As we get closer to Easter (April 20, 2025) I find myself sitting on the edge of my seat, filled with excited anticipatory tension as the readings and the gospels' living drama in our lenten liturgy of the word unfolds with ever greater intensity. And even though this is ‘just’ an ordinary Monday, a fifth Monday in lent, our first reading from Daniel or our Gospel from John, this lenten Monday does not gift us with a reprieve.

In the story found in our passage from Daniel, we have a story of an innocent girl, Susanna, being falsely accused, sent to trial, whose outcome, whose siding with the truth may mean her death. In this reading, we are presented with dual themes of deception and truth, and even though some deceitful and licentious men want to bring Susanna harm in a bit of blackmail, Susanna’s integrity is to side with the truth.

She stands with the truth even though, as the way the world goes, this may mean being treated as the world treats those who stand by the truth with false accusations, imprisonment, possibly death. Yet, Susanna defends her integrity and decides to side with, to stand with the truth, no matter the harsh consequences this stance may bring her when she proclaims, “it is better for me to fall into your power without guilt than to sin before the Lord.”

In our Gospel from John, Jesus’message to the Pharisees, and to us, is clear, Jesus, as the light of the world, will shed light on those (the Pharisees, us, any power that exists), who live and promote that which remains in darkness. The light of God’s love, and since as Jesus proclaims God and I are one, the light of God’s love, will expose the darkness, liberate us all from that darkness, so that seeing the light, we may be the light. So, in the end, the spiritual message found in our readings and Gospel today challenges us to live and side with the truth, even though in the way the world is today, right now, this is a challenging witness. They also challenge us to live in the light, to live always in the light of the truth of God’s undying love for us, and uncover what is still dark in us, our human condition, and our world.

Living in the light, especially of divine light that pierces our hearts and souls, can expose things we are still, in our hearts and souls, are still yet unwilling to release from their imprisoning darkness. And living in the truth of that love, with integrity, as Susanna did, causes us to stand as a witness, against falsehood and deception. Again this is a tough witness that challenges us to fight against anything that is not God’s divine truth, a reconciling, forever resurrected hope-filled love that fights against all that is not that in our hearts, in the way things are still in our communities and our global community.

Susanna and Jesus called us, on this fifth Monday in Lent, in a not so ordinarily Monday liturgically, to take a stand for truth and light in the many ways that that the energies of deception, hate, violence, false witness, and powers that shame, perpetuate injustice and are not God’s mercy still have energy because of our complacency, fear in believing that God loves us to the core of our being, and then looking out from that love, out into the world and then doing nothing about transforming that world with love. We, through our inaction and lack of belief, let deception, and darkness, live. I don’t know about you, but I have some powerful prayer and reflection in me, concerning this message today.