Palm Sunday

March 29, 2026

By identifying ourselves with Christ’s passion, we experience a great liberation, a “passover” from sinfulness to joy in God’s love for us.

Mark 14:1—15:47

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to take place in two days’ time. So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest him by treachery and put him to death. They said, “Not during the festival, for fear that there may be a riot among the people.” When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head. There were some who were indignant. “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil? It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.” They were infuriated with her. Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. She has anticipated anointing my body for burial. Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them. When they heard him they were pleased and promised to pay him money. Then he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,  his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he came with the Twelve. And as they reclined at table and were eating, Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be distressed and to say to him, one by one, “Surely it is not I?” He said to them, “One of the Twelve, the one who dips with me into the dish. For the Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will have your faith shaken, for it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be dispersed. But after I have been raised up, I shall go before you to Galilee.” Peter said to him,  “Even though all should have their faith shaken, mine will not be.” Then Jesus said to him, “Amen, I say to you, this very night before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” But he vehemently replied, “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you.”And they all spoke similarly. Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be troubled and distressed. Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass by him; he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.” When he returned he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Withdrawing again, he prayed, saying the same thing. Then he returned once more and found them asleep, for they could not keep their eyes open and did not know what to answer him. He returned a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners. Get up, let us go. See, my betrayer is at hand.” Then, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely.” He came and immediately went over to him and said, “Rabbi.” And he kissed him. At this they laid hands on him and arrested him. One of the bystanders drew his sword, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear. Jesus said to them in reply, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs, to seize me? Day after day I was with you teaching in the temple area, yet you did not arrest me; but that the Scriptures may be fulfilled.” And they all left him and fled. Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked. They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. Peter followed him at a distance into the high priest’s courtyard and was seated with the guards, warming himself at the fire. The chief priests and the entire Sanhedrin kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death, but they found none. Many gave false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. Some took the stand and testified falsely against him, alleging, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands and within three days I will build another not made with hands.’” Even so their testimony did not agree. The high priest rose before the assembly and questioned Jesus, saying, “Have you no answer? What are these men testifying against you?” But he was silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him and said to him, “Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?” Then Jesus answered, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’” At that the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further need have we of witnesses You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as deserving to die. Some began to spit on him. They blindfolded him and struck him and said to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards greeted him with blows. While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the high priest’s maids came along. Seeing Peter warming himself, she looked intently at him and said, “You too were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” But he denied it saying, “I neither know nor understand what you are talking about.” So he went out into the outer court. Then the cock crowed. The maid saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” Once again he denied it. A little later the bystanders said to Peter once more, “Surely you are one of them; for you too are a Galilean.” He began to curse and to swear,  “I do not know this man about whom you are talking.” And immediately a cock crowed a second time. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” He broke down and wept. As soon as morning came, the chief priests with the elders and the scribes, that is, the whole Sanhedrin held a council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He said to him in reply, “You say so.” The chief priests accused him of many things. Again Pilate questioned him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they accuse you of.” Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. Now on the occasion of the feast he used to release to them one prisoner whom they requested. A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion. The crowd came forward and began to ask him to do for them as he was accustomed. Pilate answered, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate again said to them in reply, “Then what do you want me to do with the man you call the king of the Jews?” They shouted again, “Crucify him.” Pilate said to them, “Why?  What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Crucify him.” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. They began to salute him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him. They pressed into service a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. They brought him to the place of Golgotha—which is translated Place of the Skull—, They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it. Then they crucified him and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left. Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross.” Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him. At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.” One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink saying, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.” Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. Here all kneel and pause for a short time. The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome. These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him. There were also many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. When it was already evening, since it was the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died. And when he learned of it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watched where he was laid.

REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL

First Impressions by Jude Siciliano, OP

(Luke 19: 28-40) Is. 50: 4-7 Philippians 2: 6-11; Luke 22: 14- 23:56

I am focusing today on the gospel procession passage (Luke 19: 28-40) that begins today’s liturgy. Throughout this liturgical year, in Luke’s gospel, we have been hearing Jesus say, “I must go up to Jerusalem.” The opening words of today’s gospel of procession announce that, “Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.” Today we hear of the final part of his journey to the holy city. He is riding a colt and greeted by “the whole multitude of his disciples” who praise God, “for all the mighty deeds they have seen.” This is a climactic moment for Jesus and his disciples. Their journey to Jerusalem is ending and another is about to begin—the excited disciples have no clue what is about to happen. We have arrived at a climactic moment. With Jesus and his disciples, we are entering Holy Week. Jesus enters the city from the East, from the same direction as the rising sun. A new day is beginning. Old ways are being put aside. Darkness is overcome. On this new day, death is no longer the end of life; success is no longer the valid measure of a person or any of our personal projects; power no longer has complete and lasting control over a people; violence no longer is the way to deal with opposition. Today a new day is beginning; today Jesus enters Jerusalem. Today speaks clearly to us: have no doubts, God is not indifferent to human plight; human suffering has not fallen on deaf ears. God has heard our cry for help. Today, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. In Jesus’ time, going to Jerusalem was an important and joyful event. Devout Jews went to the city to observe important feasts and rituals. Jerusalem had great symbolic power for believers, for the Temple was in Jerusalem and it was in and around the Temple that important ceremonies were performed. But the Romans were there too and so the city was a place of convergence, not only of religious power and authority, but also of social, military and economic forces. For many reasons, Jerusalem was the center of the Jewish world. So, Jesus goes to the place where religious and secular powers are concentrated and he goes there at an important festival time, the feast of Passover. Jesus and his disciples knew how dangerous this fateful journey would be. Neither the religious nor the military powers in the city could ignore Jesus’ presence. His theological position, about God’s compassion for sinners and inclusion of outcasts, was too upsetting to the status quo the religious leadership was trying to maintain. There were many diverse opinions and movements in Jewish tradition, but Jesus’ teachings about God’s reign had gone too far for most of the religious establishment. And in going to a seat of Roman power, Jesus was confronting the world’s might in all its oppressive and cruel manifestations. Once Jesus enters Jerusalem the powers in charge move quickly, he is promptly captured, sentenced and nailed to the cross. Why go up to Jerusalem at all? Why not “lay low” and stay out of trouble? Or continue preaching—but from a safe distance. By his entering Jerusalem Jesus challenges our accommodation to all kinds of power—our “modern Jerusalems,”—our misplaced respect for: powerful government; religious status; middle class values; physical and intellectual achievement; economic success, etc. We could just fall back on our baptism, say our prayers and hope for our resurrection. But Jesus entered Jerusalem and he challenges each of us to confront our contemporary Jerusalems. Where do we bow to power; who and what rule our lives? What concessions have we made and how do we evade the challenges our belief in the gospel require us to face? Jesus confronts all that Jerusalem represents and he seems to lose to the reigning power. He submits, doesn’t fight, or hide or try to outwit the powers. He chooses to be there, in Jerusalem, exposed to all the forces against him. It looked like Jesus was a loser; God seemed to have gambled and lost. But Jesus’ submission really was a confrontation with evil: he did not run away; his suffering was God’s way of working through him. Through Jesus’ loss, we are all winners. Each of us believers must join Jesus and go “up to Jerusalem.” Like Jesus, our personal Jerusalem may be a place where we seem to be losers: where our faith values are disregarded or trashed; where we face daily encounters with forces that oppose our best efforts; where political structures defeat the disenfranchised; where the world of high tech and privileged education broaden the gap between the haves and the have-nots. We are called to be present to our own experience of Jerusalem and there we are invited to take up the cross and risk what previously we have cherished and clung to. But first, before we straighten our shoulders and prepare for the struggle we must let Jesus go ahead of us. We follow him into the city this week; watch how he surrenders to God’s ways and identify with his loss. But, through his death and resurrection we also experience new life. Why are we waving our palms for today? Not because everything goes well in our world; not because there is no suffering—not while there are ongoing wars, civil strife, AIDS throughout the world, terrorism, drugs and on and on! We are not waving our palms in ecstatic religious display with our eyes closed to reality. No, there is too much suffering in the world for that; the good, the poor and the vulnerable are not spared suffering. Jesus reminds us of that today. Rather, God has entered our “holy city”—the places of defeats and pain and transformed them. God has personally confronted evil, walked the same path we have. But not in the triumphal way we might have, instead God has contradicted our usual ways of dealing with evil might and chosen instead the cross—as Paul says, a way that our world judges as foolishness and a scandal. Because Jesus chose to enter the Holy City, every place we suffer can become a holy city for us, a place God chooses to visit and share with us—most especially those places where, like Jesus, we choose to confront religious hypocrisy and worldly powers. We know what the excited crowds at the entrance to the city don’t know. At this point they smell triumph in the air; they expect a victorious Jesus to sweep into power and they with him. In Jerusalem their plans would collapse, their hopes would be dashed. We know what they didn’t and couldn’t know at this stage of their journey with Jesus: that early on the morning of the third day, the first day of the week, while it was still dark, God would show God’s power and raise Jesus from the tomb. The powers of death would be overcome. Triumph would come from catastrophe; life from death; hope from despair and despite all appearances to the contrary–then and now—evil would be defeated. Now, no matter how powerful the forces against good are, we do have reason to hope. That is why we are waving our palms in the air. That is why, with Jesus and the rest of his disciples, we are entering Jerusalem today.

Justice Bulletin Board by Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC

He humbled himself—Philippians 2:8

On this Palm Sunday, let us meditate on Jesus in his humanity and the love he shed for us. The following poem was written by peace activist, Joshua “Jojo” White, when he was eleven years old. “Joshua” is the Hebrew name for Jesus, and I can hear a very human little boy named Jesus speaking its words.

If I could change the world I’d dismantle all the bombs
If I could change the world I’d feed all the hungry
If I could change the world I would shelter all the homeless
If I could change the world I would make all people free
I cannot dismantle all the bombs
I cannot feed all the hungry
I cannot shelter all the homeless
I cannot make all people free
I cannot because there is only one of me.
When I have grown and I am strong
I will find many more of me.
We will dismantle all the bombs
We will feed the hungry
We will shelter all the homeless
We will make all the people free.
We will change the world.
Me and my friends
altogether, together at last.

Are you a friend of Jesus? Will you help change the world?

LENTEN POETRY COMPANION WEEK 6: AN INVITATION TO SURRENDER TO GRACE

SUNDAY — Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis by Denise Levertov
Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of his depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don’t show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,
He went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, to not be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor the faithless weakness of friends, and surely
not the anticipation of death (not then, in agony’s grip)
was Incarnation’s heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flesh to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.
Source: “Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997

MONDAY — Exquisite Corpse by Scott Dalgarno
Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper. —John 12:1-2

Four days dead and sipping soup, Lazarus
Sits up, grunts, asks, “What’s today?” He reeks
Of tomb, but no one blanches at this banquet.
Sister Martha feeds him, wipes his chin, reminding him
Of time and mass and the unforgiving weight of resuscitation.
There’s that late-charge he thought he was clear of,
And the pruning, and that long look a bar-maid
Once gave him, but that’s all in Lazarus’ moldy brain.
The guests merely gape; the vacuum of the tomb
Has sucked every verb from the house, but Mary
Has an idea. She produces a jar of nard, pure, priceless,
And gloppy as death. She smashes it like some Jeremiah,
Peeling the fractured alabaster, lavishing the ooze
On Jesus’ chapped knees and feet. All stand transfixed,
But Lazarus’ eyes are still on Martha’s spoon,
Hovering a bit out of reach. Slowly he searches the room
For an explanation. There’s Mary, as busy as a Martha,
And Martha, nonplussed, her heart churning envy and disgust.
What kind of household is this, Lazarus wonders,
Where the dead are fed and the living embalmed?
Nothing sealed is safe; nothing at rest left undisturbed
By the merciless provocations of the living.
Source: “Exquisite Corpse” by Scott Dalgarno from America Magazine, Vol. 192No. 9 (3/14/2005).

TUESDAY — The Vine by Thomas Merton
When wind and winter turn our vineyard
To a bitter Calvary,
What hands come out and crucify us
Like the innocent vine?
How long will starlight weep as sharp as thorns
In the night of our desolate life?
How long will moonlight fear to free the naked prisoner?
Or is there no deliverer?
A mob of winds, on Holy Thursday, come like murderers
And batter the walls of our locked and terrified souls.
Our doors are down, and our defense is done.
Good Friday’s rains, in Roman order,
March, with sharpest lances, up our vineyard hill.
More dreadful than St. Peter’s cry
When he was being swallowed in the sea,
Cries out our anguish: “O! We are abandoned!”
When in our life we see the ruined vine
Cut open by the cruel spring,
Ploughed by the furious season!
As if we had forgotten how the whips of winter
And the cross of April
Would all be lost in one bright miracle.
For look! The vine on Calvary is bright with branches!
See how the leaves laugh in the light,
And how the whole hill smiles with flowers:
And know how all our numbered veins must run
With life, like the sweet vine, when it is full of sun.

WEDNESDAY — O Taste and See by Denise Levertov
The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see
the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform
into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being
hungry, and plucking
the fruit.
Source: “O Taste and See” from O Taste and See by Denise Levertov. New must be a part of the story. York: New Directions, 1964.

HOLY THURSDAY — Gethsemane by Mary Oliver
The grass never sleeps.
Or the rose.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it even sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,
maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
Source: “Gethsemane” from Thirst, by Mary Oliver. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

GOOD FRIDAY — The Magdalen, a Garden and This by Kathleen O’Toole
She who is known by myth and association
as sinful, penitent, voluptuous perhaps...
but faithful to the last and then beyond.
A disciple for sure, confused often with Mary,
sister of Lazarus, or the woman caught
in adultery, or she who angered the men
by anointing Jesus with expensive oils.
She was the one from whom he cast out seven
demons—she’s named in that account.
Strip all else away and we know only
that she was grateful, that she found her way
to the cross, and that she returned
to the tomb, to the garden nearby, and there,
weeping at her loss, was recognized,
became known in the tender invocation
of her name. Mary: breathed by one
whom she mistook for the gardener, he
who in an instant brought her back to herself—
gave her in two syllables a life beloved,
gave me the only sure thing I’ll believe
of heaven, that if it be, it will consist
in this: the one unmistakable
rendering of your name.
Source: “The Magdalen, a Garden and This” by Kathleen O’Toole from America Magazine Vol. 186 No. 11 (4/1/2002).

SATURDAY — Simon Peter by John Poch
There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yes, four which I do not understand.
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the heart of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid
—Prov. 30:18, 19
I
Contagious as a yawn, denial poured
over me like a soft fall fog, a girl
on a carnation strewn parade float, waving
at everyone and no one, boring and bored
There actually was a robed commotion parading.
I turned and turned away and turned. A swirl
of wind pulled back my hood, a fire of coal
brightened my face, and those around me whispered:
You’re one of them, aren’t you? You smell like fish.
And wine, someone else joked. That’s brutal. That’s cold,
I said, and then they knew me by my speech.
They let me stay and we told jokes like fishermen
and houseboys. We gossiped till the cock crowed,
his head a small volcano raised to mock stone.
II
Who could believe a woman’s word, perfumed
in death? I did. I ran and was outrun
before I reached the empty tomb. I stepped
inside an empty shining shell of a room,
sans pearl. I walked back home alone and wept
again. At dinner. His face shone like the sun.
I went out into the night. I was a sailor
and my father’s nets were calling. It was high tide,
I brought the others. Nothing, the emptiness
of business, the hypnotic waves of failure.
But a voice from shore, a familiar fire, and the nets
were full. I wouldn’t be outswum, denied
this time. The coal-fire before me, the netted fish
behind. I’m carried where I will not wish.
Source: “Simon Peter” by John Poch from America Magazine, Vol. 188 No. 7

EASTER SUNDAY
The Answer by R.S. Thomas
Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.
Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.
Easter: An Invitation to Resurrect Hope
Source: “The Answer” from Frequencies by R.S. Thomas. London: Macmillian, 1979.

A Better Resurrection by Christina Rossetti
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Source: “A Better Resurrection” from Goblin Market and other Poems, by Christina Rossetti. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862.

PREPARATION FOR THE SESSION

Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. (1-2 minutes of silence)

Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. (1-2 minutes of silence)

Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)

OPENING PRAYER

Help me to fix my gaze on you as I hear this gospel.. Help me to walk closely with you and accompany you in your last days on this earth. This has been a long and arduous journey for you, Lord. Did you think things would end up this way? Did life go the way you planned? Help me to face my challenges with courage and help me to remain faithful to your word and believe in your promises. Give me strength for this life’s journey, and give me compassion for those on their own difficult journeys. Be with me, Lord, when I am afraid or weary.

COMPANIONS FOR THE JOURNEY

From Living Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits

Today’s liturgy combines both a sense of triumph and tragedy. Very importantly, we are reminded at the beginning, that we are about to commemorate the triumph of Christ our King. We do this through the blessing of palms, the procession and the joyful singing. And the celebrant wears red vestments. We need to keep this in mind as we proceed, in the Liturgy of the Word, to hear the long tale of the sufferings and indignities to which Jesus was subjected. It is a tale not relieved—yet—by the proper end of the story: the Resurrection to new life. So as we listen to the Passion story unfolding, let us keep in mind the Hosannas as Jesus our King entered Jerusalem, his city. Very soon it will be difficult to recognise our King in the battered, scourged, crowned-with-thorns, crucified remnant of a human being. Why did Jesus have to undergo such a terrible fate? Basically, there were two reasons. The first was political—Jesus had become the object of hate and prejudice by people who saw him as a threat to their religious authority and political standing. He had to be gotten rid of one way or another. But second, what happened was all in accordance with the Father’s will. That is not to say, as some people seem to imply, that God wanted to kill Jesus and engineered everything to happen that way. There are perfectly understandable reasons why Jesus’ behaviour led to his suffering and death. At the same time, this behaviour was the result of Jesus’ unconditional love for every person he met—including his enemies. And Jesus’ love for everyone was a mirror of the same love of the Father. It was an agape-love so intense that Jesus was ready to sacrifice his own life for it: What we see in today’s readings is God using perfectly human situations in order to convey, in dramatic fashion, his relationship to us. And it is only with genuine faith that we are able to see the work of God in the tragic death of Jesus. Today’s readings also tell us that Jesus suffered—and he really did suffer. There are those who tend to minimise the sufferings of Jesus because “after all, he was the Son of God, he had a ‘Divine Nature’.” But this is to deny one of the most central teachings of the New Testament, that Jesus was one hundred percent a human being and, except for sin, shared our human experiences in every way. In fact, as a particularly sensitive human person, it is likely that, when Jesus suffered, his pain was more intense than that of others. Jesus suffered obviously in his body, and he underwent pain that we might associate with the more barbaric forms of torture in our own day. But he must also have suffered psychologically, and this pain may have been even more intense. He saw his mission collapse all around him in total failure. His disciples had all, for the sake of their own skins, taken to their heels. Would anyone remember anything he taught or did? There was, at this special time of need, a terrible loneliness. His disciples fell asleep in the garden when he especially needed their support. They ran off as soon as people came to arrest Jesus. Even the Father seems to be silent—the Father who could send legions of angels to rescue him, but apparently did nothing.  There is the final poignant cry from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Yet through it all, Jesus’ dignity, power and authority keep shining through, making his captors seem to be the ones on the defensive. After the prayer in the garden, Jesus stands up to face those arresting him full of an inner strength and authority. He stands in silent dignity before his judges, refusing to be intimidated. In the midst of his own pain and indignities, he can continue to think of the needs of others and can, after his own teaching, pray for and forgive his enemies.

REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

This iteration of Sunday’s Gospel is divided so that if groups are meeting to meditate on the readings, several readers can participate and take turns. In addition, there are four pieces of music as interludes between every other section; these pauses can also be for quiet meditation of discussion. This also usable for private reflection during Holy Week.

Matthew 26:14-27:66

Reader 1
“Then one of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from then onwards he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus to say, “Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go to a certain man in the city and say to him, ‘The Master says: My time is near. It is at your house that I am keeping Passover with my disciples.’” The disciples did what Jesus told them and prepared the Passover. When evening came he was at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating he said, “In truth I tell you, one of you is about to betray me.” They were greatly distressed and started asking him in turn, “Not me, Lord, surely?” He answered, “Someone who has dipped his hand into the dish with me will betray me. The Son of man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but alas for that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! Better for that man if he had never been born!” Judas, who was to betray him, asked in his turn, “Not me, Rabbi, surely?”Jesus answered, “It is you who say it.” Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples. “Take it and eat,” he said, “this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he handed it to them saying, “Drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. From now on, I tell you, I shall never again drink wine until the day I drink the new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father.”

Reader 2
After the psalms had been sung they left for the Mount of Olives. 31.Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away from me tonight, for the scripture says: I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered, but after my resurrection I shall go ahead of you to Galilee.” At this, Peter said to him, “Even if all fall away from you, I will never fall away.” Jesus answered him,” In truth I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will have disowned me three times.” Peter said to him,” Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the disciples said the same. Then Jesus came with them to a plot of land called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Stay a while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him. And he began to feel sadness and anguish. Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and stay awake with me.” And going on a little further he fell on his face and prayed. “My Father,” he said, “if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.” He came back to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “So you had not the strength to stay awake with me for one hour? Stay awake, and pray not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing enough, but human nature is weak.” Again, a second time, he went away and prayed: “My Father,” he said, “if this cup cannot pass by, but I must drink it, your will be done!” And he came back again and found them sleeping, their eyes were so heavy. Leaving them there, he went away again and prayed for the third time, repeating the same words. Then he came back to the disciples and said to them, “You can sleep on now and have your rest. Look, the hour has come when the Son of man is to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up! Let us go! Look, my betrayer is not far away.” And suddenly while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared, and with him a large number of men armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and elders of the people. Now the traitor had arranged a sign with them saying, “The one I kiss, he is the man. Arrest him.” So he went up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi,” and kissed him. Jesus said to him, “My friend, do what you are here for.” Then they came forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. And suddenly, one of the followers of Jesus grasped his sword and drew it; he struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his ear. Jesus then said, “Put your sword back, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, who would promptly send more than twelve legions of angels to my defence? But then, how would the scriptures be fulfilled that say this is the way it must be?” It was at this time that Jesus said to the crowds, “Am I a bandit, that you had to set out to capture me with swords and clubs? I sat teaching in the Temple day after day and you never laid a hand on me.” Now all this happened to fulfil the prophecies in scripture.

Music Interlude: “Your Will” by Tony Eiras (hard to find on YouTube, but it is there, and powerful!). Or the following quiet reflection:

Adapted from Rev. William Bausch in Once upon a Gospel: The fact is, the day Jesus entered Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, and Pilate enters from the west on a warhorse, was the day you and I were confronted with a choice: We could choose to enter with Pilate, who represented force, greed and exploitation, or we could choose to enter with Jesus, who represented the kingdom of God which condemns those who exploit others, who use the power of their office or their money to serve their own selfish and sometime dishonest ends, who treat the poor and marginalized as expendable. The results of that confrontation are clear. The question for each of us: which entrance shall I take, whose procession do I follow? Why does treachery from a friend feel worse than hatred from strangers? What is the cause of Jesus “sorrow” in the garden? What are my “Gethsemanies”? Have I ever found it hard to accept God’s will in my life?

Reader 3
Then all the disciples deserted him and ran away. 57.The men who had arrested Jesus led him off to the house of Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. Peter followed him at a distance right to the high priest’s palace, and he went in and sat down with the attendants to see what the end would be. The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus, however false, on which they might have him executed. But they could not find any, though several lying witnesses came forward. Eventually two came forward and made a statement, “This man said, ‘I have power to destroy the Temple of God and in three days build it up.’” The high priest then rose and said to him, “Have you no answer to that? What is this evidence these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus was silent. And the high priest said to him, “I put you on oath by the living God to tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus answered him, “It is you who say it. But, I tell you that from this time onward you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed. What need of witnesses have we now? There! You have just heard the blasphemy. What is your opinion?” They answered, “He deserves to die.” Then they spat in his face and hit him with their fists; others said as they struck him, “Prophesy to us, Christ! Who hit you then?” Meanwhile Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant-girl came up to him saying, “You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it in front of them all. “I do not know what you are talking about,” he said. When he went out to the gateway another servant-girl saw him and said to the people there, “This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.” And again, with an oath, he denied it, “I do not know the man.” A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “You are certainly one of them too! Why, your accent gives you away.” Then he started cursing and swearing, “I do not know the man.” And at once the cock crowed, and Peter remembered what Jesus had said, “Before the cock crows you will have disowned me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Reader 4
When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people met in council to bring about the death of Jesus. They had him bound and led him away to hand him over to Pilate, the governor. When he found that Jesus had been condemned, then Judas, his betrayer, was filled with remorse and took the thirty silver pieces back to the chief priests and elders saying, “I have sinned. I have betrayed innocent blood.” They replied, “What is that to us? That is your concern.” And flinging down the silver pieces in the sanctuary he made off, and went and hanged himself. The chief priests picked up the silver pieces and said, “It is against the Law to put this into the treasury; it is blood-money.” So they discussed the matter and with it bought the potter’s field as a graveyard for foreigners, and this is why the field is still called the Field of Blood. The word spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was then fulfilled: And they took the thirty silver pieces, the sum at which the precious One was priced by the children of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, just as the Lord directed me. Jesus, then, was brought before the governor, and the governor put to him this question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “It is you who say it.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders he refused to answer at all. Pilate then said to him, “Do you not hear how many charges they have made against you?” But to the governor’s amazement, he offered not a word in answer to any of the charges. At festival time it was the governor’s practice to release a prisoner for the people, anyone they chose. Now there was then a notorious prisoner whose name was Barabbas. So when the crowd gathered, Pilate said to them, “Which do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For Pilate knew it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. Now as he was seated in the chair of judgement, his wife sent him a message, “Have nothing to do with that upright man; I have been extremely upset today by a dream that I had about him.” The chief priests and the elders, however, had persuaded the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas and the execution of Jesus. So when the governor spoke and asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “But in that case, what am I to do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” He asked, “But what harm has he done?” But they shouted all the louder, “Let him be crucified!” Then Pilate saw that he was making no impression, that in fact a riot was imminent. So he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. It is your concern.” And the people, every one of them, shouted back, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released Barabbas for them.

Music Interlude: “Pie Jesu” by Faure, sung by Kathleen Battle. Or the following quiet reflection:

Remorse can kill or purify. The ability to believe we can be forgiven is central to our Christian belief. This is the basis for the difference between Peter and Judas. Do I really believe that I am truly and completely forgiven by God? Describe the way Jesus handled his interrogation and torture. What qualities of his that he displayed in these instances do you particularly admire? Have you ever been anxious or worried about something and found that your usual support system was somehow lacking?

Reader 1
"After having Jesus scourged he handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus with them into the Praetorium and collected the whole cohort round him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet cloak round him, and having twisted some thorns into a crown they put this on his head and placed a reed in his right hand. To make fun of him they knelt to him saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head with it. And when they had finished making fun of him, they took off the cloak and dressed him in his own clothes and led him away to crucifixion. On their way out, they came across a man from Cyrene, called Simon, and enlisted him to carry his cross. When they had reached a place called Golgotha, that is, the place of the skull, they gave him wine to drink mixed with gall, which he tasted but refused to drink. When they had finished crucifying him they shared out his clothing by casting lots, and then sat down and stayed there keeping guard over him. Above his head was placed the charge against him; it read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

Reader 2
Then two bandits were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. The passers-by jeered at him; they shook their heads and said, “So you would destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it! Then save yourself if you are God’s son and come down from the cross!” The chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him in the same way, with the words, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He has put his trust in God; now let God rescue him if he wants him. For he did say, ‘I am God’s son.’” Even the bandits who were crucified with him taunted him in the same way.

Music Interlude: “Jesus Remember Me” from Taize Or the following quiet reflection:

Everybody has a cross to carry in this life, whether it is illness, loneliness, anxiety, personal relationships or professional ones. Can you name one of your “crosses?” How can you be more like Jesus as you carry your cross(es)?

Reader 3
From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of those who stood there heard this, they said, “The man is calling on Elijah,” and one of them quickly ran to get a sponge which he filled with vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink. But the rest of them said, “Wait! And see if Elijah will come to save him.” But Jesus, again crying out in a loud voice, yielded up his spirit. And suddenly, the veil of the Sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, the rocks were split, the tombs opened and the bodies of many holy people rose from the dead, and these, after his resurrection, came out of the tombs, entered the holy city and appeared to a number of people. The centurion, together with the others guarding Jesus, had seen the earthquake and all that was taking place, and they were terrified and said, “In truth this man was son of God.” And many women were there, watching from a distance, the same women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

Reader 4
When it was evening, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, called Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be handed over. So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean shroud and put it in his own new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a large stone across the entrance of the tomb and went away. Now Mary of Magdala and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulchre. Next day, that is, when Preparation Day was over, the chief priests and the Pharisees went in a body to Pilate and said to him, “Your Excellency, we recall that this impostor said, while he was still alive, “After three days I shall rise again.” Therefore give the order to have the sepulchre kept secure until the third day, for fear his disciples come and steal him away and tell the people, “He has risen from the dead.” This last piece of fraud would be worse than what went before.” Pilate said to them, “You may have your guard; go and make all as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the sepulchre secure, putting seals on the stone and mounting a guard.

Music Interlude: “Going Home” by Anton Dvorak, sung by Bryn Terfel, video posted on YouTube by Mushashi Tzu. Or “My God, My God, Why” transeraph. Psalm 22 from the Psalm Project from the album Psalms uplugged) Poweful and poignant. Or the following quiet reflection:

Describe a time in your life when you felt a lack of God’s presence in your personal need. How did you handle it? Can I forgive others truly and freely? What images or incidents in this narrative particularly touch you? How do they relate to your own life and your own understanding of Jesus? What draws me to Jesus?

CLOSING PRAYER

Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for.

This week’s invitation to walk with you Lord, on your last, final journey to the Father, is both comfort and challenge to me. Can I have the strength and steadfastness with which you approached your fate? Can I keep my eyes on the Prize? Can I forgive those who have betrayed and hurt me along the way? Help me trust in myself and in your ultimate goodness as I live my life in your image.

FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Meditations
A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Memory: The Way of the Cross.
As Jesus appears before Pilate, I remember a time when I experienced being misunderstood, condemned:
As Jesus receives his cross, I recall a time when I received a cross in my life:
As Jesus falls the first time, I remember when I experienced my first failure, my own limits:
As Mary encourages Jesus, I remember someone who encouraged me to follow God’s call; I remember how he or she looked at me:
As Simon helps Jesus carry his cross, I consider who has been there to lift a burden from shoulders, from my heart:
As veronica wipes the face of Jesus, I remember the Veronicas in my life--those who stood by me, comforted me, even at the risk of their own rejection:
As Jesus falls a second time, I recall the times when I have experienced the helplessness of failing, knowing I would fail, again and again:
As the women reach out to comfort Jesus, I remember the faces of those whom I have reached out to comfort, even in my own pain:
As Jesus falls a third time, I recall a time when I felt as if I was totally defeated and could not go on:
As Jesus is stripped of his clothing, I remember the experience of feeling so emotionally naked, so publicly demeaned, so vulnerable before others:
As Jesus is nailed to the cross, I consider the things that bound me, kept me "fastened" to my own sorrow, failures or disappointments:
As I imagine Jesus dying on the cross, I try to recall a time when I loved so unconditionally, so completely, that I gave my all:
As I imagine Mary holding the dead body of her son, I pause and remember those who have held me up in life, nurtured me, and grieved with me:
As Jesus’ body is laid in the tomb, I consider what in my life keeps me entombed, where I most experience death:

—Adapted from Surrender: A Guide for Prayer, by Jacqueline Syrup Bergin and Sister Marie Schwann

Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions: Read the whole of Psalms 22 and 31 while imagining that Jesus is the speaker. What links do you find between those texts and the passion narratives in the Gospels? What impact does this have?

—by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J.

POETIC REFLECTIONS

Read Mary Oliver’s poem Gethsemane. What is the perspective here?

Gethsamane
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on his feet, 
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body, 
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe 
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move.
By
Maybe the lake far away, where once he walked 
as on a blue pavement, 
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not 
keep that vigil, how they must have wept, 
so utterly human, knowing this too 
must be part of the story.

Read the following poem by W.S. Di Piero . How does it feel to be the betrayer? Have I ever disappointed or betrayed anyone? How did I feel?

Gethsamane
He had nerve enough to follow,
dogging his heels, for what? To learn
a new vocabulary, a prayer,
down there in yellow iris that smelled
like carcass? He came back smiling.
The dog had its day, rolling in meat.
This meat was news: The Word of God
wants what we want, to be unchosen.
He must have made up his mind then
What if he said, I don’t see Him here,
we’ll check later? Instead he gagged
on words, like a mouthful of water
brought from the garden, that blood squirms
from the blossom loads and cracked boughs,
and in the stagnant lake of the heart
the sprouting trunk splits, groans,
spilling wine, the spongy dirt
inhaling any blood that falls,
and I’m falling into the tree
and dogs at lakeside bark at clouds.
Like that. As if his own speech could
infuriate time while he waited
for an act to come upon him
(as joy sometimes happens). The soldiers
(were they his joy?) got impatient.
So finally his bloodless lips
screamed More life! More salt!
before he gave away his kiss.
—from The Restorers

Read this poetic reflection on Peter’s betrayal by Rev. Ed Ingebretzen, S.J.:

In The Book
In the book
is told
the story of Peter---
he who denied
Jesus—
Peter whose extravagant love
bloomed like Sunday breakfast.
Also is told how he cried,
a glory credited to him
as to none other.
Peter cried to know his denial; how
perplexed he was by love, how undone
like a shoelace.
torn by love of him
called Jesus
who loved incomprehensibly,
till it seemed
even the rocks around him sang blessings.
But Jesus told Peter
what his heart had long known:
you are weak and shall be harvested
like a field of wheat
ripe in October.
Around you the weeds and flowers cluster
eager to gather in your strength.
Said Jesus further:
Peter, be cut, sifted
measured out.
Let love be your source and their ground,
In you let them find root.

The Poet Thinks of the Donkey by Mary Oliver
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

Live Without Thought of Dying by Catherine of Siena
We work so hard to fly
and no matter what heights we reach
our wings get folded near a candle,
at the end,
for nothing can enter God but Himself.
Our souls are some glorious substance of the divine
that no sentry wants to stop.
Live without thought of dying,
for dying is not a truth.
We have swayed on the sky’s limb together,
many years there the same leaves grow.
But then they get that look in their eyes
and bid farewell to what they distained or cherished.
This life He gave the shell, the daily struggles we know,
sit quiet for a minute, dear, feel the wind,
let Light touch you.
ere
Live without thought of dying,
for dying is not a
truth

5th Sunday of Lent

March 22, 2026

We all have the chance for a new life in Christ.

John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33-45 

So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL

Fr. Brendan McGuire Homily

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

At first pass, this gospel reading presents several parts that are quite difficult to hear, if not confusing. For example, when Jesus first hears of Lazarus being ill, it says that he stays another two days; this is the same Jesus, who with the Centurion’s servant heals him from a distance with not even a second thought: “Go home, your servant is healed.” Why would he not have done this for his own friend? His friend who he was obviously deeply close with. Then he stays an extra two days and he says then that this is so that the glory of God can be known. Some people reflect on this passage and say the reason for that is because God has destined some of us for suffering and some of us for an early death, which is an awful thing to conclude. I am not sure where in that scripture passage they hear this but it is often said of this very passage. This is where God, in a sense, intends us to suffer and through the suffering will shine the glory of God. Not a very comforting thought! There is a deeper way to look at this. It is worth parsing it open so that we can understand what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying that he is the resurrection and the life; and that there is nothing to stop that from coming to bear. Suffering and pain is a reality, yes, and does God allow it, yes. That part is the mystery of life, which I think none of us will fully understand until we get to heaven. And that is something that sort of bothers a lot of us. If God is so good, then why does he allow good people to suffer; and the example today is with his friend Lazarus. Why does he allow Lazarus to suffer when he can stop it but he chooses not to for the glory of God? But it is what Jesus does that is important to look at; not at what he does not do! What Jesus does is he shows up. He goes anyway. He goes in the midst of the pain and suffering of Lazarus’ family. And he accompanies them in the middle of all of it. He goes and he shows up. We might say that we can show up but then we do not have the power to heal. We do not have the power to raise up our friends from the dead. We are left with a gap ourselves and that can be frustrating for us. What are we to do? We can show up. That is the very message that we are called to do. We are called to show up and to accompany; and we are called to be there. Until you have suffered and been in a position of pain, we do not quite know what it is like but presence makes the world of difference. Do not underestimate how hard it is to be present to somebody who is suffering. Because when you show up, the first thing you want to do is to take away the pain; take away the suffering because that is what we try to do. We try to solve things but there are times when we cannot do that. There are times when we are helpless and therein lies our role, to still show up; to still be present to those suffering. It sounds so easy but let me tell you it is harder than you think because what we have to do first is quiet our own soul. We have to put all our needs aside to be in control in that moment and to put it aside and say “I will just be here. I will be just present to this person in the midst of their pain and suffering.” And that, we can do. And when we do it, it is powerfully healing whether that be for somebody who is just going through a difficult spot in life, maybe through a difficult marriage; or through a painful loss in their own family; or whether they themselves are in fact dying. It is powerful to the point of transformation. Let me give you an example to break this open: You know my, my brother Paul, who I spoke of often last year in that dying process. It was hard to constantly show up to watch him suffer because pancreatic cancer is an awful, awful disease. Absolutely awful disease. And you’ve got to keep showing up because you’ve got to keep accompanying him because he needs somebody to walk with him to the end. I remember it was the last night he lived. My Spiritual Director, Fr. Dave died of pancreatic cancer the night before so I had to break that news to Paul because they made a pact together that whoever died first would come back and get the other one. It was sort of powerful pact. I just didn’t think it was going to happen. But it did really happen. Fr. Dave died on the 29th and Dave came back to take Paul on the 30th that very next day. It was very real. Back when we were at Stanford in the middle of the COVID protocols and all the nurses asked the family to leave but because I was wearing my clerical clothes, I called the chaplain card and got to stay. I said, “Oh, I’m the Chaplain. I need to stay as a minister.” I didn’t say I was also related but that didn’t matter. Paul leaned in as best he could and said, “You know, I am ready to go. I’ve done what I can. Will you just hold my hand?” So, I did! For nearly 7 hours, I held his hand and that was his last night. Showing up. Accompanying somebody. Beautiful but painful. Healing and transformative. Death and resurrection. What can we do to live this gospel? We can show up. We can show up when somebody is suffering whether it be physical or emotional or mental; or whether they are in fact are dying themselves. We can be there and accompany them and assure them of our love by our presence and by our silence; but also that we believe that God’s silence can be trusted because Jesus is the resurrection and new life. And that in the end, we will be joined together in the heavenly kingdom. We will be together again. We give them the assurance that the resurrection is real and we’ll give them the courage to take that last step into eternal life, which we will all need. So, what can we do? We can show up and accompany them for he is the resurrection and the new life.

Commentary on John 11:1-45 by Karoline Lewis

It is significant that the story of Lazarus, unique to the Gospel of John, is the Gospel reading for the last Sunday in Lent, the Sunday immediately preceding Palm/Passion Sunday. For the Synoptic Gospels, the cleansing of the temple is the impetus for the plot to kill Jesus (Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47-48). In the Gospel of John, the temple scene is moved to the beginning of the Gospel, immediately following the Wedding at Cana, and it is the raising of Lazarus to life that incites the plot for Jesus’ arrest and death (11:53, 57). In John 11:46-57, the chief priests and the Pharisees are told what Jesus did and “from that day on they planned to put him to death.” Moreover, the chief priests want to get rid of the evidence as well, and plan to put Lazarus to death “since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus” (12:9-11). It is Jesus’ very claim, “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25) that provokes his death in the Fourth Gospel. The repercussions of the raising of Lazarus are not included in the lectionary reading, or any time in the three-year lectionary cycle (12:1-11 only on Holy Monday), and should either be read or referenced in preaching on this text. The raising of Lazarus is the last of Jesus’ “signs” in the Gospel of John. Chapter 12 functions as a bridge chapter before the narrative halts in time for Jesus’ last meal and words to his disciples (chapters 13-17). The actual raising of Lazarus is narrated in only two verses (11:43-44). The events, discussion, and details prior to the main event receive the bulk of the narrative space. Previously in the Gospel, Jesus performs a sign, which is typically followed by dialogue and a discourse by Jesus that interprets the sign (5:1-47; 9:1-10:21). Why does Jesus comment on the sign before actually raising Lazarus from the dead? On one level, it seems that what precedes the miracle is just as important. In other words, Jesus’ interpretation of the meaning of the sign is perhaps as, or more, critical than the sign itself. Why is the structure changed for this last sign and what does it suggest for the preaching on the raising of Lazarus? How do these details in the story leading up to Lazarus finally walking out of the tomb contribute to our understanding of the meaning of this sign? This is not to say that the raising of Lazarus is not important. The narrative elements that set up Lazarus coming out of the tomb are significant. They contribute both to the narrative suspense and to the extraordinary final scene of Lazarus, dead man walking. We are told that the tomb was a cave and that there was a stone against it. Lazarus has been dead four days (see also 11:17). Since Jewish belief held that the soul left the body after three days, just in case we are wondering, Lazarus is really dead. And, he is going to smell. Jesus then pauses to pray and this prayer is more than demonstrative. Note what Jesus highlights in his prayer–hearing (11:41-42). Jesus thanks God for hearing him, and how is Lazarus raised? By hearing Jesus. Like the sheep that recognize the voice of the shepherd who calls them by name (10:3), Lazarus hears his name being called, he recognizes the voice of the shepherd, and the dead man comes out, because only the shepherd can lead his sheep out. Again we should ask, why does Jesus need to talk about the raising of Lazarus prior to doing it? Is it because that the sign would be easily misunderstood, even by us? When we think about the raising of Lazarus, do we place our focus on “I am the resurrection” and not remember that Jesus also says “I am the life?” Indeed, this is exactly what Martha thinks. Notice her dialogue with Jesus in 11:21-27. When Jesus says to her, “your brother will rise again,” she hears only the promise of a future resurrection, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (11:24). And Jesus seems to correct this misunderstanding, “I am the resurrection and the life.” But Jesus, we might ask, what is the difference? In fact, this is a question that has puzzled others as well. Other ancient manuscripts omit “and the life,” with the assumption that this phrase is a redundancy on the part of Jesus. Our first impressions may be the same. We tend to focus on the resurrection that we situate for ourselves as a distant promise, our guarantee of salvation, our eternal life with God and Jesus in heaven. But what might it mean that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? That we are raised to life, not as future salvific existence, but to life right now, right here, with Jesus? For Lazarus, the Gospel does not describe his future with Jesus, but his present. In chapter 12, the anointing of Jesus takes place at the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany. We are told that Martha served, Mary anoints Jesus, and Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead (12:1, 9, 17) “was one of those at the table with him.” The raising of Lazarus also gives him new life with Jesus. This new life is leaning on the breast of Jesus (13:23), reclining at the table with him, sharing food and fellowship (13:28). New life in Jesus is this intimacy, this closeness, this dwelling, lying on the chest of Jesus. It is here and now, because for the Gospel of John, it is not just the death of Jesus but the life of Jesus that brings about salvation. For the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, through which “we have all received grace upon grace” (1:16).

First Impressions by Jude Siciliano, OP

Ezekiel 37: 12-14; Romans 8: 8-11; John 11: 1-45

God is standing outside the tomb--- this is the strong image that touches me in today’s readings. The tomb – our last stop on our journey to God. And what a terrible stopping-off-place it is! At American cemeteries the undertakers and grave diggers do their jobs well. The hole is dug, the excavated soil placed off to the side and the area surrounding the grave is covered with artificial green turf. (It looks like the astro-turf of indoor football stadiums.) Over the grave is a metal framed contraption and thick straps are hung from it to support the coffin. Family and friends remain in their cars until the workers ready the site with flowers. If the weather is foul, there is an awning to protect the mourners and the casket from rain or snow. When all is neatly arranged the mourners are invited to come to the grave site. The coffin is suspended over the grave, supported by that frame and straps. The grave diggers take their break off to the side, some grabbing a smoke during their idle moments. Soon they will be needed again but not till after everyone has left. The final prayers are said, each mourner takes a flower from the nearby floral arrangements, bids farewell to the deceased and places it on the coffin before they leave. But no matter how antiseptic the grave site and how orderly the process, we know what we are looking at – it’s a grave to which we are assigning one we have loved, perhaps all of our lives. Those nearby grave diggers will soon be placing our loved one into the earth and we will see them no more. Of course, I know I am describing American first-world funeral practices. In the poorest lands the body is wrapped in a simple cloth or placed in a wooden coffin made by a family member, a grave is scratched out of rocky soil by friends, and perhaps a flower or two is left on the earth that has been scrapped back into the grave. But in our culture, most of us leave before we get to see the casket lowered into the earth. We can’t watch the final triumph of the grave as it claims our beloved dead. We also have our ways of camouflaging death with cosmetics and euphemisms. But no matter where and how we bury the dead, the grave finds us at our most vulnerable and seems to have its triumphant moments over us. Hold this burial scene, the one you are most familiar with, in your imagination. Then look at the scriptures for today and see the graves in the first and third readings and hear the life-assuring words of the Romans passage. The scriptures assure us we are not alone at our most desolate moments. They don’t avoid recognizing our pain and voicing our questions and even our disappointment in God. “If you had only been here....” But while they acknowledge our grief and feelings of impotency, as we stare at death’s handiwork, the grave – they also tell us something unimaginable. The scriptures say that, in our most vulnerable moments, God stands with us at the grave and makes a promise of life that seems to mock the evidence before us. Death, by all logical conclusions, has defeated us. But God says, “NO!!!!”–in capital letters with a few exclamation points. As Ezekiel puts it, “Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people!” (Check out the text, it has an exclamation point and should have a few more to emphasize the impact of those words!) Only God can speak with such authority and certainty, for we are in no place to make such a promise on our own. Ezekiel is not writing to console a family or a few friends over the death of a loved one. Ezekiel is writing for an entire people over the death of their nation and the destruction of their religious holy places. The prophet is speaking to the Jewish exiles in Babylon who have seen their beloved Jerusalem destroyed and their Temple desecrated. (587 B.C.E.) Using the vivid dead-bones vision (37: 1-10) Ezekiel evokes the hope that God can raise these people, these “dry bones,” by means of God’s Spirit and Word. The prophet is God’s instrument for proclaiming this promise. Ezekiel’s vision isn’t addressing a final resurrection, but today’s reading suggests God will raise up the people who feel cut off, not only from their homeland, but also from God, as they languish in foreign captivity. Can God do the impossible and restore Israel, take the people home to Jerusalem and help them rebuild the Temple? Yes—God is that powerful, promises Ezekiel. “I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land.” Hearing Ezekiel address the people we wonder: can people leaving a loved one behind for burial rebuild their lives? Can a family hold together as a family when its mother or father dies young? When a sibling is tragically killed in a random act of violence or an overdose? When a war causes civilian upheaval and displacement? Death has so many co-workers dealing out death in so many forms. What will happen to the survivors? Hear what God has to say: “I will settle you upon you land; thus, you will know that I am God.” Let’s see how else the promise is made and to whom. We turn to the gospel. The story gets more personal in the gospel for in it we get: a sick person who dies, a reprimand, an expression of faith in the impossible, weeping, disbelief, seeing the impossible and then coming to belief. In addition, Jesus will have to pay personally and dearly for this miracle, for it will intensify opposition to him and begin the scheming that leads to his own grave. While God doesn’t stand helplessly by Lazarus’ grave; this miracle of life will cost God dearly as well. Lazarus is Jesus’ friend and as we hear this story we are encouraged to believe that we are friends as well. As Jesus said earlier in John, “...an hour is coming in which all those in their tombs shall hear his [the Son of Man’s] voice and come forth.” (5: 28) We friends of Jesus trust these words as we stand by the open graves of so many loved ones and anticipate that a similar grave awaits us as well. Jesus is very much in charge here. No one can rush him, not even the urgent pleas of the dying Lazarus’ sisters. He risks the appearance of not being their true friend, of seeming unconcerned. Why does he wait so long? (And why are we also left with questions and doubts when a word from him could raise us from our death beds?) One thing is for sure--- after the delay we know Lazarus is really dead! Practical Martha names the reality, “Lord, by now there will be a stench, he has been dead four days.” What a scene; the dead man emerging from the dark, dank tomb with his burial cloths dangling from his resuscitated body! Soon Jesus will suffer a violent death. They will also wrap him, as was their custom, in burial cloths and place him in a tomb. Another group of family and friends will stand by yet one more grave and peer into its coldness. They too will feel helpless as they huddle to comfort one another. But all is not totally lost. God will visit this grave and speak a word of life over Jesus and God’s Spirit will raise him up to a completely new life. Who could have imagined? With his resurrection all of us who suffer death will be given the gift of hope and respond, “We too will rise.” As we interpret this passage, note this about John’s gospel. For John, the life God promises in Jesus is already present to the baptized. Our new life does not begin after we have breathed our last breath or when our bodies are surrendered to the grave—it begins now. To call upon another verse from John, “I solemnly assure you, an hour is coming, has indeed come, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have heeded it shall live. (5:25) We have new life in us even as we stare at the many grave sites in the course of our lives. There are the deaths of family and friends, of course. But we also face death if we; lose our jobs; flunk out of college; get a crippling disease; lose our physical or mental strengths in old age; give up plans of being married and having children; have our last child go off to school or get married; etc. Is new life possible beyond these and other graves? In this life? The believer, hearing today’s scriptures, is encouraged to believe that God has not abandoned us at our graves and will call out our names, utter a life-giving Word and breathe into us a resurrecting Spirit. “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he/she dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believers in me will never die. Do you believe this?” And we respond with Martha, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

Justice Bulletin Board by Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC

I will put my spirit in you that you may live… -Ezekiel 37:14

I recently re-read the following from Pope Benedict XVI and quoted by Pope Francis in his encyclical letter, Laudato Si: “The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast” (217). Pope Francis uses the quote to call for a profound interior conversion regarding the environment, but I wonder if the metaphor does not also call us to a profound interior awareness that God’s spirit resides in each of us. What does that mean to my life if I take Ezekiel’s words (37:14) to heart? If the spirit of love, humility, merciful forgiveness, peace, and joy became truly manifest through everyone into our world, would not the dryness of the world disappear? There is no doubt that Pope Francis saw everything as connected. Mahatma Gandhi also believed in this inward-outward connection: “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” Lent is the time for introspection through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. But if all we do is go through the motions of unexamined prayer, required fasting, and dutiful almsgiving, we will not experience the interior, life-altering conversion that these wise men extol. Lent is a journey. Where are we going if not to our innermost being? If you find this journey difficult to begin, I offer this suggestion. What has God placed on your heart as something that needs your attention? What plight in the world speaks to you? Take a look at the works of mercy ministries listed on the Cathedral webpage and see if any of them could be a place to start. Almsgiving traditionally means giving money but giving time and talent and walking with people who are other than you opens “new lenses of thoughts and emotions” as Gandhi states. God changed the trajectory of my life when I opened myself to the situation of so many people who lack decent, affordable housing. Not only did my worldview change but so did my interior life. I wish this for you, also, my fellow travelers.

LENTEN POETRY COMPANION WEEK 5: AN INVITATION TO LIVE IN FAITH

SUNDAY — And If I Did, What Then? by George Gascoigne
“And if I did, what then?
Are you aggriev’d therefore?
The sea hath fish for every man,
And what would you have more?”
Thus did my mistress once,
Amaze my mind with doubt;
And popp’d a question for the nonce
To beat my brains about.
Whereto I thus replied:
“Each fisherman can wish
That all the seas at every tide
Were his alone to fish.
“And so did I (in vain)
But since it may not be,
Let such fish there as find the gain,
And leave the loss for me.
“And with such luck and loss
I will content myself,
Till tides of turning time may toss
Such fishers on the shelf.
“And when they stick on sands,
That every man may see,
Then will I laugh and clap my hands,
As they do now at me.”
Source: “And If I Did, What Then?” from The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry by Jay Parini. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

MONDAY — Annunciation by Denise Levertov
‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’ From the Agathistos Hymn,
Greece, VI
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book;
always the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.
But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.
She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.
Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –
but who was God.
Source: “Annunciation” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997.

TUESDAY — The Ledge of Light by Jessica Powers
I have climbed up out of a narrow darkness
on to a ledge of light.
I am of God; I was not made for night.
Here there is room to lift my arms and sing.
Oh, God is vast! With Him all space can come
to hole or corner or cubiculum.
Though once I prayed, “O closed Hand holding me…”
I know Love, not a vise. I see aright,
set free in morning on this ledge of light.
Yet not all truth I see. Since I am not
yet one of God’s partakers,
I visualize Him now: a thousand acres.
God is a thousand acres to me now
of high sweet-smelling April and the flow
of windy light across a wide plateau.
Ah, but when love grows unitive I know
joy will upsoar, my heart sing, far more free,
having come home to God’s infinity.
Source: “The Ledge of Light” from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited by Regina Siegfried and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1989.

WEDNESDAY — Psalm 25:6–10
Show me your ways, O Lord,
teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you are good, O Lord.

THURSDAY — Messenger by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
And these body-clothes,
A mouth with which to give shouts of joy
To the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
Telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
Source: “Messenger” from Thirst, by Mary Oliver. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

FRIDAY — The Observer by Rainer Maria Rilke
I can tell a storm by the way the trees
are whipping, compared to when quiet,
against my trembling windows, and
I hear from afar things whispering
I couldn’t bear hearing without a friend
or love without a sister close by.
There moves the storm, the transforming one,
and runs through the woods and through the age,
changing it all to look ageless and young:
the landscape appears like the verse of a psalm,
so earnest, eternal, and strong.
How small is what we contend with and fight;
how great what contends with us;
if only we mirrored the moves of the things
and acquiesced to the force of the storm,
we, too, could be ageless and strong.
For what we can conquer is only the small,
and winning itself turns us into dwarfs;
but the everlasting and truly important
will never be conquered by us.
It is the angel who made himself known
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
for whenever he saw his opponents propose
to test their iron-clad muscle strength,
he touched them like strings of an instrument
and played their low-sounding chords.
Whoever submits to this angel,
whoever refuses to fight the fight,
comes out walking straight and great and upright,
and the hand once rigid and hard
shapes around as a gently curved guard.
No longer is winning a tempting bait.
One’s progress is to be conquered, instead,
by the ever mightier one.
Source: “The Observer” from Pictures of God; Rilke’s Religious Poetry, translated by Annemarie Kidder. Livonia, MI: First Page Publications, 2005.

SATURDAY — The Avowal by Denise Levertov
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
Source: “The Avowal” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997.

PREPARATION FOR THE SESSION

Adapted from Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2025

Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. ( 1-2 minutes of silence)

Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. ( 1-2 minutes of silence)

Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)

OPENING PRAYER

I know what you want from me, Lord: perfect trust in your goodness. But it is hard, Lord, when so many people and institutions, in one way or another, have let me down in the past. When I am entombed in hopelessness, grant that I may hear. Your voice calling me back to you. Teach me, through scriptures like these, to let go of my fears and apprehensions and learn to rely on your goodness and care.

COMPANIONS FOR THE JOURNEY

A little exegesis: Belief in the resurrection of the dead was introduced to the Jewish tradition in the book of Daniel. This belief was espoused by the Pharisees, but not the Sadducees. However, the belief in life after death was widely accepted by the common people of Jesus time (Father Raymond Brown. S.S.)

From “First Impressions”, a service of the Southern Dominican Province: God is standing outside the tomb—this is the strong image that touches me in today’s readings. The tomb—our last stop on our journey to God. And what a terrible stopping-off-place it is! At American cemeteries the undertakers and grave diggers do their jobs well. The hole is dug, the excavated soil placed off to the side and the area surrounding the grave is covered with artificial green turf. (It looks like the astro-turf of indoor football stadiums.) Over the grave is a metal framed contraption and thick straps are hung from it to support the coffin. Family and friends remain in their cars until the workers ready the site with flowers. If the weather is foul, there is an awning to protect the mourners and the casket from rain or snow. When all is neatly arranged the mourners are invited to come to the grave site. The coffin is suspended over the grave, supported by that frame and straps. The grave diggers take their break off to the side, some grabbing a smoke during their idle moments. Soon they will be needed again, but not till after everyone has left. The final prayers are said, each mourner takes a flower from the nearby floral arrangements, bids farewell to the deceased and places it on the coffin before they leave. But no matter how antiseptic the grave site and how orderly the process, we know what we are looking at—it’s a grave to which we are assigning one we have loved, perhaps all of our lives. Those nearby grave diggers will soon be placing our loved one into the earth and we will see them no more. Of course, I know I describing American first-world funeral practices. In the poorest lands the body is wrapped in a simple cloth or placed in a wooden coffin made by a family member, a grave is scratched out of rocky soil by friends, and perhaps a flower or two is left on the earth that has been scrapped back into the grave. But in our culture, most of us leave before we get to see the casket lowered into the earth. We can’t watch the final triumph of the grave as it claims our beloved dead. We also have our ways of camouflaging death with cosmetics and euphemisms. But no matter where and how we bury the dead, the grave finds us at our most vulnerable and seems to have its triumphant moments over us. Death has so many co-workers dealing out death in so many forms. What will happen to the survivors? Hear what God has to say: “I will settle you upon your land; thus you will know that I am God.” Let’s see how else the promise is made and to whom. We turn to the gospel. The story gets more personal in the gospel for in it we get: a sick person who dies, a reprimand, an expression of faith in the impossible, weeping, disbelief, seeing the impossible and then coming to belief. In addition, Jesus will have to pay personally and dearly for this miracle, for it will intensify opposition to him and begin the scheming that leads to his own grave. While God doesn’t stand helplessly by Lazarus’ grave; this miracle of life will cost God dearly as well. Lazarus is Jesus’ friend and as we hear this story we are encouraged to believe that we are friends as well. As Jesus said earlier in John, “...an hour is coming in which all those in their tombs shall hear his [the Son of Man’s] voice and come forth.” (5:28) We friends of Jesus trust these words as we stand by the open graves of so many loved ones and anticipate that a similar grave awaits us as well. Jesus is very much in charge here. No one can rush him, not even the urgent pleas of the dying Lazarus’ sisters. He risks the appearance of not being their true friend, of seeming unconcerned. Why does he wait so long? (And why are we also left with questions and doubts when a word from him could raise us from our death beds?) One thing is for sure--- after the delay we know Lazarus is really dead! Practical Martha names the reality, “Lord, by now there will be a stench, he has been dead four days.” What a scene; the dead man emerging from the dark, dank tomb with his burial cloths dangling from his resuscitated body! Soon Jesus will suffer a violent death. They will also wrap him, as was their custom, in burial cloths and place him in a tomb. Another group of family and friends will stand by yet one more grave and peer into its coldness. They too will feel helpless as they huddle to comfort one another. But all is not totally lost. God will visit this grave and speak a word of life over Jesus and God’s Spirit will raise him up to a completely new life. Who could have imagined? With his resurrection all of us who suffer death will be given the gift of hope and respond, “We too will rise.” As we interpret this passage, note this about John’s gospel. For John, the life God promises in Jesus is already present to the baptized. Our new life does not begin after we have breathed our last breath or when our bodies are surrendered to the grave—it begins now. To call upon another verse from John, “I solemnly assure you, an hour is coming, has indeed come, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have heeded it shall live. (5:25) We have new life in us even as we stare at the many grave sites in the course of our lives. There are the deaths of family and friends, of course. But we also face death if we; lose our jobs; flunk out of college; get a crippling disease; lose our physical or mental strengths in old age; give up plans of being married and having children; have our last child go off to school or get married; etc. Is new life possible beyond these and other graves? In this life? The believer, hearing today’s scriptures, is encouraged to believe that God has not abandoned us at our graves and will call out our names, utter a life-giving Word and breathe into us a resurrecting Spirit. “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he/she dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believers in me will never die. Do you believe this?” And we respond with Martha, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

LIVING THE GOOD NEWS

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion? Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions which follow.

Reflection Questions
Lazarus represents all of us, each of whom Jesus loves. Do I feel loved by Jesus?

What does it mean to me that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

Jesus’ act of raising Lazarus from the death actually speeds his own death. There was a cost. Has there eve ben a cost for you of doing something good?
Did you do it anyway, or was the cost too high?

Which of the characters in the story do you most identify with? Why?

Lack of forgiveness is something that may keep us “stuck” in a sort of death.
Is there someone or something about which I am refusing to offer forgiveness?
Is there anything for which I refuse to forgive myself?

Is there someone who refuses to forgive me?
What sort of “death” has this caused?

What are some of the little "deaths" in our lives? (illness, loss of a job, rejection by a loved one, etc.)

What are some of the "stones" that keep us entombed in a sort of death? (Fear, shame, envy, anger, and sadness are examples)

Walter Burghardt, in his homily on the fifth Sunday of Lent many years ago, said: “Eternal life does not begin with death. It begins now, because through Jesus, God and I are already one.” How do we live out or fail to live out that understanding?

Do we believe that those who have died are linked to us through the communion of saints? Do we have an examples to relate?

Have you ever done something for a friend that caused you severe discomfort or pain? Was it worth it?

What parts of my life need healing, mercy, resurrection?

Where is my interior necrosis?
Where is the dead part of my soul?

Do I reflect the joy of Christ, or am I like a mourner at a funeral?

CLOSING PRAYER

Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for.

You call me to come out, Lord, from all that keeps me bound and facing death of one sort or another—insecurity, anger, hopelessness, fear, disappointment in myself and others. The trappings of this life, like accomplishment, money, unhealthy dependence on others are wrappings that keep me from freely experiencing your gift of life and love. Set me free Lord. If I do not hear your call, call me again. And again.

FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session….Lazarus, Come out!

Meditations
A meditation in the Ignatian style: Read John 11: 1-44 again. Imagine the various scenes in this story. Try to picture Mary and Martha coping with the desperate illness of their brother. Imagine the scene on the far side of the Jordan where Jesus is hiding out to avoid arrest. What is Jesus actually doing when he receives the message about Lazarus? Try to put yourself in Mary and Martha’s shoes as they see Jesus after Lazarus has died. Would you react the same way? How does Jesus react? What does that tell you about his feelings for Lazarus and for Mary and Martha? Have you ever felt that God was a little too slow in reacting to a crisis in your life? Reflect on the final outcome and see if you can detect the presence of God in good times and in bad times. Imagine a dialogue with the risen Lazarus. What do you think he would say to you? by Anne Greenfield from Songs of Life: Psalm Meditations from the Catholic Community at Stanford

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/ Imagination: There is a section of John’s gospel which we do not hear on any Sunday. It is John 12:1-11. Read it. In that passage we have the story of a dinner Jesus attended at the home of Martha and Mary, and Lazarus was present! Imagione you are there—as a guest , a servant, or one of Jesus disciples….What does Lazarus loook like? Is he robust or still a little weak? What does he say to Jesus when Jesus arrives at their home? Imagine the conversation that tale place around the table among the family of Lazarus and the disciples. What do you think some of the questions are? What do you want to ask Lazarus or Jesus? Are you a little uncomfortable at this table? How do you feel when Mary began anointing Jesus with oil? Are you uncomfortable at witnessing this personal gesture? Are you a little fllummoxed? Or ae you a little irritated that such money is being wasted then it could. Go to the poor? How do you react to Judas’ objections? (remember here, that at this time you have no notion about the events of a week later, about Judas betrayal, the agony in the garden, Peter’s denial or Jesus death an burial). Find your own voice and speak to Lazarus about what you have witnessed. Speak to Jesus about his promise to all of us of eternal life. What do you say?

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action: Is it hard to know what to say to someone who is in the throes of grief? Can one simply acknowledge that we do not know how to help, but that we are concerned about them and are available if needed? Do you know of anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one, or a job, or health? What one gesture of sympathy and solidarity can you make this week to comfort this person?

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions: (A homily of Pope Francis on April 6, 2014) Today I invite you to think for a moment, in silence here: where is my interior necrosis? Where is the dead part of my soul? Where is my tomb? Think, for a short moment….What part of the heart can be corrupted because of my attachment to sin, one sin or another? And to remove the stone, to take away the stone of shame and allow the Lord to say to us as he said to Lazarus: “Come out!" that all our souls might be healed, might be raised by the love f Jesus. He is capable of forgiving us. We all need it! All of us. We are all sinners, but we must be careful not to become corrupt. Sinners we may be, but He forgives us. Reflection: Consider Pope Francis’ questions above. What parts of your life need healing, mercy, resurrection? Trust in the power of Jesus to transform you. (From A Year of Mercy with Pope Francis)

LITERARY REFLECTIONS

I wonder if this is how Mary and Martha felt when they lost their brother.

Cue Lazarus
Start this with the invocation:
a seventy-seven Pinto,
an eastbound freeway, two boys
a few months from their driver’s license.

It happens again because you’ve
said it. You sit in the back seat,
a ghost of red vinyl, to listen
to these boys—one of whom was you,

the one along for the ride—talk
brave about cheerleaders
and socket wrenches as they pass
a stolen cigarette between them.

They don’t know you’re there,
wouldn’t believe in you should
they look backstage, backseat.
The boys are driving back from an October

orchard where they’d gone to see leaves
change. You remember: orange, brown,
as though you’d just seen those leaves,
because in this proximity

to yourself—the boy in the passenger
seat—you are thinking the
same thing, and each of your in-
carnations feels like they’ve thought this

before. Your ghost, your present tense
thinks that maybe this isn’t right.
Now you’re along for the ride.
These boys haven’t cuffed up against

their own mortality yet, though one
of them is sick. The other one,
driving and picking at the thin
hair falling from his scalp, will die

soon, because what lurks in his dark
blood can be cured by medical
science. And that cure is what will
kill him, as it leaves him weak,

unable to fight off infection
in his lungs. But that comes later.
You are here with them now to find
out what you owe to whom—your life,

mortgaged to one of these boys
and you’ve never been able to
rectify that debt. You are the
stage direction, a ghost backstage,

wanting a spotlight, a soapbox
a soliloquy. Dissolve
back into your life, like sugar
in tea—exit this scene now, stage left.

*You are the apparition again
in your mother’s house. You follow
yourself down the yellow hallway
to the ringing phone in the kitchen.

You already know who’s calling,
the way you knew then—when you were
the self you’re haunting. Your friend
is dead. You know this even before

his sister tells you—but because your
ghost is too close, the boy can feel
your grief, but can’t feel his own.
And you did know then, didn’t you?

You knew that morning, that the earth
awakes closest to the sun—four
days into every new year.
And Lazarus, dead now, four days.

Roll away the stone. Believe
in something besides the past.
Awaken from this dream like
a man called out from a cave.

It happens this way each time:
a bourbon breakdown in January
rain—weeping an invocation,
cursing corollary.

Can you go to Tom’s grave today
and mandate him back to this life?
Should you cue him from the wing
like a stage direction? Would he

damn you—a sadness, a gravestone
on your chest, for calling him
into this mortal suffering?
If you had been in Houston that day

he’d have died anyway. You’re a fool
to think you can bargain across the river.
Haunting the past won’t stop
it from happening each time, exactly

the same way. Won’t stop your heart
from breaking like a glass decanter,
brown whisky sliding
mercury across the tile.
—Carl Marcum

Sit with this poem for a while and see of it says anything to you about hope. Birago Diop, A Muslim poet from Senegal, sums up our convictions about those who have gone before us.

Those who are dead have never gone away,
They are in the shadows darkening around,
They are in the shadows fading into day,
The dead are not under the ground.
They are in the trees that quiver,
They are in the woods that weep,
They are in the waters of the rivers,
They are in the waters that sleep.
They are in the crowds, they are in the homestead.
The dead are never dead

4th Sunday of Lent

March 15, 2026

God is our light in the darkness; where are we willfully blind?

John 9:1-41

As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, “Go wash * in the Pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed, and came back able to see. His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is,” but others said, “No, he just looks like him.” He said, “I am.” So they said to him, “[So] how were your eyes opened?” He replied, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went there and washed and was able to see.” And they said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I don’t know.” They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay * and opened his eyes on a Sabbath. So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.” So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.” [But] others said, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet. ”Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see? His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Messiah, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; question him.” So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give God the praise! * We know that this man is a sinner.” He replied, “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” So they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” They ridiculed him and said, “You are that man’s disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.” The man answered and said to them, “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.” They answered and said to him, “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out. When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he. “He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him. Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying ‘We see.’ And so your sin remains.”

REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL

Introduction by John W. Yates II, Preaching Today Issue #46, www.PreachingToday.com, A resource of Christianity Today International

A few years ago, I realized I was going blind. Now, long before my sight began to be radically diminished, a medical doctor told me there was a good chance it would happen. Just learning about the possibility of blindness was actually worse than when my sight began to dim quickly about four years ago. Well, thanks to the goodness and the healing power of God, to modern medicine, and to two unknown persons whose premature death made it possible for me to receive corneal transplants, today I can see. My sight is getting better and better still, three years after the original surgery. All this has provided me ample opportunity to think carefully about sickness and health, and particularly about blindness. Therefore, I’m particularly interested in this story from John, chapter 9, about the man born blind. It’s one of the most interesting stories in the New Testament. This fellow who could see nothing is described by John, as you read the whole of chapter 9 of his gospel, as one of the most colorful characters of all of the New Testament, even though he lived in darkness. Today we see what we can learn about Christ’;s attitude toward disease and toward undeserved suffering. In the classroom of one of my younger daughters, there is a bright and handsome little boy who was born without any arms. How would Jesus approach such a situation? That’;s really the question that’s behind this story of the man born blind. First, I want you to notice two or three facts about this man. Although we never know his name, he apparently was someone known to the people of the community in Jerusalem. He didn’t approach Jesus. Nobody brought him to Jesus. He didn’t ask to be healed. All of his life he had lived in darkness. He was blind from birth, and he had no idea what it meant to see. His physical condition was every bit as hopeless as if he had no eyes, no hands, no arms at all. He was a beggar. He was supported by the generosity of other people. As one reads the entire story, it is evident that the man was intelligent. He was able, he was a logical thinker, and he was a skilled communicator, but he really had no hope of ever seeing. Two things happened to him in the course of this chapter. He was healed physically, and then, after going through an incredible gauntlet of challenges, he was healed spiritually as well. The Lord was in a hurry that day, as best we can tell. Just prior to this event, in the 8th chapter of John, the Lord had been involved in a major, serious confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus had made bold claims about himself and about his relationship with his Father in Heaven. He had claimed to be one with the Father. He had claimed to be greater than Abraham. He had said that these religious leaders were sons of the Devil. And he made that day his boldest claim to divinity. The Pharisees had begun to run and pick up stones so they could stone the man to death for blasphemy, and he had escaped from them somehow by slipping away through the crowd. So Jesus wasn’t exactly relaxed. He wasn’t exactly available for a lot of heavy counseling at that particular moment as he was going out the temple gate. But apparently it was in this context that this fellow, who customarily sat by one of the exits of the Jewish temple, was approached by Jesus. Jesus approached the man. He didn’t engage him in prolonged discussion. He did not ask him questions as far as we know. He did not tell the man to follow him and become his disciple. He did not discuss the man’s past or his sins. He didn’t tell him, like Nicodemus, that he had to be born again. All of this came later on in his relationship. He simply made a little poultice out of damp clay, following an ancient custom. He applied it to the man’s eyes and gave him an assignment. There was something about his words or the manner of the Lord that convinced this beggar to do what Jesus told him to do. Jesus moved on without ever waiting to see the outcome. Later on, Jesus sought this man out and talked to him about who he was, and the man worshiped Jesus and became a convinced disciple of Christ. This is the only instance in the whole Bible where a person who was born blind was cured. The disciples couldn’t bear to let this opportunity slip away. They were just like you and I would have been. All their lives they had wondered about this age-old problem of pain. If God is a good God, and all powerful, why on earth would God allow a person to be struck down with such a problem? It was easy enough to understand if this person had been some despicable person. He would deserve to be punished. But this poor fellow was totally blind from the very beginning. When he came out of the womb, he couldn’t see. He had lived in total darkness. And so the disciples raised this question to their teacher. How did Jesus respond? Jesus could have explained that, although God is perfectly good and all-powerful, this world in which we live, which he made, has been corrupted by man’s sin. It’s a fallen, bent, crooked, broken place in which there are many selfish and harmful people, and in which there are millions of types of dangerous bacteria and viruses. All these forces are at work to make this a dangerous environment in which all people, evil or wonderful, are equally at risk, and no one is safe from danger. He himself, God’s own Son, was soon to be murdered. “All of us look to heaven as the only perfect environment.” Jesus could have said that. Or he could have explained that, yes, there are some situations in which the sin of the parent brings pain or grief or sickness on a child. We certainly see this in the case of children of alcoholics, or in instances where children suffer blindness or worse because of a parent infected with a venereal disease. Jesus could have gone into that. He could have explained that all suffering is not alike. He could have said, “Well, there are no pat answers. Here are several different things for you to think about.” He could have said, “Suffering has a place in God’s plan—in the lives of certain people and certain situations.” Jesus missed an opportunity. He could have preached an unbelievably good sermon that would have gone down in history as the most penetrating analysis of the problem of pain ever given. He was the Son of God. He knew the answers to this problem. So much of our own inner pain and philosophical bewilderment could have been once and for all settled if Jesus had just preached that sermon that his disciples had begged him to preach. Why did my father die as a young man? Why did this young mother and child die so cruelly in an automobile accident? Why that avalanche? Why that earthquake? Why that little boy without any arms? Why Auschwitz? Why Afghanistan? Why AIDS? He could have explained all of that, but he didn’t. He didn’t. And as a result, we still have only an imperfect, incomplete understanding of the answers to the problem of pain. Often, we still find ourselves perplexed and grief-stricken in the midst of tragedies that befall all people everywhere. What did Jesus do in this situation? He said: The only thing I’m going to tell you right now is that this situation is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for God to be glorified. It’s an opportunity to show what God can do. This is an important point: When you face tragedy, whether it’s sickness or natural disaster or whatever, you might be able to discern reasons why this is happening, and you may be able to lay the blame on someone or something. You may even be able somehow to see the hand of God in it. You may not, and it may seem God is not answering you when you pray. Why? It just may be the only answer you will get is this: “This has happened; don’t dwell on why. Rather, it has happened, and having happened, we now have an opportunity to see God at work.” That really is a much better answer. What a shame that Jesus didn’t give us an answer to our questions about the problem of pain. All he said was: Here’s an opportunity to see what God can do. Sickness and suffering are opportunities for us to show the love and compassion of God. I thought about that this week, and here’s what I thought: Sickness and people who are suffering around us provide us with an opportunity to show the love and compassion of God by caring for them and praying for them and working for their healing. It may be that God is calling you to medicine. It may be that God is calling you to work for the relief of suffering in areas stricken by famine. Perhaps God would have you become a part of our sick- and hospital-visitation ministry. It may be that God is calling you to a ministry of healing and relief for the sick and suffering. Affliction, sorrow, pain, loss, disappointment—they give us opportunity to demonstrate the love of God to people who are suffering. Many people, like this blind man in John 9, are too overcome by their suffering to be open to giving their lives to Christ. But when they are loved and cared for, when they sense the compassion of Christ through our deeds of mercy, they may, like this blind man, eventually come to Christ and find spiritual healing as well as physical healing. When tragedy comes, we always want to focus on the why. Jesus said it happens for a purpose, and that purpose is that the power and love and greatness of God might be seen more deeply through this.. You may have a tragedy in your life one day. Will you see it as disaster, a terrible defeat, or will you see it as an opportunity—as awful and as painful as it might be—an opportunity for God to do new things? Will you look backward, or will you look forward?

LIving Space

On this fourth Sunday in Lent, we celebrate the Mass for the second of the three “Scrutinies”. As described in last Sunday’s commentary, the Scrutinies are special rites that help prepare the Elect (also called ‘catechumens’, i.e. those participating in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) to enter the Catholic Church. Today’s readings from Year A may also be used in Years B and C when there are catechumens present who will be baptised at Easter. When catechumens are present, they are presented to the gathered community which they will soon be joining as full members, and from which they will receive acceptance and support. After the homily, and before the Creed, they will leave the gathered community, because they are not yet full members of the faith community. It is in this context that we have the marvellous story from John’s gospel about the cure of a man born blind. The hero of the story is a man who was blind from his birth.  He had never been able to see.  When he is cured, he will be able to see Jesus as his Lord, something the religious leaders were unable to do. The disciples ask Jesus, “Why was he born blind? Was it because of his own sins or the sins of his parents?” There was, in people’s minds at that time, a close link between sin and a chronic sickness or disability – one was a punishment for the other.  We remember when the paralysed man was let down through the roof at the feet of Jesus seeking to be healed of his disability, surprisingly, Jesus’ first words to him were, “Your sins are forgiven.” Here, however, Jesus changes the direction of their question. His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parents’ sins.  He is blind so that God’s power might be seen at work in him. He will be the focus of one of the seven great signs which Jesus is seen to perform in this gospel. A life of light: The story keeps emphasizing that the man was blind from birth. To heal him then means the beginning of a completely new life, a life where he can see. He will enter a new world of brightness.  Not to know Jesus is to live in blindness and darkness. In fact, this story is an illustration of Jesus’ statement: “I am the light of the world”. In the beginning of the story, the man is blind – he cannot see; he is a beggar – he has nothing; he is an outsider – no one accepts him. His affliction indicates that he is a sinner or the son of a sinner and as such, a person to be avoided. In the end, when he is able to see, he becomes a disciple of Jesus. In terms of the Gospel, it is the logical and inevitable outcome. Once we really see Jesus, we are hooked. In the beginning he was blind, he was in darkness.  In the end he is in the light, because Jesus is the Light of the world. Jesus heals the man’s eyes. In doing so he uses mud and saliva. At that time, people believed that saliva could heal and, to some degree they were right. Here Jesus, by using mud, also helps us to remember God used mud to create Adam, the first man. Here too, there is a new creation. Jesus is making a new man. St. Paul calls the baptised Christian a “new person”. Then Jesus tells him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. This is symbolic of his baptism. After his healing, the man’s friends and his neighbours discuss his identity – is it really him?  The beggar was blind, and this man can see. Because he has changed, some people cannot recognise him. When we are baptised, when we become committed followers of Christ, we too should change. Maybe some people will say, “You are not like the way you were before! You are not the same person since your conversion and baptism.” In fact, that is what they should be able to say. Because they are not satisfied, neighbours bring the blind man to see the Pharisees. The Pharisees are the source of orthodox thinking and fidelity to the Law. Moreover, Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath, and the methods he used were a violation of the letter of the Law. The conundrum for the Pharisees was that if Jesus truly were from God, he would not be breaking the law. On the other hand, if he was a sinner, how could he do these things? Sinners cannot do the work of God. This led to division among the Pharisees, because they refused to follow out their own logic. The Pharisees then interrogate the blind man. He keeps telling them just what Jesus had done for him. For him the answer is quite simple: Jesus is a prophet. Sabbath or no Sabbath, his actions are clearly from God. “How could a man who is a sinner do things like this?” But the Pharisees cannot accept his argument. If they accept, then they have to accept Jesus and his teaching also. So they do not even want to accept that the man was ever blind!

Avoiding trouble
Now, they turn their questions to the man’s parents. The parents know very well that their son was born blind, but they are afraid to say so. They know that now if anyone says Jesus is the Messiah, they will be expelled from the synagogue. They will no longer be part of the community. Many Jewish Christians, known to the readers of this gospel, would have had this experience. Later on, thousands of Christians would have a similar experience, ostracised for their faith in Christ. Unfortunately, the man’s parents were prepared to sacrifice their integrity rather than suffer such a punishment. So the parents push the argument back to the son: he is an adult; he is well able to answer for himself. The Pharisees again ask the man to tell the truth. “We know that Jesus is a sinner. He cannot do these things.” 

The healed man stands his ground
I don’t know if he is a sinner. I do know I was blind and now I can see. For the umpteenth time they ask, “What did he do?”  Exasperated, the man replies: “I told you already. But you will not listen.” The man is also more daring now, not afraid, and he begins to mock the Pharisees: Why do you want to hear it all again? Do you want to become his disciples too? This makes the Pharisees angry and they begin to abuse him. “You are his disciple. We are Moses’ disciples. No one knows where that fellow [Jesus] came from.” In a sense, that is perfectly true because the Word was with God from the very beginning. On the other hand, Jesus’ origins are perfectly obvious as the cured man is well aware: Now here is an astonishing thing! He has opened my eyes, and you don’t know where he comes from? God does not listen to sinners.   God listens to those who respect him and do his will. Never before was it heard that anyone had cured a man born blind. If Jesus is not from God, he could not do this. The Pharisees, now very angry, resort to the traditional belief – sickness as punishment for sin. “You were born and raised in sin. You want to teach us?” And they expelled him from the synagogue.  This was indeed the experience of many Jews who became Christians. And the experience of many others later on, expelled by their families, relatives and society. Jesus hears that the man has been expelled. He goes in search of him and finds him. Jesus asks him: Do you believe in the Son of Man, that is, the Messiah? And, the man replies, “Tell me who he is and I will believe in him.” He does not recognise the man Jesus, for this is the first time he has seen him with his new vision since his healing. Says Jesus, “You have seen him. He is talking with you now.” “I believe, Lord,” the man replies, and falls down on his knees before Jesus. He is now a disciple. A disciple is someone who knows and can see Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. I came to this world so that the blind could see and those who see become blind. The Pharisees ask, “Do you mean we are blind, too?” and Jesus tells them, If you were really blind [like the man], you would not have sin; but because you say, ‘We can see’, you are guilty. Jesus turns around their conviction that a blind man is a sinner. Rather, says Jesus, it is those who think they can see when they cannot who are the guilty ones. There are two kinds of people:

• like the blind man, they accept Jesus’ teaching and are the sheep of his flock;

• like the Pharisees, who refuse to believe, they do not belong to Jesus.

Those who sin, those who refuse to listen, those who are proud, are the really blind people (and immediately following this passage, John’s gospel will speak about Jesus as the Good Shepherd). The Pharisees, who thought they could see, were the real sinners. And the man born blind who accepts Jesus can really see. This gospel has a clear relation to Baptism. We read it today for the catechumens who are preparing to be baptised and enter the Christian community. They have begun to see Jesus, to recognise him and to follow him. But the Gospel is also for us already baptised.  We also need to see Jesus and the Gospel more clearly. The words of Paul in the Second Reading are very appropriate: You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and right living and truth. On the one hand, Paul is telling us that, like the man in the Gospel who represents all of us, we were also blind and stumbling in darkness. But now we live in the light of the Gospel and the New Testament. And that light is seen in the way we behave, in the way we relate with other people in “complete goodness and right living and truth”. Our lives are to have a transparency where there is no darkness, no hidden behaviour which we would be ashamed to reveal to others. Let us all pray for this.

LENTEN POETRY COMPANION WEEK 4: AN INVITATION TO LIBERATION

MONDAY — Tomorrow’s Children by Rubem Alves
What is hope?
It is a presentiment that imagination is more real
and reality less real than it looks.
It is a hunch
that the overwhelming brutality of facts
that oppress and repress is not the last word.
It is a suspicion
that reality is more complex
than realism wants us to believe
and that the frontiers of the possible
are not determined by the limits of the actual
and that in a miraculous and unexpected way
life is preparing the creative events
which will open the way to freedom and resurrection....
The two, suffering and hope, live from each other.
Suffering without hope
produces resentment and despair,
hope without suffering
creates illusions, naivete, and drunkenness....
Let us plant dates
even though those who plant them will never eat them.
We must live by the love of what we will never see.
This is the secret discipline.
It is a refusal to let the creative act
be dissolved in immediate sense experience
and a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren.
Such disciplined love
is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints
the courage to die for the future they envisaged.
They make their own bodies
the seed of their highest hope.

Source: “Tomorrow’s Children” from Hijos de Maoana, by Rubem Alves. Salamanca, Spain: Ediciones Sigueme, 1976.

TUESDAY — A Sick Person’s Complaint by Edward Caswall
Hail holy Sacrament,
The worlds great Wonderment,
Mysterious Banquet, much more rare
Then Manna, or the Angels fare;
Each crum, though sinners on thee feed,
Doth Cleopatra’s Perl exceed.
Oh how my Soul doth hunger, thirst and pine
After these Cates so precious, so divine!
She need not bring her Stool
As some unbidden Fool;
The Master of this Heavenly Feast
Invites and wooes her for his Guest:
Though Deaf and Lame, Forlorn and Blind,
Yet welcome here she’s sure to find,
So that she bring a Vestment for the day,
And her old tatter’d Rags throw quite away.
This is Bethsaida’s Pool
That can both cleanse and cool
Poor leprous and diseased souls,
An Angel here keeps and controls,
Descending gently from the Heavens above
To stir the waters; May He also move
My mind, and rocky heart so strike and rend,
That tears may thence gush out with them to blend.

Source: “A Sick Person’s Complaint” from Hymns and Poems, Original and Translated by Edward Caswall. London: Burns, Oates & Co., 1873.

WEDNESDAY — The Garments of God by Jessica Powers
God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at his feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me.
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous
garments
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch,
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am dust.
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Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I will not go abroad
to the hills of speech or the hinterlands of music
for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still.
I have this potent prayer through good or ill:
here in the dark I clutch the garments of God.

THURSDAY — Am I to Lose You? by Louisa Sarah Bevington
‘Am I to lose you now?’ The words were light;
You spoke them, hardly seeking a reply,
That day I bid you quietly ‘Good-bye,’
And sought to hide my soul away from sight.
The question echoes, dear, through many a night, —
My question, not your own – most wistfully;
‘Am I to lose him?’ – asked my heart of me;
‘Am I to lose him now, and lose him quite?’
And only you can tell me. Do you care
That sometimes we in quietness should stand
As fellow-solitudes, hand firm in hand,
And thought with thought and hope with hope compare?
What is your answer? Mine must ever be,
‘I greatly need your friendship: leave it me.’

Source: “Am I to Lose You?” from Poems, Lyrics and Sonnets, by L.S. Bevington. London: Elliot Stock, 1882.

FRIDAY — Now I Become Myself by May Sarton (1912-1995)
Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before—“
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted so by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I love
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

Source: “Now I Become Myself” from Collected Poems 1930-1993, by May Sarton. New York: Norton, 1993.

SATURDAY — A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our heats, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead
Act,- act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
a forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
with a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Source: “A Psalm of Life” from The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1893.

PREPARATION FOR THE SESSION

Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. ( 1-2 minutes of silence)

Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. ( 1-2 minutes of silence)

Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)

OPENING PRAYER

Lord, I know that I am often blind. I do not see others as you see them. Help me to see the beauty and the goodness in those around me, recognizing that you made them and love them as you do me. I also know that I am often caught up in the bitterness of failed expectations, or rejection or personal weakness. Help me to work though that bitterness and see my negative experiences as a change for you to work miracles of growth within me. Help me to remember who is in charge here.

COMPANIONS FOR THE JOURNEY
From “Sermons and reflections shared by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA”
Katie was a classmate of mine in elementary school. We were in many of the same classes for kindergarten through 6th grade. I remember her younger brother well. He played trombone in the band, he had a whacky sense of humor, he played baseball. I remember her brother well, but I don’t remember much about Katie even though she was in my class for seven years. In fact, the only thing I really remember about Katie is that she was blind. I and others identified Katie by her disability. She was the “blind girl” at Dawes School .And sadly that’s all we knew. At least we knew her name. “The blind man” in today’s gospel didn’t even have that recognition. It seems that no one knows his name. No one really pays much attention to him. After his sight is restored by Jesus, his neighbors say, “Is that the man who used to sit and beg?” They really aren’t  quite sure because no one knows him as a person. They identify him only by his blindness. Once he is no longer blind and begging, they don’t recognize him! There are many stories of healing in the Bible. Jesus heals the blind, the deaf, the lame, those with chronic illness, those who are mentally ill, and others. These stories reveal to me a God of compassion, of strength, of miraculous power. But these healing stories are not comforting for everyone. In fact, these stories can be difficult for those who have disabilities. (And that’s a lot of people – nearly one in 5 in the United States according to the most recent census.) The healing stories of Jesus can be difficult because sometimes the impression is given that those with disabilities are not yet whole people, that they need to be fixed. The healing stories of Jesus can be difficult because sometimes the stories talk about healing as a result of the faith of the one who is healed, giving the impression that the person who still has a disability somehow does not have enough faith. The healing stories of Jesus can be difficult because sometimes a relationship is made between illness and sin, giving the impression that a person’s sinfulness causes the illness. We need to debunk all of those false beliefs. A disability does not need to be fixed to make a person whole. A disability is not the result of a lack of faith. A disability is not a punishment from God for sin. And that is why John chapter 9 is claimed as such an important text for those within the disability community. When the disciples try to link sin with disability, Jesus won’t allow it. He clearly says that it is not the man’s sin or the sin of his parents which made him blind. There is also no association between faith and healing in this story. There is no act of faith on the man’s part. He does not ask for healing. He does not touch Jesus’ cloak like the woman who is hemorrhaging. He does not ask to be carried into healing pool like the paralyzed man at Bethesda. This man receives healing entirely through grace. No faith necessary. Furthermore, unlike how those with disabilities are sometimes treated in life as well as in the Bible, this story is helpful because ​the man who is blind is shown to be an individual, an intelligent individual with a winsome personality. He is thoughtful. He speaks for himself. He’s funny! I love this line when he’s asked what happened and responds,​​​ “Why do you want me to tell the story to you again?” Can’t you see the grin on his face? Do you also want to become his disciples? But what I think is perhaps the most remarkable thing about this healing story. Aside from the fact that it shows the man as an individual, that it disabuses the notion of disability as a punishment for sin, that it doesn’t equate healing with faith. The most remarkable thing about this healing story is that Jesus teaches that it isn’t the man who has been blind since birth who needs healing. It isn’t he who is lacking in real sight. It is the others who need healing. Those who are blind to God’s work in the world are the ones who need new vision. Lent is often focused on changing something in our lives. We’ve talked about changes in circumstances. We’ve talked about a change in heart. We’ve talked about a change in habits. Today we’re talking about a change in sight, and we’re not talking about a change in sight for those who already wear glasses, we’re talking about corrective lenses for those of us who think we already have 20/20 vision. In her book For the Benefit of those who See, a wonderful collection of stories about her work with those who are visually impaired in Tibet, Rosemary Mahoney says that “seeing is not a function of the eyes alone.“ “It is a function of the mind at least as much as the eyes,” she says. “We only see what we look at.” So let’s think again about what it means to have 20/20 vision. 20/20 vision looks at the world and can see God’s hand in and through it all. 20/20 vision notices that the sacred is present outside of church or synagogue and in everyday life. 20/20 vision sees the blind man begging at the side of the road and stops to chat and find out his name. 20/20 vision observes tragedy around the world – a mudslide in Washington, a plane crash somewhere over the ocean, and does not blame the victims. 20/20 vision pays attention to inequalities due to race or socioeconomic class or gender and does not dismiss them. 20/20 vision looks, notices, sees, observes, pays attention to the world around them. and ironically, perhaps, the blind man has done this better than anyone else. May our eyes be opened to see.

LIVING THE GOOD NEWS

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion? Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions which follow.

Reflection Questions
What is the difference between physical sight and vision?

John is not telling us that one man was born blind and Jesus cured him, but that we humans are "blind from birth and we all need healing.
What are my limitations, blind spots, or false notions of God?
What leads us to spiritual blindness? (self-absorption, righteousness, unwillingness to change and grow, for example)
When have I preferred shadows, darkness and illusion in my life?
What have been the enlightening moments in my life?

Do we see, really see, the needs around us, or are we willfully blind?

How do we deal with those who are willfully blind?

Why are we born the way we are?
Do we believe our bad luck is the result of God’s punishment, or that our good luck is the result of God’s pleasure?

What kind of courage do we need in this day and age to witness to Jesus?

How has your perception of Jesus changed in the course of your own spiritual journey?

Recall some beliefs which were once a part of your life, but which you no longer consider to be true.

Have difficult times in your life affected your faith?
In what way?

If Jesus were to ask me “What is it that you want me to do for you,” what would you answer?

What have been my “blind spots?”
Where has God’s grace figured in my enlightenment?
How has this enlightenment affected my behavior?

In short, we must do more than “believe.” We must act on our beliefs. What will my action be this week?
Where will my light shine this week?

Has anyone ever tried to make me conform to beliefs that were popular and accepted as correct, but which contradicted my own?
Have I ever been in a position of power or authority where I tried to coerce others into voicing my opinions or beliefs?
Have I ever been intimidated by a person who had power to harm me in some way?

Is there anything in my life right now that keeps me from seeing what God wants me to see?

Has there even been someone in my life who shed light on my actions, my goals, my relationships? How did I respond?

Have I ever made judgments about someone based on how they looked or acted, or based on commonly held beliefs about such a person?
Has anyone ever judged me in this way?

John is not telling us that one man was born blind and Jesus cured him, but that we humans are "blind from birth and we all need healing.
What is the difference between physical sight and vision?

What are my limitations, blind spots false notions of God? What leads us to spiritual blindness? (self-absorption, righteousness, unwillingness to change and grow, for example)

When have I preferred shadows, darkness and illusion in my life? What have been the enlightening moments in my life?

Why are we born the way we are? Do we believe our bad luck is the result of God’s punishment, or that our good luck is the result of God’s pleasure?

What kind of courage do we need in this day and age to witness to Jesus?

Do we see, really see, the needs around us, or are we willfully blind? How do we deal with those who are willfully blind? Can we?

How has your perception of Jesus changed in the course of your own spiritual journey?

Recall some beliefs which were once a part of your life, but which you no longer consider to be true.

Have difficult times in your life affected your faith? In what way?

CLOSING PRAYER

Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for.

( Adapted from a homily by Father William Bausch in 60 More Seasonal Homilies)

A Prayer for seeing
Some of us are blind to our own faults
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some us always focus on the weakness of others
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some never acknowledge life’s blessings
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some are blinded by unbridled desires for pleasure, money, and self-promotion, and fail to notice the needs of others, or the presence of the poor
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some have eyes darkened by prejudice and hatred
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some re blinded by ambition, and step all over others’ feelings
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some are blinded by pride which makes them think they are the center of the universe
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some wallow in their own self-pity and are turned in on their own sins and never notice God’s mercy
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Some don’t have their prayers answered and need to sense something deeper happening in the crosses they bear.
All: LORD, WE WANT TO SEE
Lord, we want to see as you see, to see others as you see them, to see ourselves as beloved, to see what is truly important. Lord help us to
see your love and your light.
Amen.

FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session: One thing I do know, is that I was blind and now I see.

Meditations
A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action: (Adapted from an article by John Yates in “Preaching Today”) As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.

Commentary: The disciples couldn’t bear to let this opportunity slip away. They were just like you and I would have been. All their lives they had wondered about this age-old problem of pain. If God is a good God, and all powerful, why on earth would God allow a person to be struck down with such a problem? It was easy enough to understand if this person had been some despicable person. He would deserve to be punished. But this poor fellow was totally blind from the very beginning. When he came out of the womb, he couldn’t see. He had lived in total darkness. And so the disciples raised this question to their teacher. How did Jesus respond? Jesus could have explained that, although God is perfectly good and all-powerful, this world in which we live, which he made, has been corrupted by man’s sin. It’s a fallen, bent, crooked, broken place in which there are many selfish and harmful people, and in which there are millions of types of dangerous bacteria and viruses. All these forces are at work to make this a dangerous environment in which all people, evil or wonderful, are equally at risk, and no one is safe from danger. He himself, God’s own Son, was soon to be murdered. “All of us look to heaven as the only perfect environment.” Jesus could have said that. Or he could have explained that, yes, there are some situations in which the sin of the parent brings pain or grief or sickness on a child. We certainly see this in the case of children of alcoholics, or in instances where children suffer blindness or worse because of a parent infected with a venereal disease. Jesus could have gone into that. He could have explained that all suffering is not alike. He could have said, “Well, there are no pat answers. Here are several different things for you to think about.” He could have said, “Suffering has a place in God’s plan—in the lives of certain people and certain situations.” Jesus missed an opportunity. He could have preached an unbelievably good sermon that would have gone down in history as the most penetrating analysis of the problem of pain ever given. He was the Son of God. He knew the answers to this problem. So much of our own inner pain and philosophical bewilderment could have been once and for all settled if Jesus had just preached that sermon that his disciples had begged him to preach. Why did my father die as a young man? Why did this young mother and child die so cruelly in an automobile accident? Why that avalanche? Why that earthquake? Why that little boy without any arms? Why Auschwitz? Why Afghanistan? Why AIDS? He could have explained all of that, but he didn’t. He didn’t. And as a result, we still have only an imperfect, incomplete understanding of the answers to the problem of pain. Often, we still find ourselves perplexed and grief-stricken in the midst of tragedies that befall all people everywhere. What did Jesus do in this situation? He said: The only thing I’m going to tell you right now is that this situation is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for God to be glorified. It’s an opportunity to show what God can do. This is an important point: When you face tragedy, whether it’s sickness or natural disaster or whatever, you might be able to discern reasons why this is happening, and you may be able to lay the blame on someone or something. You may even be able somehow to see the hand of God in it. You may not, and it may seem God is not answering you when you pray. Why? It just may be the only answer you will get is this: “This has happened; don’t dwell on why. Rather, it has happened, and having happened, we now have an opportunity to see God at work.” That really is a much better answer. What a shame that Jesus didn’t give us an answer to our questions about the problem of pain. All he said was: Here’s an opportunity to see what God can do. Sickness and suffering are opportunities for us to show the love and compassion of God. I thought about that this week, and here’s what I thought: Sickness and people who are suffering around us provide us with an opportunity to show the love and compassion of God by caring for them and praying for them and working for their healing. It may be that God is calling you to medicine. It may be that God is calling you to work for the relief of suffering in areas stricken by famine. Perhaps God would have you become a part of our sick and hospital visitation ministry. It may be that God is calling you to a ministry of healing and relief for the sick and suffering. Affliction, sorrow, pain, loss, disappointment—they give us opportunity to demonstrate the love of God to people who are suffering. Many people, like this blind man in John 9, are too overcome by their suffering to be open to giving their lives to Christ. But when they are loved and cared for, when they sense the compassion of Christ through our deeds of mercy, they may, like this blind man, eventually come to Christ and find spiritual healing as well as physical healing. When tragedy comes, we always want to focus on the why. Jesus said it happens for a purpose, and that purpose is that the power and love and greatness of God might be seen more deeply through this. You may have a tragedy in your life one day. Will you see it as disaster, a terrible defeat, or will you see it as an opportunity—as awful and as painful as it might be—an opportunity for God to do new things? Will you look backward, or will you look forward?

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions: Read the section from John again on the man born blind, and pay special attention to the reactions of the Pharisees. Pharisees have not been well regarded by Christianity as a whole, but the fact is, they were very religious people. God really was the center of their lives, and they saw that the best way to do God’s will was to be very attentive to the laws of Judaism. These were rather strict laws which imposed a considerable burden on those who chose to follow them, and the piety of those who followed the laws was very real. These were, in the main, good people. In fact, when we look at the American Catholic of the 1950s—rigidly and almost obsessively following “rules” such as abstaining from meat on Fridays, fasting each day of Lent, attending First Friday Masses, Stations of the Cross on Lenten Fridays, being very diligent about frequent confessions and the proper attire for Church--we can see a great resemblance between us and the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. The problem occurs when we think we know God better than anybody else does and proceed to judge others by our own religious standards. Spiritual arrogance is the problem for a lot of us, whether we realize it or not. Have I been confidently smug about my relationship with God because I appear to be a good person? I reflect on a time when I have I been judgmental of someone who made a decision which I thought was a bad or wrong one. Have I ever made a judgment about someone only to discover that I didn’t have the story straight? Did I share my judgment with others and injure this person’s reputation? I reflect on Jesus saying: since you say “we see” your guilt remains. I end my meditation with a prayer for true humility which allows me to see the good in others and to realize that all my spiritual gifts come only from God.

A Meditation in the Ignatian style/Imagination: Read this passage again from John 9:1-41. Imagine that you are the blind man. What, exactly, is your life like? Where do you live? What do you do every day? How do other people treat you? What do you think when you hear that Jesus is in the area? Why do you do what Jesus says? How do you feel to have your sight restored? Does it make you nervous when you are questioned by the Pharisees? How does your perception of who Jesus is gradually change? Do you believe him only because of the fact that he healed you? What is your life going to be like from now on? Would it change anything about your perception of Jesus if your blindness recurred? Returning to the present day and your 21st century life, reflect on where you need healing, where Jesus has enlightened you, and what your mission is to be in this life going forward. Make a realistic plan.

POETIC REFLECTIONS

This is a poem of great hope, that shows us that the light of Christ is in our midst today.

To us who live in darkness
To us who live in darkness
a great grace
passes through the night
like a star
the valleys and the mountains
are one land
the lion and
the young lamb
are one heart
darkness and light
are one life:
Peace shall find a home in us;
he shall walk with us
the long day the
great climb.
—Ed Ingebretzen, S.J.

Read the following poem from Mary Oliver, recalling a time when God walked with you through the darkness of your own life and, additionally, whether you have ever been blind to God’s grace.

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist
Something has happened
To the bread
And the wine.
They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward
To receive the gift
From the priest’s hand,
Then the chalice.
They are something else now
From what they were
Before this began.
I want 
To see Jesus,
Maybe in the clouds
Or on the shore,
Just walking,
Beautiful man
And clearly
Someone else
Besides.
On the hard days
I ask myself
If I ever will.
Also there are times
My body whispers to me
That I have.

3rd Sunday of Lent

March 8, 2026

Acceptance of the other; openness to God breaking into our lives, and our response

John 4: 5-42

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” [The woman] said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; *  but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, *  the one who is speaking with you.” At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?” They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months *  the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.

REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL

Living Space, A Service of the Irish Jesuits

• The theme of today’s Mass centres around water. The links with Baptism are obvious. Water is the source of life but also of destruction.

• So we have the story of the Flood, which brought salvation to Noah and his family but death to a sinful world; the crossing of the Red Sea, which meant life and liberty to the Israelites but death to the army of the Pharaoh; and the water from the rock for the Israelites in the dryness desert.  We will hear more about these at the Easter Vigil during the blessing of the baptismal water.

• The Gospel which we have just heard is about the Woman at the Well and it also centres around the theme of water and life.

• Marginalised groups

  • The woman can be said to represent three oppressed groups with which Jesus and the Gospel are interested:

    • women

    • prostitutes and sexually immoral people generally

    • all kinds of outsiders, people who are unclean, infidels, foreigners…

  • The story begins by Jesus showing himself as a person in need: tired, hungry and thirsty. We constantly have remind ourselves how genuinely human Jesus was, “like us in all things but sin”.

  • He asks help from a person he was supposed to avoid (a strange woman on her own) and also to hate (a Samaritan).

  • She is very surprised at his approach but her surprise allows Jesus to turn the tables and offer her “living water”.  She, understanding him literally, asks how he can give it as he has no bucket.  But the water that Jesus will give is different. Those who drink it will never be thirsty again and it gives eternal life. Again, literally, the woman wants this water that lasts forever. Then she will never have to trudge to the well again.

• Baptism

  • What is this water that Jesus speaks about?  It is God’s Spirit which comes to us in Baptism.

  • Baptism is not just a ritual producing magic effects.  It is the outward, symbolic sign of a deep reality, the coming of God as a force penetrating every aspect of a person’s life.

  • And this happens through our exposure to Jesus and to the Gospel vision of life and our becoming totally converted to that vision. This can only happen through the agency of a Christian community into which we are called to enter. As the Second Reading says today, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”. It is not just a question of a ritual washing or immersing and saying magic words but of a real drinking in of that Spirit. The spirit quenches our thirst, not by removing our desire for God’s presence but by continually satisfying it.

• Five husbands plus

  • Jesus now invites the woman to come back to the well once more with her husband. Jesus’ mission to these people begins with reaching out to a family. But she says she has no husband. Jesus reveals her true situation: she has had five husbands and the man she is with now is not her husband. She is a “loose” woman who must have been deeply despised by people around. No wonder she came to the well alone!

  • The water that Jesus promises is closely linked to conversion and forgiveness of sin. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But the sin must first be exposed and acknowledged. And Jesus’ goal is not just the woman’s sin but the whole town from which she comes. Sinner that she is, she will become the agent of their salvation and conversion.

  • Changing the subject

  • She is staggered at Jesus’ insight into her life. She is embarrassed and so there is a sudden change of topic to something theoretical and “safe”. (How often do we experience that? People will interrupt a religious talk with a seemingly important but totally irrelevant question. For instance, one is talking about Christ’s command to carry our cross and a question is asked about indulgences.)

  • The question the woman asks is about Jewish and Samaritan places of worship: Jerusalem, holy to the Jews, or Mount Gerizim, holy to the Samaritans, or the well of Jacob where they are. But gives Jesus the opportunity to make another important point. The “holy” well where they are will become irrelevant. So will the Temple of Jerusalem or the mountain of the Samaritans. True worship will be done “in Spirit and in truth”. There will be no more temples. It is not places which are holy but the people who use them. It is we who are the Temple of God and the dwelling place of Christ.

  • The woman goes on to say that when the Messiah comes he will tell all about this. At that point Jesus tells her that he is the Messiah. How extraordinary! It is a religious outsider and a multiple adulterer who is the first in John’s Gospel to hear this revelation! Precisely because it is people like her who need to hear it. People who are healthy do not need the doctor, only the sick.

• Amazement

  • Just then the disciples now return. Men of their time and culture, they are amazed to see Jesus talking alone to this woman and despised outsider. They don’t know what to say. They offer Jesus food but they are told he has food they know nothing about. “Not on bread alone does man live but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus’ food is his total identification with the will of his Father and doing his work.  “Happy are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”

  • Linked with the idea of bread and feeding, Jesus tells them that the harvest is great and it is ripe.

  • And it now includes Samaritans (including this woman) and all outsiders, aliens, unbelievers, sinners…  It is a harvest that has been prepared by others.

  • ‘Stay with us’

  • Many Samaritans came to believe in Jesus because of the woman’s witnessing. Then they asked him to stay with them, otherwise he would have continued on his journey. Jesus often needs to be invited to stay. Remember the two men walking to Emmaus? He would not have stopped if they had not invited him to stay the night. He stands at the door and knocks but he will not come in unless invited.

  • As a result, in this story many in that Samaritan village came to believe in Jesus. And they said: “It is no longer because of what you [the woman] said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the World.” For our catechumens, and for all of us, the faith that has been handed on must become our own faith. So that, even if everyone around us were to abandon Jesus, I would not.  Ultimately faith is totally personal. “I live, no not I, but Christ lives in me.”

First Impressions by Jude Siciliano, OP

Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-2,5-8; John 4: 5-42

The generations before us were a traveling folk. Except for Native Americans, we all came from other places to be here. (It is believed that even Native Americans arrived here during the Ice Age, 20-30,000 years ago.) The number of vowels in my last name gives evidence to my ancestral origins.  The “old folks,” so they seemed through my boyhood eyes, left the poverty of southern Italy for America—the “Land of Promise.” And, despite the poverty and prejudice my grandparents’ generation endured, their sacrifices bore fruit for their children. Here we are, a couple generations later, educated, employed, well fed (perhaps too well fed!) and settled in “our country.” The Israelites were also a traveling people and we can tell from today’s first reading that they had a harder trip to make. They had left slavery behind, but their arrival to the next place, the Promised Land, was long delayed and the trip to get there was arduous and tempted their faith. They were forty years in the desert. They didn’t like what they left but, as the reading from Exodus shows, at this point of their travels they were very discouraged. Each day was a struggle and the present moment looked impossible. They were thirsty and they were beginning to doubt Moses and their God. Where was God in this hard place? The name of the place summarized this moment of their journey: Massah means “Proof”; Meribah means “Contention.” That’s how hard the place was! The trip was too long, with too many camping grounds and too many frustrations and failures. Was God with them? Judging from their condition, it didn’t seem so to the Israelites. We can identify with the people wandering in the desert, for we too have known similar moments on our  journeys. There have times when we have lamented, “How long must I endure this?” “When will it end?” “Can I/we make it?”  We know what we have left behind and we are not sure what lies ahead. Will it be worth the struggle?  We have known the hard places; we have known the rock at Horeb. We can understand the temptation the Israelites had to return to the old places and the old ways. We  have dreams we want to see come to fruition for ourselves and or family, yet at the rock, the hard place, those dreams feel flimsy. So, for example: We would rather go back to silence and getting along, than to more open communication and the pain that may cause. We would rather stay in a relationship that is not working, than risk a break and go forward to new, uncharted territory. We would rather stay with an abusive spouse, than choose the scary terrain of independence. We would rather continue old habits and dependencies, than go through the sacrifice change requires. Lent urges us to shift to a traveling mode. Lent invites us to set out; to say to ourselves, “I have got to change, I have got to make this journey.”  We are being invited to leave behind what is not working and not good for us and go to a place up ahead. Like the Israelites, we start out making the changes we must, but the road is long, uncertain and sometimes very hard to stick to, so our resolution dissolves and we look back to where we used to be and turn around. The experience of the Israelites in the desert reminds us how much we need God -- day by day. Today’s Exodus story reveals that at the very hard place, at the rock of Horeb, God will provide the refreshment we need.  God tells Moses to strike the rock with his staff. From the rock water flows to quench the people’s thirst.  Is the same possible for us: that from the very hard places of struggle and temptation God can draw water for us and refresh us? How?  By the steady hand of a friend; the presence of one with us by the bedside of a loved one; in the support group that encourages and challenges us to stay with the program so we can break an addiction or destructive habit; the voice of confrontation from a loved one, who encourages us to be better than we have been. The initial experience has the sound and feel of the rock; but then, through God and God’s instruments, we discover that we are at the rock at Horeb and God has made living water flow to quench the thirst only God can quench. The Israelites, we are told, quarreled and tested God at the hard place and asked, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” To their sunrise, they found that God was. The story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman is a familiar one—perhaps too familiar. It is an important story for John and he spends a lot of time narrating the exchange between the two. (There’s a shorter option in the Lectionary, but why violate the storyteller’s intent by reading a chopped up version? For the sake of brevity will we sacrifice the dramatic development in the account? I plan on inviting the congregation to sit down and listen to a good tale.) Because the story is so familiar I find myself leaning heavily on John P. Pilch’s input for new insights (Cf. Below). Pilch notes some “irregularities” in the story. He says the Mediterranean world is divided according to gender: women have their places in the home and kitchen; men have theirs in the fields, market place and the gate. The well is common to both, but women and men go there at different times of the day. Women go in the morning and evening. The Samaritan woman is there at noon—something is wrong. Is she avoiding the other women of the town? Does she have a “reputation” and is shunned by them? She is at a well, at noon and she is alone, speaking to a strange man in a public place. The conversation between Jesus and the woman raises even the suspicions of Jesus’ disciples. When it is over she goes to another public place to tell those gathered there (men at the market?) about her conversation with Jesus. Pilch notes the subversions that are occurring in the story. John is giving new roles to women in his community. He fashions the conversation between Jesus and the woman in a seven part dialogue;  each speaks seven times. Is a new creation story being told in this seeming unimportant moment and place? Just as God created light on the first day, so Jesus leads the woman out of her darkness into light, to a deeper understanding of his identity. Did you notice the growth in the woman’s awareness of Jesus, revealed in the names she gives him? She begins by calling him “a Jew,” then moves to “prophet,” then, she tells the town people, “Could he possible be the Christ?” Later they call him “the savior of the world.” The woman gets more time in this story than anyone else in John’s gospel. She grows rapidly in her insight about Jesus and he commissions her to go call her husband and return. She announces Jesus’ presence to the people of the town and is, therefore, the first disciple in John’s gospel. In our first reading the people grumble against Moses in the desert. They are thirsty and demand water. Under God’s direction Moses strikes the rock and water flows. In the gospel Jesus, the new Israel, is thirsty and stops at a well in Samaria. There he receives a good reception, first from the woman, then from the townspeople. Jesus finds rejection among his own; among Samaritans, he is welcomed. He reflects God’s thirst for people, willingness to go outside the usual religious and social boundaries, and God’s desire to give life giving water to anyone thirsty enough to seek it. The woman in today’s story has no name. Perhaps she represents all of us, regardless of race, gender or nationality, who acknowledge our thirst for more than we can provide for ourselves. The entire exchange between the woman and Jesus is characterized by respect, openness, even mutual challenge. But there is an underlaying current throughout the story—Jesus’ compassion. He accepts the woman as she is.  She, on her part, reveals an honest probing into Jesus’ identity; more than we find among Jesus’ disciples. Two strangers meet at an unusual place and their honest dialogue brings one to a deeper knowledge of herself and the offer of a new and deeper life. Is it possible then that, when we meet a stranger and are willing to put aside all the political, social, ethnic and religious barriers that normally separate people, and enter into open dialogue, that we too might come to the life-giving experience the woman had and discover God in the stranger?

Justice Bulletin Board by Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director, Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral Raleigh, NC

Is the Lord in our midst or not?

Exodus 17:7

Lent is a time of fasting to create a physical hunger and thirst, which should heighten our spiritual hunger and thirst for the Lord. The one thing that should be noted is that fasting is a voluntary activity and that, even in our fasts, we are allowed to drink water. For many in our world, however, hunger and thirst is an involuntary way of life that can lead to death.Hunger in our communities is an issue that far too many families are experiencing. A lack of nutritious meals can have long lasting effects on the physical, mental, and social well-being of all members of a family. In response to this need, Catholic Charities currently operates five food pantries in central and eastern North Carolina. Here in Wake County, Catholic Parish Outreach (CPO) began in 1977 when Sister Ann Joseph and Sister Louise Hill of the Order of the Daughters of Charity were sent to Raleigh to start a Catholic charities program. At that time, Sacred Heart Cathedral was one of five founding parishes, along with St. Joseph, St. Raphael, Our Lady of Lourdes, and St. Mary, Mother of the Church. Today CPO functions with 3 full-time and 2 part-time staff members and 1900 parishioners from area churches in a true community response. Catholic Charities leverages the support of community partners to provide over 3 million pounds of food to families in need each year. Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral participates by holding semi-annual food drives, such as the one we are having this weekend. If you forgot your bag, $40 will help feed a family for a week. Please stop by the CPO truck. Catholic Charities Food Pantry Services are dedicated to distributing healthy groceries, increasing access to food, and developing innovative solutions to address food insecurity in a collaborative way. On each visit, families receive a week’s worth of groceries, helping to fill the gap that families experience once their resources have been exhausted and before they receive their next paycheck.  Once their immediate need for food is addressed, Catholic Charities staff and volunteers may connect families to other critical services that aim to remove barriers to self-sufficiency, increasing access to opportunities and creating hope for a better future.  With dignity and respect at the forefront of all interactions, families are offered a hand up during their most  challenging times. Let there be no question that the Lord is in our midst.

Faith Book
Mini-reflections on the Sunday scripture readings designed for persons on the run.  “Faith Book” is also brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish bulletins people take home.

From today’s Exodus reading: The Lord answered Moses: “Strike the rock and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.” This Moses did....”

Reflection: Today’s Exodus story reveals that at the very hard place, at the rock of Horeb, God will provide the refreshment we need. God tells Moses to strike the rock with his staff. From the rock water to quench the people’s thirst flows. Is the same possible for us: that from the very hard places of struggle and temptation God can draw water for us and refresh us?

So we ask ourselves:

• Where are the hard places for us these days?

• What difficult changes are we being asked to make this Lent?

• Who are the instruments God is using to provide refreshing water during this dry period of our lives? Name them and give thanks for them.

LENTEN POETRY COMPANION WEEK 3: AN INVITATION TO LIBERATION

SUNDAY — The Bright Field by R. S. Thomas
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Source: “The Bright Field” from Collected Poems 1945-1990, by R.S. Thomas.
London: Phoenix Press, 2002.

MONDAY — The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Source: “The Peace of Wild Things” from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1998.

TUESDAY — The Heart of Compassion by Joyce Rupp
Compassionate God,
your generous presence
is always attuned to hurting ones.
Your listening ear is bent
toward the cries of the wounded
Your heart of love
fills with tears for the suffering.
Turn my inward eye to see
that I am not alone.
I am a part of all of life.
Each one’s joy and sorrow
is my joy and sorrow,
and mine is theirs.
May I draw strength
from this inner communion.
May it daily recommit me
to be a compassionate presence
for all who struggle with life’s pain.

Source: “The Heart of Compassion” from Your Sorrow is My Sorrow, by Joyce Rupp. New York: The Crossroads Publishing Co., 1999.

WEDNESDAY — Christ Has No Body by Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

THURSDAY — Self Portrait by David Whyte
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong
or feel abandoned.
If you can know despair or see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living,
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequences
of love and the bitter,
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard in that fierce embrace,
even the gods speak of God.

Source: “Self Portrait” from Fire in the Earth by David Whyte. Washington: Many Rivers Press, 1992.

FRIDAY — Prayer by Thomas a Kempis
Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know,
To love what I ought to love,
To praise what delights thee most,
To value what is precious in thy sight,
To hate what is offensive to thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
Nor to pass sentence according to the hearing
of the ears of ignorant men;
But to discern with a true judgment between things visible and spiritual,
And above all, always to inquire what is the good pleasure of thy will.

Source: “Prayer” from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. New York: Random House, 1998.

SATURDAY — What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other,
more secret, movable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly
will make plans enough for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents.
You were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now looking through
the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence
of everything that can be,
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely
white page on the waiting desk?

Source: “What to Remember When Waking” from The House of Belonging by David Whyte. Langley,WA: Many Rivers Press, 2004.

PREPARATION FOR THE SESSION

Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. (1-2 minutes of silence)

Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. (1-2 minutes of silence)

Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)

OPENING PRAYER
Adapted from Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits, 2023

Lord, I am going about my. Business like the Samaritan Woman, and am taken aback when you accost me at my particular well. You interrupt my business, my getting and spending, and you interrupt the routines of my day. You know everything about me, the good and the bad. You know my heart. Instead of resisting, let me be like the woman at the well, moved with joy at meeting you and committed to changing my life, if need be. Give me the courage to do so.

COMPANIONS FOR THE JOURNEY
From a blog called “Interrupting the Silence”, by Father Mike Marsh, Rector of St Phillip’s Episcopal church in west Texas 

She has a history. Things done and left undone, some good some not so good. Guilts and regrets. Fears. Wounds and sorrows. Secrets too. She is a woman with a past. Study the history of this text, read the commentaries, listen to the interpretations and you will learn that her past is generally seen as one of promiscuity. The evidence? Five spouses and now living unmarried with a sixth man. Looked at but not seen. Labelled yet nameless. She remains unknown to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Jesus. How easily we forget that women of her day had very little choice or control over their own lives. If she is divorced it is because the men divorced her. She had no right of divorce. That was exclusively the man’s right. Maybe it was a just divorce but often it was not. If she’s not divorced then she has suffered the death of five husbands. Five times left alone, five times nameless, faceless, and of no value, five times starting over. Maybe some divorced her. Maybe some died. We don’t know. Either one, divorce or death, is a tragedy for her life. So let’s not be too quick to judge. We don’t know the details of her past. Maybe we don’t need to. Maybe it is enough that she mirrors for us our own lives. We too are people with a past, people with a history. We are all Samaritan women .People like her, people like us, people with a past, often live in fear of being found out. It is not just the fear that another will know the truth, the facts, about us but that they will do so without ever really seeing us and without ever really knowing us. We all thirst to be seen and to be known at a deep intimate level. We all want to pour our lives out to one who knows us, to let them drink from the depths of our very being. That is exactly what Jesus is asking of this woman with a past when he says, “Give me a drink.” It is the invitation to let herself be known. To be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known .To be found out, however, without being known leaves us dry and desolate. It leaves us to live a dehydrated life thirsting for something more, something different, but always returning to the same old wells. We all go down to some well. For some, like the Samaritan woman, it is the marriage well. For others it is the well of perfectionism. Some go to the well of hiding and isolation. Others will draw from the well of power and control. Too many will drink from the wells of addiction. Many live at the well of busyness and denial. We could each name the wells from which we drink. Day after day, month after month, year after year we go to the same well to drink. We arrive hoping our thirst will be quenched. We leave as thirsty as when we arrived only to return the next day. For too long we have drunk from the well that never satisfies, the well that can never satisfy. Husband after husband this is the well to which the Samaritan woman has returned. There is another well, however. It is the well of Jesus Christ. It is the well that washes us clean of our past. This is the well from which new life and new possibilities spring forth. It is the well that frees us from the patterns and habits that keep us living as thirsty people That is the well the Samaritan women in today’s gospel found. She intended to go to the same old well she had gone to for years, the well that her ancestors and their flocks drank from. Today is different. Jesus holds before her two realities of her life; the reality of what is and the reality of what might be. He brings her past to the light of the noon day. “You have had five husbands,” he says, “and the one you have now is not your husband.” It is not a statement of condemnation but simply a statement of what is. He tells her everything she has ever done. She has been found out. But it doesn’t end there. Jesus is more interested in her future than her past. He wants to satisfy her thirst more than judge her history. Jesus knows her. He looks beyond her past and sees a woman dying of thirst; a woman thirsting to be loved, to be seen, to be accepted, to be Included, to be forgiven, to be known. Her thirst will never be quenched by the external wells of life. Nor will ours. Jesus says so. “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” This is the living water of new life, new possibilities, and freedom from the past. This living water is Jesus’ own life. It became in the Samaritan woman “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” She discovered within herself the interior well and left her water jar behind. She had now become the well in which Christ’s life flows. It’s not enough, however, to hear her story or even believe her testimony. Until we come to the well of Christ’s life within us we will continue returning to the dry wells of our life. We will continue to live thirsty. We will continue to live in fear of being found out. So I wonder, from what wells do you drink? How much longer will you carry your water jars? There is another well, one that promises life, one by which we are known and loved. Come to a new well. Come to the well of Christ’s life, Christ’s love, Christ’s presence that is already in you. Come to the well that is Christ himself and then drink deeply. Drink deeply until you become the one you are meant to be.

LIVING THE GOOD NEWS

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion? Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions which follow.

Reflection Questions
Have I ever felt that I did “not quite belong” to the community found myself in?
Did I feel isolated, judged by others, or simply invisible?
How did it make me feel about reaching out to others?

Have I ever, in the mist of trying to live a complicated or stressful life, found myself in need of refreshment?
Can I admit my “thirst?”
Why or why not?

We all at one time or another go down to some “well”, seeking to quench the thirst for happiness and contentment. What has been my particular well?
Am I still at this well?
Is it a life-giving one?
Have I been drawn to more than one “well” in my life?

Do I need God’s mercy and understanding?
Have I asked for it?
Does someone need my mercy and understanding?

Look what happens in John’s Gospel when Jesus and the woman open up to each other in an honest dialogue. What change in my life might a conversation with Jesus lead me to?

Is there someone in my life that I need or want to have a meaningful conversation with?

What does the water imagery in this gospel suggest to you about your own spiritual and emotional life?
Where does it need to be refreshed?

The woman leaves her bucket at the well, perhaps symbolizing the old life she is leaving behind. Is there something in my life I need to “leave behind?”

The woman at the well entered into a conversation with Jesus. What conversation do I want to have with him?
Can I have it now?
What keeps me from trusting Jesus’ words?

We, like Christ, are evangelizers for God (Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis). The pope has called us to be missionary disciples. Note here that the woman did not pack up everything and follow Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem. She had another mission give her by Jesus. What are some ways we can be evangelizers for God?
When was the last time I was involved in such an encounter?
What holds me back from being a better evangelizer?

CLOSING PRAYER
Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for.

Lord, help me to see those marginalized among us. Help me to be welcoming and compassionate, listening to their pain and sorrow, their anger and loneliness. In many ways, I am an outsider too, not quite fitting in. Teach me to rely on your love and care for me and for others who are on the margins of life for one reason or another.

FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Weekly Memorization
(Taken from the gospel for today’s session)
Whoever drinks of the water I shall give will never thirst.

Meditations
A Meditation I the Franciscan Style/Action: St. Francis was a lover of nature. If he were to return to earth right now, would he be happy? Within about 10 years most people on the planet will face life with water shortages. Half the world’s major rivers are being seriously polluted and/or depleted. About 40 percent of rivers and lakes in the U.S. surveyed by the EPA are too polluted for swimming or fishing. Why is this happening? Too often we pit one need against another as we use rivers and lakes to meet our needs. We grow food in ways that send pollution into our drinking water. We often manufacture products in ways that use more water than is necessary, or poison the water that people are depending upon for their daily living. We clear away forests without thinking about the erosion that will wash into our waters. What I can do: Learn more about how water is apportioned and adulterated in our own country and around the world. Pray for those who have no clean water and lobby against the movement to “privatize” water in the developing world. Speak or write to my political leaders, and support initiatives that aim at providing clean water for all.

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination: Reread the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, putting yourself in her shoes, and imagine what you see as you approach the well to draw water. Why is there no one else from the village at the well? Why did you come at this time? Are you not accepted by the other women of Sechem? Describe the actual physical surroundings you find yourself in. What does the area look like? Smell like? How hot is it? What do you see perched on the edge of the well? What does this man look like? What does he ask of you? Why do you hesitate to give him water? How does Jesus let you know that he is aware of your past? (Just what IS your past?) How do you feel about having this past known to this man? Does he condemn you? What does Jesus tell you about the climate of your heart? Is it embarrassing that Jesus knows so much about you? Talk to Jesus about the brokenness in your own life--mistakes made, anger still unresolved, regret, shame, sadness. Then speak to him of your desire to use this brokenness to enter into communion with him who understands and has compassion for all. Finally, let that healing and accepting energy lead you back to the world, to your immediate relationships and even to others who may need your healing touch.

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions: Consider these words from Psalm 42:
As the deer pants for streams of water
So my soul pants for you, O God
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

Then I ask myself:
What does our present generation thirst for?
What does the world thirst for?
Has there ever been a “dry” time when God gave me what I needed in terms of comfort, respite, or simply God’s sustaining presence?
I name (silently or aloud) a hard place in my life at this time. Where in that rocky, desert place is God providing water for me?
Finally:I say a prayer of hope and thanksgiving for God’s sustaining presence in my life.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action: Think of someone in your family or among your friends and acquaintances who is somewhat outside the circle because of something he did in the past, or because she is an embarrassment to you… (maybe she dresses weirdly, is too plump, or holds the wrong political views). Now think of how Jesus would view this person, and to what lengths he would go to be inclusive. Do one thing this week—a phone call, a note, an invitation to grab a bite to eat or go to the movies—that makes this person feel accepted by you. Find time for a conversation of significance. Go on, be brave! Be forgiving!

POETIC REFLECTIONS

Think of a woman who has been discarded as worthless at least five times, rendered unworthy of human contact, but recognized in the loving eyes of Jesus who promises so much more. What a gift it is to be thankful when life is a struggle.

Conversations—III
Isn’t it strange
that as we are bent, broken
like bread, torn like cloth
poured away.
Still we are not consumed
Bless you, God.
Bless you
Who make mountains and winds;
Who give fire to breath
And freckles to children.
Bless you.
—Rev. Ed Ingebretzen in Psalms of the Still Country

Women at the Well: A Poem
When our past has cast a shadow
Even sunshine can’t dispel,
There is One who knows and loves us
Who will meet us at the well.

When our first love’s far behind us
And we’re shocked how far we fell,
Look how far He’s come to save us.
Look! He’s waiting at the well.

When we’re shackled with a secret,
Like a captive in a cell,
There is One who knows completely
And will free us at the well.

When we’re hurt by long rejection
Bitter looks and angry yells
We find pardon and acceptance
Offered freely at the well.

When we’ve drunk the living water
But we feel like empty shells,
We are overdue a visit
To the Healer at the well.

When we can’t afford perfection
But find grace a harder sell,
If we’re ready to accept it,
There is freedom at the well.

When we’re busy and exhausted,
Sit beside Him for a spell.
There’s an open invitation
Come and join Him at the well.

When we find such love and mercy,
It’s our joy to run and tell.
Come, and bring the others with you,
Come, be women at the well.
—Krissa Besselman (After six years overseas, Krista Besselman has traded the perspective brought by a childhood of Pennsylvania winters for the belief that the highlands of Papua New Guinea get “cold.” She drinks hot tea and helps track the resources used for Bible translation. She writes Excel formulas by day and poetry by night, which are really just two different ways of trying to make sense of the world. Life in Papua New Guinea has taught her a deeper appreciation for grace, relationships, and high-speed internet.)