Today's readings and reflection

FIRST READING (Jeremiah 20:10-13)

I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived, then we can overcome him, and take our revenge on him.”

But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten.

O Lord of hosts, who triest the righteous, who seest the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance upon them, for to thee have I committed my cause.

Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

GOSPEL (John 10:31-42)

At that time: The Jews took up stones again to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?”

The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, `I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, `You are blaspheming,’ because I said, `I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Again they tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. And many came to him; and they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.”

And many believed in him there.

REFLECTIONS

I am the Son of God - Servants of the Word

Rejection for speaking the truth - Howie Kalb, SJ

Think about how you wear the Cross - Pope Francis

FURTHERMORE . . .

John the Baptist was obviously not as great as Jesus was - he performed no signs like Jesus did. But he did serve his purpose to point people to Jesus.

What a testimony - everything John said about Jesus was true.

John had been beheaded; was gone, but his teaching lived on. May people say about us when we are gone that everything we told them about Jesus was true. May neighbours and co-workers and friends say that we spoke the truth of Jesus in love.

May our kids and relatives and fellow believers know we’re committed to knowing and sharing God’s truth revealed in his Word and in Jesus. And may many believe in Jesus through our testimony as they did there where John had ministered. I pray that you want that kind of legacy - a legacy of loving proclamation of biblical and Christ-honouring truth.

But you will not have that legacy unless you discipline your mind to understand and communicate truth clearly to people of every age.

You may have a legacy of being a nice person, even a caring Christian who did loving acts of service. But you may not leave enough truth behind you for anyone to follow in your footsteps. Please discipline your mind; open your mouth to speak truth to other people.

You will fumble and fail and have to correct yourself and even have to seek forgiveness for wrong words at times. You will even face opposition like Jesus did, but it is worth it. It is worth the joy you’ll have - the love you’ll share. It is worth the effort for the glory of God; the good of others. Be like Jesus; make biblical arguments out of love for souls.

And today, if you are a soul who has never come face to face with the exclusive truth claims of Jesus, then hear him today. He healed all kinds of incurable diseases and afflictions to show his divine power and love. He spoke with undeniable authority and wisdom. He was God in flesh. He lived on earth and then He died to receive the punishment for sin for all who trust him. Then he rose again to prove he conquered of sin and death. So believe; entrust your life to him.

From Blasphemy or Deity? By Mark Vaughan

PRAYER

O my God, I beseech thee, by thy loneliness,

not that thou shouldst spare me affliction,

but that thou not abandon me in it.

When I encounter affliction,

teach me to see thee in it

as my sole Comforter.

May affliction strengthen my faith,

fortify my hope,

and purify my love.

Grant me the grace to see thy hand

in my affliction,

and to desire no other comforter but thee. Amen.

- St Bernadette of Lourdes (1844-1879)

Being misunderstood

Today’s Mass readings# have to do with the way that the people’s misunderstang of Jesus was a factor in his Passion. In a Madonna House Staff Newsletter, reproduced in Grace in Every Season (pp. 66-67), Catherine Doherty comments:

People will not know you for who you are. They didn’t understand Christ in Nazareth for who he was. They won’t understand you either, and being misunderstood will be hard for you. It was hard for the God-Man to be misunderstood, too.

But you will rejoice with great joy, for all this will make you more like your beloved.

All these little things are the fingers of God the Father, conforming you into the loneliness of his Son, conforming you into the misunderstanding that his Son suffered, conforming you into Christ’s hiddenness, and into his pain. Slowly, the fingers of God’s will and the fingers of time will become one. You will be shaped and shaped, not knowing that you are being shaped. You will enter into a great darkness, a great aridity, a great temptation. But oh, rejoice! For this is the desert where Christ spent forty days fasting! This is his hunger you are experiencing. This is the Lover playing court to your soul, hiding himself, as lovers do, so that you, whom he loves, might arise and go in search of him.

The hide-and-seek of love, the eternal playfulness, is now lifted to a supernatural plane. Be at peace! This dark aridity is joyful, for this is the beginning of wisdom, for your beloved is the very Wisdom of God. He teaches you his wisdom now in the loneliness and silence of the desert, now in the quiet and darkness of the night of love. There are two nights in this world: the night of hate and the night of love. This is the night of love.

#Wisdom 2:1, 12-22;  John 7:1-2, 10:25-30

Stations of the Cross (with lots of Scripture)

When I was the Parish Priest of Horsham - that is, the Horsham in Australia! - I put together a user-friendly guide to Stations of the Cross, combining prayers, hymns and Scripture verses from a range of different sources. Over the years it has been found useful with large crowds of people, small groups, and for individual meditation on the journey of Jesus to Calvary.

I share it with you as a Lenten blessing.

Click HERE to read it (or download it). 

“God is never so strong as when he is most weak” – Kallistos Ware

Continuing Bishop Kallistos Ware's teaching on the Passion of Christ from The Orthodox Way: 

St. John introduces his account of the Last Supper and the Passion with these words: "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (13:1). "To the end" - the Greek says eis telos, meaning "'to the last", "to the uttermost". And this word telos is taken up later in the final cry uttered by Christ on the Cross: "It is finished", tetelestai (John 19:30). This is to be understood, not as a cry of resignation or despair, but as a cry of victory: It is completed, it is accomplished, it is fulfilled. What has been fulfilled? 

We reply: The work of suffering love, the victory of love over hatred. Christ our God has loved his own to the uttermost. Because of love he created the world, because of love he was born into this world as a man, because of love he took up our broken humanity into himself and made it his own. Because of love he identified himself with all our distress. Because of love he offered himself as a sacrifice, choosing at Gethsemane to go voluntarily to his Passion: "I lay down my life for my sheep ... No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:15,18). It was willing love, not exterior compulsion, that brought Jesus to his death. At his Agony in the garden and at his Crucifixion the forces of darkness assaiI him with all their violence, but they cannot change his compassion into hatred; they cannot prevent his love from continuing to be itself. His love is tested to the furthest point, but it is not overwhelmed. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not swallowed it up" (John 1:5). To Christ's victory upon the Cross we may apply the words spoken by a Russian priest on his release from prison camp: “Suffering has destroyed all things. One thing alone has stood firm - it is love”. 

The Cross, understood as victory, sets before us the paradox of love's omnipotence. Dostoevsky comes near to the true meaning of Christ's victory in some statements which he puts into the mouth of Starets Zosima: 

“At some thoughts a man stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and he wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide: "I will combat it by humble love." If you resolve on that once for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.” 

Loving humility is a terrible force: whenever we give up anything or suffer anything, not with a sense of rebellious bitterness, but willingly and out of love, this makes us not weaker but stronger. So it is, above all, in the case of Jesus Christ. "His weakness was of strength", says St Augustine. The power of God is shown, not so much in his creation of the world or in any of his miracles, but rather in the fact that out of love God has “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7), has poured himself out in generous self-giving, by his own free choice consenting to suffer and to die. And this self-emptying is a self-fulfillment: kenosis is plerosis. God is never so strong as when he is most weak.

Wednesday of Holy Week

The Leaflet is now HERE.

FIRST READING (Isaiah 50:4-9a)
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom.


GOSPEL (Matthew 26:14-25)
O one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What will you give me if I deliver him to you?"

And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.

And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?" He said, "Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, 'The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.'" And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover.

When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?" He answered, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." Judas, who betrayed him, said, "Is it I, Master?" He said to him, "You have said so."


REFLECTIONS
More on the betrayal
(Word of Life Community)

How do we prepare to celebrate the days ahead?
(Presentation Ministries)


FURTHERMORE . . .
Yesterday and today, the Church has forced us to consider Judas, who betrayed Jesus. Surely one reason for this is to help us recognize the Judas we have within and repent.

Jesus loved Judas. Even when Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, Jesus called Judas his friend (Mt 26:50). At the Last Supper, Jesus gave Judas the select morsel of food (John 13:26). Nor did Jesus embarrass Judas when he announced that one of the apostles would betray him, for when Judas left the Last Supper, some of the other apostles thought Judas was going to "buy what was needed for the feast, or to give something to the poor" (Jn 13:29). Jesus loved Judas so much that he had obviously not drawn attention to his stealing from the common purse (Jn 12:6).

Jesus loves each one of us with tenderness and mercy. He sees the Judas in us, convicts us of our sins, and calls us to repentance so that we will receive his mercy and love. Jesus loved Judas, but Judas pushed his love away. Jesus loves each of us. Will we allow ourselves to be drawn deeply into his love, or, as with Judas, will his death for us be in vain?


PRAYER
O Gracious Father,
we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church;
that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace.
Where it is corrupt, purify it;
where it is in error, direct it;
where in any thing it is amiss, reform it.
Where it is right, establish it;
where it is in want, provide for it;
where it is divided, reunite it;
for the sake of him who died and rose again,
and ever liveth to make intercession for us,
Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord.
Amen.
Archbishop William Laud (1573-1645)