Fifth Saturday of Lent

 

WORD of the DAY

 

This man is performing many signs.  If we leave him alone, all will believe in him.   (John 11: 45-56)

How shall I live this Word?

We are at the threshold of the high point of Christian life, the most sacred week of the Liturgical Year; the week of heart break and death; the week of New Life and Resurrection.

The Pharisees and their cohort are planning to kill Jesus because “if they leave Him alone, all will believe in Him”.  Oh if only they had, we may say.  But that was not to be.

As usual, those without ulterior motives, those who have no reason to see Jesus as a threat are the ones who embrace Him and believe.   For the Leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees and Doctors of the Law…those erudite and well-versed in the Scriptures had everything to lose; their whole way of life, their wealth, their places of honor, their power.  Oh yes, they surely felt threatened as they hid behind their motivation, “so that the whole nation may not perish”.

Do we believe in Jesus, in His Word, in His works?  Do we feel we have something to lose if we believe ‘too much’?  There is no gray area here.  Either we believe totally and completely that Jesus is God or we do not.  We cannot half believe.

Ah yes, Jesus is God!  Say it loud and clear!  And let us love Him with all our heart and all our strength and all of ourselves!  JESUS LIVES!

Jesus, grant me a new heart and a new spirit!

The voice of Fr. Girolamo Savonarola, OP 

Either Christ is the True God and the First Cause of all things, or he is not…in virtue of his death…(he) strove to induce learned  and powerful men to join a new religion which would change the whole face of the earth, should acknowledge him as God, should inspire his followers with such fervent love for him, that for his sake they should be ready to lay down life itself… 

How has it come to pass that a poor and lowly man, put to death by crucifixion, has accomplished such mighty deeds?  What god, I speak not of men, can be compared to Christ?

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