Open Wednesday ... Fourth Sunday of Lent, C … March 14

     What is your favorite food?  How does it look?  ... taste? ...smell?   Can you     practically taste it even as you think about it?  If someone lacked the sense of taste, how would you describe to that person the taste of your favorite food?
     Next week the Psalm response is "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!"      Until one actually tastes a delicacy, one cannot understand its goodness.  Similarly, we    experience the goodness of God, and then we understand that God is good!   Experience and understand.  Taste and see.
     One way we understand that God is good is to experience forgiveness. How do you feel after you have offered an apology and been forgiven?  How do you feel when you forgive someone?  After you have gone to Confession, do you feel good?  We say that we celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  In the Second Reading Paul says that we are a new creation.  That is the way I feel after the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Paul reminds us that through Jesus we are reconciled to God.
     In your Bible or Bible storybook read the story of "The Prodigal Son."  (A    prodigal is someone who is extravagantly wasteful.  The prodigal son wasted his    father's inheritance.)  You may want to read the story three times.  The first time,  pretend you are the young son.  During the second reading identify with the father.  And during the third reading relate to the feelings of the older brother.
     I like the action of the father watching for the prodigal son to return and then    running towards him.  This Lent plan to receive and to celebrate God's forgiveness  in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Think of God waiting and watching for you.
     The First Reading is about another sort of "homecoming."  The Hebrews are   coming home to the Promised Land after generations of slavery in Egypt and years  of wandering in the desert.  They had the first Passover the night they left Egypt.   The celebration of Passover in the First Reading is right after the Hebrews underwent circumcision upon entering the Promised Land.  Circumcision was the sign of God's Covenant.  Now that the Hebrews are home, they can provide their own food, and the manna ceases. 
     Look at the map on the picture page.  To enter the "Promised Land" of Canaan, the Hebrews went east, past Canaan, and then doubled back to take Jericho.  They crossed the Jordan River to enter the Promised Land.  The symbolism of crossing  water is important to the story because water cleans and purifies.  Water, in Scripture, is like a code word: a sign that God is doing something new.  Similarly, our own  baptism opens the "Promised Land" of Heaven to us. The water of baptism is a sign that God is doing something new. 
     The daily manna and the annual Passover meal were both precursors of Eucharist.  Each celebration of Mass renews God's Covenant, and we are fed with Jesus, the Bread of Life.
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Sunday's Readings:     Joshua 5:9, 10-12
                                     Psalm 34
                                     2 Corinthians 5:17-21
                                     Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

If those preparing for Baptism or to be received into the church are present as a class, then the Readings for cycle A may be used: 1 Samuel 16:1,6-7,10-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41