March 3, 2024: Third Sunday of Lent

When God formed a special relationship with His Chosen People, He established the commandments that would allow them to experience the fullness of life.  It's fitting that the psalmist in Psalm 19 praises God's Law that created and sustains the world.

In Christ, a new Law emerges, one which fulfills the Old Testament Law, because the New Law commands us to focus on honoring God with our hearts.  Jesus drove home the point forcefully when He cleansed the Temple of commercial practices that weren't helping people encounter God.

This is the wisdom and power of God at work, which is so foreign to Greek wisdom or Jewish insistnece of signs which St. Paul mentions, because God commands us through Christ to honor Him and purifies through His Paschal Mystery so we can do it.

One great example of someone who lived out God's commandments was St. Mother Katharine Drexel, whose feast day is today.  She devoted her immense inheritance wealth and her life's work as part of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to found institutions to service Native Americans and African Americans, including St. Augustine Mission in Winnebago, NE.

I came with a group here during college, and it was an inspiring experience to walk in her footsteps of serving the people here. With great joy, I am back this weekend to celebrate her feast day and the impact this place had on me.