Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 50(51):3-4, 12-15; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-30
17 March 2024
In today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah proclaims a new covenant for the Chosen People. The old covenant included legal prescriptions from Yahweh – prescriptions that were then breached by the people. So Yahweh had to show them who was boss. Sin and punishment were to the fore. Tradition and authority were all important. This new covenant is something completely different: “Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.”
LISTEN: https://soundcloud.com/frank-brennan-6/homily-17324
We twenty first century Christians, even those of us who are Catholic, are less daunted by legal prescriptions than in times past. The COVID pandemic allowed us to take a broader view of all sorts of obligations. We tend to be less impressed by authority, including Church authority, than we used to be. Tradition seems to count for much less in a world where there are so many new horizons opening up. Here is Yahweh proclaiming what would be music to the ears of many people who prefer to find their own spiritual path, spared the weights of tradition and authority. “There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest.”
A world expert on the book of Jeremiah is the scripture scholar Benedetta Rossi who teaches at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. You’ve heard how some experts at the Oxford Dictionary spend their lives just on the letter ‘M’. Well, Rossi has spent her life on the book of Jeremiah. She says: “The indelible inscription of sin on (the people’s) heart is replaced by the writing of the divine law: this action signals the interiorisation of the commandments; their observance will not be imposed from outside but will be the consequence of a commitment of the heart, which has finally been made capable of obedience.”[1]
During the Synod in Rome last October there was considerable tension between those who still want to set down the law from outside, and with certainty, and those who trust the action of the Spirit in each of us. While some think Pope Francis is opening the windows to let in some air; others think he is opening a Pandora’s Box. While some think he is doing a much-needed spring clean; others think he is throwing out the baby with the bath water. Australia’s own Fr Orm Rush gave an inspiring address at the Synod. He said to the participants: “Having listened to you over these past three weeks, I have had the impression that some of you are struggling with the notion of tradition, in the light of your love of truth.”[2] He called the synod members back to Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.
We’ve just had a visit here in Australia from Fr Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Jesuits. He is a participant in the Synod. He reminded us that it is only 60 years since Vatican II and that it takes at least 100 years to take on board the key insights of a council. Having turned 70 last week, I doubt that I am going to see that in my lifetime. It’s all a work in progress. Many of us will just have to take it on faith.
Speaking of revelation, Dei Verbum says: “The Christian dispensation… as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[3] So on one level, we’ve got all we need to make our way in life following the way of Jesus. But Orm Rush pointed out that Dei Verbum goes on to state that the tradition which comes from the Apostles “develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down”. This happens in three ways: first, “through the contemplation and study made by (us) believers, who treasure these things in (our) hearts”; second, “through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which (we) experience”, and third, “through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth.”[4]
For us Catholics, scripture, tradition and authority all have their place. But everyone of us has our contribution to make to that development of the tradition through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which we experience. As Pope Francis once put it: “Tradition is a living reality and only a partial vision regards the ‘deposit of faith’ as something static. The word of God cannot be moth-balled like some old blanket in an attempt to keep insects at bay! No. The word of God is a dynamic and living reality that develops and grows because it is aimed at a fulfilment that none can halt”.[5]
So what are the things that you really treasure in your heart? What are the causes, who are the people that you treasure in your heart? What are the spiritual realities that you experience? And what understanding have you developed of those spiritual realities that you experience? As people of the new covenant, we can’t simply pass up on these questions and say that the pope or the bishops have all the answers, or that all the answers have been given in the past. The Second Vatican Council is telling us that each of us has our contribution to make.
Orm Rush urged the Synod participants to be on the lookout for traps when it comes to discerning the signs of the times, seeking to determine what God is urging us to see. “These traps could lie in being anchored exclusively in the past, or exclusively in the present, or not being open to the future fulness of divine truth to which the Spirit of Truth is leading the church. Discerning the difference between opportunities and traps is the task of all the faithful – laity, bishops, and theologians – everyone”[6] – both you and me, both you and your neighbour.
During this Lent, let’s continue to contemplate the opportunities and the traps presented to us as we try to make sense of our complex world, as we navigate our difficult relationships, and as we seek to discern what God is asking of us, knowing that in the end the answers will not come from others, even ecclesiastical authorities. Those answers will come within us, being attentive to the deepest yearnings of our hearts which are set on God in this new covenant.
R: Create a clean heart in me, O God.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R: Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
R: Create a clean heart in me, O God.
From the start of 2024, Fr Frank Brennan SJ will serve as part of a Jesuit team of priests working within a new configuration of the Toowong, St Lucia and Indooroopilly parishes in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Frank Brennan SJ is a former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). Fr Frank’s latest book is An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Considering a Constitutional Bridge, Garratt Publishing, 2023.
[1] Benedetta Rossi, ‘Jeremiah’, in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, 3rd Fully Revised Edition, T&T Clark, 2022, p.921.
[2] See https://www.theswag.org.au/address-to-the-synod-on-synodality-23-october-2023/
[3] Dei Verbum, #4, available at https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
[4] Dei Verbum, #8
[5] See https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/october/documents/papa-francesco_20171011_convegno-nuova-evangelizzazione.html
[6] See https://www.theswag.org.au/address-to-the-synod-on-synodality-23-october-2023/
