Sunday, March 6, 2016

4th Sunday of Lent Homily (Extraordinary Form)

“Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.”

Today we celebrate Laetare Sunday and thus we are to rejoice with our understanding that Easter is coming soon.

Maybe our journey through Lent seems as if it is currently going nowhere, but may we instead see that it is leading us towards Easter. Maybe the trials which we endure leave us feeling as if there is no hope, but we are being led towards the final Easter which is yet to come.

In our Gospel Jesus looks upon the multitude and realizes their hunger. This hunger is not simply one of the necessity of bodily nourishment, but our Lord sees their need to be spiritually fed.

In this gathering around Christ they came bearing with them their hardships and in return our Lord desired that they be fed in order that they may truly be given a foretaste of what awaits them within the Heavenly Kingdom.

When we come forward to kneel and be fed by our Lord we are receiving this same reality into our life. 

He looks upon us in our needs and trials and gives us all that is necessary for us to endure.

With the assistance of our Lord we will not falter upon the path that we must trudge upon in our daily life.

If we are to allow our Lord to feed us for all eternity we must also come to trust in the healing grace which is poured out within the sacrament of confession. 

Our Epistle reminds us that it was bondage and fear which held us captive prior to Christ, but now we no longer have to be held captive to its weight.

Confession of our sins restores us to this reality and allows us to live freely in service to Christ and to His Holy Gospel.

 In a world which can be difficult may we swallow our pride and accept the mercy that Christ desires to bring into this world; into our life.

Christ sees us in our greatest need and desires that we be feed with the Eucharist. He sees us in the midst of temptation and shows us that there is another way.

In this way we will truly be prepared for the final Easter when we will be called to commune with God for all eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven.

For this reality may we now rejoice for this time is ever moving near.

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