A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 9, n. 16)
1st Sunday of Lent, Year A – March 13, 2011 *
“Seeds of Faith … of Grace Abounding”
BIBLE READINGS
Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7 // Rom 5:12-19 // Mt 4:1-11
(N.B. Series 9 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year A from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 3. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 6.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
With the season of Lent, we embark on a very special spiritual journey toward the Easter glory. In this propitious time of renewal and conversion, we commit ourselves to listen more attentively to the Word of God for sin is a refusal to hear the word of God. According to Pope Benedict XVI, in his post-synodal exhortation VERBUM DOMINI (September 30, 2010), “the root of sin lies in the refusal to hear the word of the Lord, and to accept in Jesus, the Word of God, the forgiveness which opens us to salvation.”
In our Lenten journey of conversion, let us allow the seed of the living Word to enter the rich soil of our receptive hearts. The image of “seeds” sown on the ground to produce a rich harvest can serve as a tool to help the worshipping community in their spiritual journey through this year’s five Sundays of Lent. A powerful symbol of Christ’s paschal mystery, seeds must die in order to bear abundant fruits. Seeds must lose themselves into the mysterious earth so as to grow and be transformed into new life. The following focal points delineated by the Worship Committee of St. Christopher Parish (San Jose, CA –U.S.A.) can deepen our Lenten reflection.
- Week 1 – Victory over the Tempter: Seeds of Faith
- Week 2 – Transfiguration of the Lord: Seeds of Becoming
- Week 3 - Loving Encounter with the Samaritan Woman: Seeds of Love
- Week 4 – Healing of the Man Born Blind: Seeds of Light
- Week 5 – Raising of Lazarus to Life: Seeds of Life
Jesus, whose faith in his Father’s word is absolute, is our model of baptismal commitment and trust (cf. Mt 4:1-11). Victorious over sin and temptation, his sterling examples are “seeds of faith” sown in our hearts. Tempted in the Garden of Eden (Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7), the first Adam did not heed the word of God. He let his trust in the Creator die in his heart, resulting in misery, shame and alienation. But Jesus, the new Adam, obediently trusted in God’s word. Through him the tragedy of sin was overcome and death overturned. Through his fidelity to the Father, life was renewed and the waters of salvation flowed forth.
This Sunday’s Second Reading (Rom 5:12-19) helps us delve into the wonderful consequence of Christ’s fidelity. His unmitigated trust in the word of God overcame the effects of sin and death wrought by the first Adam. Christ’s faithfulness to God enabled him to offer alienated humanity the gift of reconciliation and reap the precious fruits of “grace abounding”. Indeed, Christ’s beneficence overturned the destruction caused by Adam’ disobedience and negation of God’s love.
The biblical scholar John Pilch comments: “Paul’s main interest is not to talk about sin or death, but rather to draw a contrasting picture of Adam and Christ, prominent figures of the beginning and the end time respectively. Adam is a type or prototype of the person to come, namely, Jesus, who would far surpass what Adam did. The world was changed by both of these individuals. Adam unleashed an active hostile force into the world (sin), which has the power to cause definitive alienation (death) from God, the source of all life … In contrast, Christ’s effect is starkly different. Through the gracious gift, namely, the redemptive death of Jesus Christ uprightness and life super-abound for all individuals who accept him.”
The following story illustrates beautifully the Lenten message that God’s grace is greater than the power of evil or the effects of sin (cf. Facing the Enemy” by Laura Hillenbrand in GUIDEPOSTS, January 2011, p. 52-57). Temptations to hate and despair can be overcome by letting the “seeds of faith” grow and by surrendering to the mighty love of God.
As a boy in California in the 1920s and early 1930s, Louie Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. Then he discovered that he had an extraordinary talent for running. He became a world-famous track phenomenon, competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics when he was still a teenager.
World War II began, and Louie set aside athletics and joined the Army Air Corps. He was stationed in Hawaii as a bombardier, fighting harrowing air battles against the Japanese. On May 27, 1943, Louie and his crew took off to search for a missing bomber. Far out over the Pacific, engine failure sent their plane plunging into the ocean. Trapped by wires in the wreckage, Louie passed out. When he came to, the wires were gone. He swam to the surface and climbed onto a raft, joining two other survivors. They’d sent no distress call, and no one knew where they were. For weeks the men floated, followed by sharks, surviving on rainwater and the few fish and birds they could catch. On the twenty-seventh day, a plane appeared. Louie fired flares, and the plane turned toward them. But it turned out to be Japanese bomber, and its crewmen fired machine guns at the castaways. Louie leaped overboard. He had to kick and punch the circling sharks to keep them away until the firing stopped and he could climb back up onto the raft. Over and over the bomber returned to strafe the men, sending Louie back into the shark-infested water. By the time the bomber flew off the raft was riddled with bullet holes and was starting to sink. Amazingly, none of the men had been hit, but the sharks tried to drag them away. Beating them off with oars, the men frantically patched the raft and pumped air into it. Finally the sharks left.
On they drifted, starving. One man died; Louie and the other crewmen hung on. On the forty-sixth day, they saw a distant island. They rowed toward it. When they were only yards from shore, a Japanese boat intercepted them. For the next two and a quarter years, Louie was a captive of the Japanese military. First he was held in a filthy cell, subjected to medical experiments, starved, beaten and interrogated. Then he was shipped to a prison camp in Japan, where he was forced to race against Japanese runners, winning even though he knew he’d be clubbed as punishment. He joined a daring POW underground, stealing food and circulating information to other captives.
It was in the prison camp that Louie encountered a monstrous guard known as the Bird. Fixated on breaking the famous Olympian, the Bird beat Louie relentlessly and forced him to do slave labor. Louie reached the end of his endurance. With his dignity destroyed and his will fading, he prayed for rescue. When the atomic bombs ended the war, the Bird fled to escape war-crimes trials, and Louie was saved from almost certain death.
He went home a deeply haunted man. He had nightmares of being bludgeoned by the Bird. Trying to rebuild his life, he married a beautiful debutante named Cynthia, but even her love couldn’t blot the Bird from his mind. He sought solace in running, but an ankle injury, incurred in POW camp and exacerbated by the Bird’s beatings, hampered him. Just as he was reaching Olympic form again, his ankle failed. His athletic career was finished.
Devastated, he started drinking. He had flashbacks: The raft of the prison camp would appear around him, and he’d relive terrifying memories. He simmered with rage, provoking fistfights with strangers and confrontations with Cynthia. He couldn’t shake the sense of shame that had been beaten into him by the Bird. Louie thought that God was toying with him. When he heard preachers on the radio, he turned it off. He forbade Cynthia to go to church. He drank more and more heavily. In time, Louie’s rage hardened into a twisted ambition: He would return to Japan, hunt down the Bird and strangle him. It was the only way he could restore his dignity. He became obsessed, trying to raise the money for the trip, but his financial ventures kept failing.
One night in 1948, Louie dreamed he was locked in a death battle with the Bird. A scream startled him awake. He was straddling his pregnant wife, hands clenched around her neck. His daughter was born a few months later. One day, Cynthia found him shaking the baby, trying to stop her from crying. She snatched the baby away, then packed her bags and walked out.
In the fall of 1949, Cynthia made a last effort to save her husband. She asked Louie to come to a tent meeting in Los Angeles, where a young minister named Billy Graham was preaching. For two nights, Louie sat in that tent, feeling guilty and angry as Graham spoke of sin and its consequences, and God bringing miracles to the stricken. On the second night, Graham asked people to step forward to declare their faith. Louie stood up and stormed toward the exit. But at the aisle, he stopped short. Suddenly he was in a flashback, adrift on the raft. It hadn’t rained in days, and he was dying of thirst. In anguish, he whispered a prayer: If you will save me, I will serve you forever. Over the raft, rain began falling. Standing in Graham’s tent, lost in the flashback, Louie felt the rain on his face. At that moment Louie began to see his whole ordeal differently. When he’d been trapped in the wreckage of his plane, somehow he’d been freed. When the Japanese bomber had shot the raft full of holes, somehow none of the men had been hit. When the Bird had driven him to the breaking point, and he’d prayed for help, somehow he’d found the strength to keep breathing. And that day on the raft, he had prayed for rain, and rain had come. Louie’s conviction that he was forsaken was gone, replaced by a belief that divine love had been all around him, even at his darkest moments. That night in Graham’s tent, the bitterness and pain that had haunted him vanished.
A year later, Louie went to Japan. He was a joyful man, his marriage restored, his nightmares and flashbacks gone, his alcoholism overcome. He went to a Tokyo prison where war criminals were serving their sentences. He hoped to find the Bird, to know for sure if the peace he’d found was resilient. But the Bird wasn’t there. Louie was told that the guard had killed himself. Louie was struck with emotion. He was surprised by what he felt. It was not hatred. Not relief. It was compassion. Louie had found forgiveness. Louie’s Zamperini’s life is a journey of outrageous fortune, ferocious will and astonishing redemption.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
What is “sin” according to the Genesis account? Have you refused to listen to the word of God and negated his benevolent love?
How does the experience of Jesus in the desert of temptation impinge on you? Do you allow Jesus, faithful to God and trusting in his word, to sow “seeds of faith” in your wavering heart? Do you turn to Christ for help in moments of temptation?
Do you believe that the grace won for us by Christ, by his obedience to the Father’s word, is superabundant and greater than the effects of sin? Do you resolve to embark on a profound spiritual journey of conversion this Lenten season?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving God,
we thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus,
the “new Adam” who is victorious over the Tempter.
He was faithful to you and obedient to your word.
In the sere desert of temptation,
he taught us the meaning of fidelity and inner strength.
He showed us how to trust in your provident care.
Heavenly Father,
you are kind, compassionate and forgiving.
When tempted to despair,
fill us with hope and strengthen us with your love.
Incline our hearts to your voice.
Give us courage to abide by your commands.
Let your Son Jesus sow the “seeds of faith” in our hearts.
Make them grow in the grace-filled choices of daily life
and bear abundant fruits.
In this Lenten season of prayer, fasting, and listening to your word,
fill us with healing love
and delight us with grace abounding,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.” (cf. Rom 5:15b)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
ACTION PLAN: Pray that in this Lenten season, the Christian disciples may overcome the various temptations that assail them from within and without. By acts of charity, justice and peace, let the “seeds of faith … of grace abounding” be sown more efficaciously, especially in those with broken and despairing hearts.
ACTION PLAN: That the “seeds of faith … of grace abounding” be sown more copiously, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year A, vol. 7, # 16).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US