Friday of the 5th Week of Lent
Mass to Open Baltimore Provincial Meeting
March 31, 2023
In the World You Will Have Trouble
In his farewell discourse to his disciples, Jesus said to them: “In the world you will have trouble but take courage; I have conquered the world.” Those words should resonate in our hearts in these days when locally and universally the Church undergoes tribulations of many kinds. Among the challenges facing the Church’s mission to preach, sanctify, and guide is the increasingly secular culture in which we find ourselves, a culture in which religious faith is much less welcome than it used to be. Even as we seek to bring the love of Christ to the margins, we sometimes find ourselves on the margins of a militantly secular society. Where do we turn in times like these?
Our Spirit Is Set in One Direction
Our spirit must be set in one direction, towards Christ our Redeemer, towards Christ who is the Redeemer of a suffering humanity. Jeremiah points us towards the Person of Christ when he speaks of the plots hatched against him because he claimed to speak for God and spoke truth to power. Nonetheless, Jeremiah remained confident that God would vindicate him.
Jesus finds himself in the crosshairs because he proclaimed the Word of God, but above all, because he claimed to be the Son of God, the Word made flesh. While leadership grudgingly acknowledged the works of God that Jesus performed, it could not countenance his claim to be the Son of God, the One who shared eternal intimacy with the Father, the One who was and is wholly consecrated to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Leadership had decided to kill Jesus just as their forebears wanted to kill Jeremiah. The vindication that Jeremiah foresaw would come to pass as Jesus underwent his Passion, Death, and Resurrection from the dead. Jesus, indeed, has conquered the world, including our sins and failings.
A Mission Done in Hope
Let us take Jesus at his word. He has conquered the world. His truth is eternal, abiding forever, the rock upon which our faith and our lives is built. His love is stronger than our sins, stronger than any challenge that besets us. In his truth and love, we continue to undergo every necessary purification and in that same truth and love, we proclaim the Gospel, sanctify the world, and continue to perform the good works that Jesus, the Son of God, inaugurated. In his truth and love, we find the forgiveness of our sins, and extend the power of his forgiveness in a badly polarized world.
Therefore, let us enter into Holy Week, more intent than ever on sharing in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Incarnate Son of God, for it is in him that in every age, even ours, the world is conquered. May God bless us and keep us always in his love.