.” It is not about us. We are to serve a purpose in changing hearts, minds, and lives when we pray “Father, glorify your name”. These four words are an invitation that we may be made perfect transformed into a channel of grace through which the Lord wishes to reveal himself, his power and love. Jesus did not glory in being a victim but in the power of God so that “the ruler of this world will be driven out.” Today we are drawn to Jesus by the cross he suffered for us to serve the greater purpose of our call to holiness. That purpose begins with reverence.
Do we give each other the reverence of our love? Do we listen with deep respect to understand what is in each other’s hearts? Do we give ourselves the reverence of being created in the image of God in order to defend the sanctity of our own life? Without reverence we objectify ourselves and others as a means to an end. (V1) “O, honey!” (V2) “What do you want?” (V1) “Can you get me something?” (V2) “Why can’t you get it yourself?” Words matter! A home without reverence becomes a place of shared space, cold, indifferent, until the moment suffering becomes the uninvited guest. Then we recognize our need for the other. Imagine the heart of Jesus getting that response. It happens! When? When we treat others without reverence, we treat Jesus this way.
What about our children and the deep love and respect we give God by our love and respect for them? “They are only kids!” God says, “Let the children come to me.” When someone has power, we give honor to them for the power they have but when they no longer have power our respect wavers. We respect our parents as children and then we grow in rebellion seeking our own way and when they age no longer responsible for our care, do we return to give them the honor of our love and respect? Then, there is the poor, the sick, and the abandoned with no one to care for them worthy of our deep respect for their suffering. If not by the grace of God that may be us if not now someday “from the least to the greatest” shall know God. Reverence is always in season with God and so in honor.
“The Father will honor whoever serves me” says Jesus. We serve Jesus when we become the “grain of wheat” and die to ourselves to produce the fruit of love through sacrifice. It is not one death but a daily collection of deathly moments we endure as we sacrifice for each other. Age has a way of being the “wake-up call” that adds to the cross of suffering. As we age, we uncover new sources of pain from years that take their toll on the body and from the sin of our lives. I like to remind myself, “I go to bed feeling well and wake up to discover new aches and pain before I even face the cross of the day.”
As we age, we also gain a deeper understanding of our sin. We may suffer the memory of our past, the consequences we cannot change, the loss of relationship broken by neglect or abuse, even the death of being separated from God for some time. This is the time for our “cries and tears” for mercy to a compassionate God. This is the time to recover the joy of God’s salvation and come back stronger in faith with his spirit to sustain us. This is the power of one confession with a contrite spirit to cleanse us from our sin and set us free.
A clean heart is a heart of love, a heart of forgiveness, a heart born of mercy knowing that regardless of our past, our sin, and the grave of death we dug for ourselves our bodies will not lie in waste but are given new life and hope because the Lord says, “I have promised, and I will do it.”
The cross however does not have to be to suffer without meaning. The cross is to love with purpose and meaning even if it hurts. Love gives great joy to the heart to overcome suffering that our “cries and tears” may turn to joy and peace.
Lent is a call to healing with prayers and supplications. Jesus is waiting to cleanse us from our sin in the waters of baptism, in the confessional and he is in the Eucharist so we may receive a clean heart this day. Do we want to be well? Then come and offer your prayers and supplications to the Lord who makes all things new again.
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