WEANING STAGE - C: 4th Sunday of Lent

First Reading: Josh 5:9-12 (27 March 2022)

“From that time, from their eating of the produce of that country, the manna stopped falling. And having manna no longer, the Israelites fed from that year onwards on what the land of Canaan yielded” (Josh 5:11-12).

This passage summarizes the new life God has brought the Israelites. Free at last from their slavery in Egypt and their perilous forty-year-of-wandering in the desert, they now encamped in the land of Gilgal (v. 9), where they began to cultivate their own food, allowing them to use their harvest in the celebration of the Passover at the appointed time of the year (vv. 10-11). Learning now agriculture, they would from here on no longer be dependent on the daily manna that God had been sending them since they were now self-supporting, at least in terms of food-production (v. 12).

This idea of self-reliance and mobility is in line with the name Gilgal (Hebrew: gelgel), which literally means the wheel of a chariot that symbolizes dynamism.

The notion of personal subsistence can be illustrated in the rearing of children in the so-called weaning stage. In particular, a baby between the age of 4 to 6 months is slowly introduced to quit feeding on the mother’s milk by taking in baby foods instead. Between the 7th and 9th months, the baby is gradually exposed to a variety of food and tastes. Soon, between the 10th and 12th months, it is already given normal food according to its capacity to munch and digest. The same principle of autonomy runs in the context of an ordinary family. After being raised by parents through infancy, childhood, and adolescent stages of life, a young man or woman embarks on a life-journey by either raising his/her family or finding a career away from home. In this normal cycle of life, parents must support their son or daughter since it will be anyway for his/her growth, fulfilment, and purpose on earth in the long run.

Similarly, the Israelites in our reading are in the weaning stage as God’s people. Their total dependence on God had ceased as they entered the Promise Land, built their settlements, tilled their soils, and raised their own herds. In this new territory, they were no longer fazed by any imperial power like Egypt, except their occasional skirmishes with surrounding tribes and invading people. Thus, they became freer to explore what life has to offer them, giving them more opportunities to discover novel ways of living. God understands very much this basic human need for independence.

For this reason, he stopped sending them manna so that they could learn how to survive on their own, allowing them to reach their full potential.

By analogy, Ukraine can be alluded to the Israelites that has grown and wants to live its own fate away from its Russian roots. Miserably, Vladimir Putin acts cruelly like the ancient Egyptians in chasing the Ukrainians to instill continuing control on them, banking on the narrative that they are genealogically linked to each other. However, Mr. Putin’s over-fixation in recovering their sentimental heritage as one Russian people only brought war, deaths, pains, and staggering suffering to the global society. The sociologist Max Weber underlines that the most important aspect in any social group is the ascription of its members to be a part of such a collectivity. Mr. Putin must recognize that the Ukrainians are one in ascribing to their unique identity that is separate from Russia; and such is their right as inhabitants of this one free world.

As creatures of the same God, we must strive to protect this value by allowing human persons and communities to express and realize to their own identity-representations, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others. Let us, then, join Pope Francis, as consecrates both Russia and Ukraine before the Blessed Virgin, in praying for the end of war and conflicts.

- Rex Fortes, CM