The Gospel according to Matthew (1:16, 18-21, 24a)

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.

Opening Prayer:  Lord, you had a loving earthly father who taught and cared for you. Open my heart to learn from him as I reflect on Joseph’s life.

Encountering Christ: The story of how Joseph fulfilled his role in the mission of Jesus is very well known. We all know about how Joseph received the message from the angel in his dream and thus he fulfilled his mission in the redemptive process with Mary and Jesus.

If we look at the time of Joseph and go deeper into the culture around Joseph and Mary at the time, I think we would all agree that it took great courage AND faith to continue forward not knowing how and why all this was happening.

Have you ever experienced that moment when you know that a decision needs to be made on something BUT you just are not sure if it’s the right decision? If you answered yes, you are not alone. Joseph found himself in a similar situation. Think about it…. Joseph was going to be the earthly father to the Son of God! No pressure right??? If that were me, I most likely would have woken up thinking I had some bad food at dinner that was making me hallucinate! BUT No! Joseph trusted in the message delivered by the angel and he acted on it. That’s the key here; he acted on it!

If you refer to the picture at the end of today’s reflection you can pick out many words that Joseph adopted and lived by in his life’s journey. Words like resolute, brave, and positive – and the list goes on.

We are closing in on the Easter Triduum and Easter itself. We have hopefully spent our Lenten journey time finding the deeper meaning of our lives with respect to God and have also spent time refining our inner selves preparing to be better witnesses and servants of Jesus and His Father. Hopefully we have done a lot of listening to God rather than speaking to Him.

Joseph remains an amazing model of discipleship for us, and his total submission and dedication to God and Mary is a living testimony that by trusting in God we can bring about a profound change, conversion and redemption to our own lives and to those around us – IF WE TRUST GOD and we listen to God while we are in prayer.

We can celebrate Joseph best by emulating his lifestyle. He is a key figure in scripture that little is talked about. His message for us could easily be – to be an inconspicuous figure in the world that brings about change and God’s values with little fanfare.

We are called to be a deep people of faith that trust in God to lead us where we need to go. God is the autonomous driver of our lives. Live your life not in fear BUT in service! Live life large with conviction and faith. You will find freedom in being God’s servant!

Closing Prayer: Lord, today by your grace I will muster the courage to take up a task that I know needs to be done but I have struggled to undertake.

Action for the Day: Sit and think of three things that you could do for God. Think of things that seem too difficult for you to tackle. Now stop and pray for God’s guidance and resolve. After that, see which of the three God is asking you to do AND DO IT!

The Gospel according to 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?”

Opening Prayer: Lord, thank you for this opportunity to enter into your relationship with the Father. I welcome your revelations today and humbly ask that you give me the grace to know your will and act upon it.

Encountering Christ: As a young man looking for love I was once set up on a blind date.  I was very nervous but hopeful it would go well and all my efforts to impress my date would lead to something meaningful.  I was instantly smitten as she was attractive and charming.  Our double date took us to a club where things started good but started to fizzle as the night went on.  At one point it became painfully obvious that all was not well when I returned from the restroom and found my date dancing with someone else.  I guess I was looking for love in all the wrong places.

In today’s gospel Jesus is direct in saying that the people of God were not only looking in the wrong places but all together missing who John the Baptist, Holy Scripture, and God himself was leading them to.  It appears that the long-awaited messiah, who was present and, in their midst, was unrecognized.  I am not sure what was more disappointing to Jesus, that people did not believe or accept him as the Son of God, or that because of their lack of faith they were far from the Father.

What hindered the people of that time is as much a challenge for us today.  We can attend daily mass, pray often, follow many of the prescribed rituals and practices that identify us a Catholics on the outside but if we do not have the love of God in our hearts, we are a ship without a rudder.  We will chart a course that take us in circles, disoriented, without purpose or meaning.

This reminds me of John 8:19 where Jesus says: “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” The Father sent his only son so that our relationship could be restored and to offer us the inheritance of eternal life.  Yet the lack of love in one’s heart is an obstacle to that gift.

What are we doing so we do not become victims of our own indifference that can lead to an absence of love causing Jesus to say us, you know neither me nor my father.  There is still plenty of time this lent to cast an anchor, focus on the will of God, and through earnest prayer, fasting, and charity, chart a course with a rudder steeped in grace straight to the heart of Jesus and there encounter the Father who runs to meet us on our journey home.

Closing Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to recognize your son in the many people, places, and events in our lives.  We are blessed with endless, countless opportunities to experience your love through your son whom you sent to reveal yourself in the most intimate way possible.  You held nothing back to show us how much you love us.

Action for the Day: Love is a gift not meant to be kept.  Look for an opportunity to share God’s love in a way that you are not accustomed to.  If you find it difficult, look to the giver of that gift for guidance where and how it is most needed.

The Gospel according to 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.

Opening Prayer: Lord our God, you have quenched our thirst for life with the water of baptism.

Keep turning the desert of our arid lives into a paradise of joy and peace, that we may bear fruits of holiness, justice and love.  Lord, hear our prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Encountering Christ:

The story of the lame man being healed by Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda is a wonderful story of Jesus’ reaching out to us in our human condition.  It’s interesting for a few different reasons, actually.  First, the very important question that Jesus poses to the lame man at the beginning:  “Do you want to be well?”  Jesus does not just barge in and heal the man, and He doesn’t seem to make much of a show about doing it.  No, rather, what He does is to ask if the man was really ready for healing.  From a practical sense, that is a very logical question!  The man had, after all, been lame, lying by that pool, for 38 years!  We don’t know how old he was, but it’s pretty likely that he would have had no recollection of *not* being lame.  Being healed would change his life in a very real way.  Was he ready for that upheaval in his life?

Jesus wants to heal all of us.  The things we need healing of can be big or small, but the one thing that is true is that He absolutely has the power to heal us.  The question is if we are ready to let go of whatever that is.  In our flawed human condition, we sometimes aren’t ready to let go of the things that tie us down and keep us from being a follower of Jesus.  During this Lenten season, Jesus longs for us to hand over to Him those burdens.  Will we be willing to do that?  Will we be willing to see the potential “upheaval” in our lives for letting go of them?

Another interesting point from the story is the reaction of the Jewish leaders to the miracle.  Do they give glory to God for His healing of the man?  Absolutely not.  They instead focus on the fact that the whole activity was on the Sabbath, and that the man was now violating the law for carrying his mat!  It’s hard to imagine them missing the point more completely than they did. 

The important thing to note, though, is that these who made the complaint were examples of the Pharisees who knew the law backwards and forwards, but thought that the law itself was the end-all of their faith.  Jesus gives the example here that the guidelines we follow are to give our lives structure and can help us draw closer to God, but they are not the main priority.  The main priority is to love as Jesus loved.  That same mistaken priority on the rules can get in our ways, even in our modern day.  The most important thing we can do is love as Jesus loved.  Jesus made it perfectly clear when He was asked what were the most important laws.  He said, “Love God and love your neighbor”.  It really is that simple.

Of course, it’s simple and difficult at the same time.  Loving our neighbor, especially, is hard, because it means we don’t prioritize our own needs ahead of those who lack.  That viewpoint in life is illustrated in the Corporal Works of Mercy, which we are studying in more detail at our parish this Lent.  Carrying out the Corporal Works is how we love our neighbor.  It’s the challenge for each of us this Lent to try to live out that love better each day.

So, how do we grow to love our neighbor better?  By asking God to heal us of whatever weighs us down, by accepting that healing, and then by seeing everyone as our neighbor, and acting with love and care toward everyone we meet.  Let us start with those in our own homes, even the ones who are hard to love.  That will help us to see the miracles in our day-to-day lives, and to see God’s face in everyone we meet, and long to respect the dignity of every person, because each of us is beloved of God.

Closing Prayer: Lord, help me to see Your face in everyone I meet, and to love them as my neighbor, and to tend to their needs however I can.  Help me to be open to Your healing, and for how You want to work in my life! Amen.

Action for the Day: Do a kind deed for a “neighbor”, without any fanfare or expectation.  And, when you have that opportunity, give thanks to God for putting you in the right place at the right time!

The Gospel according to John (4:43-54)

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

Opening Prayer: Lord, as Lent continues and I grow weary, refresh me in this time of prayer. Help me to see your loving actions in a new way so that I may offer my Lenten sacrifices with renewed fervor.

Encountering Christ:

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” John 4:46–48

I often wonder that if my parents didn’t instill Catholicism in me during my childhood years, would I be Christian? Would I have a faith? Or if I never witnessed my own personal miracles (signs and wonders), would I believe? Then I think the opposite, that if none of the above would have occurred in my life, then I would have missed many great opportunities in my life (Blessings). 

Jesus did end up healing the royal official’s son. And when the royal official returned to discover his son healed, we are told that “he and his whole household came to believe.” Some came to believe in Jesus only after He performed miracles. There are two lessons we should take from this.

First of all, the fact that Jesus performed miracles is a testimony to who He is. He is a God of abundant mercy. As God, Jesus could have expected faith from those to whom He ministered without offering them the “proof” of signs and wonders. This is because true faith is not based upon external evidence, such as seeing miracles; rather, authentic faith is based upon an interior revelation from God by which He communicates His very self to us, and we believe. He offered these miracles not because anyone deserved them, but simply because of His abundant generosity to help spark faith in the lives of those who found it hard to believe through the interior gift of faith alone.

With that said, it’s important to understand that we should work to develop our faith without relying upon external signs. Imagine, for example, if Jesus would have never performed any miracles, anywhere. How many would have come to believe in Him? Perhaps very few. But there would have been some who came to believe, and those who did would have had a faith that was exceptionally deep and authentic. Imagine, for example, if this royal official did not receive a miracle for his son but, nonetheless, chose to believe in Jesus anyway through the transforming interior gift of faith.

It is essential that we work to develop our faith, even if God doesn’t seem to act in powerful and evident ways. In fact, the deepest form of faith is born in our lives when we choose to love God and serve Him, even when things are very difficult. Faith in the midst of difficulty is a sign of very authentic faith.

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, I desire to have the courage and boldness of this royal official who came to you in humility and believed your words in faith. Increase my faith and show me how to help others believe in you.

Action of the Day: Reflect, today, upon the depth of your own faith. When life is hard, do you love God and serve Him anyway? Even if He doesn’t remove the crosses you carry?