Readings
I - Is. 43: 16-21
II - Eph. 3: 8-14
II - Jn. 8: 1-11
QUALITY OF PRAYER IS QUALITY OF LIFE
The essence of the Law is love and the purpose is to enhance and enrich life. In today’s Gospel passage, the Scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman caught in the adultery to trap Jesus because the Law of Moses commands such women to be stoned to death thereby putting Jesus into the tight corner. If he saves her, he would be breaking the Law of Moses and if he goes with the Law he fails as Rabbi for not saving the woman. Jesus, the Lord of love, justice and life neither breaks the law nor breaches the same but enhances saying, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” for in the law it is also written, “if a man commits adultery with another man’s wife…with the wife of his neighbour…both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death” (Lev. 20: 10). To the woman, Jesus assures new life and new beginning saying, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again”. From then on the woman passionately followed Jesus till the cross and also becomes the first messenger of the Good News, “Jesus is alive and I’ve seen him!” (Mk. 16: 11).
The Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2Cor. 5: 17). Lent is a grace filled time given by the Church to repent, live and let live modelled after the mind and heart of Jesus, our Lord. At the beginning of the Gospel passage we read that the previous night of this incident Jesus goes to Mount of Olives where he usually prays. Jesus spends the night in prayer while the Scribes and the Pharisees, the so called custodian of the religion would have probably spent the night in plotting against Jesus. Prayer should be prayer and not mere hypocrisy.
The quality of prayer determines the quality of life. Prayer leads to right discernment, right choices and courageous action. When prayer becomes hypocrisy, we plot, destroy and rescind like the Scribes and the Pharisees. As the first and the second reading says, let us forget the past, pray much and try to become anew with the mind and heart of Jesus as we enter into the fifth week of this Lenten season. May our mind and heart resonate with the prayer: “Lord Jesus, teach me to seek God with an openness of mind and heart”.
