The Catholic Calendar for Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Scripture from today’s Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 49:8-15
Psalm 145:8-9,13-14,17-18
John 5:17-30

A reflection on today’s Sacred Scripture. . . .

“He who refuses to honor the Son
refuses to honor the Father who sent him.”(John 5:23)

A problem that persists to this day is the inability of some to see Jesus as more than a human being. They may acknowledge that the Bible records His having exceptional powers in teaching, healing and even raising the dead, but they suggest it was only “smoke and mirrors,” illusion, not reality.

Today’s Gospel illustrates this very situation faced by Jesus in His efforts to bring the religious hierarchy of His day to a recognition of His true identity. This was of the utmost importance, not because He desired to gain ascendancy over them but to rescue them from “damnation.” They had been entrusted by God with making His salvation known to His people; instead they had reduced the “faith” to merely following complex, stringent, loveless rules beyond the abilities of poor and uneducated people. The temple officials despised Christ’s threatening their authority when He identified Himself as God’s Son (equal with God) and their awaited Messiah. As evidence against Him they said He had violated the law by having healed on the sabbath. Jesus countered their accusation by saying that since God never ceases being loving and merciful toward His children, He, the Son, also must continue in His Father’s work.

How are we honoring God, our Father? Are we consistently walking in His way of love and truth, or are we simply following, through habit, prescribed rules and rituals while our hearts and minds remain far from God, lack any true intimacy with Christ, our Savior?

O Creator God,
fill to overflowing our hearts
with Your pure and eternal love,
that we may share Your blessed life
with others. Amen.

- Marie Bocko, ocds

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posted by joachim at 4:22 AM