Come to Jesus to have eternal life – Jn 5:31-47
In a reading from the book of Exodus, God accuses Israel (again) of hardness of heart. God sees it as a stiff-necked people. The Israelites made a calf for themselves and worshiped it, because they did not know, believed, or loved the God who brought them out of Egypt. In the Gospel, Jesus accuses the world of not knowing and believing the Father. People are looking for eternal life, but in the Scriptures, not in relation to Jesus who is Life. Jesus sadly says, "You do not want to come to me to have life."
Hardness of heart and distance from God is the lack of trust in God's love and mercy. The evil spirit wants to take away our trust and faith in God, he does this by telling us that God cannot free us. The Israelites on their way through the desert often fell and doubted God (not only by making a calf for themselves), but they walked until they saw the Promised Land. We are in the middle of Lent. Ask yourself in prayer what is this time for you? Do you want a living relationship with God, maybe you are going through a difficult and bored time, and you do not see the fruits of the retreats or the ways of the cross?
Once again, in his word, Jesus invites us to conversion - to return to God, to come closer to Himself. The Lenten journey of conversion is not really a way to fight your own sin, but a way to enter into a relationship with God. It is the way of human weakness and falls and God's lifting. Conversion is trusting in God's love and allowing God to lift us up from our failures and strengthen in us the joy that comes from His forgiveness. "The essence of Christianity is not a clean account, but the experience of forgiveness." During the prayer, see how God guides you through your failures, how He constantly allows you to come closer to Him through forgiveness. Approaching God, coming to Him and drawing life leads through the experience of fall, sin and forgiveness.
Converting to God means changing our lives so that we no longer worry about our own glory but take care of God's glory. St. Catherine of Siena heard from Christ: "You think about me, I will think about you." Conversion therefore means building a personal relationship with Christ, in which we can receive from Him the grace of forgiveness, mercy, strength, support and give Him our love by sharing our experiences with Him, offering him our deeds, our intentions, our experiences, our cares and joys, successes and failures. He wants to share his life with us and give us what we ourselves cannot understand and achieve. He wants to be our Father.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george