Third Sunday Gospel Reflection

By Mary Briody

Woman, words and water are the dominant images in this passage. The Samarian woman is seemingly filling her jug, an ordinary task, with great love (St. Jane de Chantal would be proud) when a Jew (Jesus) “dares” to ask her for some water. Suddenly, this typically routine activity becomes a turning point, a defining moment in her life. Both bravely cross the social customs of Jesus's day and rise above to engage with each other’s spiritual beings. Like most women, she is part of a large community and soon enough this moment has a ripple effect through the community because she spreads the “good word” about Jesus, the Jew. The word on the Samarian streets was that you can’t trust a Jew. Yet this woman did. The words Jesus had heard about her – “you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband” might be gossip in any other sense, but in this non-judgmental way that Jesus says it to her, it helps to seal his credibility with her. Kind words can make your day and harsh words can linger in your head for days and unfortunately sometimes years. It used to be said that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That does not ring as true today perhaps in part due to words being saved in perpetuity in an email, text, social media post, etc. It’s harder to let them pass. The point is driven home, though, that words are only part of the story. Actions need to follow for us to truly believe as the Samaritans said: “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.” Words pave the way and actions seal the deal. Finally, in this passage we have the image of water rushing over the community and spreading the good word. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” I love this imagery of the “living water” springing us up to eternal life in contrast to the deep abyss of the well. We just have to believe and keep ourselves “spiritually hydrated.”

Dear God, Help me to recognize opportunities amidst everyday life to rise above no matter how uncomfortable and grant me the courage to live up to your spiritual expectations of me. Help me to choose my words carefully and communicate positive thoughts whenever possible. Help me to drink this “living water” through prayer and good deeds to give me the “spiritual adrenaline” and inner joy to get through almost anything in life and help others to do the same. Amen.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent Opening Reflection #1

By Stephen Crooker

As we grow closer to Holy Week and Easter celebrations, Lent’s penitential purple vestments are replaced this Sunday to rose, a lighter version of violet. While our Scripture texts still clearly remind us of our sinfulness and need of grace, they also bid us to rejoice, because God in His immeasurable mercy loves us “even when we were dead in our transgressions.”

Laetare means “rejoice” in the Latin text. On Laetare Sunday (as similarly with the Third Sunday of Advent’s Gaudete Sunday) the Church expresses hope and joy during our Lenten fasts and penances. The change in color to rose indicates a glimpse of the joy that awaits us at Easter, just before we enter the somber days of Passiontide.

Laetare Sunday is the Church’s way of giving us a final and wonderful Lenten reminder as we approach the darkness of the days into Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It’s an opportunity to savor and keep in the back of our minds what awaits us on Easter Sunday the reality that Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, and that our hearts will always be filled with joy!

Lent is a somber, penitential season. It is difficult to spend forty days concentrating on our sinfulness. As we examine our consciences, it is sad and humbling to count the number of sins that we have committed. The process can be demoralizing. Laetare Sunday is a bright and happy occasion, a one-day breather, not dwelling so much upon our sinfulness but upon the joyful promise of God’s mercy.

The readings today show us the Prophet Samuel being sent to find the next King of Israel. It was a dark time for the Chosen People. Sin and division were evident. King Saul was leading the nation to slow ruin. Samuel heeded the call of the Lord and went to the home of Jesse, finding the youthful David, anointed and declared the next King of Israel. It took time for these events to unfold.

Saint Paul reminds the Ephesians they have lived in darkness and sin. No longer. They are now called and invited to live as “children of light” to be examples to others of the grace of Jesus Christ. These events take time. Sin is not abandoned immediately for many, Ephesians included.

The Gospel for Laetare Sunday is a masterwork in the Gospel of John. The man born blind has no identified name. He literally lives in darkness. After many years and into adulthood, the blind man encounters Jesus Christ. He begs to survive day to day. In the Book of Genesis, God creates man from the dust of the earth. Our Lord does the very same to restore the blind man to sight. Jesus works in and through creation. Adding to the restored sight, Jesus also speaks to those who can “see” in the Pharisees. They have eyesight, yet they do not see Jesus and His divinity. The man born blind cannot see, but clearly identifies Jesus as Lord and Savior! Nothing here happened immediately. Sight was restored to the man in adulthood, well into his life.

Laetare Sunday is about rejoicing. It is also about waiting for Easter, for redemption, for liberation from sin. Come Lord Jesus!

Loving Creator, I feel the pace quicken, the time draw near. I am filled with joy as I move toward Easter and the promised reconciliation with you. Teach me to follow the example of your Son, to be worthy of being called one his people: a Christian.

Help me to live each day as he did turning hatred to love and conflict to peace. I await the new life with eagerness, faith and a deep gratitude.

Opening Reflection #2

By Father Noah Morey

Today we celebrate Laetare Sunday, the Latin word for “rejoice”, which comes from our entrance antiphon: “Rejoice, Jerusalem . . . be joyful, all who were in mourning.” We rejoice today because Lent is more than half over, and the Lord’s resurrection is drawing very near. The rose vestments are a symbol of joy and hope, right in the middle of a penitential season. Christian joy is compatible with mortification and sacrifice, because joy is the opposite of sorrow, not of penance. Our Lenten penances don’t make interior joy impossible. Rather, they should increase our joy, because our redemption is near at hand.

Our readings today present the themes of light and darkness, of sight and blindness. Blindness is an image for our sinful condition, and we, like the blind man, were born in sin Original Sin. But by God’s free gift, we’ve been enlightened by Christ through baptism. In a few short phrases of our 2nd reading, St. Paul sums up our past, present, and future. He said, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light.”

By using material things (spit, mud, water), Jesus shows us that He truly became man in the Incarnation. And today, He continues to use outward signs to convey his inward grace through the sacraments. Baptism is prefigured in this gospel passage, where the man’s physical blindness is cured in the pool of water. In baptism, we see only the element of water, but Jesus takes away sin through this water, just as He actually restored the man’s physical sight through the waters of Siloam. But the greater miracle is not the restoration of physical sight; the man, in his poverty and simplicity, has come from spiritual blindness to the light of faith. He can now see Jesus with his physical eyes, but he professes faith in what he can’t see the divinity of Christ. The same happens in the Eucharist.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Gospel Reading

John 9: 1-41

As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or 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, “[So] how were your eyes opened?” He replied, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went there and washed and was able to see.” And they said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I don’t know.” They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbat h. So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.” So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.” [But] others said, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?” His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself .” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Messiah, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; question him.” So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner.” He replied, “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” So they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” They ridiculed him and said, “You are that man’s disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.” The man answered and said to them, “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.” They answered and said to him, “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out. When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him. Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.

Fourth Sunday Gospel Reflection

By Lonnell Battle

This story depicts Jesus performing a miracle as he restores sight to the blind man who had been blind since birth. What is interesting is the blind man can “see” the truth of who Jesus is, whereas the Pharisees who have physical sight are blind to the truth that Jesus is the Light of the world. They are in denial of the truth and refuse to see it. Jesus heals the blind man by smearing clay on his eyes and sending him to the Pool of Siloam to wash it off. This use of water is like a baptismal cleansing of the man to open his eyes to see God’s truth. The Pharisees go so far as to say that the man who can now see is not the blind man, he only looks like him, to deny the truth of who Jesus is and of the miracle performed by Him.

Basically, the blind man “saw” the truth of who Jesus was and told the others, “If this man were not from God,” he would not be able to open his eyes to see, whereas the Pharisees denied, made excuses, and chose not to “see” who Jesus was and what he had done, even though some questioned their logic. This leads me to ask myself: What do I need to do to improve my spiritual vision? When do I see the truth, and when am I blind to the truth that is right in front of me?

Saint Anthony, Restorer of Sight to the Blind

“Dear St. Anthony, you recall the Gospel episode about the blind man who, partly healed, could see men ‘looking like walking trees.’ After a second laying-on of Jesus's hands, he could see perfectly. St. Anthony, Restorer of Sight to the Blind, please sharpen my spiritual vision. May I see people, not as trees or numbers, but as sons and daughters of the Most High. Help me in my pressing needs.”

The Fifth Sunday of Lent Opening Reflection

By Father Noah Morey

As we draw near to the celebration of Easter, the raising of Lazarus foreshadows Jesus’ greatest miracle of all Our Lord’s own resurrection. For if Jesus can call a dead man back to life after four days, then He certainly can raise up His own body on the third day. Nothing can stay dead in the presence of Jesus because He is the resurrection and the life. Just as the Lord says through Ezekiel in the first reading: “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them.” Christ’s resurrection is categorically different from that of Lazarus because Our Lord rose to a glorified and perfected existence, not simply a return to ordinary mortal life. Jesus promises us eternal life, free from pain, arthritis, financial loss, death, and other tragedies. As Saint Paul wrote, “The one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.”

We can learn from the Scriptures by putting ourselves into the scene. Jesus’ love for us, as for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, is present and real. However, He sometimes tests our faith as He did theirs. Jesus knew that Lazarus was dead, yet He remained out of sight for two full days! All of us can point to some concrete tragedy from our own lives, perhaps the death of a family member or some other hardship. In that moment, we might paraphrase Martha and Mary’s cry: “Lord, if you had been here, then I wouldn’t be facing this challenge…” But then we look to Jesus, who shared in our suffering and death. Thus, God knows what’s best for us, even if we don’t understand in the moment. He can use even suffering and death for His purposes, although their place in His plan might remain hidden from us. Jesus said of Lazarus: “This illness is not to end in death but is for the glory of God.” How often do we call out to God to heal our pain or sadness, only to find that He seems absent or aloof? Quite the contrary: Jesus is very near to us, completely aware of the truth of the situation. He is in full control of our lives and right there with us in our weakness, ready to raise us up from any challenge or difficulty.

Lord Jesus, come to us with the power of your resurrection. Make us long for the eternal life you promise more than for material things, for with you is the fullness of life. Let your face shine upon us and we shall be saved. Amen.