5th Sunday of Lent
John 8:1-11
Sunday Gospel Reflections by Sister Denise Curry

This is what I am praying for this Lent: To see the big picture. I am not kidding myself that it will be the whole picture… just more than I am seeing now. Now I am more like the men in the Gospel who saw only a woman caught in adultery. But when they knew her story and saw their own sins, it changed their perspective and they walked away.

I have had my chances to see the big picture. I have in mind the image of Sr. Dorothy Stang’s small bedroom in Brazil. And in Peru, I remember using the water discarded from taking showers for flushing toilets. In Nigeria, I learned to bathe tossing a few cups of water over my head. I survived. Now I find myself using too much water again. Why is this? Do I look at the faucet and imagine there’s a lot of water in there? This is sad thinking and not looking at the big picture.

To see the big picture requires asking a lot of questions, such as: Who was the man with the Gospel woman caught in adultery? Did she consider him the love of her life? How can we show the compassion of Jesus to those on the margins of society, or in our backyards? And, my personal favorite question concerns Sr. Dorothy Stang who was murdered in Brazil five years ago. How did she know that the death of the rainforest was our death?

In the First Reading, Isaiah says “See, I am doing something new.” What is this something new that God calls us to see through Isaiah? I believe we are that something new. Every day we have the chance to query, examine, and ponder; to forgive and be forgiven; not to tire of hope; to “forget what lies behind and reach out for what lies ahead”, as Paul tells us in Philippians.

What lies ahead? I like to have projects lying ahead of me. Here is my latest. Going off to work, I just brush my teeth in a few drops of water (like all of you). My route takes me through center city. I notice that the sidewalks near office buildings are being washed down with big industrial hoses. I begin to query about what good does my abstemious tooth brushing do unless I move my personal response to public advocacy. For, surely someone else in this city is concerned about this waste of precious water when many people in our world lack this precious resource. I ask myself what can I do about this.

Like the Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel, I focus myopically on little things that suit me, but the big picture calls me to reflect and change. It calls me to be a new person, a more communal one, one pondering the big picture of my Lenten search.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.

They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

            This is the Gospel of the Lord.

 

Sister Denise Curry

I first met the Sisters of Notre Dame at a tender age because my mother’s sister was an SND. I got my love for the poor from her; from my mother who never forgot her roots; from my father, a dentist who made house calls; and from St. Julie who said, “We exist only for the poor, only for the poor. Absolutely only for the poor.”

For many years I have lived in a community which offers hospitality to women in need. In the early years the women and children were from El Salvador and Guatemala. Now the women are torture survivors from Ethiopia and Cameroon.

I meet these women at the non-profit where now I volunteer, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition. TASSC serves torture survivors who are seeking asylum in the United States.

For 42 years I taught in elementary and high schools in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. This includes 21 years in public schools where I taught special education students.

I also coordinate in Mexico a summer Spanish language program for women who work with Latinos. See www.spanisheducationforwomen.org for information.