Monday March 15

Fourth week of Lent

 

                                                               Faith in the Future                                                               

 

Introduction

For people who believe, the golden age lies in the future, not in the past, says the third section of the book of Isaiah. Before the exile, the Jews and their prophets looked to the beginnings, to the past, as the golden era from which humankind had declined. Now the prophet turns to the future. For the believer there is a new world to be built as a sign of the new heaven. Life lies in the future.

The building up of this new world began seriously in Christ. His word renews people. Faith in him brings life and healing, something to live for and joy – now and even more so in the future: a new world, a new relationship with God, a new People of God.

 

Opening Prayer

Lord our God, almighty Father,
you want us not to turn to the past
to regret it and to mourn over it
but to hope in the future,
in the new earth and the new heaven.
Give us a firm faith
in your Son Jesus Christ,
that notwithstanding the shortcomings of our time
we may have faith in the future,
which you want us to build up
with your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Reading 1: Is 65:17-21

Thus says the LORD:
Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness
in what I create;
For I create Jerusalem to be a joy
and its people to be a delight;
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and exult in my people.
No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there,
or the sound of crying;
No longer shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime;
He dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years,
and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed.
They shall live in the houses they build,
and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.

 

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 30:2 AND 4, 5-6, 11-12A AND 13B

(2a) I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
I will extol you, O LORD, for you drew me clear
and did not let my enemies rejoice over me.
O LORD, you brought me up from the nether world;
you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
Sing praise to the LORD, you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger lasts but a moment;
a lifetime, his good will.
At nightfall, weeping enters in,
but with the dawn, rejoicing.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

“Hear, O LORD, and have pity on me;
O LORD, be my helper.”
You changed my mourning into dancing;
O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks.
R.  I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

 

Verse before the Gospel:  Am 5:14

Seek good and not evil so that you may live,
and the LORD will be with you.

 

Gospel: Jn 4:43-54

At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.
For Jesus himself testified
that a prophet has no honor in his native place.
When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,
since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves had gone to the feast.

Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,
where he had made the water wine.
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
The royal official said to him,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
While the man was on his way back,
his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.
He asked them when he began to recover.
They told him,
“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.
Now this was the second sign Jesus did
when he came to Galilee from Judea.

 

Intercessions

• Lord, speak only your word and we shall be healed, we pray:
• Lord, touch us with your grace and we shall become new and courageous people, we pray:
• Lord, give us yourself again, and you shall make us capable of giving ourselves to others, we pray:

 

Prayer over the Gifts

Lord our God, these are our gifts:
no more than a little bread and wine,
ordinary bread, a simple drink of joy,
but they become among us
the signs of a great future.
Give us faith, Lord,
a faith strong enough to believe
with absolute certainty
that everything becomes possible,
that we can build up
a new heaven and a new earth
in and through your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.

 

Prayer after Communion

Lord, God of our future,
we believe in your Son Jesus Christ,
who has been with us
in this eucharistic celebration.
On account of him we are convinced
that even death leads to life,
that there are no barriers
to what you can do with us,
unreliable as we are at times,
that all our dreams can come true
beyond all our expectations
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Blessing

Every year the Church gives us this Lent as an opportunity to become the kind of followers of Christ we were meant to be: courageous, close to God, thinking again of others rather than of ourselves and our own petty interests. Continue to let the Lord renew you, with the blessing of almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Commentary

 

Evangelist John had a definite purpose for writing his Gospel – to reveal the true identity of Jesus as the Son Of God. Thus, throughout the Gospel of John we would find numerous people making their Profession of Faith and believing in Jesus.

In the First Chapter we hear John the Baptist’s testimony. “There is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Later we will hear Philip telling Nathanael that “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and the prophets as well…” And towards the end of the first Chapter, we also have the profession of faith of Nathanael: “Master, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel…” The Chapter two narrates the story of the Wedding at Cana and the author of the Gospel would tell us at the end of the narration that, “In this way, he showed his glory and his disciples believed in him.” Chapter two also would tell us the story of Jesus cleansing the temple where Jesus would tell, “Destroy this temple and in three days I would raise it up.” And the author would say, “Only after he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered these words, then they believed …”

Chapter three has the story of Nicodemus who came to meet Jesus in the night… We know, he was the one at the end of the Gospel who accompanied Joseph of Arimathea to bury the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. Then we come to Chapter four: we have the story of the Samaritan Woman at the well. After the long description of the conversation between Jesus and the woman, we find her telling her villagers – “Come and see a man who told me everything I did! Could he not be the Christ?” And Jesus would stay with the Samaritans for two days and when he was leaving, the Samaritans would tell her, “Now we believe not because what you have told us; we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is the Saviour of the World.

And now we come to today’s Gospel passage: the healing of the son of a court official. The whole story is speaks of the great faith, this official had in Jesus. He had to travel a long distance to come to Jesus; and in spite of the initial rejection of his petition, he is insistent. A Word from Jesus was enough for him and he goes! And the result – he and his entire household believed in Jesus.

The Gospel of Jesus continues: Jesus comes to us in our varied life situations. How often do we profess our faith in him?