{"id":1165,"date":"2016-03-11T09:11:04","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T07:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2022-04-01T09:59:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T13:59:21","slug":"4th-week-of-lent-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2016\/03\/11\/4th-week-of-lent-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"4th Week of Lent, Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we draw clearer to Holy Week the readings take a more menacing tone. Today’s First Reading echoes perfectly the mentality of the scribes and Pharisees who seek to kill him (the wicked), and their reasons why, even though they probably don’t consider themselves wicked. Their description of the just man who is detestable to them can fit Our Lord perfectly, and so will the outcome.<\/p>\n

In today’s Gospel we see Our Lord starting to be more careful when entering Judea, knowing his life is in danger. The crowds aren’t sure what to make of the lack of action on the part of the authorities. Some think the authorities also believe he is the Christ, but the main point of confusion is the interpretation of prophecies regarding the Messiah. The Messiah will come from Bethlehem, although not everyone knew that, and Jesus was\u00a0known to be from Nazareth in Galilee. Interpretations of Isaiah also said\u00a0that the Messiah would\u00a0have a mysterious, unknown origin, so even Jesus being from Bethlehem would be problematic.<\/p>\n

The dilemma is resolved in faith and a deeper understanding. If the crowds had\u00a0done\u00a0a little more legwork they would have discovered\u00a0that Our Lord was born in Bethlehem. That wouldn’t have been enough, and it would have been the harder way. The easier way, which Our Lord encourages them to take, is to believe in him and by whom he has been sent. That is the mysterious and unknown origin attributed to Isaiah’s prophecy: not only that he comes from God, but that he is God. The only way to arrive at that conclusion is to believe in the signs Jesus has performed as testifying to his divine, mysterious origin.<\/p>\n

Christ is always veiled in mystery; the only way to part the veil and gain a deeper understanding of him is to have faith in him and ask him to help you understand the mysteries of God. Ask, and you will receive.<\/p>\n

Readings:\u00a0Wisdom 2:1a, 12\u201322;\u00a0Psalm 34:17\u201321, 23;\u00a0John 7:1\u20132, 10, 25\u201330.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we draw clearer to Holy Week the readings take a more menacing tone. Today’s First Reading echoes perfectly the mentality of the scribes and Pharisees who seek to kill him (the wicked), and their reasons why, even though they probably don’t consider themselves wicked. Their description of the just man who is detestable to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,8,150],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fourth-week","tag-friday","tag-lent"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-iN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2320,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/2320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}