Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning. Today we celebrate the third Sunday of Lent.

The Opening Prayer O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness, who in fasting, prayer, and almsgiving have shown us a remedy for sin, look graciously on this confession of our lowliness, that we who are bowed down by our conscience may always be lifted up by your mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. Our first reading is from the Old Testament, from the book of Exodus, third chapter, first through the eighth verse, and 13 through the 15th verse. Moses was tending the flock of his father in law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in fire, flaming out of a bush.

As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed. So Moses decided, I must go over to look at this remarkable sight and see why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, moses, Moses. He answered, here I am. God said, come no near. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

I am the God of your fathers, he continued, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. But the Lord said, I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers. So I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians and and lead them out into a land that is good and spacious, a land flowing with milk and honey. Moses said to God, but when I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of our fathers has sent me to you, if they ask, what is his name, what am I to tell them?

God replied, I am. Who am. Then he added, this is what you shall tell the I am sent you. God spoke further to Moses. Thus shall you say to the Israelites. The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever. Thus I am to be remembered through all generations. The word of the Lord the Lord is kind and merciful. A reading from the New Testament. From St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, 10th chapter, first through the sixth verse, and 10th to the 12th verse.

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea all ate of the same spiritual food and all drank of the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert. These things happened as an example for us, so we might not desire evil things as they did. Do not grumble as some of them did, and suffered death by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to us upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.

The Word of the Lord Verse before the Gospel Repent, says the Lord. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke 13 some people told Jesus about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus said to them in reply, do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means. I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.

Those 18 people who were killed when the tower of Silo fell on them, do you think they were more guilty than everyone else that lived in Jerusalem? By no means. But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did. He told them this parable, there once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard when he came in search of fruit on it but found none. He said to the gardener, for three years now, I’ve come in search of fruit on this fig tree, but have found none. So cut it down.

Why should it exhaust the soil? He said to them in reply, sir, leave it for this Year also. And I will cultivate the ground around it and fertilize may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down. The Gospel of the Lord there’s something about this path that God has given us, and for some strange reason, it remains always nebulous, always hard to grasp. It’s like we’re always in this cloud of unknowing, but we’re given enough information, we’re given enough to make a decision whether or not we want to be on the path.

The path. If there’s any way for us to figure out the path, it is to go to the story of Jesus the Messiah, but not simply to look at him, but to look at the whole picture, from Adam and Eve to the stories of the incredible time that Jesus spent on this earth as a resurrected body and was so effective in his powerful teaching. So it’s one basic story, and it’s clear that the beginning of the story is all about leaving a place of slavery. So we have Moses in the first reading. He wants to free people. He’s being called by God to do just that.

But freedom is really an interesting thing. The freedom from slavery would be, I am no longer going to be forced to do what someone else tells me to do or makes me do. So to be free of slavery is to be not under someone’s control, but at the same time, if you look at independence, it means separation, separation from somebody. And so if we’re not to be under God’s control, if we choose, well, I’m not going to do that. We have to also accept the fact that if you ask for independence, you’re also saying, I don’t need your support. I don’t want you to control me.

I don’t need you to help me. I want to do this on my own. Now, this may seem oversimplified, but if you look at the story of Adam and Eve, and you look at all these issues that we’ve been looking at throughout this entire salvation history story, it always seems that human beings are having a hard time certainly being told what to do. Somehow they’re realizing, and they do, certainly as we mature and grow, that the goal of life is not to surrender to somebody else’s will or another law or rule, but to somehow awaken inside of us a new rule, a new law that’s written in our hearts. So the path is to follow the destiny each of us have. And it’s something that we don’t know fully, and we need the support of God to reveal it to Us.

But more than that, we need some kind of mysterious strength and power to know how to deal with this union, this communion we have with this divine figure. It is so difficult to fathom. Now, as I said last week, I was talking about this, and I was saying, you know, it’s so interesting that we want so much to do what God calls us to do. But then when you realize what God calls us to do, it’s pretty frightening, because the easier thing to do is what the Old Testament asked of people. And before they were really capable of doing much more. And they were told, here’s the rules, here’s the laws.

You do them and God is pleased and you’ll be rewarded. That’s. That’s clear. But then you look at the New Testament, and what’s it saying? Well, you need to learn about presence, and you need to learn about intimacy. Independence.

Take those images of those words and those thoughts. Think of it. Independence. We don’t want independence from God. We may not want God to be telling us all the time what to do through an institution, but we want his support. We want to feel his presence.

And his presence is simply presence. The word means to be connected, to. To be one with, to be here. You know. You know when someone talks to you and they’re drifting and you know, they’re acting like they’re listening, but they’re not. Well, their presence has left you.

And you often say, where’d you go? You’re not here anymore. Presence. God’s incredible presence in us, in our life. That’s who he is. Love the answer that he gives to Moses about, who are you, God?

And he said, I am who I am. I mean, I’m not going to explain to you who I am. You can’t fathom who I am. You just believe I am who I am. Get to know me, hang out with me. Let me do what I do best with you.

So if we’re going to have his support, but we don’t really want his control, then we’re going to have to figure a way that through his support, we are empowered to be able to do what is right. And that’s the promise. And how does that work? Well, the greatest of mysteries, God comes, knocks on our soul, our heart, and said, let me in. I’m going to come and I’m going to dwell with you. And all I’m asking from you is intimacy.

And what is intimacy? Making known what is hidden. Making known who you are to another person with absolute honesty and holding nothing back. These are the things about me that I may be not proud of, that I’m not happy with, but these are my struggles. This is what I want to share with you who I really am. And God said, that’s wonderful, because the more you share with me who you are, I’ll share with you who I am.

It’s the most classic description of an intimate relationship that we have in marriage and friendship and family. No secrets. No secrets. So we have this challenge then, not to figure out how to live according to the Church’s rules and laws by letting somebody divine enter into us. Now, which is easier? Which would you prefer if you had a choice, that both of them were equally effective?

I picked the first. I just ask you, would you like to go into someone’s house or home or presence that you know and tell them everything about yourself, even though you’ve hidden so much of it, do you want to do that? I don’t. But if they tell you, these are the things I’d love for you to do for me, and then we’ll be friends. We’ll be connected. Ah, that’s easy.

So at the heart of this whole Lenten series is how do we get to know what this is that we are engaged in? When God showed us something at the end of his life, when he died and rose again, what is this telling us? What’s the mystery, the secret? What are we supposed to be getting? Well, one thing. Let’s look at the Gospel passage because it’s interesting if you know the Cycle A, the five Sundays are really beautifully summarizing our journey with God.

It starts off with getting to know Jesus, who he is through the temptations. Then we see what he’s here for, to enlighten us, and he becomes bright white. Last week, and now we get the image in the. In the original series of cycle A, we. We had three more things that were really clear. One was a woman at the well who he says, I have living water for you.

A man who was born blind, that he heals their blindness, and a man who is dead, and he raises him from death to life. I give you something that opens your eyes, that makes you now live. So this is that same theme, but in a little different metaphor. A fig tree. And why I think the fig tree is interesting in this story about what it is that Jesus has come to accomplish. He said there was an incident on his way to Jerusalem when he knew he was in deep trouble and would most likely be crucified.

He ran across a fig tree, and the fig tree was barren and it Was clear that Jesus went to the tree to get some fruit. He wanted to be fed. And when there was no figs there, he got so angry and cursed the tree and it withered. It seemed like he kind of lost his balance there and just raged, which makes sense to his humanity. The disciples looked at each other and said, this is weird. And they said, it’s not even time for figs.

So here’s Jesus with something on his mind as he’s going back to Jerusalem. What would be on his mind if he thought he might end his career right then and there? I’m not finished. I haven’t produced the fruitfulness on this earth that I want to. It’s still barren. Then you look at the fig tree.

Here’s Jesus talking about this tree that is there, that is for three solid years has not produced any fruitfulness. Three years. What would that sound like? What more clear explanation of his? Three years of struggling to awaken human beings to a truth that he knew was in them, and yet he. They couldn’t get it.

And so the recommendation is don’t cut the tree down, don’t curse it, but fertilize it. Fertilize it. Give it something that it doesn’t have, Something that’s not in the soil, something that’s not in the earth, something that’s core. They don’t understand. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give people that incredible gift to fertilize them so they can do this work.

And that’s called redemption. Redemption. It’s the water that’s in us that never ceases to flow. It’s the nourishment that we need as our human nature evolves and grows into who God wants us to be. It’s all the things we need. And it was won for us by this act of.

Of Jesus on the cross. And so what is the essence of that act? What sounds like it had to do with some kind of disappointment in his humanity over the fact that he wasn’t finished. Nothing really seemed to be accomplished. His disciples didn’t. Most of them didn’t believe in him.

The church leaders couldn’t fathom anything he was saying and only saw him as a threat. And so if you were prepared for 30 years of your life to do this work and you were looking around and it wasn’t finished, and you would say, I’m being asked by the Father to surrender to evil and let these people silence me and demean me and humiliate me. And he said, no, twice to that plan. And then he finally gave in. And what was he giving into? Well, God is in him, right?

God is so in him that he is God. But this is so interesting. Being God in this context did not take his humanity away. In fact, it enhanced it. So as a human being, can any of us say that when we have a life work and we’re struggling to do it, and it looks like it’s about your life’s going to end and you’re not going to be able to accomplish it, what’s the feeling? I mean, it’s a horrible feeling that I failed.

I failed to do the work I’m called to do. Think of the shame that that creates inside of us. And yet Jesus was able to do it. How did he do it? He must have done it because he knew there was something in the act of surrender to the reality that our humanity will never be enough. Never on its own is enough to do what we’re here to do.

I think our humanity can save us from hell because our humanity basically kind of on its own can figure out what’s right and what’s good and bad and follow rules. That just doesn’t take more than a basic human instinct in nature. But we’re asked to go way beyond that into divinity inside of us. And that’s the challenge. How do you surrender the reality that your humanity will not be enough, but the divinity in you will be enough? And what it’s going to do is transform you when you admit my humanity is not enough.

That’s what Jesus did. He said, I am not enough without my Father. And then when that act of surrender to the divine, it was the antithesis of the first Adam who said, no, I can do this on my own. And Jesus said, no, you can’t. And please, please believe I will do it in you, through you, and with you. Closing prayer Father, the mystery of your presence within us is beyond our full comprehension.

It’s beyond our understanding. The gift that you are to us seems too much, too intimate. Yet it is your plan. It is what you’ve asked us to surrender to. So bless this mysterious union of divinity and humanity in each of us so that we can feel it and not so much understand it, but feel its incredible transformative power. And then, filled with this great gift, we can accomplish the things that we only dream about, but somehow never losing fact that they are not what we do, but what you do through us.

And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program, is archived and available on our website, pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast, Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts and anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you.

You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Page Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher Produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2024.