Fifth Sunday in Lent, Commonly Called Passion Sunday,
April 6th, 2025
In the Eighth Chapter of St. John's Gospel, we read about an encounter between the Pharisees and Our Blessed Saviour. As we read through this encounter we can only envision the drama unfolding before our eyes. In this passage, Our Lord poses two questions to those gathered before Him. First He asks: "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (St. John 8:46) In other words, Our Blessed Saviour is saying "Is there anyone here who can honestly convict Me of any sin?" Our Blessed Lord followed quickly with another question: "And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?" (St. John 8:46) In other words, if Our Lord is speaking the truth, if He is saying what is true, why don't you believe Him? To both of these questions the response Our Lord receives is silence. They can not answer Him. When Our Lord continues on with discussion, He begins to speak about eternal life and anyone who keeps His sayings will never see death. At this point, the Pharisees are getting irate with Our Lord. They even question Him and ask: "whom makest thou thyself?" (St. John 8:53) In other words, they are asking Our Lord, "Who are you making yourself out to be?" To this question, Our Lord responds that it is His Heavenly Father Who glorifies Him
Let's give credit where credit is due. In my opinion, the Pharisees ask a perfectly valid question which, quite frankly, each one of us should ask ourselves: Who are you trying to be? So many of us try to be someone else. As we grow up when we are young children we try our best to be the characters in our favorite story book or movie. Children want to be super heroes or a princess or their favorite character from their favorite cartoon. As we grow older, we try to be someone different as well. We want to dress like our favorite musician or our favorite movie star. We want to be popular so we wear what we believe is the "latest style" in clothing or shoes. We get our hair cut just a certain way because it is popular. So often we try to be somebody else by what we wear . . . or how we act . . . or what we do . . . or what products we buy. We only wear a certain type of jean or a certain brand of shoe. We have to arrive at work with an eight dollar cup of Starbucks coffee because everybody else goes there and buys an eight dollar cup of Starbucks coffee. Again, we ask the question: Who are you trying to be? The Pharisees asked Our Blessed Lord this very question and He gave the response that each one of us should give. We should try to be someone that God wants us to be. Instead, so often we try to be someone the world wants us to be. But for the devout, faithful Christian we need to focus on what God would have us do . . . what God wants us to become. So often, as I like to say because it's true, we defeat ourselves before we can ever get started. In other words, we convince ourselves that we aren't holy. We convince ourselves that we can't accomplish what we are trying to do. And then what happens? We quit. We stop trying. Of course we are going to fail in life. Of course we will never be perfect. But despite these facts we should never stop trying. When things got tough, St. Peter denied Our Blessed Lord three times. Yet, Our Lord still remained loyal to St. Peter. God always remains faithful to us even though we do not always remain faithful to Him. This is because God always stays true to His promises. He never breaks His word. Stay true to your commitment to God. Let us try to be more like Christ and less like the world.
Let's give credit where credit is due. In my opinion, the Pharisees ask a perfectly valid question which, quite frankly, each one of us should ask ourselves: Who are you trying to be? So many of us try to be someone else. As we grow up when we are young children we try our best to be the characters in our favorite story book or movie. Children want to be super heroes or a princess or their favorite character from their favorite cartoon. As we grow older, we try to be someone different as well. We want to dress like our favorite musician or our favorite movie star. We want to be popular so we wear what we believe is the "latest style" in clothing or shoes. We get our hair cut just a certain way because it is popular. So often we try to be somebody else by what we wear . . . or how we act . . . or what we do . . . or what products we buy. We only wear a certain type of jean or a certain brand of shoe. We have to arrive at work with an eight dollar cup of Starbucks coffee because everybody else goes there and buys an eight dollar cup of Starbucks coffee. Again, we ask the question: Who are you trying to be? The Pharisees asked Our Blessed Lord this very question and He gave the response that each one of us should give. We should try to be someone that God wants us to be. Instead, so often we try to be someone the world wants us to be. But for the devout, faithful Christian we need to focus on what God would have us do . . . what God wants us to become. So often, as I like to say because it's true, we defeat ourselves before we can ever get started. In other words, we convince ourselves that we aren't holy. We convince ourselves that we can't accomplish what we are trying to do. And then what happens? We quit. We stop trying. Of course we are going to fail in life. Of course we will never be perfect. But despite these facts we should never stop trying. When things got tough, St. Peter denied Our Blessed Lord three times. Yet, Our Lord still remained loyal to St. Peter. God always remains faithful to us even though we do not always remain faithful to Him. This is because God always stays true to His promises. He never breaks His word. Stay true to your commitment to God. Let us try to be more like Christ and less like the world.
Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church. We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis.
Please consider joining us for Mass. Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God. Come hear the Word of God. Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU! Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!
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