Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent Yrs 1 and 2 2025

Title

Without Penthos we may be caught in our own world

Outline

The Desert Fathers often talked about penthos or mounring

This was not sort of picking the scab of our previously confessed sins, but a longing for salvation and the realization that our present sinfulness keeps us from it.

Our first reading describes salvation: return to the land (or our true country), unity in the people of God, repentance and cleansing from all that separates from God, and a true Davidic king. Reminds me of the last lines of O salutaris hostia, and the mourning that we are not there yet and that our weakness is still holding us back.

If we do not have our eyes on the right place and proper penthos, we can miss the hope completely

That is the message of the gospel reading. Jesus has raised Lazarus and there is a dual reaction: some believe and some report it to the Pharisees. The resulting Sanhedrin views Jesus in terms of past this worldly messianic pretenders, which would indeed result in Roman destruction of Jewish Palestine in AD 70. But the high priest Caiaphas says, “[Stop wringing your hands], it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” His meaning is: get rid of the guy for the sake of the nation. But God has inspired his ex officio with a deeper meaning, “that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.” He prophesies, but cannot see the deeper truth he speaks for his eyes are only on this world. And so he misleads the Sanhedrin into a murderous plot.

Sisters, let this example guide your thoughts

Realize that you can get caught up with thinking “practically” on a this worldly plane and miss God and even mislead others.

Instead cultivate penthos, a longing for the fulness of salvation and a mourning because of how you and I hold ourselves back from it by our own failures. But at the same time pray for increasing hope, the inner assurance that God has and will overcome our failures and bring us to the goal we long for.

Tears and joy can live together in God’s world. Amen.