Third Sunday of Lent
/Dominica III in Quadragesima C
23 March 2025
This Sunday the Scriptures call us to reflect on what it means to belong to God in covenant. We belong to Him and are claimed by Him. This involves living in accord with God’s ways. And when we inevitably fail to do that in both venial and mortal ways, we are called to repent and to bear the good fruit God expects. The lesson of repentance and bearing good fruit is a well-timed lesson for the Season of Lent as exhibited in the Scripture selections for this Holy Mass.
The second reading (from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians) speaks to us about the Old Covenant God made with the Israelites and the many wonderful saving events God provided to His people, especially involving the ministry of Moses. St. Paul does something interesting in recounting these saving events. He says what happened with the people in the Old Covenant serves as an example and a warning to us in the New Covenant. Listen to the blessings received by the Israelites, which St. Paul recounts to Christians in Corinth: “[O]ur ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea”. St. Paul says this movement from slavery in Egypt to freedom, entering the cloud of God’s presence and passing through the parted Red Sea amounts to a “baptismal” entry to the Old Covenant. He wrote: “all of them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”. Having thus been baptized into the Old Covenant, St. Paul goes on to write that they all “ate the same spiritual food”. And here is the kicker from St. Paul. He continues: “Yet God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert”. Considering these saving events of the Exodus and the outcome that most of those chosen people died before arriving at the Promised Land, St. Paul drives the lesson home for Christians: “These things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things, as they did. Do not grumble as some of them did, and suffered death by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to us…. Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall”. And thus, the appropriate Lenten lesson of repentance that is reinforced in the Gospel selection.
In the Gospel, Jesus calls his listeners to repentance. He confronts a false but common notion among ancient people, namely that when bad things happen to people (like the massacre of Galileans in the Temple or like those who died when the tower of Siloam fell) it happens as punishment for sin, it is a sign that those who died were bad sinners. The ancients commonly thought that all calamity and misfortune were related to sin and came about as punishment. We might think that a quaint notion from unsophisticated ancient minds. Yet, we moderns commonly adopt the opposite extreme. In our culture we commonly adopt the idea that there is no relationship between sin and punishment. So, we probably should be careful about making charges of lack of sophistication. While Jesus says that those who died in those events were not worse sinners than anyone else, he still goes on to say, “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” What do we make of the apparent contradiction? The Lord’s remarks can be understood if he is not speaking only of physical death of bodily death, like the Galileans experienced and like those who died when the tower fell. The Lord is calling us to repentance so that we might not find ourselves facing spiritual death, eternal death in separation from him. And in fact, the Lord expects and demands repentance that we might bear good fruit as members of the New Covenant.
There is a popular notion among some Christians that claims that once a person comes to Christ and expresses faith, then they have a salvation that is set and unchanging. That popular notion is expressed in these words: the doctrine of “Once saved; always saved”. That notion simply does not match with the evidence throughout the Scriptures. That notion makes no sense in light of the frequent biblical call to repent – even among those already following Jesus. That false notion is adopted by many non-catholic Christians who might think that once they accept Jesus there is nothing that would endanger salvation. But that false notion is also adopted by many catholics, perhaps unintentionally, who do not make good use of confession, that sacrament particularly geared to repentance and to the healing of sins committed after we enter the New Covenant in baptism. That attitude cannot be ours. For we are called to repent and to bear good fruit.
As St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, “whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall”. The Lord, like the owner of an orchard, expects fruit to come from the trees he has planted and nourished with his saving grace and the Precious Blood from his Cross. That Gospel image of the fig tree echoes exactly an earlier event in the same Gospel of St. Luke when St. John the Baptist is calling his listeners to not assume that because they have Abraham as father that they are automatically saved. St. John goes on to say, “Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance…. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Lk. 3:8-9). The tree is an image of an individual believer planted in the orchard of the covenant in Jesus. From each believer, good fruit, produce at the proper time, is expected. Like the people of the Old Covenant, God nourishes us with baptism and spiritual food and he sends workers to tend the orchard, to cultivate it and fertilize it. The good fruit is expected and demanded. If not produced, the tree is cut down.
We trust that the Lord is kind and merciful. But we also take care not to fall. Repentance, by which we return constantly to the Lord, places our hope in him and keeps us united to the one whose generous gifts and patience make it possible for us to bear good fruit.