Sunday 24th March 2019
THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT 2019
Masses 8.30am 10.15am 6pm
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Evening Mass of the Annunciation Monday7.30pm
Thursday 28th March Evening Mass 7.30pm in the Ordinariate Use
Thursday 28th March Evening Mass 7.30pm in the Ordinariate Use
NB: FIRST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH
SUNG ORDINARIATE USE MASS 12 NOON
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Psalm 103:1–4, 6–8, 11
1 Corinthians 10:1–6, 10–12
Luke 13:1–9
Fruits of the Fig:
Scott Hahn Reflects on the
Third Sunday of Lent
Exodus 3:1–8, 13–15Psalm 103:1–4, 6–8, 11
1 Corinthians 10:1–6, 10–12
Luke 13:1–9
In the Church, we are made children of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob—the God who makes known His name and His ways to Moses in today’s
First Reading.
Mindful of His covenant with Abraham (see Exodus 2:24), God came down to rescue His people from the slave drivers of Egypt. Faithful to that same covenant (see Luke 1:54–55, 72–73), He sent Jesus to redeem all lives from destruction, as today’s Psalm tells us.
Paul says in today’s Epistle that God’s saving deeds in the Exodus
were written down for the Church, intended as a prelude and
foreshadowing of our own Baptism by water, our liberation from sin, our
feeding with spiritual food and drink.
Yet the events of the Exodus were also given as a “warning”—that
being children of Abraham is no guarantee that we will reach the
promised land of our salvation.
At any moment, Jesus warns in today’s Gospel, we could perish—not as
God’s punishment for being “greater sinners”—but because, like the
Israelites in the wilderness, we stumble into evil desires, fall into
grumbling, forget all His benefits.
Jesus calls us today to “repentance”—not a one-time change of heart,
but an ongoing, daily transformation of our lives. We’re called to live
the life we sing about in today’s Psalm—blessing His holy name, giving
thanks for His kindness and mercy.
The fig tree in His parable is a familiar Old Testament symbol for Israel (see Jeremiah 8:3; 24:1–10).
As the fig tree is given one last season to produce fruit before it is
cut down, so too Jesus is giving Israel one final opportunity to bear
good fruits as evidence of its repentance (see Luke 3:8).
Lent should be for us like the season of reprieve given to the fig
tree, a grace period in which we let “the gardener,” Christ, cultivate
our hearts, uprooting what chokes the divine life in us, strengthening
us to bear fruits that will last into eternity.
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