Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 17, 2026

John 5, 1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.  Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’“ They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the Temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.

The Pool of Bethesda with the five porticoes was the lowermost of two pools in Jerusalem, the upper pool being a reservoir for the city.  It fed the lower pool, which is conjectured to have been originally meant for ritual washing.  The porticoes were of a wall that separated the two pools.  The fact that the water of the lower one was widely considered to possess healing properties is attested by the Romans building a temple to their god of medicine Aesculapius on the location after Jerusalem was destroyed following the second Jewish revolt of 132-136 A.D.  In the years after the legalization of Christianity, a church was built on the site, later destroyed by the Moslems, who built another structure in its place.  For centuries thereafter the site of the pools was forgotten and by the nineteenth century there was doubt about their existence because no ruins of them could be found.  Finally, in 1888, the German archaeologist Konrad Schick discovered the upper pool, and in the twentieth century the second pool, mentioned by St. John in his Gospel, was discovered and excavated.  This is a marvelous sample of how archaeology can help confirm and explain what we find in the Scriptures.  Particularly, this helps confirm the eyewitness testimony of John, as author of the Gospel, to the deeds of the Lord Jesus.

The name of the pool, “Bethesda”, means “house of mercy”, appropriately enough, for “a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled” lay near it in hopes of being cured of their conditions through washing in the water there.  Some old Greek texts of the Gospel contain the following, by way of explanation: “And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.”  This passage is found in the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome and in the Douay Rheims it is found in John 5, 4.  Other Greek texts do not have this verse and most modern translations do not include it.  However, without this verse it is impossible to understand the meaning of the lame man’s words to Jesus: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.”  

Many of us picture this cure of the infirm man as taking place in the Temple since after the healing we read that “Jesus found him in the Temple area”, but the pool is quite separate from it.  We should think, rather, of an open area in Jerusalem with the sun shining down on the multitude of sick people lying around this pool.  “One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.”  We read here and there in the Gospels of people having suffered terribly for many years at the time the Lord comes to them.  For instance, there is the woman with the blood flow for twelve years (cf. Luke 8, 43-48); the lame man in this account; and the man born blind (cf. John 9), who had grown into adulthood before his encounter with the Lord.  For us, this signifies the long centuries in which the world waited for its Savior and also the long centuries since his Ascension as we have waited for his return in glory.  More personally, we see in these cases how the Lord comes to help us when we persevere in hope.  

“Do you want to be well?” The Greek literally says, “Do you want to become whole?” which is has a different meaning: there is no action required in wanting to be well.  It might as well be a daydream.  But wanting to “become whole” carries consequences.  A person who wants to become whole must perform some action in order to achieve wholeness.  The man knows that Jesus means this, for he offers an excuse for why he has failed to become well after all these years: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” This is a mere excuse because someone has been sustaining him all these years.  He probably cannot get to the street by himself to beg, and if he could, there seems no reason why he could not move himself to a more advantageous spot near the pool.  If he did have family to help him by bringing him food, then they could just as well have spent a few days with him to help him get to the pool so he could wash in it at the right time.  The man here signifies all the folks down through the ages who have claimed that they wanted to be helped but would not lift a finger to use the assistance that was available.  Spiritually, he is those who make excuses not to go to Mass on Sundays, or go to confession after sinning, or pray for their needs until it is too late.

The Lord loved this man despite everything, just as he loves us, and he said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”  St. John remarks that the man became well “immediately”.  This was a more complete healing than he could have wished for from bathing in the pool.  Rising up, he took up his mat and walked.  We should note that the word translated here as “walked” can also mean “to conduct one’s life”.  He seems to have uttered no word of thanks, placing him in the large company of people who did not think to thank the Lord for the cures with which he healed them.  He did, however, go to the Temple area.  He is evidently not praying there, though.  Perhaps he was just strolling around, enjoying his newfound strength and health.  “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”  The verb “do not sin” is a present active imperative and has the sense of continuation: Do not be sinning, or, Do not continue sinning.  Perhaps when Jesus sees the man again, he is sinning or has resumed sinning.  The warning the Lord issues has the force of having caught the man in the act.  The irony here would be that the Jewish leaders accused the man of sinning by carrying his mat on the Sabbath, which he was obliged to do if he was not to lose it.  But here the Lord, who knows what is in the heart — “he knew what was in man” (John 2, 25) — speaks rightly to him of sin.  Since the word translated as “walked” also means “to conduct one’s life”, we can think of this in spiritual terms: that the Lord has come upon someone steeped in sin, forgives him, and tells him to take up his life again, free of sin; and then coming to the person at a later date, he finds him going back to his old ways and he warns him to give this up, as though saying, Remember how you were before.  If you do not stay out of the sin that got you into trouble before, something worse than that will happen to you.

“The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.”  The man utters no thanks, but instead goes off to the Jewish leaders to point out Jesus as the one they were looking for.  This man shows how we often repay kindness with ingratitude and even scorn.  For all that, the Lord still laid down his life on the Cross for him.  We can ask ourselves whether the man treated the Redemption the Lord won for him in the same way as he treated his physical cure.

Monday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 16, 2026

John 4, 43-54

At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.

St. John’s use of the phrase, “A prophet has no honor in his native place”, brings to mind Matthew 13, 57 where the Lord Jesus applies it during a visit to his home town of Nazareth.  John does not link the phrase to Nazareth.  Instead, he uses the phrase as though the Lord’s homeland wasJudea.  This seems very odd, and appears to tell us that John was unaware that the Lord’s “native place” was Nazareth.  But in fact, the Lord was born in Bethlehem, not Nazareth, so his native place (the Greek word should be translated “fatherland”) really was Bethlehem in Judea.  The Lord’s spoken testimony that Judea was his native place indicates that others knew this also.  This puts a different spin on how we think about what the people of his time knew about him. If it was widely known that despite his Galilean accent he was from Judea, and specifically from Bethlehem, people would have been much more likely to see this as proof that he was the Messiah, for that was where the Messiah was said in the Scriptures to be born (cf. Micah 5, 2).  The usual idea is that since we do not hear the Lord ever claiming to have been born in that town, most if not all of his followers would have been ignorant of this fact.  That the leading Pharisees did not seem to know this when others do tells us of how little they had sought to understand who he was: “Search the Scriptures, and see that a prophet does not rise out of Galilee” (John 7, 52).  If they had searched his life, they might have learned something.

“When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him.”  John says that Jesus went back to Cana, where he must have had some connection, perhaps through the bride and groom whose marriage feast he had attended.  Pointedly, he did not return to Nazareth.  He had left that town months before and taken up residence in Capernaum. 

“Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.”  This sounds somewhat like the cure of the centurion’s slave as recorded in Matthew 8, 5-13.  The point of the story as The other Evangelists tell it is to praise the faith of the Gentile.  Here, the request of the royal official is met with, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”  The official, abashed, repeated his request.  Strangely, the word translated as “slave” in the other Gospels is here translated as “son”.  It is the same word.  The Lord’s words shock us with their apparent lack of compassion, but he is speaking to the crowd, not to the man.  The English translator tries to make this clear by inserting “you people” here, but “people” is not on the Greek.  This is proved by the fact that the second person form of the verbs “you see” and “you will not believe” is in the plural, whereas if the Lord were speaking to the man, they would have been in the singular.  It is safe to assume also that John leaves out some details, such as comments by the crowd.  For instance, St. Luke informs us, in his account of this event, that the Jews insisted that Jesus perform this cure: “They besought him earnestly, saying to him: ‘He is worthy that thou shouldest do this for him. For he loves our nation: and he has built us a synagogue.’ ”  It is likely that the Lord was responding to both their impertinence and the lack of faith on their part, for which he condemned them later: “And you Capernaum, shall you be exalted up to heaven? You shall go down even unto hell. For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, perhaps it would have remained unto this day” (Matthew 11, 23).  That is, they believed he could heal, but not that he was the Christ, whose words they should obey.  In contrast to the obstinacy of the citizens of the town, which must have persisted even to the time when John wrote his Gospel (so that it was well-known to the early Christians), we learn that the man “and his whole household came to believe.”   

Through our own searching of the Sacred Scriptures we can know much about the Lord Jesus so that our faith in him might grow, and help is maintain our belief even in times of trial.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 15, 2026

John 9, 1–41

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his 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, “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 Christ, 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,’ so your sin remains.” 

The Pool of Siloam was a freshwater reservoir which stored water from the intermittent Gihon Spring, the main source of water for the region in which the city of Jerusalem was built.  It was first constructed by the Canaanites, and was last reconstructed about a century before the birth of our Lord.  It was formed in the shape of a trapezoid.  Recent excavations reveal that the pool had a width of over two hundred feet and featured steps leading to its floor.  Completely covered over by dirt and debris for the nearly two thousand years since the Jewish Revolt, it was only rediscovered in 2004.  Its finding adds confirmation of the Apostle John as an eyewitness to the events he describes in his Gospel, providing accurate details of Jerusalem during our Lord’s lifetime.

Throughout his Gospel, St. John shows how the Son of God uses our ordinary words to reveal heavenly realities.  The Lord uses “birth” for baptism; “wine” for grace; “temple” for his Body; “bread” for his life-giving Flesh.  In today’s Gospel reading, John shows how Jesus uses “sight” for faith.  In ancient Hebrew and Greek, the verb “to see” can mean what we do with our eyes and with our mind: it can mean “to perceive”, as in English we say “I see” when we mean that we perceive an idea.  In the reading, Jesus calls himself “the Light of the world”: Jesus is not an idea but something much greater, a Person.  The one who “sees” Jesus in faith, perceives him in a way that goes beyond mere human sight or understanding and sees him as he is, as Light.  This is not reflected light, as that of the moon, but Light itself.  This “light” of which Jesus speaks is his divinity.  With the eyes of faith, we can know Jesus as God.  John, in his painstaking account of the miracle or “sign” of a blind man’s healing, shows the steps by which earthly understanding grows into supernatural belief, the virtue of faith.  First, the man knows him as a prophet, then as a man of God, and finally as the Son of man, the Christ.  This might remind us of how St. Mark also used the healing of a blind man by Jesus to show the steps of faith (Mark 8, 24).  John shows us besides that the people who knew the man when he was blind did not recognize him after he gained his vision: someone who is baptized and becomes a Christian is transformed by grace and so can act and live in a manner unlike in his previous existence.  

Saturday in the Third Week in Lent, March 14, 2026

Luke 18, 9-14

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity - greedy, dishonest, adulterous - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

“Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”  The Greek literally says, “. . . to those who had persuaded themselves that they were righteous”.  The distinction is that on the one hand, other people may have helped convinced the, of their righteous state, and, on the other, that they had done this themselves.  The latter is more reprehensible because it disallows the thoughts of others which might help one arrive at a truer conception of oneself.  One who persuaded himself that he is righteous is also not so much interested in being righteous as in believing others not to be righteous.

Now, this righteousness, as the Pharisees understood it, had to do with following through with certain external commitments.  The ones the man in the parable concerns himself with are fasting and paying tithes on his whole income.  This might have fulfilled a certain legal requirement entitling a person to call himself righteous, but it is obvious that he did not know Psalm 15:  “Lord, who shall dwell in your tent? Or who shall rest on your holy hill? He who walks without blemish, and works justice: he who has truth in his heart, who has not used deceit with his tongue, nor has done evil to his neighbor, nor taken up a reproach against his neighbors.”  To “work justice” meant to feed the poor and extend a helping hand to widows and orphans.  For the Christian, righteousness is fulfilled by the Lord through his own holiness and so now it means to be in a state of grace, that is, to be baptized (and so forgiven sin and filled with sanctifying grace) and to be living the life of faith. 

The Lord says in his parable that this Pharisee went to the Temple to pray, but he was only speaking to himself: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.”  We see also the Pharisee’s poor and uninformed opinion of “the rest of humanity”.  Since the name “Pharisee” came from a word meaning “separated” and because the whole Pharisaic project depended on the Pharisees not mixing with non Pharisees unless absolutely obliged to do so, this man could not possibly know much about other men and women.  He does, however, use the tax collector whom he must have passed on his way into the Temple as an example of all that he hated.  In fact, the way he speaks, “or even like this tax collector” makes it sound as though he holds him in lesser repute than the greedy and dishonest people and the  adulterers about whom he speaks.  The Pharisee is in fact engaged in the sort of “judging” our Lord forbids the Christian to do.

“But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven.”  Not feeling worthy of heaven, he does not raise his eyes to it.  Whereas the Pharisee took a prominent spot in the Temple in order to speak his piece, the tax collector, knowing his unworthiness down to his marrow, stays in the back so that he might not be observed.  “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”  This is the prayer that God loves best, short and straight out of the depths of the heart: “The Lord is close to those whose hearts are broken, and he will save the humble of spirit” (Psalm 34, 21).  Prayers of this kind do not trivialize God as though he is one who can be persuaded or manipulated to do something nor do they allow us space to attempt to justify ourselves to him.  We should keep in mind here that in those days, prayers would have been spoken aloud.  We should think of the Pharisee speaking his prayer so others could hear it and of the tax collector speaking his quietly in the shadows.

“I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former.”  “Justified” also can be translated as “made righteous”.  So the tax collector, not righteous when he went into the Temple, came home righteous; but the Pharisee went there not righteous and red turned home no better.  “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  We humble ourselves when we engage in a serious examination of conscience, knowing that we are accountable before the Lord, and when, with broken hearts we cry to him for mercy.  We are exalted by the God of mercy through grace in this life, and eternal blessedness in the life to come.

Friday in the Third Week of Lent, March 13, 2026

Mark 12, 28-34

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

“Which is the first of all the commandments?”  We might think that the scribe’s question has an obvious answer and so we would wonder why he asked it.  After all, what he expect Jesus to answer?  But the obviousness may point to a drama we would otherwise not see.  It could well be that the scribe believed in Jesus and wanted to show the others the purity of the Lord’s teachings.  Or, he may have wanted to make a point, through the words of this teacher whom the crowds believed in, to the scribes and Pharisees about their own teachings: that they had gotten away from teaching the love of God and neighbor, which should have been the bedrock of their beliefs, and not the precise carrying out of dubious rituals, as though for its own sake.

“The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”. How wonderful and moving it would have been to hear the Lord Jesus, unimaginably in love with the Father, speaking these words!  

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  This might not have been the choice of all the Pharisees.  They might have preferred the commandment about not worshipping false gods, or about keeping the Sabbath holy.  But it makes sense as the second of the two greatest commandments because the God whom we are so to love created the human person in his own image and likeness: the love of self and of neighbor thus is a way of loving God as well.

“Well said, teacher.”  The scribe had expected this answer, and his commendation of the Lord’s answer seems like a challenge to the attitude of the other scribes and Pharisees.  He even goes further, as though adding to the Lord’s answer: “And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  This scribe certainly shows independence of mind and depths of intellect possessed by few of his fellows.  The burnt offerings and sacrifices, so dear to the hearts of the Pharisees, did not forgive sins.  They could not.  They were but signs of The Sacrifice, The Holocaust, that, offered to the Father, would take away the sins of the world. 

The scribe would not then have understood about a Sacrifice that had not yet been offered, but he was on his way to doing so.  For this reason the Lord said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”  This declaration stunned everyone within earshot, and, overwhelmed, “no one dared to ask him any more questions.”  

You and I are even nearer to the Kingdom of God than that scribe, who stood only feet away from the Son of God.  Let us pray that we may entry it.

Thursday in the Third Week of Lent, March 12, 2026

Luke 11:14-23

Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed. Some of them said, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons. If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

“The crowds were amazed.”  The Greek word translated as “amazed” also shows up in verses such as Matthew 27, 14, which describes Pilate’s reaction to the Lord’s silence at the charges leveled against him.  In that case the word is more often translated as “wondered exceedingly”.  Nowadays we use words like “amazed” so often that they lose something of their force.  The crowd in this passage from St. Luke’s Gospel gasps and shouts as they see the Lord casting out the demon afflicting this man.  Undoubtedly, the man had lived among these people for a long time and they had known him as the mute, taking it for granted that he would never speak again.  It is not clear where this exorcism occurred or how the Lord met this man, whether he was brought by others or if the man accosted the Lord and his Apostles as they approached a city.  Of the two possibilities, the first is more likely since there is a crowd present.  The Lord would have cast out the demon quickly, based on the other accounts of his exorcisms which the Evangelists tell us, and then the man seems to have gone his way, for we hear no more about him.

“By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.”  Luke tells us that “some said” this. It is not certain whether “some said” this in response to this particular exorcism or if this very silly accusation came at another time but Luke fits in in here as a convenient spot for it.  The Lord shows its illogic by pointing out that if the devil is at work in his exorcisms, he is fighting against himself and he will fall; or, if the Lord does this by his own power, “the Kingdom of God has come upon you.”  Either way, it is good news, though those who made the accusation meant to attack him.  It is so ridiculous even on its face, and so perverse, that we ought to wonder if the people making it were themselves possessed.  Coming after an exorcism, this would be ironic.

“When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe.”  These next few verses seem unrelated to what the Lord has just said.  St. John Chrysostom, however, wrote that the “strong man” was the devil and the “stronger man” was Christ.  The strong man’s “palace” or “dominion”, as the word has also been translated, is his reign over sinners.  Thus, when the stronger man “attacks and overcomes him”, he breaks his dominion and carries off his goods, sinners.  The stronger man “takes away the armor on which he relied”, that is, again, sinners, through whom the devil works in this world to bolster his kingdom. The stronger man then “distributes the spoils.”  Sinners freed from the devil’s grasp are “distributed” to the care of saints and angels for their guidance and assistance in attaining heaven.

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” The Lord speaks of “attacking” the strong man, the devil.  Those who are with the Lord join in the attack, fulfilling the Lord’s saying that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against [the Church]” (Matthew 16, 18).  But those who do not join in the attack are opposed to Christ and his Church.  The Lord does not propose any middle ground.  This brings to mind his speaking to the Christians in Laodicea: “You are neither cold nor hot. I would you were either cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3, 15–16).  The “hot” are fervent believers and the “cold” are those who are cold in their charity.  The “lukewarm” are indifferent to God’s will and so shall be expelled from God’s sight. 

Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent, March 11, 2026

Matthew 5, 17-19

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

“I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  While the idea of “abolishing” something, such as the law and the prophets, is clear to us, less so is the meaning of “fulfilling” something.  It helps to know that the Greek word translated here as “ to fulfill” can also be translated as “to complete”.  It also helps to keep in mind that God had given the Law and the Prophets to the Israelites to govern them, but also as a sign that his Son would one day complete.  We can think of it this way: When we are watching a small child building some structure with his blocks, we might see this as a sign that he will grow up to be an engineer.  When the child does grow up and become an engineer, we can say that he has fulfilled or completed the sign we saw years before.  The Law and the Prophets in general showed the way for the New Covenant that the Lord Jesus would establish in his Blood. In doing this, the Lord sets out its terms, that is, his completion of the various laws found in the Law.  He does this, for instance, in his command for us to love our enemies as well as our friends and relatives.

The idea that the Lord was abolishing the Law and the Prophets came from the Pharisees.  In fact, he was abolishing or “overthrowing” (another meaning of the original Greek word) the false teaching of the Pharisees on the Law, and their false interpretation of the Prophets.  In their zeal for holiness, the Pharisees taught that the laws in Leviticus regarding the purification of the priests for offering sacrifice must apply to everyone.  While a regular part of the priest’s function, these laws were impractical for ordinary people.  The Pharisees made living the Law difficult for the people in other ways as well.  This is what the Lord overthrew.

“Not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”  The word translated here as “have taken place” is difficult to translate.  It has the overall meaning of “come into being” or “is born” and is often translated simply as the verb to-be. What the Lord refers to is his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and also the coming of the New Heavens and the New Earth at the end of time (cf. Isaiah 66, 22).  It should be noted that the Lord means that “not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass” from the fulfilled or completed Law, the New Law of the New Covenant.  It is for this reason that we are not bound to sacrifice sheep and cattle: this sacrifice was a sign of the Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, which is continuously offered up at Holy Mass.

“Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”  We who are joined to the Lord Jesus through baptism and so with him are heirs to heaven, may attain the “greatest” place there through obeying and teaching his fulfilled Law to others.  We do this by our words and deeds, fostered by our prayers.  In the ranks of heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most obedient of all and preeminent in her virtues, is accorded first place among the saints, and after her, those first teachers, the Apostles.  Third in order are the martyrs, who obeyed and taught the New Law through their sufferings and deaths, and still do so today through their example.  In fact, all the saints have obeyed and taught, and now exult and rejoice, basking in the love of God.  We too can have this is we join their company in obeying the teaching the Law of Jesus Christ.