02.16.12~Readings for Sunday, Feb 26th-2012

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FEBRUARY 26, 2012

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First Sunday of Lent
Lectionary: 23
READING 1 GN 9:8-15
God said to Noah and to his sons with him:
"See, I am now establishing my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
and with every living creature that was with you:
all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals
that were with you and came out of the ark.
I will establish my covenant with you,
that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed
by the waters of a flood;
there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth."
God added:
"This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come,
of the covenant between me and you
and every living creature with you:
I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign
of the covenant between me and the earth.
When I bring clouds over the earth,
and the bow appears in the clouds,
I will recall the covenant I have made
between me and you and all living beings,
so that the waters shall never again become a flood
to destroy all mortal beings."
RESPONSORIAL PSALM PS 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9.
R. (cf. 10) Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my savior.
R. Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
and your love are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
because of your goodness, O LORD.
R. Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
Good and upright is the LORD,
thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
and he teaches the humble his way.
R. Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
READING 2 1 PT 3:18-22
Beloved:
Christ suffered for sins once,
the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous,
that he might lead you to God.
Put to death in the flesh,
he was brought to life in the Spirit.
In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison,
who had once been disobedient
while God patiently waited in the days of Noah
during the building of the ark,
in which a few persons, eight in all,
were saved through water.
This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.
It is not a removal of dirt from the body
but an appeal to God for a clear conscience,
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God,
with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
GOSPEL MK 1:12-15
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him.

After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
"This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel."


SUNDAY READINGS - 1st Sunday of Lent
FIRST RFADING: Genesis 9: 8-15. God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh."
EXPLANATION: The story of the Flood given in Genesis, chapters 6-8. is part of pre-history. It is similar in many respects to other mid-eastern accounts of a like catastrophe, but the biblical version is strictly monotheistic and the cause of the catastrophe is the sinfulness of men which compels God to re-purify the human race. The pagan stories of the Flood attribute it to jealousies and disagreement among the many gods---there is no moral lesson to be learned from this catastrophe. In the Genesis account, all men (in the region where the delude occurred) were destroyed, except Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. These were preserved by God because of Noah's innocent way of life, and were now to carry on the knowledge of God down to Abraham's day.
Noah offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God for having spared him and his family. God accepted the sacrifice and promised Noah that he would never again punish the whole earth because of man's sins. He made a covenant or pact with Noah in which this promise was enshrined.
covenant with you: A covenant is usually between two parties. Here it is unilateral. God promises to spare mankind in future even if men are sinful.
every...creature: According to the deluge story, the waters destroyed all living creatures except those that were in the Ark with Noah. In future, all creatures will share in the promise of security that God is giving to Noah and, through him, to all men for all time.
never...flood: This was the substance of the covenant.
my bow...cloud: In future the rainbow would be a sigil a reminder of this promise. The rainbow, a natural phenomenon, was always there in certain cloud formations, but henceforward it would remind both God ("I will remember my covenant") and man of the covenant.
water...all flesh: There would never again be a universal flood, to destroy all flesh as this deluge is supposed to have done.
APPLICATION: The holy season of Lent began last Wednesday. It should be a season of penance, during which we look into our hearts, and see how ungrateful, how mean we have, been to our loving God, and having seen our meanness, try to make some atonement for our past ingratitude. The lesson from Genesis that we have just read reminds us of these two facts: man's disobedience and disloyalty to the divine Benefactor who made man and gave him all the gifts of body and mind which he has, and on the other hand the magnanimity, the infinite forgiving mercy of God who puts up with his creatures, who not only forget him but who positively offend and insult him.
The deluge story was intended to show this divine mercy. Men had become so wicked and so sinful that God decided to wipe them off his universe. Yet he decided to spare one innocent family from whom the human race could grow and spread once more. This he did by getting Noah to build the Ark. When the deluge had ended and Noah had offered his thanksgiving sacrifice, God made a pact with the human race through Noah, a covenant in which he solemnly promised never again to send a similar flood on this earth.
God in his mercy gave the human race a second chance. We are here on earth today because of this divine mercy and we have his guarantee, his covenant, to assure us that we will not be struck down suddenly because of our sins. But the fact that God does not want the sinner to die in his sins should never be an excuse for a continuation in sin but rather a motive, an inspiration to the sinner to return to his loving Father. While God does not will the death of a sinner in his sins, but rather that he be converted and live, every sinner knows that death may be around the comer at any moment and if it finds him in sin, it will not be God's fault but his own. There is only one guarantee we can give ourselves of dying in God's friendship and that is: to live always in God's friendship.
Now, in this covenant that God made with all of us through Noah, all the giving was done by God himself. It was a unilateral, magnanimous covenant on the part of God. He did not demand promises from Noah in return, but yet from the very nature of the case such promises were expected of Noah and of us too. If God is ready to forgive man his sins, it follows that men must ask for that forgiveness. To ask for forgiveness implies and includes the intention of turning away from sin.
Lent is the special occasion for all Christians to turn away from sin and to do penance for all of their past offenses against God. We can fulfill our part of that pact that God made with Noah, by resolving to be faithful in future. Thus we can ensure that we shall not be cut off in our sins, as all those drowned in the deluge were, but that we shall die, as we were living, in God's friendship. You may have another Lent next year in which to repeat this resolution and you may not, but if you make it with all sincerity now and live up to it, you are giving yourself a guarantee that when death calls you, you will be found in God's friendship.
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SECOND READING: 1 Peter 3:18-22. Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
EXPLANATION: In the passage from which these five verses are taken, St. Peter is exhorting the newly converted Christians to live according to the Christian faith, no matter what trials they may have to endure because of it. In many places Christians were being persecuted by Gentiles and Jews because of their new faith. They should accept and bear these persecutions willingly, for they know they are not guilty of any crime except that of honoring the true God and his Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore "to suffer for being good you will count as a blessing" (3:4). Peter sets before them the example of the Innocent Christ who was put to death and who accepted his sufferings and torments for our sakes, for our sins. Through his death we have eternal life available to us. We are saved through the waters of baptism (which cleanses us of sin and makes us one with Christ) just as Noah and his family were saved at the time of the deluge.
Christ...for all: Because Christ was God in human nature, the atonement his death made to God was good for all time and for all the sins of all men.
righteous: Christ was innocence itself, but he took on himself the sin of the world; he made himself a sin-sacrifice for us.
bring us to God: This was the divine purpose of the incarnation: to make all men adopted sons of God and worthy of heaven if they die in the state of grace.
made alive...spirit: Christ died on the cross but God raised him from the dead in a glorified body which could never again die.
preached...not obey: Peter now refers to the deluge and Noah, for he saw in the waters of the flood, the life-giving waters of baptism. The spirits who did not obey are very probably the "sons of God," the rebellious angels who, according to the deluge story, were the principal cause of the sinfulness which caused the deluge (Gen. 6: 1-4). When Christ had triumphed over death and sin he announced this victory to these rebellious angels who were henceforth subjected to him.
God's patience waited: The long interval between God's resolve to send a deluge (Gn. 6 : 7) and the beginning of the flood (Gn. 7: 11), was an opportunity given the sinners to repent, but they did not.
few...persons: The few is stressed probably to show the similarity with the Christian Church at this time. The number of Christians in relation to the pagan population, was relatively very small.
baptism corresponds: Peter compares the waters of the deluge to the waters of baptism. As Noah was saved in or from the deluge, so Christians are saved in the baptismal water.
not...dirt: Probably a reference to circumcision, but it can also mean: the washing in baptism is not for a cleansing of the body but a cleansing, a new form of life for the baptized.
appeal...conscience: "A pledge" would seem to be a better translation here (as in J.B.). The baptized pledges himself to live according to the new life which faith in the resurrection of Christ promises him.
gone into heaven: Christ the man-God now in his glorified body is in heaven, in the next place of honor after the Father, "at the right hand of God."
angels...powers: The reference is to the disobedient spirits, the evil powers, who are now forever subjected to the glorified Christ. In causing his death they brought about their own undoing (see Phil. 2:10; Rom. 8: 38; Col. 2: 10-15, et passim in St. Paul).
APPLICATION: "Christ died for sins," for our sins. This is the thought which should dominate every true Christian's mind always, but especially during this Lenten season. The climax and culmination of these forty days during which we are constantly reminded of all God has done for us, comes on Good Friday with the commemoration of the excruciating death of our Savior on the cross. If only men would let the true significance of Good Friday sink into their minds, sin would disappear from our world, true love of God and neighbor would take over. Think of it; God so loved "the world" that is, us that he sent his only begotten Son, to suffer and die in our stead. The Son of God, the Creator and Lord of the universe became man, became one of us, so that he could take our sins on himself and nail them, with himself, to the cross. The innocent Lamb of God elected to take the whole load of all the sins and infidelities of all of us "lost sheep," on his own back, so that we could be set free.
Five centuries before that first Good Friday the prophet described the humiliations and sufferings of him who was to come: "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . . . he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities . . . and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray . . . and the Lord has laid on him the iniquitity of us all. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter . . . he opened not his mouth. They made his grave with the wicked although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him . . . he offers his life in atonement" (Is. 53: 3-10). Here we have the first twelve Stations of the Cross described in words, more poignant than any painter ever succeeded in depicting them, for the prophet puts before our minds that it was for us that Jesus suffered his tortures. St. Peter reminds us today to meditate, to think seriously, on this almost incredible act of divine love for us, which moved God to send his own Son on earth as man, to suffer and die so that we might have true, everlasting life. Our finite minds can make no attempt to grasp this mystery of God's love for us, but we have before our eyes, in words and in picture, the terribly real sufferings of the human Jesus. We know the reason for his sufferings, our very real sins. This we can grasp and it is on this we should act. The future life in heaven which God has planned for us from all eternity, must be for us a good so great, so exalted that it is worth all the sufferings and humiliations his incarnate Son had to endure. Surely, then, we should gladly and willingly co-operate with God in procuring for ourselves this marvelous future life.
We are Christians. We have been put on the road to heaven by the reception of baptism. We shall get there if we follow Christ as closely as we can during our time on earth. Noah and his family were saved in the deluge because they listened to God's advice and built their Ark. We are being advised today by the inspired writers of the Old and New Testaments to spend this Lent well to turn away from sin, to do daily some little acts of mortification, to meditate often on the one and only thing that really matters---our attainment of that union with God which is so important that the Son of God suffered and died so that we could have it everlastingly.
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GOSPEL: Mark 1: 12-15. The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."
EXPLANATION: The reason why the first two verses of this short extract from Mark are chosen for the First Sunday of Lent is obvious. The Church appointed for us a lent of forty days of penance and of war against our evil inclinations in imitation of the forty days of struggle which Christ waged in a desert place (which implies mortification) against Satan, the recognized leader of the forces of evil. Mark does not mention that Christ fasted for the forty days and nights but the "desert" seems to imply this; nor does he specify the various "temptations" as Matthew and Luke do. But his very brief account clearly implies that Satan lost in the struggle or rather that Satan was made to realize that this Jesus was the Messiah who would eventually conquer him and his assistant evil spirits. The mention of his being among wild beasts who did not harm him, and also of the angels coming to minister to him, most probably meant to Mark that in this first encounter, Jesus had reversed Adam's defeat and had begun the process of restoring Paradise. Having briefly described Christ's victory, the Evangelist then goes on in the next two verses to outline the public ministry in Galilee where according to the Synoptics, most of Christ's public life was spent. Verse fifteen gives the essence of Christ's preaching in a very brief summary.
Spirit...wilderness: The Holy Spirit which descended on Jesus when he was baptized in the Jordan, moved him to join battle with Satan in the desert. The word "drove" seems to imply some compulsion, but Matthew and Luke in parallel places use the word "led."
forty days: Moses before receiving the Old Law on Mount Sinai fasted for forty days (Ex. 34: 28); Elijah, the first of the great prophets, sent to Israel, fasted for forty days on his journey to Mount Horeb (1 Kgs. 19: 5), so Christ also, the law giver of the New Covenant, the Prophet of God's mercy and love, spent forty days in the wilderness before beginning his mission of redemption.
tempted by Satan: The current belief of the Jews was that the Messiah would put an end to the sway of evil which had prevailed over good since sin entered the world. Satan was the name for the leader of the forces of evil---the enemies of God and of the good. Jesus, proclaimed Messiah at the Jordan, was moved by the Holy Spirit immediately to open his campaign of conquest. He did so and Satan's kingdom began to totter. Satan could still win some local battles but his day of tyranny over men was ended when Christ came.
wild beast...angels: Harmony between all creatures was a sign of the messianic age (see Is. 11: 6; Hos. 2: 18; Ez. 34: 25-28) and the ministering angels would imply that the gates of Paradise were about to reopen---"the cherubim with flaming swords" have become the assistants of the Messiah (see Gn. 3: 24).
after John was arrested: It was only when the Precursor, the herald of the Messiah, had left the stage that Christ began his final battle with the powers of evil.
the gospel of God: The good news of God's eternal plan for the elevation and the redemption of mankind.
the time is fulfilled: The moment of the coming of Christ, the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth---a kingdom which would end in heaven---had been decreed by God from all eternity. It is now here, Christ tells the people of Galilee.
repent...gospel: The first necessary step was to turn from sin and return to God, to change one's outlook on life and one's conduct (see Joel 2: 12). Having turned from sin to God it will be easier for men to accept the good news of God's plan for them.
APPLICATION: The very thought of our divine Lord's suffering hunger, loneliness, and humiliation at the hands of his enemy---and that all this was for us---should make us feel ashamed at the little bits of suffering and humiliation we are willing to suffer for our own selves. He had no sin to atone for. He was making atonement for us and for our sins. He was the Son of God and his home was heaven, but he left it for a while to assume human nature, so that he could through his humiliations and sufferings bring us to share his eternal home with him. What is the thanks he gets from us? Ingratitude, forgetfulness, and even worse: insults and disobedience.
While the Church has eased the strict fastings and penances of Lent, we are still expected to do some private fasting and penance. It need not be fasting from food, but we can all do some daily penance which will help to keep our unruly minds and bodies in check while at the same time it will show that we are grateful to our loving Savior for all that he suffered for us. A few extra prayers each day, control of our temper in the home, less talk and especially less uncharitable talk among our neighbors, a little helping hand to a neighbor in need, a fervent prayer and where we can spare it (perhaps by doing without some luxury) a donation toward helping the starving millions in other lands. The sincere Christian will find a hundred such ways in which to thank and honor Christ during this holy season of Lent. We can all keep the last verse of today's reading before our minds with great profit. "Repent and believe in the gospel." This is the essence, the marrow, of Christ's teaching. Turn away from sin and come back to God. Anyone who believes in the gospel, who believes that there is an everlasting life after death prepared by God for all those who do his will while on earth, should not find it hard to give up offending that loving God who thinks so much of him. This life is only a passing shadow, every step we take, every breath we breathe is bringing us nearer to our earthly end and to the grave. But the believing Christian knows the grave is not the end. Rather, is it the beginning of the true life---provided we use this passing shadow, these few years, properly.
Now is the time to take these words of Christ to heart. He is asking each one of us today, to repent and to believe the gospel, that is, to act according to its teaching. Christ, in his mercy, will make this appeal to men again and again, but will we be here to hear it? If we answer his appeal now and start living our Christian faith in all sincerity, we need not care when death calls us. It will find us ready to pass over to the future, happy, unending life.b115
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