SATURDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK OF LENT - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son:
everyone who believes in him has eternal life. JN 3:16

EZEKIEL 37:21-28 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

This description of how God is going to deal with the children of Israel who despite their adulterous, idolatrous, decadent, evil, sinful lives, will nevertheless redeem them and make them a people after His own heart, filled with His life and His Spirit - is a template of what God in You, have done for us in forming Your Church. She was created from Your side. Her members by Baptism are made children of God. We are cleansed by Your Blood in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We are fed by Your Body in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. We are confirmed and strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. We are fitted as Your disciples to go out into the world and preach the Good News of salvation and all who come to the knowledge of Truth will be saved. 

We have only one King, one Lord, one Savior, one Father who is Father of us all and we are bound in the Love of the Holy Spirit to Father and Son. We belong to God's household and to His Kingdom. Your priestly prayer of unity Lord Jesus, is heard and answered for Your Father always hears You. All who have separated from Your Body will return to the Church and there will be but one flock and one Shepherd. For it is in the Church that You dwell in fullness and in truth. 

We pray for that day. We long for that day. We know it is coming. 

They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and their filthy practices and all their sins. I shall rescue them from all the betrayals they have been guilty of; I shall cleanse them; they shall be my people and I will be their God. My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all; they will follow my observances, respect my laws and practise them. They will live in the land that I gave my servant Jacob, the land in which your ancestors lived. They will live in it, they, their children, their children’s children, forever. 

David my servant is to be their prince forever. I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant with them. I shall resettle them and increase them; I shall settle my sanctuary among them forever. I shall make my home above them; I will be their God, they shall be my people. And the nations will learn that I am the Lord, the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them forever.’

PSALM - JEREMIAH 31:10-13 ©

O nations, hear the word of the Lord,

proclaim it to the far-off coasts.
Say: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him
and guard him as a shepherd guards his flock.’

For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,

has saved him from an overpowering hand.
They will come and shout for joy on Mount Zion,
they will stream to the blessings of the Lord.

Then the young girls will rejoice and dance,

the men, young and old, will be glad.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console them, give gladness for grief.

The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.

JOHN 11:45-56 ©

My Son's Beloved,

The vision of those in authority, and holding positions of power who can command and their decrees carried out without question is at best myopic. They lack divine vision. They are blinkered and hence unable to embrace the grandeur of God's will for His people. Because they are a bunch of narrow-minded, mean-spirited, navel gazers who are so full of themselves they miss the times of divine visitation. This is true of the chief priests, Pharisees, and the religious authority of Your day and true of all organizations and governments across the globe, across eons to the present day, and perhaps will be the state of the world until You return.

It is hard to comprehend the diabolic levels to which a few who think they are gods and who possess unlimited power and wealth believe that they can change the divine world order with impunity. They are zealots convinced they know best what humanity needs.

Four days after Lazarus was in the tomb You raised him to life. Only God has the power to do this and Your enemies were afraid. They knew perfectly well that their reign of terror would cease if people began to comprehend that You are truly who said You were, the Son of God, and the world as they knew it would crumble and their power with it. They would rather deny that the longed-for Messiah had come and were prepared to murder You rather than relinquish their authority and power over the people. 

Today, all dissident voices against cruel governments are silenced by the entire machinery of power available to the powerful. They are eliminated by every means possible. Yet Truth cannot be overcome by lies. The reign of malice will cease. Evil has been conquered by Good and death has lost its sting because the Son of God became the Son of Man and has redeemed the world. 

Jesus was to die to gather together the scattered children of God
Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting. ‘Here is this man working all these signs’ they said ‘and what action are we taking? If we let him go on in this way everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy the Holy Place and our nation.’ One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said, ‘You do not seem to have grasped the situation at all; you fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’ He did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy that Jesus was to die for the nation – and not for the nation only, but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God. From that day they were determined to kill him.