The Days are Coming …
“This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
The artist Lewis Williams, a secular Franciscan, depicts the wildness of the Devil’s Backbone range, looking into Death Hollow, near Escalante, Utah in his impressionistic landscape, A Land in Need of Prophets. Williams’ painting has a somewhat narrow purpose: he seeks to summon prophetic voices to advocate for a wilderness threatened by destructive policy. And yet, the emptiness he depicts resonates with deeper themes of Scripture: “those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, for the early rains have covered it with pools of water…” (Psalm 85:6)
It is Passion Sunday: we’re fast descending into to the great climax of the Lenten season. We find here a terrible strength, much like the stark and dangerous beauty of the wilderness; the untamed possibility of an empty and untrammeled landscape. Hopeful but perplexed, we cry out as Jesus did in this week’s Gospel: “Father, glorify your name” …
I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
— Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Jn 12:32)
Passion Sunday (Fifth of Lent)
Texts for this Week
Prayer
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die …
The eminent composer of post-Vatican II music for American Catholics, Bob Hurd, aurally illustrates the core of this week’s Gospel lesson.
In his own Body, by his own wounds: he brought your sins to the Cross, and suffered for you. Poured out his life blood, upon the tree; poured out his lifeblood, for you and for me.
