Fourth Week of Lent
10th March 2024 (Sunday)
Psalter: Week 4
Reading of the Day
First Reading: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
In those days: All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. The king of Chaldeans took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfil seventy years. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’”
Psalm 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6 (R. 6ab)
R/. O let my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not.
Second Reading: Ephesians 2:4-10
Brethren: God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Verse Before The Gospel
V/. Glory and praise to you, O Christ
R/. Glory and praise to you, O Christ
V/. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
R/. Glory and praise to you, O Christ.
Gospel : John 3:14-21
At that time: Jesus said to Nicodemus, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Daily Gospel Reflection
Highlight: Love that saves!
Guidelines: True love gives and God’s love is true love, because He gives without measure, even to the extent of giving His very self
1. Yet again, the Word of God impresses upon us the nature, the depth and the extent of God’s love. In fact, already at the creation itself, God testifies to this love. He loves the humans so much that He gives His own divine image and likeness to them.
2. But sadly, humans disfigure this divine identity due to sin. Thereupon, man loses the immortal life, the dignity, bliss and glory. He falls into death, misery and ignominy. But yet again, God’s love comes into action.
3. He does not leave man in such a state of loss and distress. He initiates a story, a journey of salvation, a salvation history. He rewrites the pages of slavery, bondage and misery of the humankind.
4. He enters into their life situations, intervening and acting mightily and delivering and liberating them from slavery and exile. He establishes covenants with them. He makes them prosper in the promised land.
5. One such concrete instance of God’s mighty intervention is depicted in today’s first reading from the book of Chronicles. God wonderfully inspires and steers Cyrus, the king of Persia, a pagan king, to take the initiative toward the building of the temple.
6. But again, sin and evil raise their ugly head. The human ignominy and misery continue. So once more, God had to intervene. If sin abounded, grace must superabound. If the old man brought downfall, a new man must bring upliftment. No human being can rise up to this task.
7. Hence, God Himself shoulders the responsibility. God sends His own Son, as the incarnate Saviour, in the person of Jesus Christ. In and through Jesus, yet again God continues to shower upon the sinful humanity abundant streams of His mercy.
8. It is a loving mercy that condones, forgives, reconciles and restores the fallen man.”God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, as a ransom for human salvation”. Thus, Jesus is the face, the mirror, the replica, the manifestation, the authentication and the testimony of God’s own love.
9. In sensitivity and solidarity, he becomes the ever-flowing streams of mercy and compassion. Even while we are sinners, he deigns to suffer and die for us, and offers liberation and a graced life here and now, and eternal life and salvation there and then.
10. Faith is that graced life, which lives grace, once being liberated from the clutches of sin. So, seen from the divine standpoint, faith is the gratuitous gift of God, a sign of grace and God’s love.
11. At the same time, seen from the human standpoint, faith is also the human response to God’s gift of love and salvation. This gift of faith becomes a task, in responding and cooperating to God’s gift of God’s own life, a restored life.
12. Thus, life becomes light, when concretized and translated into action. To the extent one accepts light, and allows it to work on him, to that extent life becomes vibrant and fully active. Therefore, a person of faith who receives Jesus and the life of God must constantly live in light dispelling all the shades of darkness.
13. In simple details, this living in the light implies: being illuminated, being clear-sighted and focused, being guided and charged to walk in God’s ways, and do good works that shine and show God’s own light.
14. If this is the whole spectrum of love, mercy, faith, life and light, then some basic and vital questions and challenges remain always. How much we are conscious of God’s ceaseless love for us?
15. How much we are profoundly grateful to His mercy that forgives and dignifies us. How do we value, appreciate and live the gift of faith? Do we constantly realize faith as an experience of God’s merciful love and offer of life, and not merely as the belief in certain doctrines and truths?
16. How do I live my new life of faith in a renewed life of light? Am I a faithful person, living the life of God in light and enlightenment, Or am I a mediocre believer walking in darkness, suffocating God’s life?
Practice: Freedom is something great and beautiful. But it is also risky because it makes us accountable to live a life of faith and to walk a way of light.
