Reflection by Rev. Leonard N. Peterson
Thinking of your early school days, you likely remember the name of “that kid.” He or she was the one who, by dint of personality and intelligence you just know, had caught the eye of the teacher. Of course, unknown to us at the time, the teacher had to make the professional effort not to categorize that one student as a “pet.”
Later on in life, you saw the same dynamic in action when a certain co-worker was favored by the boss. In times past the boss might make his favoritism obvious. Not so today, where an HR office would pounce on the perpetrator quickly. Even to the point of dismissal.
On a much higher plain of observation, we could easily imagine Our Lord being the envy of His peers for what He said and did. Careful as He was to preclude praise let alone adulation of any kind, the people He ministered to knew instinctively that He had favor with Yahweh. Their wish to honor Him was a constant problem for Jesus, requiring Him to take action. At one point He even fled the crowd lest they make Him a king.
Jesus modeled the virtue of humility, but at the same time He knew God the Father in a way we never will. His respect for the Father was so obvious that the later unknown writer of the Letter to the Hebrews that we hear in today’s Mass could write that “He was heard because of His reverence when He prayed.
Reverence. There is a word. A state of being. A quality worth developing in our lives. It is a habit of being that begins with God and applies to the things of God but reaches down to our relations with our neighbor. Most often we in our present day can know reverence as the missing element in our common culture as we daily witness the opposite of it.
Something is terribly wrong about the way we freely murder our fellow man in the streets of our cities, and on the battlefields of our wars.
Add this the coldness with which our society wants to erase God from being a deciding factor in all we say and do. We’ve made other gods, often enough. Gods of power, wealth and fame.
As the waning days of Lent 2024 are upon us, may I suggest a project that will take us all way past Easter? It’s to develop our reverence for God and our neighbor.
God love you and lead you to betterment and a better Lent.
Rev. Peterson’s Reading & Gospel Summary
Reading I: Jeremiah 31:31-34
This short oracle has been called “ one of the most profound and moving passages in the entire Bible.” Note the use of the words “new Covenant.” It is the only time they are used in the entire Old Testament.
Reading II: Hebrews 5:7-9
The author considers Jesus’ ability to sympathize with sinners arises from the fact that He knew temptation. His obedience led to His priestly consecration.
The Gospel: John 12: 20-33
Some Greeks come to see Jesus. He tells Andrew and Philip that “when a grain of wheat dies it produces much fruit.” This is a direct reference to His upcoming passion and death.