3rd Lent Accept the Invitation
Those of us baptized as infants or small children, will have been raised/immersed in our Catholic - Christian faith. Our first encounter or first exposure to Jesus probably came through family or church. Those who were older when baptized; teens, adults, more mature adults may have a different encounter story. It could have happened through an encounter with a friend; through an invitation to come to mass or adoration or some other devotion; maybe it was an experience of a funeral or wedding, or maybe Jesus came and gobsmacked them….
In any way, at any age, that initial encounter of Jesus becomes an invitation; and that invitation becomes a revelation, and that revelation leads to Joy in life, to Freedom.
Now, for some of us, maybe we have stayed at that encounter & invitation level. So we still wait for that Joy. Others have followed through with the invite and experienced that freedom and joy of Jesus; still others somewhere in between.
I have encountered people at all different levels. I have been with those baptized as Catholic but never truly raised as one, maybe first communion, yet not more than that, and then at some point of chaos, or at the end of their life they struggle to make sense of the situation.
I have known those baptized, confirmed, first communion, come to mass regularly their whole lives, but with little depth; life is much the same. They stopped going any further in Christ, they remained at some level in which they celebrated those sacraments. They, but not all, tend to be the grumpy, the unhappy, the complaining ones. They find boredom in the faith, do not participate in the community.
And yet, I have also known those who woke up to their faith as children, teens and adults, who had an experience of God, of Jesus, of the Spirit; and wanted more and have gone deeper and deeper; finding a rich life. They take on challenges and struggles; they seek to resolve and solve; find and take initiative, endure and thrive even amidst the worst that life can hand on. They are active in their community. They find that gratitude and joy that comes with God.
A woman encounters Jesus; a non-Jew; someone not of any means or wealth; and someone who believes she knows what is correct as she has been taught. A woman with a history, not necessarily immoral or bad, we can’t judge her based on a statement of five husbands. Maybe the previous ones died, or divorced her; but she would have been left without protection.
And through Jesus she encounters a new way to live, a new way to be in the world. She is given a new way to see God and experience God that liberates her. We see this joy as she leaves her own water jug behind, no longer symbolically needing it.
And we have the grumblers. The Israelites in the desert who have recently encountered God. God who produced the 10 plagues to get them freed from slavery. God who gave them a pillar of cloud in the day to guide them and fire at night as they walked away from Egypt. God who separated the sea so that the people could walk on dry land to freedom, even as their former owners bore down on them and were then decimated. They could go no further in their own trust. They thirst too, but do they remember what God has done? No. They grumble, they complain, they wax nostalgic for their captivity. It will take a generation for them to trust.
Each moment, each day really becomes an opportunity for an encounter, invitation, revelation with Christ.
It is in those moments when we are invited to listen, rather than condemn. It is in those moments we are invited to forgive, and move past the anger.
It is in those moments of charity, compassion, kindness when we are invited to move past our own selves.
All made sacramentally present, signified in each mass. Invited into a community to remember God’s work for us and with us; invited to trust in God’s mercy and forgiveness; invited to accept that Grace to be transformed.
The invitation is always given, Encounter with Christ is always possible…
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