Tuesday of the fourth week of Lent in the traditional Roman rite is marked by the liturgical station at the Basilica of Saint Lawrence in Damaso, one of the oldest and most venerable churches in Rome. The stational practice, deeply rooted in the tradition of the early Church, consisted of the gathering of the Pope with the clergy and the faithful in a designated church, called a titulus, for the solemn celebration of the Eucharist and the public contrition of sins. The Basilica of Saint Lawrence in Damaso was built by Pope Damasus in the 4th century over the ruins of his own paternal house and housed the archives of the Roman Church, symbolizing the custody of sound doctrine, law and apostolic tradition. The choice of this location for the Lenten assembly reminded the faithful of the importance of fidelity to Christian teachings and the constancy of the martyrs, such as Saint Lawrence, whose life was an irrefutable witness of total self-giving to God. In these days of advanced penance, the Roman community walked in procession through the streets of the Eternal City to this shrine, uniting bodily fasting with spiritual ascesis, in preparation for the sacred mysteries of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, crying out for divine mercy in the face of tribulations and seeking safe refuge in the orthodoxy of the faith under the protection of the apostles and martyrs.
🎵 Introit (Ps 54, 2-4)
Exáudi, Deus, oratiónem meam, et ne despéxeris deprecatiónem meam: inténde in me et exáudi me. Contristátus sum in exercitatióne mea: et conturbátus sum a voce inimíci et a tribulatióne peccatóris.
Hear, O God, my prayer, and despise not my supplication: attend to me and hear me. I am grieved in my exercise; and I am troubled at the voice of the enemy and at the tribulation of the sinner.
📖 Reading (Ex 32, 7-14)
Then the Lord said to Moses: Go down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and offered sacrifices to it, and said: These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said further to Moses: I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation. But Moses implored the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say: With evil intent he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, saying to them: I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of doing to his people.
📖 Gospel (Jn 7, 14-31)
About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying: How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied? So Jesus answered them: My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? The crowd answered: You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you? Jesus answered them: I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said: Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? Yet we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple: You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me. So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said: When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?
⚖️ The intercession of the just and true justice
The manifestation of Christ in the temple, teaching with unequaled authority without having attended human schools, invites the soul to seek the truth beyond sensible appearances and to understand that authentic divine wisdom is revealed in total obedience to the Father. As Saint Augustine teaches (Sermon 113A), divine wisdom manifests itself in the Master who does not seek his own glory, showing that true knowledge proceeds from God, so that the Law becomes empty without the heart turned toward its Creator; by healing on the Sabbath, Christ fulfills the Law in its deepest spirit, proving that love and mercy transcend legal formalities. Complementarily, Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Supplement, Q. 92, Art. 1) affirms that the full healing performed on the day of rest is the fulfillment of perfect justice, for the ultimate end of the Law is charity. The refusal of the leaders to accept this mystery demonstrates the severe limitation of the natural intellect when deprived of grace, showing that judging according to right justice requires not blind observance of external precepts, but humble submission to the will of God.
The incessant cry for mercy finds its archetype in the figure of Moses, who places himself as a courageous mediator between divine holiness and the obstinacy of a people who corrupted themselves in the idolatry of the golden calf. The intercessory prayer of the leader of the Old Covenant echoes in the liturgical lament of the Introit, where the soul cries out that God may not despise its supplication amid the turmoil and tribulation caused by sin. This placating supplication does not alter the immutable nature of God, but is inserted into His eternal providence, revealing that divine justice is always illuminated by fidelity to the promises made to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Moses’ attitude prefigures the indispensable need for reparation for collective sins, demonstrating that deviation from true worship requires the intervention of a just man who, renouncing his own material benefit — such as the promise to make of him an exclusive nation — offers his love and zeal for the salvation of his brothers.
The profound convergence between Moses’ supplication in the desert and Jesus’ teaching in the temple reveals the perfect fulfillment of salvific mediation in the person of Christ, the definitive Intercessor and the Just Judge. While Moses intercedes to deliver the people from temporal destruction by appealing to the ancient covenants, Jesus presents himself as the glorious fulfillment of those same covenants, teaching that true justice does not consist in the rigorism of a letter that condemns, but in the redemptive charity that restores man in his totality. The submissive obedience that prevented the immediate punishment of Israel at Sinai reaches its fullest plenitude in the Incarnate Word, who, without judging by appearances, freely delivers himself when his hour comes, so that humanity, healed of its spiritual blindness, may be led to eternal glory and the true knowledge of the Father.