"To be or not to be"
5th Sunday of Lent C,
Cobh
6 April 2025
My friends,
To be sure and certain of something is usually reassuring because it frees us from confusion and uncertainty. It usually gives us a sense of calm – something is right or wrong, black or white. Which is all very well until someone challenges our view of things or a situation. The courts of the world are full of witnesses who have two completely different versions of the same event. And both claim to be certain and sure of the truth.
Today’s readings are a blest opportunity for us to reflect on and think through our own way of making up our minds on what it is we believe and value.
The Gospel account of the woman caught committing adultery where she is brought before Jesus by the Scribes and Pharisees. As far as they were concerned, they were planning to fulfil the demand of the Law of Moses to have this woman killed by stoning. They were sure and certain in their view. Then asked Jesus what do you think? His response was stunning.
“If there is one of you who has sinned
let him be the first to throw a stone at her”
We know the rest,
“Neither do I condemn you. Go away and do not sin anymore.”
This encounter of the ‘certain’ and sinner would change our world view because we came to realise that justice has always to be tempered by compassion. Mercy and forgiveness are not just desirable but necessary for humanity to cope with the consequences of human frailty and sin.
There is another kind of certainty in the 1st Reading from Isaiah,
“See I am doing a new deed
even now it comes to light; can you not see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness
Paths in the wilds.”
That new deed of the Old Testament promise was realised in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord. It is of that certainty and sureness that St. Paul speaks in his eloquent testimony to the Philippians.
It’s a powerful witness to what his faith journey has come to mean in his life. It is a truly stirring and passionate declaration of the depth of his faith in Christ, its ever-present impact on his thinking and action,
“I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him.”
He then adds the grace and gift that comes from this desire to be in Christ Jesus,
“I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ and is from God and based on faith.”
This is the certainty of faith – rooted in experience, in reality. Living and active as he faces the future with hope.
“All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come.”
It’s this sense of a sure and certain hope that is the anchor by which we manage the uncertainty of our time.
