Daily Liturgy
Tuesday February 23
FIFTH WEEK OF LENT
Look Up to Christ
Introduction
An incontestable truth is that only faith saves. For the Jews wandering in the desert, faith in God’s power—presented here in the form of a bronze serpent—will save the rebellious people of God. The Pharisees have to accept Christ in faith if they want to be saved. We too must look up to the cross with eyes of faith to become free people and God’s sons and daughters. And we, the Church, must become the sign of salvation raised above the nations.
Opening Prayer
Our saving, merciful God,
wandering in our deserts
of injustice and lack of love,
we cry out with fear
or are stunned into silence,
some into doubt or despair.
Give us enough trusting faith
to look up to him
who took our evil and doubts upon himself,
suffered for them on a cross, and rose from them,
Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord.
Reading 1: Nn 21:4-9
From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road,
to bypass the land of Edom.
But with their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and Moses,
“Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!”
In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said,
“We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
Pray the LORD to take the serpents away from us.”
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
“Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live.”
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-21
(2) O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
O LORD, hear my prayer,
and let my cry come to you.
Hide not your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
in the day when I call, answer me speedily.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
The nations shall revere your name, O LORD,
and all the kings of the earth your glory,
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
Let this be written for the generation to come,
and let his future creatures praise the LORD:
“The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.”
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
Verse before the Gospel:
The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever.
Gospel: Jn 8:21-30
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
“I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said,
“He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?”
He said to them, “You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.”
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
Intercessions
- For people who suffer much, that they may look up in faith and hope to Jesus on the cross for strength and healing, we pray:
- For a deep faith in the love of God, whose Son Jesus suffered for us on the cross, we pray:
- For all of us, that we may look up to the cross as a liberating sign for all those who follow Jesus, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
God our Father,
we celebrate the memorial
of the passion and death of Jesus.
May our encounter with your Son
save us from the evil in us
and help us to rise above it,
for we know and believe
that he is with us,
and that he is your Son,
one God with you and with the Holy Spirit,
now and forever.
Prayer after Communion
Lord our God,
you have called your Church –
that is us – to be your sign
set in the sight of nations.
May our living faith in your Son
inspire people to discover and encounter him,
that with him we may always do
what pleases you and serve you.
We ask you this through Christ our Lord.
Blessing
Pain, suffering, death, will always remain a scandal and a mystery, something difficult to bear. Yet there is Jesus, who accepted the cross to save us. We are disciples of him who died on the cross. However hard it may be, let us learn to bear it when it comes to us in the circumstances of life. May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary
The term lift is used in our times in a variety of figurative ways. It may mean to give someone a ride, or it may indicate some object or event that gives someone a more positive outlook. In John’s Gospel, it means a move toward a new level of existence.
The biblical background to this is found in the narrative from Numbers, read in today’s Mass. Struck by a plague of deadly serpents in the desert, the Hebrews were saved by looking upon a bronze serpent that Moses had set upon a pole. This sign of God’s providence is seen in the Johannine Gospel as a forerunner of Christ’s being “lifted up” on the cross, the divine emissary of definitive salvation. Those, in turn, who look upon Christ as their savior and life giver are themselves “lifted up” in the Holy Spirit, the key to eternal life.
When Christ tells the Jews in today’s Gospel that where he is going they cannot come, he is referring to his return to the Father, a venue to which only the believer will be admitted. He identifies himself once again as “I AM,” the personal name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.
In our faith we believe that we have been “lifted up” and are convinced that Jesus is truly the “I AM.” We cherish and are grateful for that life in the Spirit that gives meaning to our life in its entirety.
We must strive and not grow weary. The liturgy repeatedly, especially in these final days of Lent, brings our destiny to the fore. We are not only moving toward God, but in him we five and move and have our being. Things will never be the same again. We have been given a “lift” and can respond only with grateful hearts.
Points to Ponder
Jesus “lifted up”
The Christian “lifted up”
The Spirit life
Salvation as a gift.