Monday

4th Week of Lent, Monday

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The Gospel of John is a Gospel of signs. John recalls the signs that Our Lord performed in order to encourage people to believe in him. The first sign was the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus changed water to wine. This sign was already starting to bear fruit: as today’s Gospel recalls, when Our Lord passes through Cana again, a royal official already knows his reputation and seeks him out to heal his terminally ill child.

Today’s First Reading reminds us that one of the signs to which we can look forward is the end of sorrow and the blessing of longevity; it is a freedom from illness and the sorrow that ensues from it. The royal official today is seeking a healing, but still expects a process to be followed when he approaches Jesus. Perhaps he was rationalizing what Our Lord could do and how, which is why he asked him to come down to Capernaum and heal his son; he thought he was on a time table, based on his son’s worsening condition. So Our Lord, in a sense, asked him for a sign of faith and trust by chiding him and then telling him his son would live. The royal official knew that if it wasn’t true his boy could very well be dead by the time he returned home. So John recalls that the man believed and headed back home; he really had no sign to go on other than the first sign and Jesus’s word. It was a long journey (around 25 miles), and servants met him along the way to tell him his son had recovered. It was at the exact hour Jesus said his son would live. This was the second sign in John’s Gospel: with a few words Our Lord healed a dying boy who wasn’t even present.

We pray for miracles, and we should, but even in praying for them we have an opportunity to practice faith and trust by not insisting on the ways and means. Our Lord knows what we need before we ask, but we should ask. He may stretch our faith and trust a little, but if we trust in him, everything will work out. We also know miracles don’t always happen in this lifetime, but today’s First Reading reminds us that it is not a matter of “if,” but, rather of “when.” If the miracle doesn’t happen here, it will happen in eternity, thanks to Our Lord.

Readings: Isaiah 65:17–21; Psalm 30:2, 4–6, 11–12a, 13b; John 4:43–54.

3rd Week of Lent, Monday

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Our Lord’s hostile reception in his home town today reminds us that, as Our Lord taught us, those who do the will of God are his family, not just those who’ve met him and lived with him. We often ask people to pray for intentions on our behalf, and that is good and noble, but we must also pray and have faith. The people of Nazareth wanted to be impressed, but Our Lord taught them that the real welcome he expected was a welcome of faith. They knew him, but they didn’t believe in him or who sent him.

It is ironic that in the end they treated him exactly like Israel had treated prophets in the past who told them something they didn’t want to accept. Perhaps it was a sign of presumed self-importance that they thought they could throw a prophet off a cliff, but Jesus’ mission was too important to be thwarted in a little town like Nazareth. In our family of faith, even today, there are cynics and skeptics regarding Our Lord, and challenging them provokes a similar reaction.

Lent is a time to truly welcome Jesus he is by striving to be as he wants us to be. Let’s examine ourselves and see what he wants us to change in our lives.

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1–15ab; Psalm 42:2–3, 43:3–4; Luke 4:24–30. See also 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 17th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday, and 22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Monday.

1st Week of Lent, Monday

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In today’s First Reading the Lord frames the need to be just and to love your neighbor as yourself as a way to be holy just as he is holy. The Lord reveals something that anyone with common sense and good will can see. Being ethical is a way of being loving, and loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself is a path to holiness. During Lent one possible Lenten resolution is almsgiving. Making an extra effort to be ethical and to be loving is a way of giving alms. In today’s First Reading the Lord describes many ways in which others can be in difficulty, and how helping them and being attentive to their needs is a path to holiness.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord gives another reason for loving and caring for others. The Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” receives an explanation: what you do unto others you are also doing to the Lord himself. Love for neighbor goes from just being the ethical and loving thing to do to being a way to love God himself. Sometimes Our Lord hides really well in those we’re trying to love. Many saints throughout history have persevered in loving nasty, smelly, offensive, ungrateful people because they know they are loving Our Lord and showing those people how much God loves them. We may not feel loving or feel the love, but we continue to try based on a deeper spiritual conviction that it is the right thing to do and also a way of loving Our Lord. When we live this deep spiritual conviction, driven by charity, the difference between those who don’t and us is like the difference between a nasty cranky goat and a humble simple sheep: night and day.

Let’s take stock of our charity today toward God and others and expunge the inner goat.

Readings: Leviticus 19:1–2, 11–18; Psalm 19:8–10, 15; Matthew 25:31–46.

 

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5th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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St. Thomas Aquinas said that one of the reasons that it was fitting for man to be saved through sacraments was because just as man fell through material things, so he should be redeemed through material things. In today’s readings we’re reminded of the importance of holy things to bring us closer to God. Our Lord has taken flesh and lived among us; he doesn’t just expect us to reach out to him immaterially. In today’s Gospel the people are straining to just touch the tassel of his cloak to receive healing. In today’s First Reading the Israelites carefully transfer the holy objects that used to be kept in and around the Ark in the Tent of Meeting into the new Temple, and the Lord through the cloud shows he is pleased to have a place where people can come to be with him and to pray.

God is Spirit and therefore has no need of material things or places, but he has shown us through his Word that we can dedicate material things and places to enable us to draw spiritually closer to him. Many of the sacraments show God working through material things, such as bread, wine, and water. Therefore even though he is spirit our devotion to him can be spiritual through the material. We consider certain things holy–churches, rosaries, icons, etc.–but only inasmuch as they help us draw closer to God. We cherish and respect them because, like those tassels the people were straining to touch in today’s Gospel, they help us to reach out to God through them.

Make an inventory of the religious articles in your home today and whether you’re using them to draw closer to God. Visit your parish and draw physically closer to Our Lord himself in the Blessed Sacrament. Every step we take toward a holy thing out of love for God is a step we take closer to him.

Readings: 1 Kings 8:1–7, 9–13; Psalm 132:6–10; Mark 6:53–56.

4th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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The Gerasenes in today’s Gospel had tried to resolve the issue of the possessed man in the tombs  for a long time. They couldn’t subdue him, they couldn’t chain him up, they couldn’t silence him or even get near him. It’s not clear whether they could hear him crying out from their homes, but he was frequently in their thoughts as something beyond their comprehension and beyond their control. If swine herders lived nearby they were probably not Jewish, and had no idea of God, just the confused religion of many mysterious and fickle powers at play.

Then Our Lord comes into their life. The crazy man in the tombs is dressed and in his right mind, and evil spirits have driven a whole herd of swine into the water. After hearing testimony to the events they responded out of superstition, not faith. If Our Lord could do all this, he was to be feared even more. They didn’t want the unexplainable explained, they just wanted him gone and the unexplainable forgotten. The grace of God came and passed them by, but the Decapolis did hear, from the lips of the formerly possessed man himself, what the Lord had done for him.

We pride ourselves on being educated and knowing how the world works. Yet we can’t ignore that some times things happen that just don’t fit into our heads. Who do we turn to in those moments? Make them moments of faith and not moments of superstition. Our Lord reveals himself in those moments if we don’t shut him out.

Readings: 2 Samuel 15:13–14, 30, 16:5–13; Psalm 3:2–7; Mark 5:1–20. See also 13th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.