Homily: Fifth Sunday of Lent (B)
John 12:20-33
17 March 2024
Fr. Ricky Montanez
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I have always loved these lines from the Prayer for Serenity because they knock some sense into me whenever I find it hard to accept unfortunate situations in my life. These lines also remind me to always pray for wisdom to understand the difference between circumstances (“things”) that can and cannot be changed. It prompts me to ask for the courage to take action in case I am able to do something about pressing matters, as well as to accept calmly those that are beyond my control.
In the gospel today, Jesus is portrayed as enduring an interior struggle with the prospect of His impending suffering and death in accepting God’s will. Was the prospect of suffering and death easy for the Son of God? If we listened to the passage, Jesus was clearly disturbed by the future He faced. He says: “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.” (John 12:27) He similarly struggled with His fate in the Garden of Gethsemane. In His pleading to the Father, Jesus asked if He could be spared the horrors of His Passion. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) We know that eventually Jesus would put aside His own fears of suffering and death and voluntarily submit to the Father’s will. However, He was clearly still anxious and distressed knowing the path He must take would mean excruciating torture for any human being. These moments are proof that Jesus was fully human with an understanding of fear and anguish.
In life, we all have to contend with many challenges and difficulties as well. Suffering is an unavoidable part of life. As disciples of Jesus, life will not be easy either. Of course, we are not seeking out suffering for its own sake. Some would say, suffering finds us even when we try our best to avoid it. The truth is, if we chose to follow Jesus we must expect — even welcome — the struggles and strains of living a life following in His footsteps. “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” (John 12:26) We cannot avoid nor escape our share in the sufferings of Christ in order to share in His glory. The cross is part and parcel of our story of our salvation. Jesus took on the weight of the sins of all humanity — past, present and future — making for the heaviest cross of all. Yet He bore it with patience and love because He knew the ultimate good His sacrifice would bring.
Through Jesus’ example, we are shown how we are to accept with serenity the circumstances of life over which we really have no control. Of course, we have free will and to a certain extent we have the power to make choices, to effect change, to affect an outcome and to make a difference. There are some circumstances that we cannot change anymore. One of them is “things” that are already in the past. There is no rewind for these things. No matter what we do, we have to accept that we simply cannot do anything about them anymore. The mistakes we made cannot be undone. We can only make amends for them. That’s why we must choose to hold our tongue when we are angry. When we say hurtful things, we may not mean, it doesn’t take away the fact that we said them and caused another pain. We can say sorry and hope to be forgiven but we cannot pretend that we never said those hurtful words. Secondly, we cannot change the consequences of decisions other people have made. That is why elections should not be taken lightly. The vote of the majority ultimately decides who leads our nation and the priorities of government. No matter how shocked we were about the unprecedented shortage of rice and onions, or how we are continually upset by the soaring prices of gasoline and basic commodities, this is not something within our control. We just have to ride out these situations as calmly as we can and leave the authorities to solve the problems and pray they do not create bigger ones.
In the Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, we are told that Jesus, the Son of God, had to struggle to live His vocation. “In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh, He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save Him from death… Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered.” (Hebrews 5:7-8) We, too, are invited to learn from our Lord Jesus on how to meet life’s challenges with faith and hope in the Father who loves us. It is human to complain and to cry out for help. When we are pained as we journey through life, we need not suffer in silence. Let us ask for help. Let us speak to persons who will understand us. What’s important is that we do not give up. Everyone’s life has value and everyone’s life has a purpose. God in His love and mercy has a beautiful plan for each of us that we may not understand except in retrospect. We just have to trust in God our Father, just as Jesus did. Jeremiah 29:11 says: “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
Someone said: “A happy life is not a life without struggle, rather it is a life with manageable struggle.” Life is never going to be without pain and difficulty. It is part of the human experience. It is the consequence of people making mistakes and bad choices. This is quite an unfortunate thought but that is just how things are. In the end it is not about the struggles that matter, it is how we manage or handle them that counts. Let us all pray for the courage to do what is right and the serenity to leave up to God what is beyond our control.
Sunday Gospel Reflections 