Whoever has the truth cmes to the light...

I am reading the splendid novel The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott. In describing a suicide, she writes "his faith was like a trap door. It just collapsed beneath him."

It is that kind of a collapse of faith that we read about today in the First Reading.

The Hebrew people just fall away from their one true God.

And finally God's patience runs out, but not his mercy.

So the Hebrew people lose everything and are carted off into exile in Babylon which is modern day Iraq and Iran!

The year was 600 B.C.

They would be there for 70 years!

Psalm 137 refers to this:

"By the rivers of Babylon,

There we sat and wept.

remembering Sion.

on the poplars that grew there,

we hung up our harps...

O how could we sing

the Song of the Lprd

on foreign soil?

If I forgot you, Jeruslem,

let my right hand wither!

Then the Emperor Cyrus, inspired by God?.....

The Jews thought so, set them free to go to their homeland and restore their temple.

God's mercy towards his people prevailed over his wrath.

The Gospel:

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he will be lifted up like the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert on his way to the promised land.

Today that symbol is the symbol of the healing given by doctors.

So the snake is a symbol of resurrection since it sheds its skin and becomes new again!

So our Lenten journey is from holy dirt towards holy water.

and from darkness towards the light.

On this journey we avoid the trap doors that threaten our faith.

"Whoever loves the truth, comes toward the light."

And so we pray:

Lead kindly light

out of our darkness.

Amen