5TH WEEK OF LENT
Psalter: Week 1 / (Violet)
Jer 31:10, 11-12abcd, 13
The Lord will guard us,
as a shepherd guards his flock.
1st Reading: Ez 37:21-28*
(…) Thus says Yahweh: I am about to withdraw the Israelites from where they were among the nations. I shall gather them from all around and bring them back to their land. I shall make them into one people on the mountains of Israel and one king is to be king of them all. They will no longer form two nations or be two separate kingdoms, nor will they defile themselves again with their idols, their detestable practices and their sins. I shall free them from the guilt of their treachery; I shall cleanse them and they will be for me a people and I shall be God for them. My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all. They will live according to my laws and follow and practice my decrees. They will settle in the land I gave to my servant Jacob where their ancestors lived. There they will live forever, their children and their children’s children. David my servant will be their prince forever. (…)
Gospel: Jn 11:45-56
Many of the Jews who had come with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw what he did; but some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called together the Council.
They said, “What are we to do? For this man keeps on performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, all the people will believe in him and, as a result of this, the Romans will come and destroy our Holy Place and our nation.”
Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! It is better to have one man die for the people than to let the whole nation be destroyed.”
In saying this Caiaphas did not speak for himself, but being High Priest that year, he foretold like a prophet that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also would die in order to gather into one the scattered children of God. So, from that day on, they were determined to kill him.
Because of this, Jesus no longer moved about freely among the Jews. He withdrew instead to the country near the wilderness, and stayed with his disciples in a town called Ephraim.
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and people from everywhere were coming to Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Passover. They looked for Jesus and, as they stood in the temple, they talked with one another, “What do you think? Will he come to the festival?”
Reflections
I SHALL MAKE MY HOME AT THEIR SIDE
This promise of God is the promise of abiding presence in our lives. Actually God does not have to promise this or need to fulfill this promise because God is not only present to us, we are permeated by the divine which is the ground of our being. Actually the promise might be that we become aware of this presence, this all ABIDING PRESENCE. It is we who are not at home in the depths of our being. I think the most effective way of coming to this awareness is by meditation. If we are told that there is a gold mine in our garden, we will not search for it with a spoon or even a spade. We would use a drill to arrive fastest at our goal. This is what meditation does. It helps us to go into the depths of our being to discover the Divine that has always been there, establish a communion and allow this communion to steer the direction of our lives. We are distracted by many things especially in our current situation. There is too much noise, there are too many pictures, a deluge of information, changing experiences that capture our attention. It is important that we regularly seek solitude and in silence and meditation we dive into that center of our being where God is at home.
Daily Reflection 2018
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Biblical Texts are taken from Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition (57th Edition) The New English Translation for the ROMAN MISSAL
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