Fifth Sunday of Lent Homily: God Makes All Things New

Readings and Virtual Homily for Mass, April 6, 2025, Fifth Sunday of Lent; At San Damiano with the Sophomores; Feeling Grateful

Readings for Mass this Sunday:

• Isaiah 43:16-21

• Psalm 126:1-6

• Philippians 3:8-14

• John 8:1-11

Dear Friends and Family,

There is a clear connecting thread running through this Sunday's readings, a theme which might be summed up as letting go of what has been in order to grasp, and grasp joyfully, that which is to come.  It is more than just a theme of hope.  It is a theme of certain joy in the revelation of the Lord's plans.  

In the first reading, Isaiah invites the people to consider God's great wonders and mercies of the past, particularly the victory over the Egyptians at the Red Sea (vss. 16-17).  The passage goes on, however, to encourage the Jews to look forward to wonders and mercies that are yet in the future, but near at hand.  "See, I am doing something new!  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (vs. 19).  We have an idea of this new thing that God is doing, continuing with verse 19: "In the wilderness I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers."  This phrasing echoes other prophecies of the ministry of John the Baptist; of the way that would be made straight for the Messiah.  The overall intent of the passage would appear to be to inspire not just hope, but joy, in God's "doing something new."

This joy is wonderfully expressed by the psalm, which is one of my favorites of all the psalms.  Psalm 126 recounts the astonished joy of the Jewish people, as they were returned to Jerusalem after their near fifty-year exile in Babylon (539 BC).  "When the Lord restored the captives of Zion," the psalm begins, "we thought we were dreaming" (vs. 1).  

The release from Babylon must indeed have felt like a dream to the Jews, because (although the prophets had predicted it) the people could never have foreseen the way in which God would bring it about.  Babylon, the most powerful empire in the world at that time, fell to the Medeo-Persian armies under the command of Cyrus, and Cyrus, somehow recognizing that the Jews were in a special way God's people, asked them to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the temple and once again worship God in their land.  This development was so completely unexpected that the people, indeed, felt almost as if they were dreaming.

The psalm, written long after the return, seeks to remind the Jewish people of this astonishing turn of events, and to encourage them to trust in God's ability to bring about rescue and restoration in any set of circumstances.  "Those who sow in tears," the psalm urges its readers/hearers to believe, "will reap with cries of joy.  Those who go forth weeping, carrying sacks of seed, will return with cries of joy, carrying their bundled sheaves" (vss. 5-6).  A better translation, in my view, reads simply, "they shall come rejoicing, carrying their sheaves."  

We should not dwell on the past, the psalm urges us, but realize that God has already prepared a bright future for us, never mind our sins.  God is, indeed, "doing something new" for us, and his deliverance from present difficulties or sorrows may very well be in a way that we could never have seen coming.

In the passage from the Letter to the Philippians, Paul says, "forgetting what lies behind, but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God's upward calling in Christ Jesus" (vss. 13-14).  Paul, maybe more than most, had reason to throw himself on God's mercy, to leave the past behind and to trust in God's designs for the future.  

And the Gospel passage perfectly enunciates this theme in the experience of the woman taken in adultery, and brought before Jesus.  A couple observations about this passage, before closing out the homily.  One, the woman was "caught in adultery" (vs. 3) and brought by the scribes and the Pharisees before Jesus?  So, if she was caught in the very act, where was the man?  Why was he not brought before Jesus?  Number two, how exactly did the scribes and Pharisees manage to "catch" the pair in adultery?  Did these guys have nothing better to do with their time, as supposed leaders of the people of Israel, than to skulk about looking for illicit affairs, or listen to gossip and make arrests (sexist arrests -- the man evidently got off scot-free)?  

I could go on, but only at the price of distraction from our primary theme here, which is not the sexism of the religious leaders of Jesus' time, but rather, the way that God can "make all things new."  Jesus clearly does that for the woman brought before him here.  After "Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger" (vs. 6), he said to the woman's accusers, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (vs. 7).  Jesus then returned to the business of writing on the ground (vs. 8) and in response the woman's accusers "went away one by one, beginning with the elders" (vs. 9).  

It is widely, and I think accurately, conjectured here that what Jesus was writing on the ground were the sins of the woman's accusers.  Faced with their own evil, and its public declaration, the "holy ones of Israel" melted away, leaving the woman alone with Jesus.  Jesus asks her where her accusers have gone, asks if in the end, then, no one has condemned her.  She answers, "No one, sir" (vss. 10-11).  Jesus assures her that he does not condemn her, either, and advises her to avoid such sin in the future (vs. 11).

In Franco Zeffirelli’s JESUS OF NAZARETH (late 1970s tv mini-series) the woman taken in adultery was played by Italian actress Claudia Cardinale.  When Jesus assures her that he does not condemn her, and recommends that she move forward with a blameless life, that, in other words, she let God "do something new" in her and for her, Cardinale plays the woman's reaction with perception and precision, turning to look at Jesus, and turning to look at him again, as she leaves him.  It is clear, in the actress' eyes, that a conversion has taken place, that indeed, God has done, and will do, something new in her life.

God is always at work, "doing something new" in our lives.  Especially in times of difficulty and setback, disappointment and sorrow, it can be really hard to remember this.  But we will help ourselves in those dark times, if we can remember it, and trust in it, even trust joyfully in it.  That would seem to be the principal theme in today's readings.  

I am writing this on Thursday evening from San Damiano in Danville, where we are on retreat with the sophomores, the last retreat of this academic year.  The sophomore retreats (there are two each year, though starting next year there will be three) are largely directed by the seniors -- by leadership members of the senior class (Associated Student Body, Campus Ministry Team, etc.).  As you know from previous e-mails, I am deeply enamored of this year's seniors.  The Class of 2025 simply stole my heart, and they did it as freshmen -- and they are the only class I have ever taught, as freshman.  And now, this semester, they are the only class I have ever taught as seniors.  It is a real joy to be here at beautiful San Damiano yet again, with members of the Class of 2025.

But the retreat itself is for the Class of 2027, and as I said in my homily at the Mass this afternoon here, when I feel sad at the thought of 2025 leaving, I stop and remember the Class of 2027.  I have for almost two years now referred to them as "the hard-charging class of 2027."  There are various reasons for this, but one of the most prominent among them is the fact that, as freshmen, the Class of 2027 nearly upended all expectations and long tradition here at O'Dowd, when they came within a hair's breadth of winning the trophy for Spirit Week -- that is, for showing the greatest enthusiasm and class unity, in the Spirit Week activities, back in the fall of 2023.  This class impressed the entire faculty and staff for their energy and optimism, and now, having taught many of them, this year, I feel a personal connection with 2027 and...

That connection consoles me, as I realize that we are just two months away from the graduation of the Class of 2025. 

Speaking of the Class of 2025, and connecting to today's homily -- I owe it to the Lord to give thanks and praise for this year of 2025, which is beginning to look like one of the best of my life.  I know that I have shared, in e-mails back maybe eighteen months, two years ago, that I came through two rather harrowing years, in 2022 and 2023.  I think I have shared that 2024 was a year of deep rest and restoration, after two such very trying and sad years.  In keeping with the theme of today's readings, 2025 seems to be a year of coming "rejoicing, carrying their sheaves."  Too much to detail in this homily, but maybe I will be able to share more later this year.  Suffice it to say at this juncture that I am experiencing existential proof that the Lord does, indeed, bring good out of evil; the Lord does, indeed, "make all things new."  

I am waking most mornings in Hayward, this spring, thanking and praising the Lord for the high school, the parish, ministry beyond the high school and parish, and for San Gabriel Media.  This winter and spring are truly a season of grace for me.  

Gonna leave it at that.

Hope this finds you well and happy.  God bless.

Fr. Brawn