This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday in Lent and our gospel is the “women caught in adultery.” Today we consider  the challenge presented to Jesus by the Jewish leaders. It is a challenge which also includes a callus and demeaning treatment of the women. If she had committed adultery the previous evening , then have these opponents been holding her during the night and waiting for Jesus to show up in order to use her to test him? Has been apprehended in the early hours of the morning? In either case her fear would have been palpable.  Putting her in the midst of the crowd would have added public humiliation.