Dear Friend, 

Reflection by Msgr. Gerard McCarren, S.T.D.

“He loved His Own in the world and He loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1), we will hear in this evening’s Gospel.  The gaze of Jesus, which we have contemplated these Lenten days, radiates the love of the Father.  We have found that love reflected perfectly on the face of His mother Mary, who leads us to her Son with a woman’s touch, helping us to be open to the Holy Spirit, Whom she received in the fullest way possible.  “The most fruitful activity of the human person is to be able to receive God,” wrote Father Jean Corbon in The Wellspring of Worship.[1]

It may be that, looking back on our Lent, we might wonder how well we have done.  We might wonder, even if we might be pleased with our part, what difference it makes—especially in view of the evil we see going forward at home and abroad.  Maybe these thoughts, valid though they may be, miss the greater reality: the loving gaze of Christ Jesus, whose face we seek, yes, but who searches us out, like the crippled man he had healed by the Pool of Bethesda, when he had come under attack for walking away—for the first time in 38 years—the mat he no longer needed (John 5:14).

Even when we have turned away from the gaze of the Lord Jesus, He will gaze at us—with love, as He did after being disowned: “and the Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Luke 22:61).  A gaze, however it might have felt to Peter in the moment, that led to his repentance and the restoration of his communion with the Lord Jesus.

Yes, “the most fruitful activity of the human person is to be able to receive God.”  To behold the face of the Lord Jesus is to know the Father, as the late Lenten daily Mass Readings from John’s Gospel repeatedly remind us.  May we all remain in that love; may we remain in the Lord Jesus, as John’s Gospel also impresses upon us.

Then we shall spontaneously pose the question the Psalmist asks at Holy Thursday’s Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper: “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for me?” (Ps 116:12).

An aspect of that good is that the One Who was “to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:52) through His Blood to be shed on the Cross (Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation I), has brought us all together in these reflections this Lent—and to the extent that we have listened from the heart (see the Rule of Saint Benedict, 1:1) has ushered us into deeper communion as members of the Body of Christ and in the communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  May we give thanks to the Lord Jesus as we enter into the Paschal Triduum this evening.  I give thanks for all of you who have participated in these weeks together with the community of Immaculate Conception Seminary, and in a particular way to our reflection leaders, Monsignor Joseph Reilly and Dr. Dianne Traflet.

[1] Liturgie de Source, Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1980; E.T.: Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1988; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001; San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005.

Interested in taking a summer graduate course? We are offering Creation and Science (an online course), Conversion of St. Monica, and Prayer, Discipleship and Community.

For more information visit here.

Reverend Monsignor Gerard H. McCarren, S.T.D., is the Rector/Dean, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology.  He earned a B.A. from Yale University with majors in History and in Philosophy (Psychology track), an M.Div. from Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, and an S.T.L. and an S.T.D. in Systematic Theology from The Catholic University of America. He was named Spiritual Director for the Seminary effective July 1, 2004.  In Spring 2005, Monsignor McCarren was named Chaplain to His Holiness. From 2007 to 2016 he served as a Vatican appointee to the Joint Commission for Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Methodist Council.  Monsignor McCarren served as president of the Federation of Seminary Spiritual Directors (United States and Canada) from 2018-2022.