Deisceabal/Chriostai Group Notes for the Fifth week of Lent

First Reading
Jeremiah 31:31-34

1. Jesus’ covenant is written on hearts and requires interior as well as exterior commitment. Which one involves a relationship and comes with feelings? Do both awaken your love and open your spirit to others?

2. “ … I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.” Are you good at forgiving? How about forgetting?

3. What do these passages teach about our call to obedience? 

4. What are the evidences that God’s law is written on our hearts?

Second Reading
Hebrews 5:7-9

1. Jesus sent up “supplications with loud cries and tears,” and thus knows our worst pain as well.  How does this impact your own suffering? Do you have to endure suffering alone?

2. Jesus spent his life alleviating the suffering of others. Is he finished with that, or does he continue to care for people who suffer today? If so, how? Are you a caretaker or are you cared for?

3. What does Jesus’ experience teach us about obedience?

GospelJohn 12:20-33

1. When Jesus thought about what was coming he said, “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?” What are some of the things that trouble you? Who do you call on when you are troubled?

2. How should we respond when people we know express a desire to see and know Jesus? 

3. How does this passage clarify what it means to be glorified? 

4. What does Jesus teach about the purpose and focus of our lives? 

5. Which of the promises mentioned here are most compelling to you? 

6. Who, according to Pope Francis in the following homily, are the benefactors of the grain of wheat dying?

(This is the way of life that) will save us, give us joy and make us fruitful. For this journey of self-denial is undertaken in order to give life: it is the opposite of the journey of egoism ... which leads to one becoming attached to all goods only for oneself … (The Christian way is) open to others, for it is the same journey that Jesus made. (It is a journey) of self-emptying for the sake of giving life. The Christian way is precisely this way of humility, meekness, of gentleness. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. … Remember when he speaks about the grain of wheat: unless this grain dies, it will not bear much fruit (cf. Jn 12:24).

Given at the Mass at Santa Marta, the Christian Way, on 03/06/2014