Listen to God speaking to the prophet Jeremiah: “This is the new covenant I will make: Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts” (Jer 32: 31,33).  What is a covenant?  It is a relationship between God and the believing community.  It is both personal and communal.  God writes on the heart his Law…the Law of love…this is the new covenant.  This covenant is the eternal word that transcends time and culture…what was written perdures….it is eternal, God given, God sustained.  No evil…nothing has power over what God has written upon the heart, nothing can break this covenant…what is written is the transforming power of God’s love…which contains forgiveness and mercy. 

The gospel for this Sunday is the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11).  It is a gospel passage that moves me deeply for once again we find Jesus communicating an iconoclastic image of God.  Jesus’ initial response to those who accuse the woman caught in adultery is ‘silence’: he bends down into the silence, pauses and waits.  (Above Navajo Sand Painting)

Readings of the Day
RB: Ch 55:1-14 Clothing and Footwear for the Community
Mass: Is 43:16-21; Resp Ps 126; Ph 3:8-14; Jn 8:1-11 or readings for Year A: Ezk 37:12-14; Resp Ps 130; Rm 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45

Here we are already at the Fifth Sunday of Lent.  And today’s Gospel reading for Mass is the most striking story of the woman caught in adultery.  If we stand at Jesus’ side, if we feel into how he meets this situation, a situation in which he is being put to the test by the upholders of the law, what do we learn, what do we witness?  Jesus meet