HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF LENT, LITURGICAL CALENDAR YEAR B

HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF LENT, LITURGICAL CALENDAR YEAR B

BY: Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA

READINGS OF THE DAY
Dan13:1-9,15-17,19-30,33-62.
2nd Cor Co6:2.
John 8:1-11

LITURGICAL COLOUR
PURPLE/VIOLET

INTRODUCTION
Good Evening my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent, Liturgical Calendar Year B.

FROM OUR FIRST READING
In our first reading today, we heard of the story of Susanna, the wife of a wealthy Jewish man in Babylon, during the time of the exile of the people of God in that land after the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah. We heard how two of the elders from the community of the exiled Israelites there grew to lust upon Susanna when they saw her bathing in her estate’s garden, and tried to force themselves upon her. When they could not get what they wanted, they tried to silence her and bring about false accusations upon her so that she would be punished and sentenced to death, which would therefore prevent their wickedness and their evils from being discovered, abusing their status and authority to serve their own selfish purposes.

FROM OUR GOSPEL READING
There are three characters in this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus, the woman and a group of male experts in the Jewish Law. The group of men brought the woman to Jesus to test him. They were using her against him. It was Jesus who was in their sights rather than the woman whom they claimed was caught in the act of adultery. They were of the view that if Jesus was to be faithful to God’s Law, he should condemn the woman. If he didn’t condemn her it would confirm their view of Jesus as someone who broke God’s Law and was, therefore, a sinner. Jesus did not fall into their trap. He gave himself time by writing distractingly on the ground with his finger. When the group persisted, Jesus issued that striking challenge, ‘if there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her’. They had brought the woman to Jesus as a sinner; they were of the view that Jesus himself was a sinner. Now Jesus faces them with the reality of their own sin. Their walking away was their acknowledgement that there was no one among them who had not sinned.

CONCLUSION
We are all sinners; we just sin in different ways. We can never set ourselves up as the moral superior of others. Jesus did not condemn the woman. Yet, he did call her to live in a new way, ‘go away, and don’t sin any more’. Earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus said, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’. The Lord’s instinct is not to condemn but to call us and empower us to take a path which will lead us to a share in God’s own life, both now in this earthly life and in eternity.

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