Holy Week, Tuesday, 4-15-25, Year C
Readings: 1st Reading: Is 49:1-6; Psalm 71:1-4a,5-6ab,15,17; Gospel Jn 13:21-33,36-38
Theme: Sometimes Our Faith Does Not Match Our Words
One of my favorite movies to watch this time of year is “The Ten Commandments”. I used to love watching it every year when I was a kid with my family. The one thing that struck me every time I watched it was how the Hebrew people could so easily lose their faith in Moses after witnessing all of God’s great signs He did through Moses in their midst. The parting of the Red Sea alone would have been enough for me to never doubt again. Yet the Hebrew people did and would go on doing it time and again in the future.
All through salvation history we find examples of God’s love for His people and the fickle response the people give Him in return. The Old Testament is filled with God coming to the rescue of humanity only to have humanity, after being saved, become comfortable and complacent and lose their love for God.
The love God has for us is truly amazing because anyone else, after all the ups and downs of lost faith, love and rejection, would have quit on humanity long ago.
But God, in His agape love for us, continues to have mercy and forgives us. He gives us another chance, time after time. He has proven that He will not abandon us, even when we fail Him miserably, over and over again.
The prophets of the Old Testament also knew the fickle faith of humanity and suffered because of it, even to the point of losing their lives.
But the prophets knew something most of their people then, and many of us today do not. That if we believe in God with true love and faith and understand that our time here is temporary, God will provide a place in heaven that is beyond imagination of the human mind or experience. Nothing on this earth can prevent the love of God for us, even our own sins, if we are contrite, knowing the hurt we have caused Him.
I used to think to myself that I would never have doubted God or Moses in the Ten Commandments if I were a Hebrew back then. I also used to think about Peter denying Jesus at Jesus’s worst hour. How could Peter abandon Jesus whom he loved so much and had just professed that he would die for Him. I would say to myself, “If I were Peter, I would never have denied Christ during His passion!”
Now, years later, with a little more wisdom and humility, I understand Peter’s actions, and I do not judge him any longer. As a matter of fact, I feel I am more closely aligned with him and his humility from that event. I now understand the mercy of Jesus toward Peter after His resurrection and the love He has for all of us, if we just believe in His words.
If you have ever thought the same as I did about the Hebrew people in Exodus or Peter at Christ’s passion, think about the time you made a promise to Jesus in Confession never to sin that sin again, and then find yourself back in Confession later for that very same sin. In doing so you are like Peter, who said he would die for Christ, yet in Christ’s most difficult time, Peter abandons Him to save his own life.
We, too, confess that we would never disappoint God with our sins, yet the situations within our lives and the temptations that exist can overwhelm us, and we find ourselves failing our very own promise to Jesus.
The beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ is that He knows our battles and will be there, time and again to give us a hand up and forgive us our sins so we can start anew as He did for Peter. If we do not come back to Jesus confessing our sins with humility, we could be like Judas the Iscariot who, after sinning a great sin, never came back to Jesus for forgiveness, possibly losing his soul to the netherworld forever.
For if we keep coming back to Jesus with faith and humility, He will receive us with open arms, resurrect us on the last day, and bring us into His heavenly kingdom.
As St. Paul reminds us,
“What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,
and what has not entered the human heart,
what God has prepared for those who love him,”
(1 Cor 2:9)
Saint James Catholic Church 