LENT III : Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15; I Cor 10:1-6, 10-12; Lk 13:1-9

Jesus' comment about the people who had died tragically in the incident with Pilate's soldiers and in the collapse of the tower would have surprised his listeners. Popular opinion at that time drew a direct line of causality from people's sufferings back to their personal sins.  We know people asked Jesus once, whose sins it is that this man was born blind. By this logic, the Galileans who were killed by Pilate's soldiers must have deserved it because of some particularly heinous sins.

But Jesus takes a different angle. He emphasizes that everyone who refuses to repent will stay separated from God. And if they die in such a state of alienation they will all perish. Earthly tragedies like the ones mentioned should remind us of the passing nature of earthly life.  Therefore it is the time to repent and be reconciled with God and neighbor.

What does it mean to repent? It means to turn around. Instead of looking in the mirror all the time and thinking about ourselves - how we feel, what we want, how we can get ahead - we turn around and look out the window. There we see the path that God wants us to follow. We see things that we can do for our neighbor. We see ways to put our talents to work for something truly worthwhile, to glorify God and to bring lasting happiness to others. The view out the window is much better than the view in the mirror. 

Alfred Nobel, the man who instituted and endowed the Nobel Peace Prize, was lucky enough to discover the view out the window before he died. He was a Swedish chemist who made his fortune by inventing powerful explosives and licensing the formula to governments to make weapons. One day Nobel's brother died. By accident, a newspaper printed an obituary notice for Alfred instead of the deceased brother. It identified him as the inventor of dynamite who made a fortune by enabling armies to achieve new levels of mass destruction. Nobel had the unique opportunity to read his own obituary in his lifetime and get a glimpse of how he would be remembered: as a merchant of death and destruction. The newspaper's mistake forced him to turn around, to turn away from the mirror and look out the window, to see what impact his life was really having. That's when he decided to change directions. He took his fortune and used it to establish the awards for accomplishments contributing to life rather than death. That's a highly visible case of what it means to repent, to turn around.

Repenting from our sins, trading in our self-centered habits for habits of self-giving, is necessary if we want our friendship with God to grow. But it is necessary for  the rest of our lives to grow.  Every sin, every thorn of selfishness that we leave festering in our hearts, stunts our growth not only as Christians, but also as human beings.

Leonardo Da Vinci learned this lesson while he was painting his famous "Last Supper" in Milan. While he was working on the painting, he had a bitter argument with another painter, an enemy who he had long despised. To vent his anger at this other artist, Da Vinci used the artist's face as a model for the face of Judas Iscariot, the Apostle who betrayed the Lord. Leonardo felt a sense of evil satisfaction in coming up with a humiliation that all his peers would recognize, and that would last though the centuries. As he worked on the faces of the other Apostles, he often tried to paint the face of Jesus, but couldn't make any progress. He advanced steadily in painting all the figures, except that of Jesus, the most important one. He became more and more frustrated and confused. In time he realized what was wrong. His hatred for the other painter was holding him back from finishing the face of Jesus; it kept him from being able to see Jesus clearly. Only after making peace with his fellow painter and repainting the face of Judas was he able to paint the face of Jesus and complete his masterpiece.

We are not made for sin and selfishness. Repentance frees us to see Christ and to become all that he created us to be. Lent is an ideal time “to dig around and manure” the tree of our life so that it may bring forth fruits.

We need to make the best use of the “second chances” God gives us. Our merciful Father always gives us a second chance. The prodigal son, returning to the father, was welcomed as a son, not treated as a slave. The repentant Peter was made the head of the Church. The persecutor Paul was made the apostle to the Gentiles.  During Lent, we, too, are given another chance to repent and return to our Heavenly Father’s love. We are also expected to give others another chance when they ask our forgiveness.

One of the ways the Church encourages us to give repentance its proper place in our life is by making an examination of conscience every night before we go to sleep. Christians have had this habit for centuries.  It's a way to make sure that we never let a sin or a habit of selfishness take root in our hearts and obstruct God's plan for our life.

As Catholic Christians, we are blessed with a very clear, concrete way to repent, as often as we need to. It's called going to confession. Confession opens our souls wide to Christ's grace. It gives him room to work in our lives. In confession Jesus purifies our hearts, heals our wounds, and enlightens our minds. Confession gives us the assurance of God's forgiveness and grace that we need. If each one of us didn't have a need for repentance, God wouldn't have reminded us today about how important repentance is.

We have regular confession times here every Monday morning 9.00 to 9.30; Thursdays 6.00 to 6.40; Saturdays 4.00 to 4.45. Whenever there are no people in the Church I sit in the pew and pray. If you don’t see me in the confessional and am sitting here in the pews you can tap me on the shoulder and ask me to get inside the confessional.

We often ask God to make us happy.  And that's good. Today, he is asking us to make him happy, by repenting, by turning away from our sin and selfishness and turning back into his arms. Let's not disappoint him.