{"id":919,"date":"2018-03-21T19:08:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T19:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/?p=919"},"modified":"2018-03-21T19:08:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T19:08:11","slug":"homily-lent-week-05-03-yr-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/21\/homily-lent-week-05-03-yr-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"HOMILY LENT WEEK 05 \u2013 03 – Yr II"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Critical Decision<\/em><\/p>\n

(Dan 3:13-95; Dan 3:52; Jn 8:31-42)<\/p>\n

***************************************<\/p>\n

The truth will set you free, but first it may make you miserable.<\/p>\n

The readings today put forward two conflicting paths: to follow Jesus, who is the truth, or to chose to be like the Pharisees, and fall into untruth.<\/p>\n

In the gospel, Jesus again struggles with the Pharisees who refuse to believe in him. Jesus invites them to believe in him who is the truth sent from God; to have his Word within them, to be his disciples and follow him, and to ultimately find deep freedom in so doing.<\/p>\n

A disciple is a learner, a carbon copy of the master. We are invited to chose to become disciples of Jesus and live the truth in freedom.<\/p>\n

The Pharisees, on the other hand, commit the most serious sin for Jesus, which is to refuse to believe in him. It is interesting that this stance means that they do not have the Word of Jesus in them either, they who were convinced that they were following the law of Moses. Not only were they not really following that law, Jesus points out that they are not really children of Abraham either, or they would believe in him.<\/p>\n

Ray Dlugos, director of a therapeutic centre in the States, teaches that there are only two kinds of sin: to try to be more than human, or to be less than human. To be more than human is to be full of false pride, to live in our heads, to ignore our emotions, to have power and control, to think that we are better than others. That is truly the sin of the Pharisees.<\/p>\n

To be less than human is to give up and give in, to not care any more, to let it all hang out, to live a life of dissipation. In a way, that is also the sin of the Pharisees \u2013 who gave themselves over to luxury, status and comfort. They were falling for the false gods of possessions, prestige and power \u2013 and in the end were committing idolatry, although they were totally oblivious to that fact.<\/p>\n

The choice is clear. Let us be totally human; put our faith in Jesus; focus on his Word, get to know him better through prayer and experience the freedom from the slavery of sin that he alone can give us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Critical Decision (Dan 3:13-95; Dan 3:52; Jn 8:31-42) *************************************** The truth will set you free, but first it may make you miserable. The readings today put forward two conflicting paths: to follow Jesus, who is the truth, or to chose to be like the Pharisees, and fall into untruth. In the gospel, Jesus again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies","category-lent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}