Third Sunday of Lent 2025 – Is God Punishing Me?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus addresses this question, this difficult question, if God, if God’s love ever changes, does it matter if we live a good life or a bad life, if we sin or not? Jesus addresses these questions in the Gospel, these tragic deaths of Galileans and those who were crushed by foreign power. The scribes and the Pharisees were thinking they were punished by God, they did bad things, that is why they were punished by God. When we are faced with the same situation, we too will at some point ask, is God punishing me?

Why does God allow such pain to come into my life? Does God love some people more or some people less? What I find clear in what Jesus is saying in the Gospel is this, if I am successful in life, if I am lucky in life, it does not mean that I am a good person, it does not mean that God’s favor is on me, that God is blessing me, that I am a person without sin, that I am a person that God somehow loves more than the others, that is not true.

On the other hand, if I am suffering in life, if I suffer in life, it does not mean that God does not love me or that I am more sinful than the last words that I heard from that sick person that I administered anointing of the sick to our world, Father, I do not understand why is this happening to me, but I remember those many happy moments in my life and I always said, God is good, God loves me. Father, I know He loves me now even more.

~Father Francis

Reading 1, Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11
Gospel, Luke 13:1-9
Reading 2, First Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12