March 22, 2015 – Fifth Sunday of Lent
Jer 31: 31-34; Ps 51: 3-4, 12-15; Heb 5: 7-9; Jn 12: 20-33
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24-25) We understand the meaning of this statement in that the grain of wheat must be buried and in a sense die if it is to be reborn and to grow and produce wheat.
That is similar to what we should have been trying to accomplish during this holy Lenten season. The term “born again” is a popular phrase in many churches, but this rebirth is also what we strive for in our Catholic Church. We are reborn in multiple ways — through Baptism, through our ongoing conversion, and through our daily efforts to be good stewards.
Lent is, of course, the ideal time for us to seek this rebirth. Our efforts through the past several weeks should have been to bury our old self and to be reborn with a deeper sense of faith and trust in God. Easter is but two weeks away and Lent officially ends on Holy Thursday. However, it is not too late to rededicate ourselves to God-centered lives. St. John Eudes put it this way, “Let us therefore give ourselves to God with great desire to begin to live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin, and to establish His life within us.”
