The Fruits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ

 Reflection on Today's Readings, Saturday, 5th Week of Lent, Year B, March 27th, 2021
Texts: 37:21-28; Ps. 31:10-13; John 11:45-57
Today's first reading tells us what God will to achieve in the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. By this we are made to appreciate the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ and also to anticipate holy week. Penultimate week (fifth week) of Lent has a way of making us to long for passion week and to be prepared for it. It is said in today's gospel reading thus: "Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, 'What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?'” Today we are told that our redemption depends on the events of the passion week: the institution of the Holy Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the passion and death of our Lord on Friday, and the resurrection on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Knowing that our salvation is the fruit of the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, we long for holy week, we long to relive and participate in the events in our time and place, we long for its actualization and realization in our time and place. Holy week always provides for us the opportunity to relive and participate in the events of the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore let us put aside every disturbance and distractions, so as to go into holy week without disturbance and distractions; we are to go with our whole heart, that we may relive and participate in the redemptive events, that its fruits may manifest in our lives.
We may now ask: what are the fruits of the passion and death of our Lord  Jesus Christ? What does God will to achieve in the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ? The first reading answers the questions while the gospel confirms it. Prophet Ezekiel, in the first reading, says, "Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from the nations among Which they have gone, and will gather them from all sides, and bring them to their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land". The gospel reading tells us that this prophecy come to pass in Jesus Christ: "But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, 'You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.' He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." Jesus Himself says, "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John12:32-33). All the children of God from every corner of the earth will come to their Father through the passion and death of our Lord Jesus; those who seek the truth will find it by His passion; they will find God for He is the truth; those who have gone astray by their sins we retrace their path back to God.
God will bestow on us sanctifying grace by the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. "Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. (CCC no. 2000). Hence, prophet Ezekiel says, "They shall not defile themselves any more with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
God shall also establish new covenant with us by the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Prophet Ezekiel puts it this way: "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore." Jesus Christ achieve for us peace by His passion and death. St. Paul says, "For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one entity and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, by destroying in his own person hostility, that is,  the Law of commandments with its decrees, to create a single New Man out of the two of them, and through the cross to reconcile them both to God in one body; in his own person he kills the hostility (Eph. 2:14-16).
The passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ will also gain for us God's presence among us. Prophet Ezekiel says, "My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." This is fulfilled in the institution of the Holy Eucharist on Holy Thursday. In the Holy Eucharist, God continue to be present among us till the end of time.

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You for the love You have for us, the love which led You to the Cross, grant that we may keep alive and active the sanctifying grace You have bestowed on us. Amen.

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke