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Third Sunday of Lent Year B
For many Catholics, fund raising can sound like a dirty word. This aversion and resistance to fund raising activities is often justified by the following assumptions:
First, religion should stay clear of money matters and should be solely concerned with the spiritual welfare of its members.
Second, the Church already possesses a fortune evidenced by the size of the church and its many facilities. Somehow, the church has stashed away in some secret corner, a magical goose that can endlessly lay golden eggs.
Third, Jesus shows us a perfect example of how we Christians should abhor the commercialising of religion by His action of turning out all the merchants and traders from the Temple precinct and then accuses them of turning His Father’s house into a market.
Our gospel story is often interpreted as testimony against materialism in religious practice. Religion is to remain radically pure in regard to the corruptions of commerce. Christianity is solely about faith. Money plays no role whatsoever. So, was our Lord’s action in today’s gospel passage a call to keep things simple and cheap, that the Church should avoid any effort to raise funds for its maintenance and activities? You will be surprised with the answer.
In case you may have noticed, the Gospel of John states that Jesus cleansed the temple early in His ministry, but the other gospels place the temple-cleansing near the end of His ministry. Only in John’s gospel do we have the Jews confront our Lord with this question: “What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?” And it is this question which opens the discussion on the significance of our Lord’s action in pointing to His own death and resurrection.
The Temple was the focal point of every aspect of Jewish life and identity. From a theological and liturgical perspective, for a first-century Jew, the Temple was at least four things: (1) the dwelling-place of God on earth; (2) a microcosm of heaven and earth; (3) the sole place of sacrificial worship; (4) and where there is ritual sacrifice, you would also need the priesthood. Therefore, sacrifices offered to God could only be made at the Temple and never elsewhere. This is also the reason why there were traders selling animals in the Temple because these animals were meant for the Temple rituals, offering and sacrifices. The moneychangers also served a similar role of exchanging the profane Roman currency, which was considered idolatrous and unclean with Temple coinage, the only currency accepted in the Temple.
But the temple was also a barometer of sorts for the health of the covenantal relationship between God and the people. Many of the prophets warned that a failure to uphold the Law and live the covenant would result in the destruction of the temple. In 587 B.C., the temple was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, marking the start of The Exile. Following the exile, the temple was rebuilt, then damaged, and rebuilt again. But even this second temple would be destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Was it in this context that we can understand the words of our Lord, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up”? St John gives us the answer: “But He was speaking of the sanctuary that was His body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this …”
Our Lord Jesus saw that all four aspects of the Temple were being fulfilled in Himself and in the community of His disciples. (1) His body is the dwelling place of God on earth - the meeting place between heaven and earth; (2) He is the foundation stone that would be the beginning of a new Temple and a new creation - the new heaven and earth; (3) He would offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice that will accomplish what previous animal blood sacrifices were unable to achieve - atonement for sin and communion with God; (4) and finally, Jesus is the High Priest of the new eschatological priesthood that could serve as the perfect mediator between God and man. Because of this, the old temple was destined to pass away, to be replaced by the new Temple “not made with human hands,” and the old priesthood with the new.
Was Jesus, in cleansing the temple, attacking the temple itself, and by extension, an attack on God as well? No. And did Jesus, in making His remark, say He would destroy the temple? No. But, paradoxically, the love of the Son for His Father and His Father’s house did point toward the demise of the temple. “This is a prophecy of the Cross,” wrote Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, “He shows that the destruction of His earthly body will be at the same time the end of the Temple.”
So, the new and everlasting Temple was established by the death and resurrection of the Son of God. Through our Lord’s death and resurrection, the place for encountering God will no longer be the temple but the risen and glorified Body of Jesus in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, where all mankind is united. With His Resurrection the new Temple will begin: the living body of Jesus Christ, which will now stand in the sight of God and be the place of all worship. Into this Body He incorporates men. This is what the Catechism tells us: “Christ is the true temple of God, ‘the place where his glory dwells’; by the grace of God, Christians also become temples of the Holy Spirit, living stones out of which the Church is built” (CCC 1197). Through baptism we become joined to the one Body of Christ, and that Body, the Church, is the “one temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 776).
Finally, this story of the cleansing of the Temple also points to an important aspect of our spiritual lives, an element so relevant during this season of Lent - spiritual purification. Christ has come not only to “cleanse the Temple of Jerusalem,” but the temple of our own bodies, our lives. Our Lord’s purification of the Temple reminds us today of the need to purify our faith, to once again ground our lives on the God who shows us His power and infinite love on the Cross, the source of our salvation. Only by passing through the Cross will we reach the glory and joy of the Resurrection. The Lord Jesus comes into your life expecting to find a place ordered to the worship of the one true God, but what He finds is “a marketplace,” a heart that is divided by competing values and allegiances. Instead of a heart that is solely dedicated to God, Christ finds a place where things other than God have become primary. What rivals to the one true God have you allowed to invade the sacred space of your soul? Entertainment, leisure, material wealth, obsessions and addictions? How are these things enshrined in the sanctuary of your own heart leaving no room for God? During this Lent, let us reorientate our lives, consecrate our hearts solely to God and rid the temple of our own bodies of the idols to which we have foolishly given power and pride of place.
Second Sunday of Lent Year B
The faith of the protagonist in the first reading is legendary, so much so that his faith has been used as a model for Christians in the New Testament. Abraham’s walk with God began when God found him living in a pagan land and called him to leave his home and family to go to the place God would show him. After decades of walking with God, Abraham’s small faith grew through each high and low. He learned to trust God with his dreams and with his disappointments, with his gains and with his losses, with his successes and with his flops. In each stage, God proved faithful and Abraham’s faith took roots. And when his faith was firmly rooted in the Lord, God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to make the greatest sacrifice of all - his son Isaac.
This is where we find ourselves in the story of Abraham. In the first reading, we have the moving account of God asking Abraham to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham had waited decades for this miracle child. Right from the very start of his faith journey, God had promised to bless Abraham and to make his name great and blessed through his descendants. Now, how is this going to happen if God is going to take his only male heir? Abraham had been asking that same question for years when he and his wife Sarah remained childless until their old age. Yet, God has never disappointed in that first instance by giving him a child. So, now Abraham trusted that God will not disappoint him again.
At first glance, the story of Abraham and Isaac seems disturbing. Why would a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son in a manner similar to his pagan neighbours? Was He bringing unnecessary torment to a man who had already waited so long for a child? Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that God’s request to sacrifice Isaac was not unloving or capricious. Instead, it is a beautiful picture of Abraham’s faithfulness and God’s provision. In the past, Abraham had doubted God. He had tried to have children in his own way instead of waiting on God. By asking him to sacrifice Isaac, God was testing Abraham to see if he trusted Him. And he did: Abraham’s faith in God was so great that he was willing to give Him his only son, trusting that God could bring him back from the dead.
As God describes Isaac to Abraham, we hear Him describe His only Son, Jesus. The story of Isaac is both a picture of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son and a foreshadowing of God’s willingness to sacrifice His only Son for us. This was the Son that truly died and was brought back from the dead. The story of Abraham’s sacrifice, like no other, gives us a glimpse into what it cost the heart of God to sacrifice His only Son for us. Abraham’s story of the sacrifice of Isaac parallels Jesus in many ways. Both were well loved sons; both carried wood to the place of the sacrifice; both were promised that a lamb would be sacrificed, only for Jesus there was no ram in the thicket to take His place. He is the Lamb of God that would be sacrificed, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.
As we turn to the gospel, we see another set of parallels. This time, it is the disciples of the Lord who are being prepared for their greatest test - the passion and death of our Lord. The great reason for this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of His disciples, that they will not lose faith and hope when they witness our Lord’s death. Unlike Abraham, their faith will falter. Unlike Abraham, they will flee the scene instead of accompanying our Lord to His great sacrifice. But because of the transfiguration and the resurrection, they will return.
As far back as our liturgical sources take us, we find the Church beginning Lent with the Gospels of Jesus’ Temptation in the desert and His Transfiguration on the mountain. Hence Christians’ Lenten experience replicates the God-guided experience of the people of Israel: their forty years of journeying in the desert, which tested their fidelity, and the community-founding theophany at Sinai which endowed them with the Torah of grace.
But there is also deliberate and stark parallelism between the story of the Transfiguration and our Lord’s Passion. The same three named disciples are handpicked by our Lord to be with Him and to witness both events, and on both occasions they remained confused. Our Lord was transfigured on one mountain and crucified on another. On both occasions, there is a revelation of our Lord’s identity as the Son of God. At the Transfiguration, it is God who speaks: “This is my Son.” But in the crucifixion, we find this idea finally taking hold and being repeated at last by a person. And what’s really remarkable, it’s not one of the disciples. It’s not even a Jew. He’s a Roman soldier. The enemy! The person, we least suspect. Declaring it at the point we least suspect. This Gentile centurion shows greater faith than even the disciples, because he alone witnessed the Lord’s death unlike His disciples.
If you have ever doubted God’s wisdom or questioned your faith because of some crises, do not lose faith but continue to trust in the Lord. Abraham did and he was rewarded. Beyond the scandal of the cross is the glory of the resurrection. We are assured as Abraham was, that God always provides. Like Abraham, we should have confidence in God, trusting Him with everything and being willing to sacrifice our best to Him. St Paul reassured us with the rhetorical question: “With God on our side who can be against us?” And the answer is no one and nothing! God not sparing His own Son for our sake is the pledge of His fidelity and love for us.
Though we may not fully understand His plans, God in His providence, supplies all our needs. We should never lose faith in His promises and Providence. Abraham says, “God will provide the sacrifice.” Not only did God provide a ram as a sacrifice for Abraham, but He provided a lasting sacrifice through His Son — for Abraham, and for all of us. All our Lord asks is that we have a trusting heart and be willing to “listen to Him.”
First Sunday of Lent Year B
Such stark contrast! Our lectionary juxtaposes two extreme conditions, a deluge or great flood in the first reading, and an arid barren desert in the gospel. Too much water on the one hand, and too little to none on the other. Both conditions seem inhospitable and even humanly uninhabitable. What’s the connexion apart from being two extreme polarities? These two scenes draw us back to the beginning - to how it all began - to the story of creation. Most folks are familiar with the story of how God created the universe in six days and then rested on the seventh. But there are actually two and not one account of creation. Chapter One of the Book Genesis begins in a watery chaos and Chapter Two begins in a desert.
And so, we have in the first reading an account of God renewing His covenant with Noah in the aftermath of the flood. The flood itself portrays a return of the earth to the primeval state of Genesis where darkness, water, and wind covered the earth. The great flood is a testament to God’s hatred of sin and His determination to wipe it from the face of the earth. God blows a “wind” over “the deep” and “the waters” recede. When at last the flood subsides, the ground is dry and new vegetation is springing up. The barriers set in place by God at creation are restored - the dry land is once again separated from the waters. The occupants of the ark, both humans and animals, step on dry land and life begins anew. If the precreation scene in Genesis Chapter One begins in pitch darkness, this beautiful scene in the first reading is bathed in light - no stormy clouds in the sky but a bright sunny day with a rainbow crowning God’s redeemed creation. It is a picture of perfection, but not yet. That would have to wait until the Son of God becomes the Son of Man and seals a new covenant with humanity with His own blood instead of the sacrifice of animals as was done by Noah and the ancestors of old.
Let us not forget that the first flood swept away the evil from the surface of the earth, but not from the hearts of the ark’s passengers. So an even greater act of salvation was needed, one that was more radical, that penetrated to the very “root” of evil. God Himself enters into our world in the form of a man and engages in hand-to-hand combat with the father of lies. For sin to be rooted out, repentance is necessary. And so the rallying cry of God’s ultimate champion is “Repent, and believe the Good News.”
If the first reading calls us back to Chapter One of Genesis, the gospel story alludes to and reverses what takes place in Chapter Two and Three: the planting of the Garden in the midst of a barren desert, the creation of man, the first Son of God, and His subsequent temptation and fall. Here in the gospel, there is no garden - Paradise has been lost and all creation has been rendered a barren wasteland by man’s sin. But instead of succumbing to the ancient serpent, our Lord Jesus triumphs over Satan. Instead of enmity between man and the animal kingdom, we already see the beginnings of a reconciliation as wild beasts gather around the Lord. If one man wrought humanity’s downfall, another man, the perfect man, the one whom St Mark at the very beginning of the gospel identifies by His rightful title, the Son of God, will lead humanity in its ascent to the heavens.
The wrestling match is won by the Son. This, however, is not the decisive battle. By means of the cross, the sign of this New Covenant, our Lord Jesus decisively vanquished sin and its patron, letting loose from His pierced side a stream that was more powerful than the ancient waters traversed by Noah and Moses. The fathers of the Church saw in those two streams of blood and water, the birth of the Church through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. In Christ’s death and resurrection, creation is healed and reborn. The key for us to now participate in this recreation is repentance. Repentance begins the path to redemption and to sanctification. Repentance leads to conversion and conversion leads to baptism.
Through repentance, faith and immersion in these mighty waters of baptism, not the waters at creation or at the great flood but the waters that flowed from our Lord’s death on the cross, sin can finally be scoured not just from the skin but from the heart. In the second reading, St Peter explains that the water of the flood - “is a type of the baptism which saves you now, and which is not the washing off of physical dirt but a pledge made to God from a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” Baptism means burying the old man with Christ and emerging from the womb of the Church as a new creation, sharing in Christ’s resurrection. Lent is therefore the intensive preparation for those seeking baptism at Easter and an opportunity for the rest of us who are already baptised to recall our baptismal identity by renewing the promises made at our baptism.
This is what Lent is all about. It is a time when we remember the death that brings new Life. Just like Noah, his family and the animals at the moment they stepped out of the ark, would have been surprised by what they saw, this Lent too holds many surprises for us. We can either look at the destruction wrought by our sin, mourn the loss of all the things that have been taken from us or we had to give up, or we could behold a new world, a new creation before us. What was once a barren desert, watered by God’s graces, would now be teeming with life. For the great paradox at the heart of Christianity, a mystery we celebrate every Lent and Easter, is that a Death was the remedy for death. It was in losing His life that Christ brought new Life to the world. In the words of the Byzantine liturgy, “He trampled down death by death.” In the greatest paradox of all, our Lord changed death into a means of life, an ending into a new beginning. What was once our doom is now our salvation. “The time has come and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News!”
Ash Wednesday
For many, today’s date is unmistakable and if you have a loved one, forgetting that it’s Valentine’s Day is unforgivable. But even if today doesn’t happens to be Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, our liturgical calendar actually honours two other saints, St Cyril and St Methodius, and not the eponymous St Valentine. Valentine’s Day has been largely relegated to a secular feast of mushy romantic ideals and practices.
Chocolates, flowers and candlelight dinners are things we normally associate with the secular representation of the feast of this Catholic saint who is patron of marriages and romance. The ascetic practices we practice in Lent and which we have heard in our gospel today, hardly sounds romantic at all, if anything, they seem utterly Spartan and ascetically bleak. But love is actually at the heart of these Christian ascetical practices. Love is never about seeking our own happiness but the happiness of the other even at the cost of sacrificing our own. It is this ascetical aspect of love which is missing from so many modern conceptions of relationships resulting in selfish individuals looking for love but finding none, at least none which perfectly matches this self-absorbed notion of romance.
Asceticism? “Isn’t that like wearing hair shirts and whipping and punishing yourself? Does the Church still teach that?” Simply put, asceticism means self-sacrifice. It means denying yourself physical pleasures and conveniences even when you don’t need to. What the Church requires are spiritual athletes not couch potatoes. Christians do not practice asceticism because we see physical goods as evil. On the contrary, asceticism guards against valuing the goods of Creation so much that we disdain the Creator. Like all spiritual practices, asceticism should be motivated by love. Asceticism does not spring from some form of sick masochistic self-hatred, but rather it is the sacrifice offered out of love for our Lord Jesus who showed the extent of His love for us by dying for us.
As we begin our Lenten ascetic practices of prayer, fasting and alms giving, let us be conscious of the true reasons for our actions.
First, asceticism combats habitual sin. If you struggle to control your desire for something you tend to abuse (food, drink, sex, comfort, etc), practising self-denial is like building your spiritual muscles against it. St Paul writes, “I discipline my body and make it my slave” (1 Corinthians 9:27). The word here for “discipline” carries violent overtones, literally meaning “to beat” or “to batter.” We’re called to show our body who’s boss. The purpose of fasting, for instance, is so that one can train his appetites by habitually telling them “No,” even in regard to lawful earthly goods, like food or conjugal relations. That way, when a sinful temptation stirs up the appetites, the body has been well-trained to obey its master, the sanctified rational mind.
Second, asceticism builds the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the virtue that balances our desires for physical goods. When our desires are out of balance (a condition of Original Sin called “concupiscence”), we need to reset the balance with self-denial. Our Lord Jesus teaches us: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
Third, asceticism protects you against the excesses of the culture. Like the culture the early Christians lived in, our modern culture has deified entertainment, luxury, and physical pleasure. While Christians can give lip service to resisting these temptations, the truth is that we’re immersed in this culture and it’s difficult not to be transformed by it. Asceticism helps us to set our hearts on the greater goods and to resist laxity of heart and open our hearts to be transformed by grace.
Fourth, asceticism moves our hearts away from selfishness. We live in air-conditioned comfort, even in our cars. We get used to having entertainment literally at our fingertips. Everything in our lives is built around convenience, entertainment, and comfort. Self-sacrifice prevents our modern lifestyle from sinking too deeply into our hearts.
Fifth, asceticism can be an act of love. If fasting and making other sacrifices are going to make you more cranky and irritable, if you continue to judge your neighbour for their lack of devotion or dedication to these ascetic practices as you have, then you have missed the point. These practices should enlarge our hearts, not shrink them. To know whether we’ve been doing it right is to examine the fruits of our practices. Have we grown in our love for God and neighbour?
Sixth, asceticism should lead us to interior conversion rather than multiply our practices as a kind of performance. Let us pay heed to the warning of our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel, that we should not practice asceticism so that “men may see you” but rather, be content that “your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” Asceticism provides us with new lenses to see things unlike how the world sees. St Paul puts it this way: “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)
In our consumeristic and materialistic culture, this programme of spiritual exercise is both unpopular and difficult. If these practices sound intimidating, think of the physical regiment many people keep to stay fit and healthy. If one can endure such hardships for a temporal good, a healthy life, one must then appreciate the value of spiritual exercises that will gain us, with God’s grace, eternal life. These habits of self-denial, which include prayer, fasting and almsgiving can strengthen us, by God’s grace, to aim our desires at unseen realities and reap the radiant joys of heaven, even now. When done out of love, instead of burdensome obligation or as performance, these ascetic practices will do much to help us advance spiritually. This is the path of spiritual athleticism and Lent is as good a place as any, to start our training.
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B
Leprosy? Most of us have never seen anyone with this debilitating disease. Leprosy seems to have been stamped out in our country and any trace of the colonies, where lepers were hold up, to isolate them from the rest of us healthy folks have been lost to development. But both scripture and the Church’s history refuse to let us forget. The story of St Damien of Molokai, Apostle to the Lepers, must certainly be one of the most inspired hagiographies ever written and one which reminds us of the “lepers” that continue to live among us, though often out of sight.
In 1866, to curb the spread of this virulent disease of leprosy, the Hawaiian authorities decided to consign lepers to an isolated community on the island of Molokai. Once the lepers were out of sight and no longer a threat to the general population, the government turned a blind eye to their basic needs. Where even other missionaries kept away, St Damien, a missionary priest, pleaded with the bishop of the territory to allow him to minister to the needs of these lepers. The bishop kindly accompanied Damien to the colony and introduced him to the 816 community members as “one who will be a father to you and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you, to live and die with you”. Little did the bishop realise that his words would prove prophetic.
Damien’s superiors had given him strict advice: “Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them.” But Damien made the decision to transcend his fear of contagion and enter into solidarity with the Molokai lepers. Other missionaries and doctors shrank from the lepers. What surprised the lepers most was that Damien touched them. But Damien not only touched the lepers, he also embraced them, he dined with them, he put his thumb on their forehead to anoint them, and he placed the Eucharist on their tongues.
One day, while soaking his feet in extremely hot water, Damien experienced no sensation of heat or pain—a tell-tale sign that he had contracted leprosy. The disease quickly developed, causing Damien to write to his bishop with the news. Damian who had not hesitated to become one of the lepers, chose also to live and die with them.
If you find that story amazingly moving, then you should feel the same if not more for what the Lord has done for us. Our Lord approaches a leper in today’s gospel and touches him.
To truly understand the significance of our Lord’s action, we need to understand two important concepts in the mind of a Jew– leprosy and the laws of ritual purity. The idea of leprosy was more than a virulent disease to be avoided. For the Jews, it was a sacrament in reverse - outward sign of inward curse. It was a sign of separation from God. For this reason, both the diagnosis as well as the final assessment that it had been cured, was not left to any ordinary doctor. Since, leprosy was seen as the ultimate punishment from God, only a priest, a minister of God could confirm that this sin was absolved, and the punishment lifted.
How about the laws of ritual purity? Since God is considered holy, anything which is unholy is not permitted to enter into His presence. The rules of ritual purity were designed for this. In the Old Testament law, there were five main ways people became unclean (even if it’s just temporary): eating “unclean animals”; (e.g., carrion-eaters); giving birth; contracting skin diseases; genital discharges; contact with corpse. Leprosy fell under the third category. Coming into contact with an unclean person would also render one unclean. So strict rules like those given to St Damien (“Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them”) had to be observed to avoid contamination. Instead of doing this, our Lord “stretched out his hand and touched” the leper. In the eyes of the crowd, our Lord had been contaminated.
But instead of being contaminated Himself, He heals the leper. We are reminded that we do not only get infection through close proximity, we can also get saved by it. C.S. Lewis explains this beautifully: “Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection, if you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”
The story of Jesus healing the leper ends happily for him but unfortunately for Jesus. At that touch, they were equals. Ironically, this man was now able to enter any town he wanted because he had been healed, but Jesus could no longer enter towns because of the news of this miracle had spread. He had become a social leper.
The healing of the leper was just a warm-up for what the Lord had prepared to do for all of us, a model of what was to come at the cross. When He died for our sins, for as many of us who have been washed in the blood, our sins died as well and Jesus was then able to be reconciled with the Father, from whom we have been separated because of our sins, our spiritual leprosy. By communion with Him, by participation in His cross, we could receive eternal life. He shared His divinity with us as we shared our humanity with Him but without Him taking away our humanity. Our humanity is thus sanctified by His divinity.
In the case of St Damien, although he entered into the most profound solidarity with the lepers by becoming one of them, he was never able to remove this disease from their bodies or the social stigma from their existence, what more his own. But in the case of our Lord Jesus, He has taken us into Himself. In exchange for our flawed and broken humanity, He has exchanged with us His sublime divinity. The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen describes the sublime transaction of the Incarnation in which Christ said to man: "You give me your humanity, I will give you my divinity. You give me your time, I will give you my eternity. You give me your bonds, I will give you my omnipotence. You give me your slavery, I will give you my freedom. You give me your death, I will give you my life. You give me your nothingness, I will give you my all.” So, let us turn to the Lord in confidence, humility and much love and ask: “Lord, if you want. You can cure me.”
