3rd Sunday of Lent Year A Homily (1st Scrutiny)

I welcome those in our RCIA program, especially our catechumens, to this Mass where today we celebrate the first scrutiny. The scrutinies are broken into three parts and were implemented into our liturgy in order to help the unbaptized prepare themselves for what they will experience at the Easter Vigil when they will come to be baptized.

As a community of faith we should be praying for these individuals who are in our RCIA class. In their heart they have a fervent desire to be admitted to the sacraments. Many of us here have partaken of the sacraments on many occasions and thus we might of allowed them to become something that we just go through the motions of. Hopefully, their fervent desire will help us to reevaluate the sacrament’s role in our life. What we receive through the sacraments is very important and in no way are the sacraments some mundane act.

During the scrutinies we are to use cycle A of the lectionary. At the first scrutiny we always hear the story of the woman at the well and how through her encounter with Christ she came to acknowledge her sinfulness and thus was moved toward the water of life. Our reading from Exodus displays this longing for water because water sustains life. In the hearts of our catechumens is this same longing to be received into the waters of baptism. 

None of us here are perfect, but through baptism we have been conformed to Christ in a special way. May we continue to pray for these catechumens as they come to approach the waters of baptism. May we as a community of faith come to acknowledge our own baptism and thus try to order our life accordingly after such a life giving encounter, which is Christ.