David was the king of Israel, yet, he allowed himself to stray very far off course away from his faithfulness to God. He not only committed adultery with another man’s wife, but he ordered the woman’s husband to be killed in battle to get rid of him. David replaced his faith in God with pride, arrogance, and greed. He was not able to see the wrong he had done until God sent Nathan the prophet to open his eyes. The psalm that we hear today is a prayer of repentance that David prays to God: Create a clean heart in me, O God. Like David, we often cannot see our sins until God enlightens our hearts and opens our eyes. We can be blinded by anger, selfishness, self-righteousness, pride, and stubbornness.
We have been looking at the sacrament of reconciliation these weeks of Lent, a great sacrament of healing, repentance, and mercy. We encounter God’s healing presence in this sacrament in a special way. In this psalm which we hear today, David plead’s with God to have mercy on him, for God in his immense goodness to reach out to him. In God’s mercy, he pursues us, he invites us, and he seeks us out. Even David’s acts of murder and adultery did not keep God from seeking him out. In our contrition and in our repentance, God’s love and mercy are there to touch our hearts in a special way. At the end of the psalm, David promises that if God forgives him, he will do his best to lead others to God. Thus, in response to God’s compassion and mercy, David desires to serve and care for others. This is a response that is pleasing to God.
We hear this psalm of repentance, conversion, transformation, and mercy as we get closer to the end of our Lenten journey, as next week we will commemorate Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. In the Gospel today, some Greeks, probably Greek converts to Judaism, approach Philip. They tell Philip that they want to see Jesus. Jesus gives a rather enigmatic answer to this request, telling them, that “unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest." The grain is transformed into something new: into roots, leaves, and fruit. It is interesting: these Greeks wanting to see Jesus. To see him, we just don’t look at him out of a whim or out of curiosity. To see Jesus, we enter into his way of thinking. We enter into his passion. We enter into his journey to the cross. We enter into his transformation. Like the grain of wheat that is transformed into something new, Jesus lets go of everything in order to bring new life to himself and to his disciples. Through this process, Jesus is transformed and we are transformed. If we cannot recognize Jesus' transformation through his passion, death, and resurrection, then we do not really see him, then we really do not really know him. But Jesus goes on to tell us, that if we cling to our lives, then we lose them. If we are willing to let go, then we can truly embrace life. We must be willing to walk with Jesus, accompanying him on his journey to Calvary. This journey will be different for each person in the reality of his life.
I remember going through the RCIA program at St Norbert Catholic Church, in Orange, California. Tere Davalos, one of my mom’s best friends, was my sponsor. Tere lives in Texas now and frequently watches our Masses on Facebook Live. One of the things I loved during the year I was in RCIA was praying the stations of the cross each Friday evening at the parish. I have really enjoyed praying our new outdoor stations of the cross each Friday here at the parish. So much has gone on this year with the pandemic. So much of what we do has been turned upside down. Last year, with us celebrating a lot of Lent and the entirety of Holy Week. Many of us feel like we have been carrying a lot of crosses this past year. What I love about the stations of the cross, is that our prayers in the stations not only accompany Jesus on his journey, but they lay out the context of Lent for us and help us to examine ourselves and acknowledge the crosses in our own life as well as our sinfulness. We prayed Everyone’s stations of the cross last Friday evening, written by Clarence Enzler. That version of the stations of the cross looks at home journey intersects with our daily lives: at the workplace, doing chores at home, interacting with our family and friends, forgiving that who have offended us. A parishioner of mine from a parish where I served as pastor told me that she had printed out a page from that stations of the cross written by Enzler and had it tacked up by her cubicle at work. She said that the message of that station of the cross so spoke to her in the reality of her journey. And that is what our faith is supposed to do. It is to speak to us on our journey, not just be so abstract thought or a theory or a philosophy that sounds good to us and does not have relevance to our lived reality. Jesus’ message today and his journey to the cross are to touch our lives in a real way.
As we heard of King David’s repentance from his sins in today’s psalm, as we hear Jesus give a response who those who wish to know more about him, may we think about how we can come to terms with all we have gone through in the past year of the pandemic and the crosses and sufferings we have to bear with these last days of Lent and the commemoration of Holy Week. Let us accept Jesus’ invitation to enter into his transformation and his reality.
