Epic Love Story

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, March 23rd, 2025:
Third Sunday of Lent

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1 Corinthians
10.1-6, 10-12

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud; all passed through the sea; all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

As an early reader, as a child I scoured my parents' bookshelves and the school library for books to challenge and delight me. I especially loved stories that were epic, had an excessive amount of detail, and featured callbacks to earlier parts of the story. In these stories, everything was important and every person in the story had a purpose. 

When I first came to faith, I made a point of reading the Scriptures cover to cover. Now, this was long before Fr. Mike Schmitz launched the “Bible in a Year” study guide. Back then, it was just me and the Good News Bible I got at my confirmation. While I was reading to better understand the faith that had awakened in me, it was also a somewhat fun read because of how much it reminded me of my favourite epic stories.

When split up into its individual books, the Bible has wars, romance, intrigue, prophecies, and new kings crowned. It has poetry, aphorisms, despair, and hope. And that’s just the Old Testament! 

But as a whole, the Bible tells one, beautiful, cohesive story – it is the story of God’s love for His creation. The Bible speaks that story to all of creation, to His chosen people, to the Church today, and to each of us. Every word of the Spirit-breathed Scriptures can be understood for each of those contexts.

In every story in the Bible, I can see myself in the place of both the good and the sinful. I can see myself as the Pharisee or as Peter denying Christ, but also as the Maccabees in the furnace and as Lazarus outside his own empty tomb.

I am both the sinner and the saved. The epic love story the Bible shares is the same one being lived out in my own heart every day. The call from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians applies to me just as much as it did to them.

So when Paul calls me to reflect on my spiritual ancestors, who like me were given so much and still chose sin over love, it is a stark reminder that I need this message because I have also been in that position. God continues to pursue me, to lift me up, and to save me. That truth resonates through the ages, illuminated in the pages of the Scriptures. God gave us the Bible to show us the depths of His love and also to guide us to more deeply embrace the saving work the Spirit is doing in us.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the blessing of the Scriptures. Through them, You offer me guidance, admonishment, and hope. May I be drawn ever closer to You in the reading of the Word, made aware of Your abiding love for me as Your daughter. AMEN.




Stéphanie Potter​

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