Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent, April, 1, 2023

John 11, 45-56

Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to kill him. So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples. Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?”

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass comes just after the Lord had raised Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, from the dead.  Having witnessed this most amazing miracle, many people came to believe in Jesus, though their faith in him might have been based on their expectations of a political Messiah.  Others, however, rejected the miracle and went to the Pharisees.  Perhaps they thought that the miracle had been staged.  These were alarmed.  “So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin.”  The Sanhedrin, a sort of Supreme Court of the Jews consisting of rabbis, felt the need to make some decision as to how to deal with Jesus.  The Sanhedrin was set against him from the start but until now had played no public role as a body against him.

“What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him.”  These words seem silly at a distance of two thousand years, for this was what the Messiah, whom they awaited, was supposed to do.  What else could they have expected?  But the members of the Sanhedrin were not thinking of a Messiah who would come for the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of the world; they were thinking of one who would free Israel and they did not think Jesus was that Messiah.  Instead, they thought he was a rabble-rouser who would incite a riot or even a rebellion that the Romans would crush, resulting in a large loss of life and probably making Israel part of a province.  They admit that he performs signs but somehow they manage to not see their proof of his divinity, or, at the very least, that they are a sign of divine approval of him.  “You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”  The high priest speaks as though he cares for the nation of Israel, but this cloaks a personal hatred.

“Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.”  This is St. John’s comment.  The “dispersed children of God” are those among the Gentiles throughout the world who would one day convert and become Christians.  In the third Eucharistic Prayer the priest prays: “In your compassion, O merciful Father, gather to yourself all your children scattered throughout the world.”  The priest is praying for the peace and security of all Catholics wherever they may be.

“So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.”  This town was thirteen miles northeast of Jerusalem and was set on a high hill so that all the surrounding country could be seen from it.  His move there would have delayed the plans of the Sanhedrin till the Passover, when the Lord had chosen to die.  But they were on the watch for him: “They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area.”

We watch for Jesus, but for him to come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.  The Jews asked themselves, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?”, reassuring each other that he would come.  Let us also be certain of his coming, and prepare ourselves for it — not with schemes and weapons, but with virtues and faith.

 Friday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 31, 2023

John 10, 31-42

The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, You are gods”‘? If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be set aside, can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Then they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power.  He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained. Many came to him and said, “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.” And many there began to believe in him.

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass is taken from the confrontation between Jesus and the Jews, of whom a number were Pharisees, following his healing of the man born blind.  In the verse immediately preceding this reading, Jesus taught them that he and the Father were one, thus again claiming divinity and equality with the Father.

“The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.”  This comment tells us that the confrontation continued outside the Temple.  It seems that the crowd of the Jews pushed or dragged the Lord outside.  “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?”. The Lord knows why they are doing this.  He asks the question in order to return them to reason and to move them to avoid further sin in attempting to harm him.  He also points to his miraculous works because they validate his claim to be the Son of God.  “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.”  They have seen the miracles, know them to be true, and still reject the one who performed them.  “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, You are gods?’ ”  The Lord quotes Psalm 82, 6, in which the Lord calls the judges of his people to account.  He calls them “gods” because of the power they possess.  The Lord uses Scripture familiar to the Jews in order to show that precedent exists for a man to be called a “god”, and if a judge can be so-called, then certainly he who heals the sick, drives out demons, and gives sight to a man born blind can be so-called as well.  Notice how the Lord, in his patience, speaks on a very basic level with the outraged people here.  “If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works.”  The Lord makes a plea here.  It is not to Dave himself, but them.  “Then they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power.”  It would seem that higher officials of the Temple appeared at this point and they made the people put their stones down so that they could arrest him.  They did not do this out of a desire for justice but because they very much feared a riot between the Lord’s supporters and his enemies which could lead to Roman intervention, as had happened in the recent past.  

“He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.”  Curiously, the Lord did not return directly to Galilee.  He lingered in the Judea wilderness.  Perhaps some of John the Baptist’s followers continued there and he talked with them: “Many came to him and said, “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”  Those who came to him had considered the works the Lord had done as well as the prophetic words of John.  They did precisely what the Jews in the Temple failed or refused to do, showing that it was not an intrinsic fault in human nature that caused or causes people to reject Christ but rather ill-will.  “And many there began to believe in him.”  We should understand that to believe in Jesus, in terms of true faith, means to enter an intimate relationship with him.  It means to live his life and to obey the Father’s will.  It is much more than acknowledging his existence or even following his commands.

We should think about how the Son of God suffered from the repeated rejections from the people he had joined when he became man.  If he wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, how much more might he have wept over people throwing their souls away despite his pleading, out of sheer spite?

 Thursday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 30, 2023

John 8, 51-59

Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” So the Jews said to him, “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not know him, but I know him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know him and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass concludes the Lord’s teaching of the Jews in the Temple on the occasion of his visit there on the Feast of Booths.  He has been telling them of his divinity, his Sonship, his equality with the Father.  He has distanced himself, as the Messiah, from the political goals which they had expected him to fulfill.  He has invited them to become his disciples, but they reacted with rage in misunderstanding his speaking of their slavery to sin as slavery to the Romans.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”  The Greek word translated here as “see” has the meaning of “to behold” and “to experience”.  The Lord is saying that death as the final end of all life ceases to exist for the one who believes in him.  It becomes instead the passage of the soul to eternal life in heaven.  The Jews seize on this statement without asking for clarification: “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the Prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ ”  The Lord corrected their idea that he had called them slaves of the Romans, but they did not lose their fury.  Now it flares into an accusation of being possessed.  Next, they demand to know who he is, but what they are doing is challenging him to do something they do not think he can do: to claim that he is greater than Abraham and the Prophets: “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died?  Who do you make yourself out to be?”  The Lord does not answer all at once, according to their demand, but prepares his answer by speaking of his relationship with the Father: “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me.”  The Father glorifies the Son on earth through his miracles, and will glorify him again in his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.  Speaking of his Father, the Lord says, “You do not know him, but I know him.”  The Greek text gives two different words for the verb “to know”.  Accordingly, the Lord is saying that they do not “know” the Father in the way we usually mean in English; but when Jesus says that he “knows” the the Father  this means that he understands and cherishes him.  “And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar.”  He says that they are liars because they say they know the Father though they do not.  That they do not know the Father is shown by their rejection of the works done by the Son which could  have been accomplished only if the Father were pleased for them to be done.  The rejection of the works is the rejection of the Father.  “But I do know him and I keep his word.”  That is, I obey his will.

“Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”  We can almost hear the Lord sighing.  Abraham, centuries before, looked forward to the day when God would deliver his people, and now he has come and his descendants, who see him, hate him.  “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Their derision drips from their words.  They also think they have the Lord backed into a corner.  The Lord answers in a way they could not have anticipated: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”  It would seem that the dialogue had been conducted in Hebrew because the use of the Greek verb to-be here would not have resulted in the Jews rushing about looking for stones to kill Jim with.  The use of the Hebrew name that God gives himself, which we translate into English as “I am”, was strictly forbidden because of its holiness.  The high priest alone could speak the name, and only once a year in the holy of Holies in the Temple.  

The Lord Jesus had announced his divinity in the Temple, and had proven it, but the people madly seek his Death.  Let us oppose the hatred of God so evident in our society and culture today with our good deeds and our prayers for the conversion of all who oppose him.

 Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 29, 2023

John 8, 31-42

Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains. So if the Son frees you, then you will truly be free. I know that you are descendants of Abraham. But you are trying to kill me, because my word has no room among you. I tell you what I have seen in the Father’s presence; then do what you have heard from the Father.”  They answered and said to him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God; Abraham did not do this. You are doing the works of your father!” So they said to him, “We were not born of fornication. We have one Father, God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me.”

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass is taken from the next section of the Lord’s teaching the Jews in or near the Temple for the Feast of Booths.  “Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him.”  We should notice what St. John is saying here: “to the Jews who believed in him”.  When John uses the term “Jews” he means it in two senses: for the Judeans (as opposed to the Galileans) and for the Jewish authorities, including the Sanhedrin and the elders.  Some of these did believe in the Lord but only on a superficial level.  Some may have thought, based on his miracles, that he was indeed the Messiah.  Others may have welcomed him as a reformer, or were attracted to some of his teachings.  They are not yet disciples, though the Lord desires that they join his following.  Thus, in speaking to them here he challenges them to grow in their belief.

“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  To us today, this is an inspiring promise, but for the Jews of two thousand years ago, this came across as an insult.  They heard the Lord insinuating that they were slaves.  These priests, Temple officials, and elders were very conscious of their dignity among the people and at the same time very conscious of their place under Roman rule.  It was almost as though this Galilean was accusing them of being slaves of the Romans through their submission to their rule.  They bridled: “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.”  The fact that they jumped to the conclusion that Jesus was speaking politically tells us much about who they thought he was and what their primary concerns in life were.  The Lord patiently clarifies for them:“Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.”  In this way he also casts aside their expectation that he was the Messiah who came to deliver Jerusalem.  “A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains.”  He speaks in simple words, putting in plain words something they already know so as to build upon it: “So if the Son frees you, then you will truly be free.”  He is claiming to be this Son who will free them from their sins.  He returns to their objection: “I know that you are descendants of Abraham.”  And then he makes them face themselves: “But you are trying to kill me, because my word has no room among you.”  They had turned from “believers” into enemies when the Lord spoke of their slavery to sin and they misunderstood him to mean they were slaves of Rome.  His point is that they were in need of being freed from sin and that he, as the Son, could do this if they would believe in him.  “I tell you what I have seen in the Father’s presence; then do what you have heard from the Father.”  As the Son, he is revealing the Father’s plan of freedom to them.  “They answered and said to him, ‘Our father is Abraham.’ ”  The Jewish rulers are still hearing him with political ears though he speaks only of the things of God.  They took Abraham as their father because their descent from him made them Jews.  It did not occur to them that God was actually their Father for he had given them life.  “Jesus challenged them on their claim: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God; Abraham did not do this.”  St. John does not describe the scene but only gives the dialogue but we can try to imagine the fury of the people to whom he was speaking.  They were highborn priests, ministers, respected leaders of the Temple and he had called them slaves!  “You are doing the works of your father!”  The Lord is speaking of the work of their father, Satan.

“We were not born of fornication. We have one Father, God.”  Now they claim that God is their Father.  Their reference to “fornication” has been taken by some scholars to be a dig at the Lord’s own human origins, and that the priests and elders here had heard that his Mother had conceived him out of wedlock.  They would be baiting him, in this case.  Otherwise, this could be an allusion to the purity of their heritage.

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me.”  If a person claims that God is his Father than he is claiming that he loves him.  And to love the Father means to love the Son.  To reject the Son is to reject the Father.  That Jesus was “sent” by the Father tells us of the Lord’s love for the Father, for he obeys him and comes to lowly earth and the world of sinful men and women from the realms of glory where countless angels adore God forever.

The elders and priests of the Temple were so politically minded that they did not recognize that the Lord, who almost never spoke of the political world, was speaking to them of the things of heaven.  Let us not so involve ourselves in the world around us and its business that we become like those who belong to it.

 Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 28, 2023

John 8, 21-30

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.” Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass is taken from a confrontation by the Jews of the Lord and his reply to them.  This took place in the treasury section of the Temple building.

“I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. ”  The Lord is speaking to the Jewish authorities.  St. John simply calls them “the Jews”, which would remind the Jewish Christians for whom he was writing that they were Jews no longer but believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and members of his Body.  These authorities would have included members of the Sanhedrin, who were mostly Sadducees, and the Temple elders.  In saying to the, that he was departing, he was speaking of his coming Death.  In his telling them that they would seek him, he perhaps is saying that they will look everywhere for his Body so that they could point to it and prove that he had not risen.  But by rejecting his Resurrection they would die in their sin — that of arresting him and handing him over to Pilate and pressing for his execution.  “Where I am going you cannot come.”  They cannot go, but they would also not choose to go to a heaven in which he ruled.  The damned are not to be pitied in their torments.  They hate God and would not be happy in heaven.  It would be a torment to them to see the just rejoicing in him.  There is nothing to do in heaven but to praise Almighty God and bask in his torrent of love, but those who rage in their wickedness would find this intolerable.

“He is not going to kill himself, is he?”  Of the question is sincere, it shows that some of the Jewish leaders thought that he was mad or possessed.  Since they were Sadducees it did not occur to them that he could depart from the earth and this life and still live.  “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world.”  The Lord explains how he can live outside of this world and how they will perish in it.  He has assumed a human nature, but he is a divine Person and as such cannot he contained by the world.  He “.belongs” to what is “above”, that is, beyond.  Those baptized into his Body, therefore, do not belong to this world.  By “the world” the Lord means not the earth but the world people who do not believe in God create for themselves, one in which self-indulgence is applauded.  “For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”  The Greek text is properly translated as “I am”, which would be one way to translate the name God gives himself in Hebrew.  Unlike the pagan gods who had proper names, the true God cannot be contained or limited in any way and so expresses his identity in terms of his infinite being.  The Greek present tense, in which this verb is set in this verse, has the sense of continuation.  In English when we say “I am”, we are speaking of a state of being that is fixed for a moment or possibly permanently.  “I am” in Greek implies “always continuing”.  This points to his infinity.  The Greek verb translated as “will die” has an imminent tone to it, as though they are dying even now.  

“So they said to him, ‘Who are you?’Jesus said to them, ‘What I told you from the beginning.’ ”  The Lord Jesus is shown by all the Evangelists to have made claims consistent with divinity: he forgives sins, he calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath, and so on.  He did this from the beginning of his Public Life.  Their hatred of him is so great that they cannot begin to accept this.  The Lord addresses this, telling them, “I have much to say about you in condemnation.”  The Lord has not let their hatred of him prevent him from doing his Father’s will: “But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.”  John comments, “They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.” The Greek verb translated here as “realize” can also mean “learn”, as though they had not learned that he spoke of God as his Father and so they did not understand what he was saying at this time, for, as St. John recounts, they had wanted to kill him because he had “made” God his Father, thereby claiming equality with God (John 5, 18).  They had heard him speak.  His words were validated by his miracles.  He claimed that God was his own Father, but they kept themselves from accepting this.  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.”  The “lifting up” refers to the crucifixion.  And at the Second Coming, they will recognize the One who comes as the One who was crucified by his wounds, which he will still bear on his glorified Body.  “The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.”  The Lord speaks of his relation to the Father: he himself is not the Father but the Son.  They are in union with each other: the Father never leaves the Son whom he has begotten and the Son always pleases the Father.

“Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.”  John may mean that many came to believe in him on this particular occasion or later, after reflection on his words.  The Lord’s presence and his words upon people had a tremendous effect on people, his ordinary appearance and Galilean accent notwithstanding.  We can get a sense of this if we regularly pray before him exposed on the altar for adoration.

 Monday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 27, 2023

John 8, 1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” 

“Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.”  The Lord is teaching in the Temple area.  The Greek text simply says he was teaching “in the Temple”, but this probably means outside in one of the courtyards.  The Greek text also gives us a better idea of the numbers people who came to him: “a whole crowd”, or “a crowd of every kind of people”.  The whole Temple complex including the courtyards came to about a thousand feet long by a thousand feet wide, and the Temple itself only takes up a portion of that so even a large crowd would not fill the grounds.  Now, a group of scribes and Pharisees have apparently been summoned to advise on the case of a woman caught in adultery.  Knowing that the Lord is teaching on the Temple grounds and desiring to put him in difficulties, they dragged her through town and then through the grounds until they come before him.  They interrupt his teaching, showing disrespect at the outset, and then put the case before him.  To us, the question seems clear: “Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”  However, the Romans had abolished the power of the Jewish rulers to put anyone to death.  The Sanhedrin itself had mostly given up the death penalty by the time of the Lord’s ministry, as is clear from the Mishnah.  This does not mean the woman’s life was not in jeopardy, for she could have been stoned in a mob action.  But we can see what the scribes and Pharisees were trying to do.  If the Lord meant what he said when he declared that he had not come to do away with the Law but to fulfill (that is, “perfect”) it, then he must rule for the woman to be stoned, which would put him against Roman rule and the interpretation of the Law by the Jews at the time.  It seemed the perfect trap.  

“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  The Lord’s answer and the manner in which he answers shows his lack of concern with the public stature of these scribes and Pharisees.  He also evades the narrow answer they expect, whatever it might be, by turning the focus from a question about the Law to a question involving human life: the lives of the people who would stone the woman and repent too late as well as the woman herself.  

The Lord thoroughly disarms the scribes and Pharisees and they slink away before the assembled crowd, their perfect trap shown to be a thing of vapor.  St. John tells us, “He was left alone with the woman before him.”  From this it is not clear if the crowd he had been teaching also left or if they remained, but the area immediately around the Lord was clear except for the woman.  We can try to imagine her devastation and shame.  Perhaps the man with whom she had cavorted had been beaten up by a betrayed husband.  It is hard to see how she could go back to either man now, or whether any of her family would take her in.  She has her life, but very little else.  She stands before the Lord, still awaiting judgment.  He tells her he does not condemn her, that is, to death.  She is free to go, but he warns her before she does, “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”  After her harrowing experience we might think that she would never sin again, but we know from our own lives how soon we resume sinning when we have made a solemn promise not to.  

We do not know what happened to this woman.  Did she beg forgiveness from her husband? Did he take her back?  Or did she wind up homeless and begging?  Or, did she ask the Lord for help of some kind?  A couple of early writers thought this might be Mary Magdalene and that she was converted afterwards, but there is no evidence for this, as attractive as it idea might be.

We see here how the Lord gives us many chances throughout our lives to convert.  We only bring ourselves greater misery when we put it off.  It is essential to grasp our chance now and repent while we have time.

 The Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 27, 2023

John 11, 1–45

Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to Jesus saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” He said this, and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” So the disciples said to him, “Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.” But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them clearly, “Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.” So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”  So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” 

The Gospel of John contains several long scenes as well as several long accounts of the Lord’s teachings and this, in part, distinguishes it from the first three Gospels, which often contain short sayings, parables, or accounts of miracles.  

St. John’s account of the raising of Lazarus contains much drama, and up until the very end it is not clear what the Lord will do.  Will he raise up Lazarus, as Mary and Martha wish him to do, or will he only comfort them with his presence and his words.  If we read it in a certain way, we may think that he will choose to do the latter, for, we would think. If he meant to raise Lazarus from the dead, why does he not do so right away when he arrives from Galilee?  The answer to that question happens to answer all of our questions about the reason for loss and suffering: “for the glory of God”.  We lose so that we may be given something greater; we suffer so that we may be made worthy of Paradise.  And this shows forth the power and the glory of Almighty God.  With the raising of Lazarus, the followers of the Lord Jesus gain in their faith (“so that you may believe”) and also be prepared for the Lord’s own Death and Rising.  We today continue to rain from the account of this tremendous miracle by seeing how Martha and Mary, far from despairing of the Lord’s help in the midst of the darkness of their grief earnestly and faithfully seek his help, even when it might seem too late.  We also benefit from John’s testimony of the Lord’s emotions here.  Here we see the Lord weeping and his heart moved in his compassion for his friends.  We should consider from this that in the Lord Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, what we see on the outside only hints at what is taking place in his depths.  We see here a sign of how much he loves each of us.  

The last section of this account helps us to understand the forgiveness of sins.  The Lord says to the attendants at the tomb, “Take away the stone.” This is the Lord commanding us to confess our sins.  “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”  Our conscience rebels against confession, aware of the stench of sin which only grows worse with time before repentance.  “If you believe you will see the glory of God.”  The Lord assures us that if we truly repent and do penance, we will be restored to the state of grace.  “So they took away the stone.”  The sins are confessed.  It is a hard and unpleasant work, but it must be done.  “Lazarus, come out!”  The priest absolves the sin.  “The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.”  The penitent is absolved but lest he think he is still tied to sin, Christ commands it: “Untie him.  Let him go”, which is the priest saying to the penitent, “Go in peace.”

 The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, Saturday, March 25, 2023

Hebrews 10, 4-10

Brothers and sisters: It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats takes away sins. For this reason, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.  Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.’ ”  First Christ says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.” These are offered according to the law. Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. By this “will”, we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

This feast could also be called that of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary very soon after the angel of the Lord departed from her after completing his mission.  The Annunciation has been celebrated as far back as our liturgical books go, to the  third or fourth centuries and has always and only been celebrated on March 25.  The tradition prevailed from the earliest days of the Church, that the Lord Jesus was born and died on the same date, March 25, and that the world was likewise created on that day.  It is on account of the Annunciation being fixed on this date that we celebrate the Lord’s Birth on December 25, nine months afterwards.

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass is the familiar text from St. Luke’s Gospel 1, 26-28.  The second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, reminds us of the purpose God had in mind for the Incarnation of his Son of a human mother.  From time immemorial bulls and goats and other animals were sacrificed to obtain forgiveness from God, but the blood of these creatures could only be a sign, a preparation, for the one Sacrifice that would take away the guilt of sin: that of God’s Son.  And it was the will of God’s Son to make this offering of himself: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.  Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.”  The author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 40, 6-8, no doubt one of the Old Testament texts the Lord explained to his Apostles after the Resurrection.  These words are said to be in Christ’s in the sense that they tell us what he desired to do for us.  In them, he says to his Father that because the sacrifice of bulls and goats did not satisfy for sin and because he willed the redemption of the human race, a fitting Victim must be found.  That Victim could only be divine, and would have to be joined to a human nature: the divinity meant a Sacrifice of infinite worth to atone for the sin against infinite majesty, and the human nature meant that there could be the death that was necessary for a true sacrifice.  “A body your prepared for me”, that is, the Body and human nature of this Redeemer would be taken from his Mother.  His human soul would be created ex nihilo by God.  “I come to do your will, O God.”  For the Son, whether in heaven or on earth, life meant doing the will of his Father.  John 6, 38: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”  He does the Father’s will not out of fear or as an unwilling slave, but out of his unutterable love for him.  “He takes away the first to establish the second.”  That is, the Lord Jesus abolished the offerings of animals in order to establish for all time his Sacrifice as that which alone atones for sin.

“By this ‘will’, we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  Baptized in the Lord’s Death, we are consecrated — made sacred.  This is so because of the Lord’s will to offer himself for us and by his doing so.  This reminds us that the Son of God was sent by the Father into the world.  He was sent for one purpose: to suffer and die for us, at one and the same time atoning for our sins and revealing the depths of God’s love for us.

Let us ponder this love for us as we gaze at the smallness he entered into in the Holy Eucharist, and at the crucifix, where we recall all that he has done for us.  By knowing his love for us, we will better know him and love him.

 Friday in the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 24, 2023

John 7, 1-2; 10, 25-30

Jesus moved about within Galilee; he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret. Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, “Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.” So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, “You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.

The Lectionary arrives at this Gospel Reading by chopping up the first section of the seventh chapter of St. John’s Gospel.  Verses 1-30 ought to be read together in order to better understand the context for the Reading.  

On his previous visit to Jerusalem the Jewish leaders there had become enraged at what they perceived as the Lord’s breach of the Sabbath, and then of his claim to be equal to the Father.  Although in danger of his life, he returns to Jerusalem now in fulfillment of the Law to celebrate the harvest thanksgiving known as the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles.  This feast, commanded in the Book of Leviticus, takes place in the Fall.  Some months, then, would have passed since his last pilgrimage to the Holy City.  

“When his brothers had gone up to the feast, etc.”  Relatives of the Lord’s, not brothers in the Western European sense.  These had rudely challenged him to go up to Jerusalem for the feast to preach his doctrine.  We might wonder what contact the Lord would have had with these “brothers” since they lived in Nazareth and he had moved to Capernaum.  Perhaps some of these people had come to Capernaum to buy fish or other goods and stopped by the house in which Jesus was staying.  “As it were in secret.”  The Lord kept to himself on the way and did not engage in any teaching or instruction of the Apostles as he went, as he was otherwise accustomed to do.

“Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ?”  The inhabitants of Jerusalem recognize him, as John tells us in the omitted verses, because he returned to teaching in the Temple area.  At least a few remembered him from the last time he had come, and that the Jewish leaders had, apparently openly, planned to kill him.  The people’s reasoning about whether the authorities had recognized him as the Messiah tells us that the authorities were expected to recognize him and proclaim him when he came.  The rulers are torn on the question of killing him because they  feared the people (cf. Luke 22, 2), and so they hesitated to act.

“But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.”  They think that they know that Jesus was born in Nazareth.  They hear that he is called “Jesus of Nazareth” and then leap to a conclusion rather than simply ask him for the truth.  The idea that no one will know where the Messiah is from strikes us as odd because the scribes knew from Micah 5, 2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  But it is certainly possible for many Jews not to know this or to have forgotten it.  Again, this could have been cleared up by asking the scribes, but they do not.  “You know me and also know where I am from.”  The Lord states this as a subject to be challenged.  He does not inform of them his true place of birth according to his humanity but goes to the deeper issue of his Incarnation, his coming down from heaven:  “I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”  The Lord Jesus does not speak of where he was born, inasmuch as he is man, but of his being sent from heaven.  To be sent is very different from being born.  To be sent implies a relationship with the sender and also a mission entrusted by tue sender.  There is a purpose at work in being sent.  Not so in being born.  The Lord does not answer their unasked question but tells them what they need to know about his origins, and that he was entrusted with a mission by the one who sent him to the earth.

“So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.”  “They” here means the Jewish rulers.  They sent the word out to seize him but no one dares.  No one has spoken like this man.  No one has performed such signs.  This contrasts in a way with the obedience of the Son to his Father: the Father sent him and he went.  He became incarnate.  But the Jewish leaders send their hirelings to seize Jesus and they do not.  Perhaps simply looking at him and hearing him made their limbs too weak to function.  Perhaps they were afraid.

In this Gospel Reading we learn more about the character of Jesus: his courage, his prudence, his persistence in his mission despite opposition and threats.  He is driven by a ferocious love of the human race and of each of us.  He will knock on our doors, pound on them, ring the doorbell incessantly all to get us to listen to the words of life only he can give to us, not because it does him any good to do so, but because it will do us eternal good.  

 Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 24, 2023

John 5, 31-47

Jesus said to the Jews: “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true. You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life.  I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope.  For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true.”  In the past few Gospel Readings for Mass the Lord has used the occasion of his healing a man on the Sabbath, as recorded by St. John, to speak of his authority and his equality with the Father.  Now he speaks to the Jewish leaders of the proof of his claims.  To begin with he admits that if he alone made the claims he was making, should not consider them true, for according to the Law, truth was established by the testimony of two witnesses: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand” (Deuteronomy 19, 15).  

“You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved.”  The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent their emissaries to John the Baptist after his following grew so large as to alarm them.  The purpose of the emissaries was to find out who he was, whether Elijah, the Messiah, or a simple preacher — perhaps a Pharisee.  Instead, John referred to the one who would come after him.  John does not call him the Messiah but describes him in those terms.  Jesus now claims that he is the one to whom John referred, a fact which may not have been known by the Jewish leaders, for John did not announce this to them when he recognized the Lord.  But though the Lord makes this clear to them, he also does not attach any great significance to it.  John prepared the people for his coming, and he was instrumental in the gaining of the Lord’s earliest disciples, but he did not testify to his divinity.  This the Lord now proceeds to prove, moving from human to divine testimony: “I have testimony greater than John’s.”  

The Lord’s first witness is the works he performs: “The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”  Works such as the healing of the lame man, which he has just accomplished.  He performed his miracles in the open where everyone could see them.  These miracles were affective immediately and totally.  He claims the Father as his second witness: “Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf.”  This witness comes in the form of the prophesies which Jesus fulfilled and his vocal commendation, such as that delivered st the time of his Baptism: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3, 17).  The Lord, however, concedes that the Jewish leaders have not heard the Father’s voice at any time: “But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you.”  Still, there is the testimony of the Scriptures: “You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf.”  But they fail to see that the Father testifies to me through the Scriptures because “you do not want to come to me to have life.”  The miracles — or “signs”, as John calls them — point to his divinity, to his divine origin, and this should have sent the Jewish leaders to the Scriptures to verify that this was the Son of God, but they could not get past his appearance: a Galilean from a tiny hamlet of no account, not educated by the Pharisees, and even contesting their interpretation of the Law.  How truly did Jesus say on at least one occasion, “Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized in me” (Matthew 11, 6).  He looked like any other man: “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? . . . There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness that we should be desirous of him” (Isaiah 53, 1-2).  And yet he was the Holy One of Israel, the Lord God of hosts.  Ultimately, the leaders of the Jews could not accept the truth that God so loved them that he would come among them as one of them: “You do not have the love of God in you.” 

“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope.”  The lack of faith and belief in God’s love by Israel’s leaders was not only sad, but culpable, for they failed not only themselves but all of Israel.  “For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”  We might wonder where Moses wrote about Jesus.  The Lord refers to the popular belief that Moses had written the first five books of the Bible, the Torah.  Looking back with the eyes of faith we see that in Genesis 3, 15: “I will put enmities between you and the woman, and your seed and her seed: he shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel” a prophesy of the Redeemer of the human race, but even more clearly at the time there was this: “The Lord your God will raise up to you a prophet of your nation and of your brethren like unto me: him you shall hear him” (Deuteronomy 18, 15), after which God himself explains, speaking to Moses, “I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to you: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And he that will not hear his words, which he shall speak in my name, I will be the revenger” (Deuteronomy 18:18–19).  Many prophets had arisen in Israel over the centuries, but none spoke like him, and none did his works.

The humanity of the Lord Jesus does not scandalize the person who is open to the truth about God’s love, but rather is an attraction.  This openness is a grace from God which we accept from him.  It is an enormous thing to believe that the Son of God walked among us and that he suffered and died and rose for us.  We should never take our faith for granted but see it as the most precious gift a person could have.  We should pray to be made stronger and more persevering in it, and for others to receive it as well.

 Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 22, 2023

John 5, 17-30

Jesus answered the Jews:  “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.  Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.  I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

The beginning of today’s Gospel Reading indicates that the Lord is replying to some remark made by “the Jews”, St. John’s term for the Jewish leaders, comprising the chief priests, the elders, and the Pharisees.  However, the words, “Jesus answered the Jews” comes directly after the final verse of yesterday’s Gospel Reading: “Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a Sabbath.”  Jesus, then, is not answering so much a particular remark as the Pharisaical interpretation of the rules regarding  the Sabbath.  

The basis for the Sabbath rest comes from Genesis 2, 2-3: “On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.  And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”  The Law regarding the keeping of the Sabbath was very strict, too, for in Exodus 35, 2, we read: “And the rest of the Lord: he that shall do any work on it, shall be put to death.”  This would explain the actions of the Jewish leaders.  At the same time, the law presupposes  correct interpretation, which is lacking in this case.  This is behind the Lord’s assertion that, “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.”  That is, while God may be said to cease the creation of the structure of the universe on the Sabbath, he did not cease from the ongoing creation of its components nor of the conservation of the universe itself, both of which actions must be understood as work.  The Lord Jesus claims that as his Father did not cease from work he simply carries on his own work.  The idea of God deciding to “rest” is a very primitive one anyway and was not worthy even of the Jews of the time. It assumes too much that God is like a human, who needs rest from time to time.

“For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these.”  This love of the Father for the Son is work and it did not cease on the first Sabbath nor any other.  The Son, whom Jesus claims to be, sees what the Father has continuously done since the first momentous words of creation, “Let there be light.”  We should note how the Lord expresses this: “loves the Son . . . shows him everything.”  The verb tenses are on the present continuous, not the imperfect, which would be necessary if the work of creation had gone on for a time and then actually ceased.  “He will show him greater works than these.”  As great as the vast display of the universe, still greater than this will be the Resurrection of the Lord from the dead, and the raising of the just. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.”

“Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.”  The Lord Jesus advances his main point: it is because he is equal to the Father in glory and power that he continues to work on the Sabbath.  This glory even extends to his judging the living and the dead.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.”  To obey the Son and believe in him is to obey and believe in the Father, and this leads to a relationship that results in eternal life.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”  The teaching that the souls of the dead waited in limbo for the Son of Man to preach to them already existed in the Lord’s time, as we see in such books as the apocryphal Book of Enoch.  Here, the Lord announces that he himself is the one who will perform this work.  The Lord’s declaration is quite majestic, but it must have shocked the materially-minded Jewish leaders to whom he was speaking.  

“For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man.”  The Lord reveals something of the inner life of the Holy Trinity.  He identifies the Son of Man as indeed the Son of God.  By teaching that the two titles belong to the same Person, the Lord teaches that the title “Son of God” does not have the same meaning as it did in the Old Testament where it signified angels, kings, prophets, and even judges.

“Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.”  The Lord also speaks this to the Sadducees who made up most of the Temple leadership, for they denied that there was life after death, that there would be a resurrection of the dead, and that a great judgment of all humans would be given.  

“I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”  The Lord reaffirms that is the one who will come to judge.  He has spoken of the Son of Man and the Son of God judging the living and the dead, and lest anyone doubt that he was speaking of himself, he says this now.  He also confirms the unity of the Father and Son.  His judgment will not veer in any way from that which the Father  would judge.  And though it would be as if the Father speaks his verdicts through the Son’s mouth, the Son is distinct in his Personhood from the Father, for the Father, the source of all life, human and divine, gives this power to the Son just as he has given him life.

The Sanhedrin who taunted the Lord with his teachings on the night he was betrayed to them will one day look with absolute terror when he comes on the last day for judgment.  Zechariah 12, 10: “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.”  St. John quotes these words in his Gospel and again in Revelation 1, 7.  The just shall look upon the Pierced One when he comes and weep for joy, knowing that he is the Son of God and the Son of Man.  But not the wicked.

 Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 21, 2023

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.

Reading this text, we should note the precision with which John points to the scene of the action.  He gives names of places and specific details about those places.  The text reads almost like a page from a guide to the ancient city of Jerusalem.  We should also note that not only does John want us to know where this event took place, but that it is being reported by an eyewitness.  The dialogue he records is also so natural that reading it is as if hearing it.  The words of the Lord and the lame man stuck in John’s ears, and it is hard to believe that John wrote this up many years after it occurred.  The event is still fresh to him when he recorded it, lending credence to the idea that he wrote his Gospel very soon after the Resurrection of our Lord — certainly within ten years.

The Sheep Gate of which John speaks was constructed as part of the rebuilt Jerusalem by the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Exile, and is referenced in Nehemiah 3, 1.  As the city stood in the days of the Lord, the gate was set in the northeastern section of the city wall, near the Temple.  It had as its particular purpose the entrance to the Temple grounds by sheep brought in from the country to be sold for the sacrifices offered in the Temple.  The Pool of Bethesda was built to wash the sheep in.  Perhaps the Lord Jesus came to this area in order to mediate on how he, the Lamb of God, would be driven into Jerusalem to be interrogated by the Sanhedrin at the beginning of his Passion, not long off.  But he also came to this place in order to meet the lame man.  This man, John tells us, had suffered in this condition for thirty-eight years, longer then Jesus had walked the earth.  He was an older man, then, if we assume that he was afflicted some time after his boyhood.  It is worth thinking about how John knew that the man had suffered for this exact number of years: he could only have known if the man himself had told him.  

“Do you want to be well?”  This may seem an unnecessary question, but it may be that the man showed no zeal for trying to get to the healing waters of the pool when the angel stirred up the water, as some alternate versions lead us to infer.  But the question goes deeper than a mere prod to get the man moving.  The Lord Jesus seeks to cause the man to reflect on what he really wants.  Does he indeed wish to be whole?  Or does he not care any longer, but only spends the day at the pool out of habit.  The Lord’s question may be a prompt for him to think about his moral life, too.  Is he in need of forgiveness?  For, the Lord does not ask him, Do you want to walk again?, but, Do you want to be well?

“Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”  The lame man at least attempts to answer the Lord’s question rather than shake his head bitterly or speak disrespectfully, as sometimes happens when we are sick or injured.  Indeed, his words sound as though the man wishes someone would help him get to the water, just once, ahead of everyone else.  We might compare him to the woman who suffered hemorrhages for twelve years and still dared to hope for a cure after all the doctors and treatments and lost money.  “Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.”  The cure happens at once and without any kind of fuss.  The man felt strength in his legs which he had not known for decades, and he did not hesitate to raise himself up.  After finding himself able to walk, he picked up his mat as the Lord had ordered.  He had lain in this same place for so long.  Now it was as if he had never been there.

“Now that day was a Sabbath.”  John’s comment sticks out for its sharp brevity.  He is preparing us for the trouble the Pharisees will make for the man and for the Lord.  Now, as it happens, nothing in the Law forbids the man from carrying his mat on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees, however, had fashioned for themselves an interpretation of the Law from a few verses of the Scriptures taken out of context and insisted that others follow this as well.  And they made of their interpretation a hill they would die on.  But it was a hill of quicksand.

“The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ”  The Pharisees would have guessed who had performed the miracle.  Only one man performed miracles in those days, the only one who had performed miracles since the time of the early Prophets.  

“Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”  The Lord’s words make us wonder if the man had been engaged in some sort of sin while laying on his mat, or if his lame state had come about through some sin he was committing at the time.  What is clear is that the Lord is not warning him not to talk to the Pharisees.  The man gave honest answers to their questions.  If there was sin here, it was in the heart of the Pharisees who sought to do harm to the Lord.  “The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.”  Two possible reasons may have lead the man to do this.  First, he wanted to get on the good side of the men who put themselves forward as the teachers of Israel.  He may have seen them before in the years he had lain before the pool and felt comfortable telling them.  Second, he may have simply felt an obligation to fill in the gaps in his previous answers.  We need not impute malice in either case.  However, the Pharisees certainly cultivated malice in their hearts: “The Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a Sabbath.”  We note how John phrases his comment.  Not, Because Jesus broke the Sabbath, but, Because he did this on a Sabbath.  The Lord in fact fulfilled the Law of the Sabbath by resting from his Passion on Holy Saturday and by preaching to the souls in limbo.  

In this Reading we learn to perform virtuous acts and not to allow the opinions of others prevent us from doing so. It is better for us to please God rather than men,

 The Solemnity of St. Joseph, March 20, 2023

Matthew 1, 16; 18–21; 24

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. 

The genealogy St. Matthew gives here has St. Joseph’s father as a man named Jacob, but Luke 3, 23 tells us that his father was a man named Heli.  The early Church historian Julius Africanus (d. 240) hands on the tradition that Joseph’s mother was a woman named Estha who first married Heli, but when he died without giving her a son she was married by his brother Jacob, according to Jewish Law, and it is through him that Joseph was born.  Legally, then, the child Joseph had Heli for his son but in the natural sense he was the son of Jacob.  Joseph was of the tribe of Judah and was probably born in Nazareth.  Jacob his father, a carpenter or other skilled workman (the Greek term is not precise), probably trained him in his craft from his early youth, though he need not have lived with the mother and child since he presumably had his own wife and family and had only performed his duty in producing an heir for his brother.  Joseph may then have had half brothers with him in the workshop and half sisters in Jacob’s house with their mother.  

The apocryphal book called the Proto-Gospel of James (composed perhaps around the year 100) hands on the tradition that Joseph was an old man at the time of his marriage to the Blessed Virgin Mary — and the Greek Orthodox Church golds this — but it is not likely because the custom was for young women to marry young men so that they might have many children.  Even if Mary’s supreme holiness were recognized by the people of the time, they would have understood her destiny as being a mother with a wealth of children.  Because of most people married not only within their tribe but within their clan, Joseph would not have looked far beyond Nazareth for a bride, although since his family originally hailed from Bethlehem, he might have thought of going there to find one.  as Nazareth at that time boasted only of five hundred people or less and so he would have known Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anna, from childhood.  He would not have known her well personally, as the sexes were kept separate after early childhood, but he would have seen her in the streets as she went with her mother to the market and also at the synagogue on the Sabbath.  It is likely that he would have seen her at weddings and other celebrations where perhaps he danced with her.  He would also have known about her from what his mother could have told him.  It may well have been his mother who first thought of Mary as a wife for her son.  In those days, marriages were often arranged by the parents, but the match would have had to be approved by the young man and young woman involved.  A period of a year followed the betrothal during which time preparations for the ceremony would have been made and also negotiations over family finances, such as about the dowry, would have been conducted.  It was during this period, between the betrothal and the wedding itself, that Mary told Joseph that she was with child by the Holy Spirit.  Joseph would have listened intently to her and he believed her.  Mary was more than mature for her age, she was the personification of integrity, and every word she spoke rang with truthfulness.  Further, her reputation for holiness was such that, as St. Jerome puts it, it would have been easier for Joseph to believe that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit than that she had committed adultery.

But because Joseph was a righteous man, he was faced with a terrible dilemma.  Just as God had told Moses to take off his shoes because the land around the burning bush was holy ground, so he considered that this conception by the Holy Spirit meant that she should swept away, that he was as a shoe inhibiting Mary’s holy foot from treading the holy ground of God’s will for her.  Yet he loved her and knew that she needed human assistance too.  And his stepping away from her in any sense might be interpreted in unpredictable and likely hostile ways by the people of the town.  The angel in his dream solves his dilemma.  It is almost as though Joseph himself were being put to the test as to what course of action he would take, but unwilling to do anything that might lead to Mary’s and her Baby’s harm and ever desirous of doing the will of God, he, by himself, could not describe what the divine will was.  

Confirming that the Son of Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit and speaking of the Child’s destiny, the angel instructed Joseph to proceed with the wedding and lead Mary afterwards into his house where they would make a home together.  We ought to think of Mary and Joseph joyfully dancing together at their wedding feast, looking into one another’s eyes and sharing a heavenly secret that would change all of human history.  And when Joseph looked into her eyes, he also knew that he was looking into His.  

Joseph and Mary lived the rest of their lives together as pious Jewish parents, trusting in the will of God even when they did not know what that meant at the time.  Jesus attended synagogue with them, first sitting with his Mother, and then, after his bar mitzvah, with his father, and going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with them.  They lived a quiet life for many years in their little town, with Jesus giving signs of his divinity only now and then, but always in unexpected and disconcerting ways.  The Lord’s unwillingness to marry when he came of the proper age may have been one of these ways.  The townspeople and especially his relatives may have resented this because it would have seemed to them that he was neglecting his responsibility to continue his father’s (as they would have imagined it) line, potentially setting up the violent rejection his town would issue him in the years to come.

Tradition and the inferences of the Gospels tell us that Joseph died before the Lord began his public ministry, in the presence of Mary and Jesus.  The Lord, as his reputed son, would have closed his eyelids.  He reigns now in glory in a great place of honor among the saints.  If we go to him to offer our prayers to the Lord, we shall surely hear a favorable reply.