Homily on the Third Sunday of Lent
St. John Paul II Parish, Cedar Springs, Michigan
Mary Queen of Apostles Parish, Sand Lake, Michigan
Father Lam T. Le, Pastor
March 23, 2025

“If you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

(Lk 3:3, 5)

At the beginning of Lent, we had ashes placed upon our head with the priest said this: “Repent
and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15).  Thus, repentance is the essence of Lent.  The Gospel of
this Third Sunday Year C reinforces the urgency of repentance.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul reminded the Corinthians regarding what happen for their
ancestors when they do not repent. Throughout the desert experience, God cared for them so
deeply: they “were all under the cloud, . , passed through the sea, . . , , were baptized into
Moses, . . , ate the same spiritual food, . . , drank from a spiritual drink;” they, however, “were
struck down in the desert”, i.e., most people did not make it to the promise land (cf. 1Cor. 10:1-
5). The reason was unrepentance! Here Saint Paul referred to what God said to Moses: “Here
in the wilderness your dead bodies shall fall. Of all your men of twenty years or more, enrolled
in your registration, who grumbled against me, not one of you shall enter the land where I
solemnly swore to settle you” (Nm. 14 29-30). The apostle then warned the Corinthians but
speaks directly to us to today in this liturgy: “These things happened as an example for us, so
that we might not desire evil things, as they did. Do not grumble . . .and suffered death by the
destroyer” (1Cor 10: 6,10). Unless we repent, we will be in the same boat as the “ancestors” of
the Corinthians.
The word repent (in biblical Greek metanoia) has the connotation of seeing things upside
down: turning away from a bad direction toward the good. Repentance is a call for a change of
heart and conduct, or a turning of one’s life from rebellion to obedience towards God.
The call to repent includes the enter household of God: “Lent is ordered to prepare for the
celebration of Easter, since the Lenten liturgy prepares for celebration of the Paschal Mystery
both catechumens, by the various stages of Christian Initiation, and the faithful, who recall their
baptism and do penance” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 27). Both
the unbaptized, the elect, and the faithful are called to turn from the rebellion to obedience
toward God.
For us Catholics, the culmination of our repentance is the trip to the confessional where our
sins are forgiven, and the grace ushers in a new life. Another way of putting in, whenever we
sin, the channel of God’s grace begun in baptism gets clogged up. Confession removes all the
obstacles to let God’s grace flow again and flow abundantly! Every time we go to confession, to

use the language of the parable in the Gospel today, we allow the gardener to “cultivate the
ground” and to “fertilize” our soul (cf. Lk 13:8). Let Christ be that Gardener breathing the Spirit
of Repentance in our soul during this 24 Hours for the Lord starting at 4:00pm this Friday
through 4:00pm Saturday.
May the Lord bless us on the repentant journey! Amen.
Scriptural Readings: Reading I Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15; Responsorial Psalm Ps 103: 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11
Reading II 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12 Verse Before the Gospel Mt 4:17; Gospel Lk 13:1-9