Third Sunday of Lent

The season of Lent has many dimensions. As Lent approaches, the first thing that comes to mind for many of us is to decide what we are going to give up. The origins of this practice of giving up things may be associated with the Lenten call to fast. But the idea of giving up things is so that we might be changed, not to prove our ability to show self-discipline, but to be open to mystery, to a new self-awareness, to a new freedom, to our liberation from patterns of sin.

“Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” With these words we start Lent. They speak best of the meaning of Lent and the call to conversion, the call to amend our lives, to seek God's forgiveness and healing, to live faith better.

It would be more helpful to our spiritual lives to approach Lent as a time for hope rather than trial, for trust rather than judgment, for renewal rather than endurance. Certainly, we do benefit spiritually from acts of self-denial, if that means we are better loving, from efforts to be self-disciplined, if that means we are more mindful of others, from resolutions to get along with less, if that means we are more generous. Lent does lead us to the Cross and a dying to self. But, Lent leaves us at our dying; Easter takes us up at our rising, living anew. Lent is our Spring and the promise of new life.

Today's gospel offers a useful image, a parable, as we seek to live the spirit of this season of renewal. The image of fig tree is offered as something that has life, but has shown no signs of what is its purpose, a plant meant to bear fruit. As the parable relates, It had been three years and no signs of fruit, not even a bud or blossom. It shows none of its God-given potential. The owner of the orchard is ready to cut it down, but the gardener, who it seems has now noticed the tree and its need for better care, promises to cultivate the ground around the tree and fertilize it. I trust the tree had a better chance of thriving and producing fruit now that it was given better attention by the gardener.

It seems it is the same way for us. Lent offers us the opportunity to cultivate and fertilize--not gardens, but our interior life, our faith life, our spirits. Like the fig tree in the gospel, our lives can appear in places to be absent of the fruit of hope, faith, and love, of those virtues that give our lives meaning and purpose. We need to do some cultivating, turning over the ground, looking inside our souls where we need God's healing grace. We throw down some fertilizer, some food, nurturing our lives in the spiritual practices of Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—and finding God's comfort and strength.

The first reading from the Book of Exodus gives us a place to start, like the place where Moses, standing on the mountain of God, is made aware that he is on holy ground. We make our Lent holy ground. Like Moses, it is from this holy place where we stand that we recognize the presence of the God who knows well our sufferings and afflictions, who can saves us from our sins, who will lead us from the cross of death to the garden of life.

Here at the parish, we have begun a series of talks on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, with the intention of deepening our understanding of the sacrament and its meaning for our spiritual life and ongoing renewal. Perhaps we can see how the sacrament can give us firmer footing as we stand on the holy ground of Lent. We find the ground of God's love, revealed in the offering of forgiveness and in the receiving of grace. This grace is like the cultivating and fertilizing that makes the tree bear fruit, in other words, the grace that can transform our lives. We can change. We can be more the image and likeness of Christ.