2015/02/22 - Homilies - 1st Sunday of Lent

Imprimer

RAINBOW and WATER


We are coming to the Lent period, this Sunday, the first one, and the following weeks. A few days ago we received the ashes as a sign of our desire of repentance. Jesus himself is showed as a man put under the pressure of evil. His struggle, his fighting against temptations are real.  It was not only for himself. It is mostly to show us how to resist them and convince us that finally the winner is... God.


For us the faithful such a victory is just coming  from the whole Bible through the witnesses of the goodness of God.  This faithfulness is possible because of God`s will, as it is showed in the Bible. Today we can appreciate it through the rainbow sign : such a beautiful one. Who has ever seen it appeared into the sky? Magnificent spectrum of colors. 

 At that time the people didn`t know what exactly happened with the colors of rainbows. They surely noticed that they appeared after a shower. The deluge was a very huge, big, disaster flooding the whole earth. Of course, we know, in fact it was quite small, but it doesn`t matter.

Instead the flood destroyed the earth and its inhabitants, except a few (Noah and his own family).But if we remember that God has sent the waters of baptism, since then water has become the source of the real life.

Water and rainbow go together.

When we see the rainbow as a sign  of alliance with the good wishes of God for our life, we can remain what God has made us for and what He is going to do for us.

Surely, the beauty of rainbows are ephemeral but if we put it together with the goodness of God, we can realize how for the faithful it is possible to live according to what can be discovered inside our faith.


The most important place where the sign of the rainbow could appear, is the confession of sins. Have you ever seen the rainbow above the confessional? Never, but into our hearts we can find one. By each confession of sins and repentance we prove our faithfulness and we ‘provoke’ the appearance of the beautiful rainbow in our heads and in our hearts. 

God is patient, but not in the sense of retaining the punishment for our sins until later. Rather he has a plan of salvation for each of us and so and gives us the opportunity to respond to it. He would like to save us through his merciful heart. Not to submit us under his own powerful clearness without any wrong judgment.


He is asking us today whether  we want to be welcomed by his power of mercy or by his power of judgment. We all know the answer. That is why we can say with the psalmist :  (ps24)