April 2
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Give a Mass Offering
Mass Intentions
9:00 AM – Frederick A. Holt / Family
Prayer for Spiritual Communion
My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there, and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.
Readings
First Reading
Jeremiah 11:18-20
I knew their plot because the LORD informed me; at that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.
Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: “Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be spoken no more.”
But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,
searcher of mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!
Responsorial Psalm
Psalms 7:2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12
R. (2a) O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
O LORD, my God, in you I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and rescue me,
Lest I become like the lion’s prey,
to be torn to pieces, with no one to rescue me.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
Do me justice, O LORD, because I am just,
and because of the innocence that is mine.
Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
but sustain the just,
O searcher of heart and soul, O just God.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
A shield before me is God,
who saves the upright of heart;
A just judge is God,
a God who punishes day by day.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
Gospel Acclamation
See Luke 8:15
R. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory!
Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart
and yield a harvest through perseverance.
R. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory!
Gospel
John 7:40-53
Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said, “This is truly the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he? Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” So a division occurred in the crowd because of him. Some of them even wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?” The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.” Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, “Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?” They answered and said to him, “You are not from Galilee also, are you? Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Then each went to his own house.
“O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.”
Reflection
You can almost feel the pace of action picking up as we get closer and closer to Good Friday and the events of Holy Week. The people are talking about Jesus and wondering if he could truly be the Christ of God. Yet they get caught up in all of the confusion of prophecy and vague connections.
“Will he come from Galilee?”
“Is he from David’s family?” they ask.
Certainly, the prophets laid out a clear path from the Old Testament to Jesus, but these people don’t know this important information. They could have just read the reading that we have from Jeremiah and that would have been enough to convince them of Jesus’ authenticity. The townspeople knew that the Sanhedrin was plotting against Jesus because they were jealous and worried about preserving their graft-ridden and corrupt way of life. If they had really been paying attention, they could have remembered that Jesus proved his authenticity through raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, and preaching the Kingdom of God. That should have been enough for them, but it wasn’t.
In the gospel, we see the guards working with the chief priests and the Pharisees to arrest Jesus and bring him before them. But the guards, in hearing Jesus speak, could not bring themselves to do it. They knew that there was something special about Jesus, and they did not want to be the instruments of his destruction. It is interesting to hear the chief priests’ rationale for calling Jesus’ ministry a deception. They say that the main reason that the guards shouldn’t believe Jesus is because they themselves don’t believe in him. This is pretty laughable, because anyone who was paying attention would see that they were just trying to get rid of someone who threatened their dishonest way of life. Nicodemus tries to inject some reason into the discussion, but his words are dismissed with the old “no prophet arises from Galilee” gambit.
What is important for us is to see the way that evil is triumphing over good in the culmination of Jesus’ life. Sin is winning the battle of good and evil. But Jesus has a few things that will ultimately tip the scales. Stay tuned.
Peace,
Deacon Dare
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