Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 125
Philippians
3:8-14
John
8:1-11
Reflections
The theme
of this Sunday’s three
Readings
is “new
life”. Jesus in the Gospel gives
life to the woman caught in adultery: “Go 
and
sin no more” (v. 11). It was already
announced to the exiles in Babylon
by the Prophet Isaiah (I Reading), foretelling
a return to the homeland: “See, I am doing a new deed,
even now it
comes to light” (v. 19). The promise came with two eloquent signs: a
road in the
wilderness and rivers in the wild. For Paul (II Reading),
the new life is a person, Christ Jesus, the only treasure
that makes everything else seem like so much rubbish (v. 8). It is the
only goal
to reach, by running with total effort. Paul finds that this commitment
is not a
burden, but rather a response of love for Christ who captured him (v.
12). From
this experience springs the missionary impulse of Paul.
“At
daybreak” (Gospel),
in the open area of the temple
of Jerusalem, a
new life began
also for a woman who had been “caught in the act of committing
adultery” (v. 4):
a woman to be stoned, according to the law. She is thrown in front of
Jesus like
a rag, the only person accused of a crime that, by its very nature,
should have
had two guilty partners; but the other has managed to slip away… Jesus
saves her
from the hail of stones by his surprising attitudes which turn
the situation right over: first of all the disconcerting silence
of Jesus, then the “writing on the ground with his
finger” (v.
6.8) of some signs that history will never be able to explain and,
lastly, the challenge
to throw the first stone (v. 7) that shows up the
hypocrisy of all
those pitiless accusers.
In the
end, the woman and Jesus
remain there alone: ‘miserable with mercy’
as St. Augustine puts it. Jesus speaks
to the woman,
whom nobody had addressed until then: they had bundled her along with
insults and
accusations. He speaks to her politely, softly, not with coarse words
but with respect,
recognising her dignity; he calls her ‘woman’, as he
often did with
his mother (Jn 2:4; 19:26). Jesus makes a distinction between her, a
weak woman
certainly, and her sin, of which he does not approve, of course.
Adultery is, and
remains, a sin (Mt 5:32), even in the case of dishonest desires (Mt
5:28 and the
9th Commandment). Jesus condemns the sin, but not the
sinner; he does
not dwell on and analyse her past, but projects her into life again,
reopens the
future to her. The kernel of the account is not the sin, but the Heart
of God who
loves, and wants us to live. This is the image of God-Love that Jesus
wants to hand
on: the woman must know, by experience, that God loves her as
she is. Hence she feels in
herself that she
is respected, loved, protected and so she is able to take on the urging
of Jesus
“not to sin again” (v. 11). God
saves by loving. Only love can
convert and save! (*)
This uncomfortable episode in the Gospel had a difficult
history: it was
left out of several antique codices, and is moved elsewhere in others.
Some think
that it is not part of John’s Gospel, but of Luke’s, given the style
and the message
that are so similar to the Parable of the Merciful Father (Lk
15:
last week’s Gospel). The woman is like the younger son; the Scribes and
Pharisees
are in the role of the elder brother; and Jesus is in the perfect role
of the Father.
A modern writer, Oliver Clément, ponders on it: “An impossible
text, left out of
a number of manuscripts. The moral conscience, and even the religious
conscience
of many, cannot accept that Jesus refused to condemn the woman… She was
caught in
the act; she had committed one of the gravest sins recognised by the
Law… Christ
confounds the accusers by reminding them that evil is universal;
even
they, spiritually, are adulterers; even they, in one way or another,
have betrayed
love. ‘If there is one of you who has not sinned…’. Nobody is without
sin, and He
concludes with the words: «Go and do not sin again»: words
that open up a
new future”.
The Gospel
reading is an exciting
programme
of missionary methodology, with proclamation,
conversion
and education in the faith and in life’s values. Love generates and
regenerates
a person, makes them free; Jesus educates us in a love that is lived in
freedom
and gratefulness. It is when these conditions are recognised that we
understand
why we have to let the stones fall from our hands - the
very stones
we wanted to throw at others. The fact that people slipped away,
beginning with
the oldest (v. 9) shows the sense of sin, of shame or of having learned
the lesson.
Lastly, it becomes clear that anyone who works and struggles for equal
opportunities between men and women has in Jesus an ideal
precursor, a pioneer
and an ally.
The
Pope’s words
(*) “Let us pause to contemplate this scene where
the wretchedness of man and Divine
Mercy come
face to face, a woman accused of a grave sin and the One who,
although he was
sinless, burdened himself with our sins, the sins of the whole world.
The One who
had bent down to write in the dust, now raised his eyes and met those
of the woman.
He did not ask for explanations, did not require excuses… Jesus does
not enter into
a theoretical discussion with his interlocutors on this section of
Mosaic Law; he
is not concerned with winning an academic dispute about an
interpretation of Mosaic
Law, but his goal is to save a soul and reveal
that salvation is only found in God’s love. This is why he came
down to the
earth, this is why he was to die on the Cross and why the Father was to
raise him
on the third day”.
Benedict
XVI
Homily of V
Sunday
of Lent, 25.03.2007
In
the steps of Missionaries
- 21/3: International
Day (UNO) for the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination.
- 22/3: World Water
Day, instituted by UNO in 1993.
- 23/3: St. Turibio Alfonso
of Mogrovejo (1538-1606). Born in Spain,
he was still a layman when he was appointed Archbishop of Lima (Peru).
He was a strenuous defender of the Indios. He is Patron of the Bishops
of Latin
America.
- 24/3:
Anniversary of the killing
of Archbishop Oscar A. Romero (+1980), of San
Salvador
(El Salvador).
– It is a Day of prayer and fasting in honour of martyred missionaries.
- 25/3:
The Annunciation of
the Lord to Mary, through the Angel Gabriel.
- 26/3:
Anniversary of the publication
of the Encyclical Populorum Progressio
(1967) of Paul VI on the development of the whole person and the global
development
of nations.
- 27/3:
St. Rupert (circa 718):
of Irish origin, he was a great evangeliser in Bavaria and became Bishop of
Salzburg.
