Dear Parishioners and Friends,
I am very pleased to welcome Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne as he visits our parish this weekend and leads us in our worship on this Fourth Sunday in Lent – Laetare Sunday, as it has been traditionally called. Like Gaudete Sunday in Advent, this name comes from the Entrance Chant (or Introit) in Latin: Laetare Ierusalem, et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam. (“Rejoice, Jerusalem, and gather around, all you who love her”).
This sense of rejoicing for Jerusalem is tempered with sorrow and shame as we hear in the first reading from the second book of Chronicles about the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE and Israel’s subsequent exile in Babylon. Psalm 137 echoes the longing for their return to their homeland as it is expressed in the refrain “Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you!” After King Cyrus of Persia had conquered the Babylonians in 539 BCE, he issued a decree which permitted the Israelites to return to their homeland.
The reading from Chronicles makes it clear that the people of Judea had failed to heed the message of the prophets to turn back to God from their sinfulness. The reading also alludes to the fact that Jerusalem’s capture was the result of the sins of the people and their leaders. This always makes us wonder if the bad things that happen to nations and individuals are a punishment by God.
While it is certainly tempting to think along those lines, we hear something quite different in the New Testament readings today. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he writes: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions…” In the Gospel, as Jesus speaks with Nicodemus, he says that we condemn ourselves if we refuse to accept the light and love that God wishes for us to receive. But God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, and that the world might be saved through him.
I love how St. Paul speaks of us as God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works. But too often, people forget that; and as Jesus says in the Gospel: “The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”
There is no question that there is much evil in our world today; just look around our world and country and see how much evil there is: wars between Russia and Ukraine and Hamas and Israel; civil unrest in Haiti; deep and hate-filled divisions within the United States, especially in the treatment of migrants; the list goes on.
Yet, in all of this there is hope and glimmers of light because Christians who take their faith seriously want to address some of these evils head on. “But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God,” Jesus tells us.
Each of us can do our part, however small, to bring light and truth, justice and peace into our world and nation. Take for example, the petition that our Sister Parish Committee is asking us to sign next weekend, asking our Connecticut Senators to do whatever is needed to bring a bill to a vote in the U.S. Senate that would curtail the ability of gangs in Haiti to obtain money and weapons from the U.S. So, please plan to stop before you leave the church next weekend to sign the petition, and hopefully, bring a ray of light and hope to the suffering people of Haiti.
Blessings on your week ahead!
Fr. Tim Shreenan, O.F.M., Pastor
The 2024 Archbishop’s Annual Appeal
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