4th Sunday of Lent (a)
This Week’s Liturgy Calendar.
The Season of Lent.
Sunday 26th March: Fourth Sunday of the Lent (a)
One of the most irritating things in life, in ourselves as well as in others, is when we and other people seem blind to the obvious. ‘Why don’t they see?’ ‘Why didn’t I see this?’ We are followers of Jesus, people with faith because in Baptism, Jesus gave us the eyes of faith. Yet we too are often blind to God, to his people, to the things we should see about ourselves.
In the first reading, God chose David, the least of Jesse’s sons to be king of Israel. While people look at appearances, God looks at the heart.
St. Paul tells the Ephesians that they must live a lifestyle in keeping with their new state.
In the Gospel, a man born blind encounters Christ and can see first with his eyes and then with the eyes of faith. We are that person.
Monday 27th March: Monday of fourth week of Lent.
For people who believe, the golden age lies in the future, not in the past, says the Prophet Isaiah. For the believer there is a new world to be built as a sign of the new heaven. The building up of this new world begins seriously in Christ. His word renews people. Faith in him brings life and healing, something to live for.
Tuesday 28th March: Tuesday of fourth week of Lent.
Water flows from the temple and turns the land into a fertile paradise bringing health and life we hear in the first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel. This living temple is Christ, says John in the Gospel. Encountering him brings forgiveness health and life.
Wednesday 29th March: Wednesday of fourth week of Lent.
When Jesus is questioned and attacked for curing a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, he uses the opportunity to remind the people that the work of redemption on which he is embarked with the Father, is ongoing, even on the Sabbath. He is the sign of God’s love for his people and wants us to live in that love. With Jesus, we have to seek the Father’s will for own lives.
Thursday 30th March: Thursday of fourth week of Lent.
From today’s readings until those of Holy Week, the opposition between the Jewish leaders and Jesus grows. As the Hebrews had Moses as a mediator, we now have Jesus himself to act as our mediator who pleads our case with the Father. He is the one who opts for his people, who defends us, who is involved with us in spite of our failures.
Friday 31st March: Friday of fourth week of Lent.
People who claim to know God a bit and to live consistently as his sons and daughters are seen as bothersome or eccentric to unbelievers as well as to those who take their religion as a set of duties or religious rites to be observed. Their way of life disturbs and challenges the established and comfortable ways of society. The unbeliever wants to test the faith of such people. The person who voices his concerns about this in the Book of Wisdom is one such person. Jesus was another. Where do we fit in?
Saturday 1st April: Saturday of fourth week of Lent.
It is hard for someone who as Jeremiah says ‘ has been seduced by God’ to feel rejected by the very community to which they have dedicated their life and work. Such a person is seen as a source of division. This is how some saw Jesus. Are we prepared to pay the cost of discipleship to follow him even if that cost involves ridicule, contradiction even suffering.
