Sternness and Mercy
Homily for the Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent
March 26, 2025
Homily for the Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent
March 26, 2025
Homily for Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent
Matthew 5:17-19
One of the features of our mid-week Lenten lectionary is that – in contrast to the daily lectionary during the rest of the year – our Lenten readings do not follow sequentially one after another. For example, on Monday we heard from Luke chapter 4, yesterday from Matthew 18, today from Matthew 5, tomorrow from Luke 11, and Friday from Mark 12. Though these non-sequential readings do not allow for the unfolding of narrative, they do allow for the scriptures to formulate the particular Lenten “tincture” of sternness and mercy.
And so, for example,yesterday the Gospel for Tuesday in the Third Week of Lent (from Matthew 18) was “Mercy:” “’Lord,’ asked Peter, ‘how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times’” (Mt 18:21-22). Today’s Gospel (from Matthew 5) is “Sternness” – Jesus said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Tomorrow’s readings are likewise “Sternness” – from Jeremiah: “Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but,in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels.”(Jer 7:24). And Friday’s readings are again “Mercy” – from Hosea: “I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.”(Hos 14:4).
The Christian tradition has long understood this “tincture” of sternness and mercy to be healing. Ignatius of Loyola, for example, understood God’s Spirit to alternatively “prick and bite” our conscience as we need correction, and then to give “courage, strength and consolation” when we are “rising from good to better in the service of our Lord.” Lent with its rhythms of “sternness” and “mercy” can be healing if we let it.
In the weeks remaining to us this Lent, I encourage us to go to lectionarypage.net and look up the daily readings for Lent and to take time with them, if for only ten of even five minutes. Find a place where you will not be interrupted, turn off your phone, maybe take off your shoes (to indicate you are not going anywhere) and ask Jesus to show you what he wants you to hear in the scriptures that day. Jesus, who is working always on our behalf and for our good, would be delighted to offer you the healing you need. This healing may not happen all on one day – the scriptures in Lent are a mixture of “sternness”and “mercy.” But given enough “doses”over enough days, I would be surprised if Jesus – as we continued to show upday by day and make ourselves available to him in the scriptures – [I would be surprised if Jesus] didn’t make known to you, in a felt, interior way, how much he loves you.
