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Our Sunday Reflection - March 3, 2024
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"Lord, you have the words of everlasting life."
Psalm 19
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Introduction to the Liturgy of the Day
Today we hear God deliver the ten commandments to Moses and the Chosen People. The commandments provide a way for them to live up to their part of the covenant. We face the same challenge today. Lent is a wonderful opportunity to examine our consciences and recall times when we have failed to follow one of God’s commands and determine which commandments we find difficult to obey consistently. Particularly during this penitential season, let us repent of our sins, reconcile with God and those we’ve wronged, and pray for the grace to do better.Introduction to the Liturgy of the Word
Today’s readings are very familiar. We hear the ten commandments, which we probably memorized as children. In the Gospel, Jesus drives the money changers out of the temple, overturning their tables and spilling their coins. Let us challenge ourselves to listen to these words today as if God is personally speaking to us, telling us how to live and reminding us of the purpose of worship. With Easter less than a month away now, let us take to heart the words of the psalmist: “Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.”Reflections
- Note that Jesus does not say that he would rebuild the temple in three days. He says “I will raise it up” (John 2:19). But rebuilding is what his audience pictures, so they are understandably incredulous. Jesus, however, is referring to the temple of his body, and it indeed will be raised up three days after it is destroyed. During Lent we may try to rebuild our own lives. We may choose to rebuild it around the practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. We may rebuild it through penitence, reconciliation, and changed behavior. But our ultimate hope is that God will raise up our lives and the lives of all who look to Christ crucified and raised up.
- The covenant that led to the ten commandments is not one based on force or coercion. If it was, it would have been broken immediately and repeatedly, as the Chosen People broke commandments left and right even before reaching the promised land. As we do ourselves. But the covenant God made with the human race is based on love, the infinite love that allows God to sustain the repeatedly and seriously broken covenant, the infinite love that led God to send the Son for our salvation, the infinite love that allows us to trust in God’s ultimate mercy.
- God loves us to the point of forever inviting us to reconciliation. God has nothing to gain by showering us with mercy. We are offered an eternal gift without having anything commensurate in value to give in return. But we can pay forward instead. We can offer what we are able to those who are in no position to pay us back. In doing so, we imitate God’s generosity; we imitate God’s love-based covenant.
Question of the Week
Who can I invite to reconcile with? How can I view my relationships based more on love than on reciprocation? How does that affect how I act?
-from Pastoral Patterns
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readings of the mass
LISTEN HERE to the Audio Recordings of the Readings of Sunday, March 3, 2024
SELECT HERE for the Readings of Sunday, March 3, 2024
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Offerings
The Sunday offerings are a portion of our blessings that we give to God (Church) in gratitude to what God has done for us...ONLINE GIVING OPTIONS -
Reflections on the readings
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News from the Vatican
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yesterdayFaced with United States President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, Pope Francis has published a letter chastising the policy and calling faithful and politicians alike to care for the poor and... -
yesterdayPope Francis sent a message to a United Nations gathering on Indigenous Peoples, stressing the need to preserve their cultural identity and protect the natural resources at the heart of their way of... -
2 days agoPope Francis’s point-man on migration and development has urged the Trump administration to remember Christian principles about caring for others, saying people are being “terrorized” by the U.S...
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