Whoever Loses His Life…
Fifth Sunday of Lent B

Frank Enderle
Reproduced with Permission
www.homilias.net

The Readings of these last few Sundays of Lent bring us nearer to the commemoration of the greatest event of our faith: the Resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. While Easter is rapidly approaching, we are not there yet. During these days, we should meditate on what the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross means. Jesus died to save humanity from sin yet sin continues to plague society. As long as selfishness, intolerance and sinful pride exist, Holy Week and Easter cannot become a reality for humanity. Until we overcome these sins, the holiest of days for Christianity my end up being just a few days of empty rites without true meaning, without a spiritual foundation.

When we allow ourselves to think about it we come to the conclusion that the human race has not changed much since Jesus’ times. We are like the Pharisees of the Lord’s times. We continue to harbor ill feelings towards those who do good. We dislike those who do not do what we want them to do. We don’t even have the sincerity and the kindness to be happy when someone else is successful, to smile with someone who is always smiling, to congratulate someone who is lucky. Nor have we learned to cry with those who cry. It is a risk for us to feel the pain of a brother or sister in need. We don’t want to get involved in his or her life. “Those are their problems!” we say and we move along with our own life. We lack the Easter faith that transfigures us, that changes us into true followers of Christ. The human race continues in the same vicious cycle. The Paschal invitation to truly believe in the words of the Risen Lord goes over our heads. We don’t know how to escape the attitude of the Pharisees, not even during Holy Week.

I have to admit that carrying our Cross and helping others to carry theirs is not very attractive. We want to skip over the problems and the sorrows of life and head directly to the glory and happiness of heaven. By holding on to this attitude, we continue to show that for us the Messiah has not come, that His “hour” has not had an impact on our lives. We don’t fully understand that whoever accepts Christ’s message has to journey through life struggling against all of its dangers.

Saint John, in the Gospel Reading today, indicates that Jesus already knew what would take place during that first Holy Week during which He would be handed over and crucified. Yet, even though He must have suffered terrible anguish, He held firm to His decision to continue on the road that ultimately lead to His death. In the Garden of Gethsemane His anguish was so great that He sweated drops of blood. There are those who think that since Christ is God all of His suffering was only symbolic, that He did not experience it. Thinking in this way does not fit in with reality. In His human nature, Jesus had all of the weaknesses that we have, except for one: sin. The Gospel Reading tells us that while Jesus knew that He had to continue on with His mission, His soul was troubled by what He knew was coming. Even so, showing strength of character and integrity, He continued to pray and glorify the Father. He was determined to carry out the task that He had received: to save each and every one of us from sin.

Our faith shows us that if we want to dedicate ourselves totally to Christ we have to make a firm commitment to follow Him no matter what the consequences are. By dying to ourselves and our own petty selfishness and pride, we allow the grain of wheat that is our spiritual life to grow and give fruit. By overcoming the Pharisee in us, we allow the Apostle to come forth. Our Gospel Reading tells us what we need to do to allow this to happen in our life: whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.

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