Today we are blessed to celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation (a day late because it actually fell on a Sunday in Lent).  We read the story of the angel’s announcement to Mary and her Fiat, recounted only by Luke (1:26-38).  Mary wonders how she will be the mother of “the Son of the Most High” (v. 32) since she has consecrated herself to perpetual virginity (why else would she ask how she could get pregnant?).  After hearing her aged relative is with child, she replies with the line at top in all humility and trust.  Humility and trust is key for us as well.  Can we utter the words above in that manner?  Are we willing to take whatever the Lord ordains or allows for us in such a way that, while we may not understand it at the time and which we may not come to realize until eternity, we fully submit to it, praising Him all the way?  That to which Mary consented gave her unspeakable joy but also sadness and an ultimate sorrow we cannot comprehend (“and you yourself a sword shall pierce” [Lk 2:25]).  We can expect that same combination in life but, accepting the Lord’s will with faith, hope, and love, and remembering that the Beatitudes bless the mourning, persecuted, and insulted, if we persevere our “reward will be great in heaven” (Mt 5:12).

In yesterday’s gospel reading we stayed with John (12:20-33).  Here, the appearance of some Greeks (formerly[?] pagan foreigners) came for the Passover and asked to see Jesus (the whole world is coming to recognize Christ).  This prompts Jesus to a monologue which begins with: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (v. 23).  He says that this time is the time of judgment and He goes on to speak of His impending death obliquely (e.g., grain of wheat must die to produce fruit, when He is lifted up He will draw all men to Himself).  Jesus even receives audible affirmation from the Father which the crowd hears.   Jesus also speaks of what it means to be an authentic follower of His; the headline is the key.  This life is not the end; rather it is the beginning.  But how we act on earth determines our eternal fate.  “Hating” this life does not mean despising ourselves or our circumstances.  We neither look for an early exit, nor treat ourselves, others, or any part of creation without the respect it deserves as being made good by God.  What we cannot do is to cling to anything on earth that prevents us from fully engaging God.  The first commandment declares that we shall not have other gods before God.  If we are guilty of any vice or sin — all of which take away from our right relationship with the Almighty — we must work to eliminate it.  God is waiting to pour out His abundant graces on those who seek them with sincerity.  What is keeping us from fully embracing the Lord?

Moving on in chapter seven (Jn 7:40-53), we find that guards of the chief priests and the Pharisees sent to arrest Jesus (we hear about this order in the skipped section of this chapter containing v. 32) come back having not taken Him into custody and saying the words above to their leaders.  The Pharisees berate the guards and the people for being “deceived” by Jesus  (v. 47), and even chide one of their own, Nicodemus, for asking them to not condemn Jesus before hearing him out.  A common theme running through this passage among the people and the religious leaders is that no prophet can come from Galilee.  That being said, we must return to the headline of this post.  Would it not have been wonderful to hear Jesus in person some 2000 years ago?  But we know the power of Jesus the Word through the words of scripture and the grace of sacrament.  In the liturgy, we get Jesus in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.. Throughout Mass we get even more direct scripture and allusions to scripture.  Then, of course, we hear the words of Jesus through His priest: ‘This is my body, this is my blood” and then Jesus is Really Present in a manner par excellence of which we then have the ability to partake.  We also hear Jesus’ words through His minister in Baptism, Confession, and Anointing, when He wipes away our sins.  In Confirmation we are strengthened in the Holy Spirit by a successor of the apostles.  Again, in Holy Orders, we again find the bishop, this time conferring the power to celebrate the sacraments to men.  And finally, it is Jesus behind the words exchanged in Holy Matrimony and it is in His sight that couples ask Him to seal that bond.  So we hear the voice of Jesus as clearly today as if we were at His feet during His public ministry.  His Church, which flowed out of His pierced side and which gives us word and sacrament, was His gift to us as he promised to be with us always even until the end of time (cf. Mt 28:20).  Listen to Him! (cf. Lk 9:35)

Skipped is chapter 6 as we move on to the following chapter in John  (Jn 7:1-2, 10, 25-30).  Now we find Jesus moving in secret, avoiding certain areas in Galilee, as there are plots to kill Him.  Yet He speaks openly in Jerusalem, making the onlookeers wonder why He is not being arrested by the Jewish authorities.  Maybe they are convinced He is the Christ.  But, He couldn’t be, because all know His origins.  Jesus, realizing what they were saying and thinking, tells them that they do not realize His true origin and mission are from God.  Concluding with the line at top, Jesus then avoids an attempt to arrest Him.  Now, regarding these final words of Jesus, should we not strive to say these truthfully as well?  Of course we are from God because He created us and infused our soul into us at the moment of conception; and we become children of God at baptism.  But how well do we know the Trinitarian God?  Have we spent significant quality time in prayer, reading of Scripture, and studying the Catechism and other worthwhile books on the Faith?  If so, we know that we too are commissioned (i.e., “sent” or apostello [Gk.]) to spread the Good News (cf. Mt 28:19-20) and defend our Faith when necessary (cf. 1 Pt 3:15).

Jesus’ monologue to the Jews that oppose Him continues (Jn 5:31-47).  He berates them for not believing in Him even though John the Baptist, the works He has done for God the Father, and Moses, “in whom you’ve placed your hope” (v. 45), all testified to the Christ.  A key insight that Jesus gives us regarding His persecutors blindness to Him is the words He speaks above.  As we see throughout the gospels, Jesus often reprimands the Jewish religious leaders for seeking places of honor (e.g., Lk 14:1-24, Mt 23:6), dressing and acting in a way to draw attention to themselves (e.g., Mt 23:5), praying in a self-centered way (e.g., Lk 18:9-14) or to gain sympathy (e.g., Mt 6:16-18), looking down upon others (e.g., Lk 15:1-8), and so on.  All indicate a pride that puts oneself first (“they have received their reward” [Mt 6:2]), ahead of others and God.  What is needed for these men, and for us today, is the humility to acknowledge the Truth (Jesus) so that our spiritual scales may fall off (cf. Acts 9:18).  A very important way to make this happen is to study the scriptures.  But not like the men in the gospel who “think [they] have eternal life through them” (v. 39) or, as mentioned earlier, through Moses.  No, we know that our faith is not based on a book but on the Word of God, Jesus.  If we do not see the Christ in all of the Bible, in Sacred Tradition (of which the Bible is a part), and in the teachings of the Church faithfully passed down, then our approach, like that of the Jews we read about today, is not in keeping with the Divine Revealer’s intention.  We have been given these gifts freely by God so as to be able to know Him better and to do His will.  They are not to be ignored, abused, or only partially embraced.  We are called to take the whole Christ faithfully and do as He says.

The gospel for this day (Jn 5:17-30) picks up where it left off yesterday.  First we find out that the Jews’ persecution of Jesus includes a desire to kill Him; they are not only disturbed by His actions on the sabbath, but even more offensive in their eyes is that He declares Himself to be God’s son.  Jesus then delivers a monologue to these same Jews in which He does not back off from what He has said, but rather takes it up to another level.  Jesus refers to God as His father numerous times, says that judgment has been given to the Son, and that based on that judgment those who believe and do good works will receive the “resurrection of life” while evildoers will receive the “resurrection of condemnation” (v. 29).  Jesus closes with the words in the headline.  One who is “sent” is an “apostle.”  We are all called to be apostles of the Lord.  Jesus gives us the attitude we must adopt to truly fulfill the role of apostle: to do the Father’s will always.  We learn the Father’s will through prayer, study, meditation on the scriptures, and knowing our Faith.  The well-formed conscience that should result helps to bring into sharp relief the difference between good and evil.  Only then can we clearly see our own faults, sins, and shortcomings, and then grow, by grace, to overcome them.  Then, once the plank is out of our eye, we can then, always with love, look to remove the splinter from our neighbor’s eye (cf. Mt 7:3).

Yesterday we would have begun a long weekday sequence from the Gospel of John (running through Tuesday of Holy Week, although we will take another detour on the Feast of the Annunication, this year marked on March 26th because the 25th falls on a Sunday) had it not been St. Joseph’s Day.  Yesterday’s gospel passage is normally the one in which Jesus heals the royal official’s son from afar (Jn 4:43-54).  This happened in Capernaum, Galilee.  Today’s reading picks up right from there, with Jesus going up to Jerusalem on the sabbath because of a Jewish feast (Jn 5:1-3, 5-16).  Jesus encounters a man sick for thirty-eight years who is not able to get to the healing waters of the pool of Bethesda.  Jesus asks if he wishes to be healed, he says he can’t make it to the pool in time, and Jesus simply tells him to “Rise, take up your mat, and walk” (v. 8).  The healed man is then confronted by some Jews who object to his carrying his mat on the sabbath.  He says that he was instructed to do so by the man who healed him although he did not who that man was.  Jesus later confronts the man with the words at top.  The man then goes and tells the Jews it was Jesus who had cured him.  The passage ends on an ominous note: “Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath” (v.16).  Isn’t it interesting that Jesus sought after this man to deliver the message above, knowing that he would know who He was and be able to report Him to His enemies.  But Jesus is compelled to deliver this message so it is too important to miss — for the healed man in the gospel and for us today.  We all experience times when we implore God’s help for a healing or special favor.  Often this is accompanied with a vow to reform our lives, eliminate a particular sin or vice, pray more, etc.  But when the matter for which we are so anxious is resolved, how long does it take for us to return to our previous ways and forget our promise to the Lord?  Might not the healed man already have slipped into sin due to his new found health?  Do we do the same?  Worse than any sort of suffering we can experience in our lives is the purgation or eternal torment awaiting us if our lives are not reformed.  Jesus felt the man He healed — and by extension people of every age — needed desperately to hear that message, even at the risk of His own safety.  Take heed!

Today we take a detour as we celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a feast widely celebrated the world over.  The gospel reading is from the infancy narrative of Matthew (1:16, 18-21, 24a).  This well-known passage has Joseph finding out that his betrothed, Mary, is pregnant prior to them living together (i.e., having marital relations).  Knowing this, he intends to divorce her quietly, but an angel appears to him in a dream revealing that the child in her womb was miraculously conceived through the Holy Spirit and “will save his people from their sins” (v. 21).   He is instructed to take Mary into his home, and so he does, as stated above.  Joseph’s unhesitating response to the Lord’s will under difficult circumstances is a wonderful example for us today.  While few of us will have visions of angels, or heavenly voices that audibly guide us, we, like Joseph, must maintain a disposition open to the words of God — or maybe better put, the Word of God.   The Church has faithfully passed down this Word and safeguarded it by her teaching for nearly two millennia.  We need to take advantage of learning it, internalizing it, and reflecting on it so we can live it faithfully.  Joseph was entrusted as the caretaker of the Word Made Flesh and His mother.  We too must care for and safeguard the Word in our hearts, in both word and sacrament, so as to live faithfully that calling for which the Lord has made us.

Today, John gives us maybe the most famous scripture reference of modern times, John 3:16 (part of Jn 3:14-21): “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  Today’s reading is provided by John as a commentary, starting with these words, at the conclusion of Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who comes to see Jesus’ clandestinely at night.  Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be “born from above” (3:3), that is, “born of water and Spirit” (3:5)  to enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus’ final words to the Jewish ruler are: “the Son of Man [must] be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (vv. 14-15).  A powerful message and a wonderful introduction to the gospel for those not familiar with it.  But, unfortunately, the famous 3:16 has been taken in isolation by some.  The closing section of this reading is an important corrective to an attitude of: Just believe and be saved — actions are unimportant.  It has been touched on before in these posts that believing means more than a simple assent.  Believing in the Word means reading all the words of the Bible and appreciating their content and unity.  In this case (in particular in the words at top) John tells us quickly that our lives must conform to our beliefs and that the way we act truly indicates where our hearts lie.  Jesus, time and time again, tells us what we need to do to be a true disciple (the Sermon on the Mount [Mt 5-7] is a good starting point).  While it is true that, later in the New Testament, “works of the law” (maybe better, “works of Torah”) are dismissed as required for eternal life (see Rom 2-3, esp. 3:28), nowhere in scripture are good works considered unnecessary.  Let us always pray and work to have our beliefs and our actions conform for the glory of God and for the evangelization of others.

On this day we read Luke’s account of Jesus’ parable told “to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else” (from the first verse of Lk 18:9-14).  In it, Jesus contrasts the proud Pharisee who lauds his own works while looking down upon a tax collector in the distance who, in humility, says nothing but, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (v. 13).  The latter goes home justified because of his humility.  Humility in prayer is the only proper disposition.  Since God is the antithesis of sin, when we sin, we take the blame, and vow to avoid iniquity and make amends.  If something we have done has had a good effect, we give glory to God for the gifts He has given us and thanks to Him for giving us the grace to cooperate with His will.  Let us never seek the accolades of persons, but only the approval of God: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” (Mt 6:33)