Victory in exile [Quinquagesima]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Samuel 16:1-13

• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

• St. Luke 18:31-43

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Recover your sight; your faith has saved you.’”

 
In light of the last three Sundays, listen to Jesus again predict His death and resurrection, with a few changes:
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be sown on roads and eaten by birds and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon among the rocks with no moisture. They will scourge Him with thorns and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again and produce fruit an hundred-fold.”
 
Jesus goes to His own city. The city He has dwelt in since Solomon brought His Tabernacle into Jerusalem. For nearly 1000 years, the Lord’s home was the Holy of Holies, seated between the cherubim on the Ark of the covenant, in the blood of the sacrifices.
 
At the right time, He took up His Tabernacle Himself, which is His body. He did not wait for man, but stepped down into His true form, burst forth from the Holy of holies that was the Virgin’s Womb, and tabernacled among us with His own Body and rational soul.
 
All this He did because He had heard His people’s cries from out of the Promised Land. Their abuse reached His ears. Their complaints rose to such a crescendo, He looked with His own eyes and saw that His land flowing with milk and honey, had become a desert. Jerusalem the free and home of the Brave, had become Egypt of the pagans and Babylon of the destroyers.
 
The Lord gives us the example of Jerusalem to teach us that the true land flowing with milk and honey is not of this earth. That even if we were to be geographically located as a religion, satan would build his democracy and make sure to raze such a place to the ground.
 
Just as he has done with each and every community that dared gather in God’s name, receive His sacraments, and offer their sacrifices to Him. On earth, there is no safe space for the Christian. The State will always be out for blood.
 
But so what? So we have been exiled? We have been placed here by God. He has given us this life and this location to live it. Though we have lamented over our sins the last 2 Sundays, today we rejoice in our exile, for it is there that we truly learn to lean on the Lord, and follow Him.
 
As King David said in 1 Chron. 21:13 “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
 
Behold, we are going to Jerusalem. Behold we are going into exile, Jesus says, so hold on tight. We are not finding a land of peace, the world would quickly devour it as it devours God’s Word. We are not finding a land of milk and honey, Cronyists would quickly buy up all the market and charge us two arms and two legs for the privilege.
 
No. Brothers and sisters, we are going to Jerusalem. Jerusalem the desert. Jerusalem the wilderness. Jerusalem the land flowing with pagans and sin.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! (Mt 23:37)
The land that hands over Jesus, mocks Him, spits on Him, insults, scourges, and kills Him. 
 
So Now, “…He said to them, ‘But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. ³⁷ For I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in Me: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’ For the things concerning Me have an end’” (Luke 22:36-37).
 
So now we prepare for this life in the wilderness. But this life and this preparation did not help us in Advent, it did not prevent the disciples from forsaking Jesus, and it did not prevent the death of God on the cross. 
 
Then what good are money bag, knapsack, and sword against a world that will always crucify Jesus, no matter the time period? They are for life. They are for a life of gathering around the risen Christ to receive His forgiveness.
 
Just as Egypt sheltered Jesus as a toddler against “God’s chosen”, so too does our exile today shelter us from other great shame and vice. Totally backwards right? You would think I would stand up here and condemn all that the capitalists pigs have offered us, but that would just be acknowledging their mass distractions.
 
Jesus presents a blind man to us as our lesson today and says, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say ‘We see,’ your guilt remains” (John 9:41). If we had eyes that were not blind, we would find faith in Egypt and in Babylon, as the Lord did. Last week, St. Paul boasted in his weakness, from 2 Cor, and this week we do the same.
 
We boast in our worldly weakness. We do not have the majority vote. We are not in the calculations for “true democracy”. We do not count at the world stage voting table. 
Where we do count is in the confession of our sins and the receiving of absolution. 
 
This is the lesson of the blind man: don’t lose sight of Christ. Don’t lose Him among the voting powers, and the world policing powers, and the hatred-of-your-fellow-man powers that the devil and his ilk offer to you on silver platters. Don’t take that ticket!
 
For Christ does not remain in Egypt, Babylon, or Jerusalem. He does not remain to wage war against those who are “morally worse” or whom our television has deemed “unworthy”. Christ moves on to glory. That is the glory of the cross. That cross-roads of history where God places Himself in the hands of hateful sinners in order to open heaven for them.
 
Yes, we live this life and fight for it, but we do not become so invested in it that we lose our sight. Jesse, David’s father from our Old Testament reading, was blinded. He was raising too many sons, in his estimation. He would never choose the extra one, meant to shepherd the sheep.
 
Similarly, St. Paul must spend an entire chapter of his epistle on love, because we simply do not choose it over everything else in this world. We fight, but we fight the good fight of faith. We buy sword and money bag, but we invest the rest in the Faith, in God’s Church.
 
Against invasion, nukes, and failure of moral character, Jesus plots out the best course: the cross. The Word of the Cross is the Gospel and the Gospel is the power of salvation. The only time it is in our hands is when Christ gives us His Body and Blood to eat and drink. Other than that we fight a fight we cannot win, on our own.
 
We fight not because it depends on us, but on Christ. Since He is victorious, we are only fighting the final skirmishes of a triumphant God over His enemies of sin, death, and the devil. Though they are violent skirmishes, there is no more question as to which side will be the victor.
 
The victory goes to life and light, as is evidenced by the blind man seeing light today. His eyes are opened and He sees Jesus. The God-man Who is able to make deserts fruitful and wildernesses a paradise. The Christ Who is able to place His Church in the midst of the Babylon of war and death and force peace and life to spread from it.
 
In Baptismal grace, the Flood of Jesus’s Blood washes over His Church and through His bought and paid for Faith, floods the world. In these last Days, the world tears itself apart, defeats itself, shoots itself in the foot. The judgement of heaven seems to be self-inflicted, but God has always worked through men and through means. 
 
In the hope that Christ’s victory gives, we have the front row seat to the end of the world and that is fine. Not that we rejoice in suffering, but we rejoice in our Lord’s victory over this world and its ruler. We are excused from that judgement, having been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Death’s dread angel sheaths its sword as it spots the Blood of the Lamb of God painted upon us.
 
Dear Christians, we are not losing any war. Sin may cause us to lose the Faith of Victory, but there is no loss in Word and Sacrament. We cling to those for dear life, because the promises of life, light, and salvation are found in them alone; in Christ alone. 
 
Peace reigns and all things have been handed over to the Lord of Peace, Jesus Christ.
 
In faith, we ask along with Psalm 2:
“Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Christ, saying,
“Let us break Their bonds asunder and cast away their yoke from us.”
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh to scorn; The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure:
“Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.”
 
I love that. It is the Lord’s announcement of the Gospel that frightens the world and stirs them to a deep frenzy. Did you notice? When God announces that His Chosen is set on His holy hill of Zion, when God proclaims the Gospel of Christ high and lifted up on a cross as a city on a hill, it is in that declaration of victory that the world is condemned.
 
Yet, it is in that same declaration that causes light to shine in the darkness, the Gospel to prosper in exile, and the flame of courage to rise once again in timid hearts. Are we afraid of “wars and rumors of wars”? There is no rumor in salvation in Christ and there is no war in Jesus’s victory over death. All is won.
All is calm. All is bright. Round yon sacrament, Body and Blood.
 
 

First, served [Sexagesima]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 55:11-13

• 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9

• St. Luke 8:4-15

 

 

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“A sower went out to sow his seed.”

 
We came to the understanding, last week, that the Church is in her 70 year exile at this moment. Not 70 literal years, but until Jesus returns. One of the ways we discovered this exile to be true, was our abuse of the Sacrament. That by our own, self-imposed fast, we show that we are separating ourselves from God, in our sin. Our default tendency is to steer away from what God is doing in His Word and Sacrament.
 
Today’s parable is no different. In the over-statement of all overstatements, we believe that the Word of God cannot work in our lives unless we have receptive hearts first; soil to receive it. We believe that Jesus is trying to tell us to get busy growing and get busy sowing.
 
We are the ones who determine what kind of soil our hearts will be. We decide whether we will have a hard heart, a shallow heart, a crowded heart, or a receptive heart. We believe that this is exactly what St. James meant when he said, "Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls" (James 1:21).
 
That meekness, or humility, then, becomes your goal, instead of Jesus. I’m gonna be the meekest, humblest out there, says your heart. You come across Psalm 10:17 and are encouraged: There, our Lord says, “LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble: You will prepare their heart.”
 
But here you run across your first problem. Really its the only problem. 
God will prepare the heart. The problem is not that God will do it. That’s very comforting that He will. The problem is “when is He going to do it” and that is what is never revealed to you.
 
At this point you begin to spiral. What is taking God so long? Why hasn’t He humbled my heart yet? Is He going to call and set up an appointment? Is there a special password to get it started? Do I have to seek Him out through meditation and experimental hallucinogenics?
 
Then we hear a seemingly comforting voice, from earth, tell us to just pray, and share, and be kind, thankful and forgiving. That is when you really have made it, it says, when you feel those fruits of the spirit coursing through all your actions and thoughts. That is when you have made it. That is what it means to have God prepare your heart.
 
Yes, at that point you have made it. Made it to not being Christian anymore. Made it to the point of you having such a wonderful time with the fruits of the Spirit, that you have no room for Jesus. In this way, the fruits of the Spirit become the fruits and wages of sin, for you do not need Jesus to have those things evident in your life.
 
There, in those things, you are strong and have “made yourself” strong for God. But our Epistle does not use the word strong, today, neither does it use the word humble. It uses the word “weak”. 
 
This is not another word Holy Scripture uses to describe humility or meekness, either. It is used to describe lack of strength, illness, suffering, calamity, frailty. Not a very good starting point for someone trying to be worthy of receiving the Seed of God’s Word into their hearts.
 
"The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit", 1 Corinthians 2:14 says. And don’t forget Jesus’ words: “Out of the heart comes evil” (Mt 15:19). This means no matter where we start out, if God has not given us His Spirit first, we will never receive His Word.
 
We have forgotten that even though St. James told us to to receive the Word with meekness, a few verses before saying that he reminded us: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren...Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth” (Jas 1:16, 18).
 
This same illness or weakness is what brought Lazarus to his grave, in St. John chapter 11, and we believe we have some chips on the bargaining table with God?
 
Once again, we completely and utterly forget, in our sin, that Jesus has created all the soil, in today’s Gospel. That He has made them and not we ourselves. He has even brought His own sunlight, His own water, and His own seed. On top of that, not one thing happens with soil, rock, bird, or thorn until He acts first.
 
Jesus, God’s Sower, has come to sow His seed. But He is not an ordinary farmer who has to leave most of his fortune to chance as to whether or not his crop will be good this year. Our Old Testament has already taught us, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa 55:11).
 
What is that purpose? To make us humble or meek? To set us off in the right direction and hope we make it to an appointment with Him to prepare our hearts? No. The purpose is to bring about joy and peace first, as Isaiah continues. It is to make it so that cypress and myrtle come up, instead of thorn and briar.
 
Such that, not only does God’s Creation work as He created it to, even today, but that Creation and history all work at God’s say-so. And His say-so is to convert hearts and plant them in the good soil. But His planting is not just a “plant and hope they grow”. His planting is a grafting, as in, you do not start at the starting line, but at the finish line.
 
The special work of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify you and make you holy by bringing you to faith in Christ so that you might have the blessings of redemption and lead a godly life. You need the Holy Spirit to begin and sustain this faith in you, because by nature you are spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of God, as the Scriptures teach; therefore, you cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, your Lord, or come to Him.
A dead man cannot decide to come alive!  A blind man cannot will himself to see!  An unbeliever does not decide to believe in Christ on his or her own power.
The Christian faith is totally the gift of God.
 
Grafted into the true vine, God has already brought you to the completion of His greatest work: uniting Himself to humanity and redeeming them from decay and death. Because you are not the one God plants. You are not the seed. His Word is. His Word, Jesus Christ, is the seed that is scattered to the wind, encountering the entire world and its hostility towards Him, yet producing wherever He goes.
 
He is the hundred-fold harvest. He grows into the good tree, the good wheat, and the true vine. He is the only man Who produces. You must be grafted into His production of Good.
 
The Bible also describes being adopted. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father’, says Romans 8:15. Just as the vine must be there first, before grafting takes place, so must an adoptive agent be in place before an adoption takes place.
 
Jesus does not become man, suffer, die and rise again in a quest for clean and meek hearts. He suffers and dies on behalf of stony hearts that hate Him. Romans 8:7 explicitly says that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God” and we are always set on the flesh.
 
But His death and resurrection is not so stony, hostile hearts remain stony and hostile, but that they be turned into hearts of flesh, His flesh. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” in Ezekiel 36:26, and Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock.”
 
Christ faces devil birds, rock hard hearts, and crowns of thorns all in order to win those who will hear and believe. The Word of God, Jesus Christ, goes to all men and offers His Body and Blood for their redemption. He wins their redemption and secures it for all time. 
 
In this way, He prepares for us His clean heart, because He has cleansed it of all our sin such that, instead of finding the devil, sin, or death, we find the fruitful and boundless harvest of heaven freely given in full. In Christ, we start off in the Good soil each and every time we return from our sin, repent, and receive forgiveness.
 
It is called conversion (being turned) or  regeneration (new birth), this work of the Holy Ghost, and He uses the written and spoken Word of the Gospel and the Sacraments as His means to accomplish it.
 
Therefore, never be mistaken, dear Christian. If anyone tries to fool you into thinking you are this or that type pf soil, do not believe them. If you are ever confronted with the idea that you can make your heart ready for God, do not believe. 
 
For first and foremost, Christ has accomplished His work of breaking hard hearts with His Gospel. Second, Jesus sends His Holy Spirit to you to plant, graft, and adopt you into the Good Soil in Christ. You are and forever will be united with the True Vine that does not whither or choke even when confronting death. Such that you can eat and drink His deathless Body and Blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
 

Babylonian Exile [Septuagesima]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 17:1-7
• 1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5
• St. Matthew 20:1-16

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)

 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:

“I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.”

 
With Epiphany ending and the Gesima season upon us, we are lead by the Holy Spirit into exile. Whether it is the 40 years in the desert with Moses, from our Old Testament heard today, or 40 days and nights of no food and water with Jesus, or 70 years to Babylon, God’s Holy Church has ever and will always be His Church In Exile, on earth.
 
This was evident to Dr. Luther in the 16th century when he titled one of his essays, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” in 1520. The strange thing about that essay, is Dr. Luther does not use the lack of morals or devotions or pious practices to prove that the Church was held in captivity by the pope and his traditions. 
 
Instead, he places the outward signs of captivity squarely on the abuse of the Sacraments. Everyone was still praying in Rome and in Babylon. Everyone was still hearing God’s Word. Everyone was still moral. Everyone was even still going to church. What they were not allowed to do was partake of the Sacraments as easily and freely as the Bible promises.
 
This we see even in the historic Babylonian captivity. It was not that Daniel and the Israelites were persecuted for practicing their religion. They were persecuted for not practicing the Babylonian religion. Daniel may have been caught praying towards the Temple, but he was only punished because he refused to pray to the king as well, heard in Daniel 6.
 
The point is, God’s people could still be God’s people in exile, which is why God chose it for them. What Babylon had truly taken away was God’s presence. The Temple was no longer, the glory cloud did not appear in Babylon, and the communion between God and His people through the Temple culture was missing. In other words, the sacraments.
 
Not even in the 40 years of wandering in the desert, did God’s presence leave, for in our Old Testament reading the Lord literally says that He will stand in Moses’s face on the rock. The tricky Hebrew, however, could be read as He will stand in Moses’s face as the Rock. Regardless, God is there quite visibly, with His people, causing His spiritual goodness to become physical goodness. In other words, sacramental.
 
The greatest captivity of Babylon, whatever name it goes by in any age, has little to do with persecution or repression. It’s the lie that nothing deeper, nothing greater, nothing more beautiful and satisfying and permanent than the captivity itself, exists. 
 
Repent. You are greatly afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. Meaning, you have become so used to giving up your Christian freedoms, especially concerning the Sacraments, that you have become accustomed to the three captivities of the Lord’s Supper, as Dr. Luther gives example.
 
The first is that of denying or withholding. Either you have been told it is so holy that you shouldn’t have it or shouldn’t have it very often, or you have been told that you don’t need it to sustain faith. In either case, the exile imposed upon you is not to believe God’s Word: take and eat and drink.
 
The second captivity is that of denying God’s actual presence. Either you believe that magic happens and the bread and wine change completely into the Body and Blood or you don’t believe in magic and are just having snacks with God. Transubstantiation, as we call it, is not necessary. Where Christ is, both of His natures are as well. Again, the exile is to not take God at His Word: this is my Body, this is my Blood.
 
The third exile is the most evil of the three. That is the belief that the Mass is a good work or a sacrifice on your part. Either you believe that going to church is another commandment to show off your obedience to God, or you believe that by witnessing the priest performing the Service, you gain favor. This exile is to not believe that Christ institutes His own Supper and performs the testament Himself.
 
In Faith, denying or withholding His Supper is an absurdity. As our Gospel teaches today, the Lord’s Vineyard is open for business and there is plenty. In St. Matthew 21, the housemaster invests everything into this vineyard so it is fruitful. He cleared the land, planted, put up a fence, dug the wine press, built a tower, weeded, cared for, and nurtured the land. All for the sole purpose of inviting workers. To deny or withhold is to deny or withhold Christ Himself.
 
There is not one “true believer” who would say the presence of their god is not necessary. However, Jesus does not 1) make something that defies His own rules for the world and 2) He doesn’t say anything without meaning it. So His presence does not need some magic mumbo-jumbo slight of hand, “now its bread, now its not”. Neither does He say “this is my Body” and mean that its only a symbol.
 
What it comes down to, in Exile, is faith. Faith to hear the Word and believe it. Faith to understand that a testament is a statement of will from someone who is about to die. They are saying the last things they will ever say to you, so it has to be important. In Christ’s New Testament, He breaks the bread and offers the wine as His true Body and true Blood for the forgiveness of sins.
 
Jesus dies, but He also rises again to new life. Thus, His Supper is not only a Testament, but a promise, for a promise is made by someone Who is living. He promises to forgive sins. He promises to pay out His denarius of Faith. He promises to build His Church. He promises to forgive sins in His Supper.
 
Church and His Sacrament of the Altar is His Institution, He made it, His Testament, He bequeathed it to us, and His Promise of the forgiveness of sins. This is the true definition of the Mass. This is what it really means to “go to church”. 
 
“Going to Church”” does not mean “gather to offer up to God our praise, our thanksgiving, our love, our repentance, our spirits, our bodies, our money–our all. When we worship God, we give Him the honor and reverence He deserves” as if nothing deeper, nothing greater, nothing more beautiful and satisfying and permanent than our works exists.
 
“Going to Church” means gathering together with the risen Christ and His church to receive His gifts of forgiveness and life. And His Mass, or Divine Service is the promise of the forgiveness of sins. Any removal or change of this we would call exile and not true Church.
 
Worship is properly called “Divine Service” because without the vineyard, there’d be nothing. Without Jesus offering Himself to be the Rock that is struck, and serving us from His vineyard, then we are lost, it is our works that get us to heaven, and we don’t need Christ on the cross.
 
Jesus suffers in order to create His Vineyard, both the whole of creation and His Bride the Church. He dies to purchase and win fruitfulness and salvation in the same vineyard. He is lifted up on the cross to draw all men to Himself, where He promises to be. 
 
While Daniel knew he couldn’t go back to the Temple, much like how we can’t go back to the cross, Daniel also knew that God keeps His promises, to be among His people even in exile. Even in exile, God goes with us.
 
The only denying and withholding that is happening is that we don’t have full communion with Him, as we will in heaven. The only forbidding placed upon us is being unable to see or live in eternity, for the moment. The only good works and sacrifices happening is Christ on the cross for sinners, offered in Word and Sacrament in their hands.
 
So do we deny ourselves these things in hopes our piety will reach to heaven? Good God, no! We do as much as possible to be as “less exiled” as we can. We feast on both kinds as Christ said. We eat and drink bread and wine AND Body and Blood and leave the matter to Christ. We also keep His promise of forgiveness close and return to it as often as we can.
 
There is enough in this world to make us feel exiled from God and His heaven without us having to pile it on by denying God’s Work as He promised to do it. That is to create His Church and mark it with Word and Sacrament. We know and feel in our hearts that we are in exile. All the more, then, do we act like Daniel, opening the windows of Church and communing with the Lord often.
 

What are the Gesima Sundays?

    

Lent & the “Gesima” Season

The Liturgical preparation for Easter takes place through 3 periods or steps: The first is the “-gesimas”.  These three Sundays before Lent constitute catechesis in the Grace of God in which that grace is examined from three perspectives:

Septuagesima (meaning “70 days”)—Grace is undeserved.

      The Collect for this Sunday implores God to graciously hear us, who are justly punished for our sin, so that we may be delivered by God’s goodness.  The goodness of God is emphasized in the parable (Matt 20:1-16), where all the laborers receive the reward because of the goodness of the landowner.  So we too, receive the reward of eternal life, because God is good, and Another has borne the heat and burden of the day for us that we might have it.

Sexagesima (meaning “60 days”)—Grace is passively received.

      In the Collect, we pray to the God who sees that we put not our trust in anything we do, but mercifully defends us by His power.  In the parable of the sower, the seed of God’s Word is passively received in good and noble hearts.

Quinquagesima (meaning “50 days”)—Grace is not easily understood.

      In the Gospel, Jesus predicts His passion and the disciples “understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.” (Luke 18:34).

The three “Gesima” Sundays begin the Lenten Preparation for Easter. They take on the character of Lent, but mildly.  The color becomes green. The “Alleluias” are dropped.  Pictures and Crosses remain unveiled. Flowers may adorn the chancel.  In the Gesimas, this provides a gradual progression of liturgical removals as we approach Passiontide.

 The second step or stage of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.  This second stage ends when the week of Laetare (the 4^th Sunday in Lent) is completed.  In addition to the omissions and changes that began in the “Gesimas,” flowers no longer normally adorn the chancel, and the crucifix and crosses are veiled.  During these four Sundays, the focus is on temptation and faith, and the Christian’s struggle:

      On Invocavit Sunday the Lord is tested in the Wilderness.

      On Reminiscere Sunday, the faith of the Canaanite woman is tested.

      On Oculi Sunday, the people tempt our Lord to show them a sign from heaven.

      On Laetare Sunday is “refreshment” Sunday. A "break" in the fast.

The final stage is Passiontide, which begins with Judica Sunday (Passion Sunday, the 5^th Sunday in Lent), and extends through Holy Week and the Triduum (“three holy days”—which includes Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday).  Now the focus is expressly on our Lord’s passion.  The liturgy is spoken on Judica Sunday to emphasize the intense passion which our Lord endured.  This intensity builds until we finally arrive at the empty tomb.