The Catholic Calendar for Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter
St. Anselm, bishop, doctor of the Church

Scripture from Wednesday’s Liturgy of the Word:
Acts 5:17-26
Psalm 34:2-9
John 3:16-21

A reflection on today’s Sacred Scripture:

“The judgment of condemnation is this: the light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light...” (John 3:19)

Today’s Gospel begins with the most quoted of New Testament scripture which states God’s motivation for having sent His Christ into the world. It is God’s love that impelled our Father’s salvation plan, a love made visible to us in Jesus when He died on the cross in our human flesh to expiate our sin but who also promised us new life when He rose from the dead on the third day. Christ’s empty tomb brought light and hope into this world darkened by sin.

Christ’s death paid the debt we owed God for the many sins we had committed against Him; His resurrection offers us the precious gift of a new life in Him. We are then asked to use our “free will” to accept this gift and use it in our daily lives, or we can throw it into the corner of a dark closet, neglected and forgotten.

Reading further, we realize that Christ’s mission, along with revealing God’s love, also came as the “light of the world” to reveal God’s truth. It is Christ’s light that enables us to see our sin in contrast with the goodness and purity of God, to see also the misery and destruction we bring upon ourselves by rejecting to live in the love and truth of God. Salvation is genuinely ours when we bring our thoughts words and actions into harmony with God’s will, our only means of creating a just and peaceful world.

Blessed Redeemer,
we know that this world’s darkness and sin
can only prevail when we reject Your light.
Touch our hearts with love,
that they may be opened to Your light. Amen.

- Marie Bocko, ocds
(mlbocko at borg dot com)

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posted by joachim at 4:22 AM