Friday of the Third Week of Lent

Lectionary: 241

And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
"You are not far from the Kingdom of God."
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Good Friday is still three weeks away but today's gospel signals a turning point in the Lord's dealings with his enemies. They will not try to trap him in his speech anymore; that ploy has consistently failed against the Incarnate Word of God. 

Clearly, He knows who he is and Who He represents, and His wisdom is sharper and penetrates deeper than their barbed questions. 

Indeed, the Word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account..

Their changed tactics reminds us of the urgency of the times. "Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation."

As the world entered the atomic age and discovered we could destroy every civilization on earth, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, 

Most of all, man is in need of a sense of the unconditional. Otherwise, he will perish. "Without relating himself to the unconditional," Kierkegaard says, "man cannot in the deepest sense be said to live... that is it may be said he continues to live, but spiritlessly."  

Kierkegaard... felt that man's gravest danger lurked in the loss of his sense of the unconditional, the absolute. We conduct our lives according to conditionals, compromises, and concessions, all relatives.

In faith an individual commits everything to the Absoluteness of God. But the Absolute is cruel; it demands all. ( A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, 1995, page 112)

Catholicism represents that challenge. We cannot regard the moral laws against abortion, divorce, and murder as conditional. We cannot ignore affronts to human dignity in the name of progress, religion, racial superiority, or some ideological fantasy. We cannot suppose these and other threats are not personal; that is, that every person either opposes them or agrees to live by them. 

The ashes of Ash Wednesday have reminded us that God has set us apart and must atone for our compromises. We represent the apocalyptic challenge of God's word. Our belief in God is no secret to God's enemies; nor should we act as if it is.

At some point they will not ask us anymore questions. If the Age of Martyrs ended when a Roman emperor espoused Christianity, it began again in the last century, and is becoming more violent with this one. Lent is a call to arms, 

Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.

So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate,

and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench the flaming arrows of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.