Daily Reflection | Gospel Reading | RVA

Gospel: John 5:1-16*

After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, by the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, there is a pool (called Bethzatha in Hebrew) surrounded by five galleries. In these galleries lay a multitude of sick people: blind, lame and paralyzed. (…) There was a man who had been sick for thirty­eight years. Jesus saw him, and because he knew how long this man had been lying there, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?“ And the sick man answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; so while I am still on my way, another steps down before me.“Jesus then said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk!“ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his mat and walked.Now

that day happened to be the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had just been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and the Law doesn’t allow you to carry your mat.“ He answered them, “The one who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk!’“ They asked him, “Who is the one who said to you: Take up your mat and walk?“ But the sick man had no idea who it was who had cured him, for Jesus had slipped away among the crowd that filled the place.Afterwards Jesus met him in the temple court and told him, “Now you are well; don’t sin again, lest something worse happen to you.“ And the man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. So the Jews persecuted Jesus because he performed healings like that on the Sabbath.

Reflections“

Do you want to be healed?“Aside from preaching, healing is important to Jesus. When he passes by a sick man who cannot help himself plunge into the pool when the water is stirred, he asks if he wants to be healed, the man answers “Yes.” Jesus does something unexpected. Jesus commands him instead to rise and take his mat and go home.We might think that healing can be done only by Jesus who has extraordinary powers or some people who have a gift of healing. We, too, as Christians, can heal, if only we can make ourselves available to the sick. We can heal the brokenhearted by listening to their problems or stories. We can bring those with diseases to the clinic and pay their bills.What Jesus actually asks is, “Do you want to be made well (whole, healthy, in Greek hy­gies)?” It has been affirmed even in the social media that the best way to help a sick person suffering from addiction, depression or loneliness is to stay in a supportive community. A sustained healthy relationship in a family or a community can do more than prescribed medicines. One can become sick when he has no joy in his heart.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: John 4:43-54 -
When the two days were over, Jesus left for Galilee. Jesus himself said that no prophet is recognized in his own country. Yet the Galileans welcomed him when he arrived, because of all the things which he had done in Jerusalem during the Festival, and which they had seen. For they, too, had gone to the feast.

Jesus went back to Cana of Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. At Capernaum there was an official, whose son was ill, and when he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked him to come and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
Jesus said, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe!” The official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” And Jesus replied, “Go, your son lives!”
The man had faith in the word that Jesus spoke to him, and went his way. As he was approaching his house, his servants met him, and gave him the good news, “Your son has recovered!” So he asked them at what hour the child began to recover, and they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday, at about one o’clock in the afternoon.” And the father realized that that was the time when Jesus had told him, “Your son lives!” And he became a believer, he and all his family.
Jesus performed this second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.

Reflections
“Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe!”
Jesus demands faith when asking favor from him. He can do everything if he is convinced you have faith. He can even reverse the fate of a dying loved one.
When Jesus performs a miracle, he also wants a response of faith. The evangelist John mentions many times in his gospel the verb “to believe” instead of faith. John tells us whenever people hear him speak or make miracle, they are led to believe in him, though some are not.
The Jews in those days were more secure with their established religion, Judaism, that was flourishing at that time. The Temple of Jerusalem where everyone was required to go annually was imposing, something to identify with and be proud of. It was a symbol of God’s presence. Faith is recognizing Jesus of Nazareth as Son of God sent to teach the way to the Father. In some Arab countries, Christians are called Nazarenes.
To believe is to take to heart the person of Jesus. It is not rejecting him. It is to engage with him. He wants to create a new culture responsive to God. We cannot demand miracles from God if we do not have faith in him.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 -
Meanwhile tax collectors and sinners were seeking the company of Jesus, all of them eager to hear what he had to say. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law frowned at this, muttering, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus told them this parable:
Jesus continued, “There was a man with two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Give me my share of the estate.’ So the father divided his property between them.

Some days later, the younger son gathered all his belongings and started off for a distant land, where he squandered his wealth in loose living. Having spent everything, he was hard pressed when a severe famine broke out in that land. So he hired himself out to a well-to-do citizen of that place, and was sent to work on a pig farm. So famished was he, that he longed to fill his stomach even with the food given to the pigs, but no one offered him anything.
Finally coming to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will get up and go back to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against God, and before you. I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me then as one of your hired servants.’ With that thought in mind, he set off for his father’s house.
He was still a long way off, when his father caught sight of him. His father was so deeply moved with compassion that he ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But the father turned to his servants: ‘Quick!’ he said. ‘Bring out the finest robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Take the fattened calf and kill it! We shall celebrate and have a feast, for this son of mine was dead, and has come back to life; he was lost, and is found!’ And the celebration began.
Meanwhile, the elder son had been working in the fields. As he returned and approached the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what it was all about. The servant answered, ‘Your brother has come home safe and sound, and your father is so happy about it that he has ordered this celebration, and killed the fattened calf.’
The elder son became angry, and refused to go in. His father came out and pleaded with him. The son, very indignant, said, ‘Look, I have slaved for you all these years. Never have I disobeyed your orders. Yet you have never given me even a young goat to celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours returns, after squandering your property with loose women, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
The father said, ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But this brother of yours was dead, and has come back to life; he was lost, and is found. And for that we had to rejoice and be glad.’”

Lectio Divina
READ: Having settled in the Promised Land, the Israelites no longer need manna from heaven. In Christ, we enter a new world—reconciled to God, set free to become ambassadors of reconciliation. In his parable, Jesus tells a story of reconciliation—a passage from death to new life.
REFLECT: It has been said that we all want judgment for others, but mercy for our- selves. For the guardians of “true religion” there is nothing more scandalous that Jesus does than show mercy to “sinners and tax collectors.” His detractors are like the “elder brother” of the parable, the one who has always done what is right and obeyed the rules, and who is scandalized by his father’s forgiveness toward his wayward brother. Yet God’s mission in Christ was to reconcile sinners. His very nature is Mercy. As Pope Francis says, God is more ready to forgive than we are to seek forgiveness.
PRAY: Lord, have mercy on us, and forgive us when we fail to show mercy.
ACT: Reflect on the three characters in Jesus’ parable. With which one do you most identify: the son who seeks mercy? The father who bestows mercy? Or the elder son, who resents the father’s mercy? What does each of them have to teach you?

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Luke 18:9-14 -
Jesus told another parable to some people, fully convinced of their own righteousness, who looked down on others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself, and said, ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people, grasping, crooked, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and give a tenth of all my income to the temple.’

In the meantime the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
I tell you, when this man went back to his house, he had been reconciled with God, but not the other. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised up.”

Reflections:
“O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Jesus describes two men. One is apparently righteous; he is ho- nest, obeys the law, and tithes his income. But his heart is a desert of pride. “Thank God I am not like other people… or even like this tax collector,” he says. Lacking any self-awareness or consciousness of his own sin, he truly worships his own image—a form of idolatry as real as if he worshipped a golden calf. Meanwhile, the tax collector, whom he disdains, offers a genuinely heartfelt prayer: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Christians like to mock the Pharisees. But the figure in Jesus’ parables is all too familiar. How often do we congratulate our- selves on our virtue, our piety, our respectability, disdaining others without any conception of what is in their hearts, or consciousness of our reliance on God’s mercy.
In contrast, Pope Francis, when asked to describe himself, replied, “I am a sinner. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. . . I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” It is good to obey the law, to tithe, to fast, and pray. But the only honest self-description for any Christian is simply, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”In contrast, Pope Francis, when asked to describe himself, replied, “I am a sinner. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. . . I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” It is good to obey the law, to tithe, to fast, and pray. But the only honest self-description for any Christian is simply, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019