Reflection for the third Sunday in Lent (Year C)
“Do you ever get asked who you are and what you do? We love to place someone and understand them, which we begin to do if we hear that someone is, for example, a teacher or retired. So often we are then wrong in our assumptions from the mental label or image we then apply to the person. But who are we? Much has been made of this question in therapy and psychoanalysis, as we try to understand our deeper selves. That may be of some help at times, but it seems to be quite a good money-spinner playing upon our insecurities and deep uncertainties.
For us as Catholics and for all who are searching the answer is that our real identity lies in God. For He is the ‘I Am’ who speaks to Moses who is the God who then manifested Himself in Christ, the “I Am…the Good Shepherd”, the “I Am the Light of the World” and in what we celebrate today in the Mass, Christ’s very Presence: “I Am the Bread of Life”.
In the darkness and doubt, in the sufferings and uncertainties we all face at times, it is the ‘I Am’ who identifies Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane when asked if He is Jesus of Nazareth? Ultimately, we can have the deepest possible faith that ‘I Am’ has called each and every one of us. Like Moses, we can only reply ‘Here I am.'”
Neville Kyrke-Smith