23 March 2003

A detail from a painting by Giovanni Cimabue, in the lower level of the Basilica at Assisi.

The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi in San Francisco

Homilies from the National Shrine
of Saint Francis of Assisi

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
23 MARCH 2003

[Exodus 20:1–17; 1 Corinthians 1:22–25; John 2:13–25]

THE MOSLEM WORLD rejects Christiantity because it cannot accept a weak God; this is absolutely a true statement. The fact that Jesus, as God, was killed on a cross runs absolutely counter to the Islamic sense of who God is. When you talk to many Moslems, you will find that this is the basis for which they reject Christ as God.

Saint Paul had the same problem with the Greeks.

The question in hand is, Do we have the same problem? Do we understand, as Saint Paul says in the second reading today, that the weakness of God is stronger than any human strength? Do we really understand what the crucifixion, the death, and, ultimately, the Resurrection of Christ are all about in God’s plan? Many call it folly, as Saint Paul suggests. And yet, if we look only at the apparent weakness, if we look only at the seeming folly, then we fail to understand the very nature of the sacrifice that God has offered in our world. For it is the sacrifice of Jesus that makes all the difference in the world. Quite literally. God offered Jesus, his Son, on the cross so that that act of obedience would transform all of humanity. It is important for us in the Lenten Season to look carefully at this element of our Faith, of our belief, and of our spirituality.

When I selected today’s topic for reflection, I took the two very long readings we had—the first and third—and set them aside; then I focused on the little reading in the center. And I did that largely because, for Saint Francis, the Cross is the final and ultimate fact that portrays the love of God. Two elements in the spirituality of Saint Francis are the linchpins around which he built his relationship with God; the first, the birth of Christ, we encounter as a very human, tender experience, but the second, far more overwhelming, is the experience of the death of Christ. And, in the willingness of Jesus to die, Francis saw unprecedented love. It is the Cross which calls you and me to this Lenten Season, to prepare for and to enter into a remarkable relationship with our God, when at Easter we celebrate the full glory of God’s love. The Cross is the manifestation of his love. It is at the very center of what Francis saw as so crucial to his whole spirituality, his whole response to God.

What I say to you today, then, is to take a moment to look at what God has offered to us—and why he offered it—and try to understand that sacrifice in a way that goes beyond apparent weakness.

That sacrifice goes beyond apparent folly. It goes beyond the inability of human beings to understand. It gets to the very core of what God is doing for you and for me. The love that God offers is the crucifixion and death of Jesus. It is love as forgiveness and love as mercy that can never be ended, brought to completion, or wiped out. That love of God is not only more powerful than anything that we can do in this world, it is everlasting.

And, it is that which we celebrate in this lifetime. Look upon the Cross then, in this time of penance, and see in it not folly, not weakness, but the power of love through a commitment made by the Son in obedience to the Father. Because of a commitment made by the Father to us, and because of the ongoing commitment of the Holy Spirit to continue to make us holy through offering us grace, mercy and forgiveness, embrace the Cross as the true strength of your life.

May God bless you.

Friar Victor Abegg, OFM Conv.
THE NATIONAL SHRINE OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI
Pax et bonum