"THEY DEVIATED FROM THEIR FAITH"

 31^st March, 2022:

THURSDAY

FOURTH WEEK OF LENT (C)

(Ex 32: 7-14); (Jn 5: 31-47)

"THEY DEVIATED FROM THEIR FAITH"

Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, on this day as we paid attention to the expressions of the Sacred Scripture, we are totally called to pay attention to the Lord and to follow Him, stop our disobedience and rebellion against Him. He has offered us many chances to get back to Him and to be accommodated to Him, however it is our stubborn manner and constancy in our method of transgression which regularly drove us back to the way towards ruin and obliteration. We have not regarded the Lord's call and want to be brought together with us, as we permit sin to govern over us and to keep us isolated from Him.

In the first reading today, we heard the Lord addressing Moses in the Book of Exodus, at the time after He has uncovered His Law and the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai. Around then, Moses enjoyed forty days with the Lord on the mountain, paying attention to Him and getting from Him the broad arrangement of regulations and direction intended to be passed to people of Israel, as an aide and help for every one of them to stay consistent with the way of honesty. However, people feeling that Moses had died on the mountain immediately lost their trust and confidence in the Lord, and forced Aaron to make for them an extraordinary brilliant calf icon to venerate as god over them.

This happened despite the fact that the Israelites had seen themselves the incredible ponders and force of God in liberating them from the hands of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, as God sent the Ten Great Plagues to smash the Egyptians and power them to release the Israelites. And every one of these occurred notwithstanding people of God having themselves seen how God opened the Red Sea before them, permitting them to get free and securely through the seabed, and afterward obliterating the chariots and multitudes of the Pharaoh of Egypt that were pursuing them.

People of God actually ignored Him and wouldn't have confidence in Him despite the fact that they had seen every one of the miracles and beneficial things that God had accomplished for the good of they, all of which showed and demonstrated to them how darling and dear they were to God. However, they laid out a brilliant calf symbol over them, offered it forfeits and serious other offensive sins against the Lord, when God had been so persistent in cherishing them and really focusing on them. In any case, Moses stepped in and begged the Lord when He needed to obliterate every one people put something aside for Moses as was simply and appropriate for Him to do, and Moses requested that the Lord keep His annoyance and judgment, dissuading Him and helping Him to remember the steady love that He has displayed to people.

In the Gospel passage today, we knew about a similar mentality being shown by people of the hour of the Lord Jesus, as they showed absence of confidence, declining to have faith in the Lord and, surprisingly, in the courier and messenger that He had sent before Him, specifically that of St. John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist had called people of God to expiate from their wrongdoings and to get back to the Lord with confidence, and purified through water many people who had come to him trying to walk the way of change and reclamation, holding nothing back from the Lord and His reality and love.

However, the Pharisees and the main clerics specifically had doubts of St. John the Baptist, questioned his credibility and authority, and, surprisingly, transparently addressed him on the legitimateness and legitimacy of his activities, questioning that he was sent by the Lord, an activity which prompted St. John the Baptist to rebuke those self-serving and vainglorious pioneers as brood of snakes, the people who looked for their own magnificence and people advantages over others' sufferings and for their endeavors that conflicted with God's acts of kindness. Exactly the same thing happened to the Lord Himself also, and this was what the future held as He addressed people in our section today.

The Lord chastised people for their proceeded with absence of confidence and confidence in Him, in spite of all that He had done and displayed to them, regardless of the relative multitude of wonders and signs that He had made before every one of them. They actually might have a hard time believing and, surprisingly, requested for additional signs and ponders. Their hearts and minds were shut against God in their pride, in feeling that they understood the Law and rules of God better than any others, and that was the reason, regardless of how much ponders and marvels they had seen, they neglected to accept much as their precursors had deceived and deserted the Lord, their Savior and Liberator, for a brilliant calf icon made by human hands.

Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, today as we ponder these sections from the Sacred Scriptures, let every one of us think back in our lives and remind ourselves whether we have been dedicated to the Lord sincerely as we ought to have, or whether we have acted similar as people of Israel before, in their absence of confidence and confidence in the Lord, liking to confide in icons and other common means, in their own solidarity and power instead of to confide in the Lord and excursion along with Him. We are called to reflect assuming our lifestyle have been in understanding to the way that God has shown us, or whether we have strolled down some unacceptable way every one of these while.

Sin is extremely risky and we shouldn't mess with it, for the impulses to sin and the charms of common longings can entice even the most impervious to flounder and fall away from God and His way. We should not let our shortcoming and weaknesses to sin to influence us, and we need to give our all to oppose those allurements, or, more than likely we might wind up like the Israelites, who surrendered to their apprehensions and to their longings for common joys, and like the Pharisees and the central ministers, who fell into wrongdoing in view of the enticements of common power and brilliance, and pride and self-image.

Let  every one of us to take full advantage of the excess season of Lent to set ourselves up, genuinely as well as in a deep sense and intellectually, so we might be more sensitive to the Lord, be more prepared and ready to live as per God's way. Allow us to look for the Lord with ever more prominent confidence and responsibility, and allow us to give a valiant effort to celebrate Him by our lives and activities, presently and consistently. Amen.