Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B
First Reading: Jer 31:31-34
Second Reading: Heb 5:7-9
Gospel Reading: Jn 12:20-33

“Having been made perfect” through his suffering and death, Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,” we hear in the Letter to the Hebrews.

In fact, God became Man “for us men and for our salvation,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God.” God “loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.”

“Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again,” the Catechism says. “We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Saviour; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator.”

It was for this reason that Jesus willingly underwent the frightful torture of his passion and crucifixion. The fact that he was God did not make it any less, for he was also fully man. As we hear in the Gospel Reading, he was tempted to ask his Father to save him, but he refrained because this suffering was the very reason he had come into the world.

In fact, the name given him by the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, “Jesus,” means “God saves,” expressing both his identity and his mission.

“Jesus” is “the divine name that alone brings salvation,” the Catechism says. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

In the Gospel Reading, Jesus calls on his Father to “glorify” his name, and God answers, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” – at the Resurrection, says the Catechism. In this name the apostles performed miracles. The evil spirits fear it.

By his suffering and death, Jesus saved us from the effects of Adam and Eve’s original sin. However, he did more. “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him,” the Catechism says. “The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature.” The Son of God became the Son of Man “so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself,” Jesus says in the Gospel Reading. Then, as God had prophesied in the First Reading, we shall all “know the Lord.”

Jesus promised that if we serve him, we will be with him forever, honoured by his Father just as he is honoured.

“The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness,” the Catechism says, quoting Jesus: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”

The name of Jesus is at the heart of all Christian prayer. Liturgical prayers end with the words “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Hail Mary reaches its high point in the words, “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” The Eastern prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, says, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Many Christians, like St. Joan of Arc, have died with the one word “Jesus” on their lips.

We who know this name have a responsibility to share the good news with everyone else. “Although in ways known to himself” God can draw those who are ignorant of the Gospel, the Catechism says, nevertheless “the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me,” Jesus said unambiguously. “All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body,” says the Catechism. “It is through the Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained.”

Father Hawkswell is again teaching “The Catholic Faith in Plain English.” All the materials (video and print) are available online free of charge at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Session 27, “How to Go to Confession,” will be available March 21.