4th Sunday of Lent Year ’A’ “As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” 1 S 16,1.6-7.10-13a Ps.22 Eph. 5, 8-14 Jn.9,1-41 "As Jesus went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him ’Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should have been born blind?’ Jesus answered ’He was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him." The man blind from birth is going to evolve in a context of relationships where there is much tension. He is taken up with a multiple people who are very tense with one another and have divergent views.With Jesus he will discover a lovely freedom. When he encounters Jesus he embarks on a marvellous spiritual path which will deepen within himself. Comforted on the inside, he makes the most of all these events with solid common sense. Seeing this blind man exist, the Apostles will broach the subject of evil with Jesus who them to see things with the eyes of faith. It is so the work of God will be made manifest in him, Jesus tells them. Jesus looks at the pain in this blind man and manifests in him the work of God’s Love! We can ask ourselves the question : will the blind man who is in myself believe in the evil that dwells within himself or else believe in Jesus in an act of humility which sets me off opening up to another? Jesus touches the wounded place of humanity, he takes up the mud and does another gesture which recreates. The Infinite Tenderness of the Father brings about this touch of healing Love. “The man named Jesus made a paste, he put it on my eyes and told me ’Go to Siloam and wash yourself.’ ’So I went there and washed myself and I could see.” In this recital if Jesus enlightens the man born blind, he also enlightens our own path. He gets us to discover how in each one of our situations we can take a path of freedom. And so we can walk towards true life. Let so recognise the first rays of light in our lives and follow them. They lead us to greater freedom! “That is just what is so amazing! You don’t know where he comes from and he has opened my eyes!” On this path he names little by little what he discerns and can serenely discern his faith : ’I believe, Lord!’ In the simplicity of his heart this man has obeyed Jesus, he believed in his Word. An act of faith indeed begins with an act of openness and of obedience to the One who announces the Word of God. We ought to make this act very often! God addresses all that is wounded within ourselves in order to heal it, to what is most vulnerable so as to save it. It is how we adhere to God’s action that saves us which carries light in it, we need this Light in order to move forward. "Jesus heard they had ejected him and when he found him he said to him ’ Do you believe in the Son of man?’ ’Sir’ the man replied ’tell me who he is so that I may believe in him’. Jesus said ’You have seen him; he is speaking to you’. The man said ’Lord, I believe’ and worshipped him. God speaks his Word to the heart of man, he does so in complete gratuity. This overflowing gift of Love establishes within us a new relationship of Love. God’s action has awaken this blind man who can jump now! He sees life with a whole new perspective : he sees life in light, in beauty, in the love of the One who has cured him. Such is our faith in God who makes all things new. This new vision will provoke around this man who had once been blind, and blind from birth, much commotion. People around him can’t believe it, this man they question answers them in such a beautiful manner. We can indeed learn from this man who stands up to the Pharisees, to his own relations and to his own solitude. Jesus has brought him into a new relationship which is renewed in God’s Love. This shows how much God is Tender and how He sees the heart. We want to be ever reborn in this new Love. We ask for the grace to understand that God is Love and He acts only through Love. 40. Quatrième semaine de Carême : Forth Week of Lent
4th Sunday of Lent, year ’C’
“My son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours.”
6th March 2016
Jos.5,10-2 Ps.33 2 Co. 5,17-21 Lk.15,1-3.11-32
"The tax collectors and sinners were all crowding round to listen to Jesus. The Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ’This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. So Jesus told them this parable :
There was a man who had two sons. the younger one said to his father ’’Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery. When he had spent it all, the country experienced a severe famine, and so then he began to fall into misery.’
Who is God? A Father who keeps watch, waiting, arms opened wide, a father who forgives and organises a big feast for his son.
The prodigal son tells us again about the Father’s Infinite Love for us. he puts a veil over any fault : ’Immediately, taken up with pity, his father ran and threw his arms around his neck and covered him with kisses.’
And this is how he reintegrate him into his Love. Just by the very fact that his son comes home has he already found life again.
In his feeling abandoned he had already made the experience of being far away, he had been close to death. He has already come back! He is alive. With the parable of the prodigal son, the Christian community is invited to keep hoping that those who, having left their paternal home may one day return, and share in the Tenderness of God.
So he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on the farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled himself with the husks the pigs were eating but no one would let him have them. Then he came to his senses and said ’How many of my father’s hired men have all the food they want and more, and here I am dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say : ’Father I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve t be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men.’"
God always respects our choices, even that of putting him to one side, he hopes for the return of his young son but he doesn’t force anything. He never does force the door!
Despite our selfishness and lack of respect, God remains a Father who is full of tenderness, who ’makes the sun rise on the good and the wicked, making the rain fall down on the just and the unjust.’
He loves the world so much that he sends his Only Son to save us, to live and die amongst us.
This time of Lent is given to us for us to be able to discover the Beloved Son of the Father. Through Jesus, the Saviour of the world, we enter into the mystery of the new, divine filiation. Having become the beloved child of God we give thanks to God and we weave new fraternal links amongst ourselves. Our walk towards Easter is a path of Resurrection in Christ.
Thanks to Jesus, we have become a new creature. ’The former world, that of fear and guilt drowsing in us no longer exists.’ It is at the same time the original fault and also that which humanity adds to the evil in the world that has gone away.
"But the father said to the servants, ’Quick! Bring me the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening and kill it, we wil celebrate by having a feast; because this so of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found’. And they began to celebrate.
Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants, he asked what it was all about. The servant told him, ’Your brother has come, and your father has killed the calf we had been fattening because he has got him back safe and sound.
He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to ure him to come in; but he retorted to his father, ’ All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed any orders of yours, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property-he and his loose women- you kill the calf we had been fattening.
The father said ’My son, you are always with me and al I have is yours. But it was only right that we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life ; he was lost and was found."
The All Powerful has created us freely and free, and He has healed us from past wounds so that our heart may be filled with a new love that is overflowing.
What could the Father do for the elder son, who seems to forget how there exists a difference between succeeding in life an succeeding his life!
The same goes for ourselves, it is to become once more the beloved child of the Father, so that like sisters and brothers who love one another we can build a world of love.
We ask for the grace to remain in the Love of our Father who is a healing power of Love for us.
FORTH SUNDAY of LENT, Year ’A
Sunday 15th March 2015
Forth Sunday of Lent
“As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world : he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” hat joy to welcome the Mercy of Our Lord Jesus who joins us in the reality of our lives. and who enlightens it.This Salvation of God is simple to welcome since all one has to do is to lift up one’s eyes towards the Crucified Lord in order to receive from him the grace of forgiveness that may seem salvation bought at a cheap price! Jesus invites us to believe in him, to welcome freely the new life offered by him because of our faith.no-one can be saved by him the law only the Light and Strength of the Holy Spirit allows us. Jesus manifests that he will have to suffer in Jerusalem. He takes the image of the serpent made of bronze raised up by Moses. It is the necessary manifestation of the cross : the Son of man must be raised up. All the prophets who were sent to manifest love are all turned into derision, despised because of their words and they are made fun of. We ask for the grace to penetrate into the feelings of the Heart of Jesus and to understand the infinite Merciful love of the Heart of Jesus that is always offered up . Jesus is indeed Full of Mercy.
“No-one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God’s Only Son. And the judgement is this : though the Light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the Light because their deeds were evil.” We are saved through a loving and confident faith towards Jesus who allows us to receive the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit not only enlightens but re enforces our heart so as to allow it to produce real fruits of justice.We become just by the graces God pours into our beings through faith and the celebration of the sacraments. The
Holy Spirit can then accomplish in us a work of recreation to make man at the new image of Jesus. Through faith, welcoming the Holy Spirit, received at Baptism, we take part in divine life; this divine life animates us in the most intimate part of our selves, tends to show itself on the outsde.Because of the misery of his people, God in his goodness would like to show the infinite riches of his grace. He “welcomed” humanity who had turned away from his Heart and he “”took it up again “in an even greater love.God is rich in mercy, the misery of our people is faced with the Infinite Love of God.”And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it to prevent his actions from being shown up; but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may appear plainly as done in God.“In order to enter into the dynamic of the salvation offed by Jesus Christ, the first stage is to recognize how much we are wounded.We need to recognize that the good we want to do, we cannot do , and evil can take a hold of us. From this point, a space where the grace of God can dwell can be delved within us. Then we can celebrate the Mercy of God who comes to our encounter. Jesus who is crucified out of love for us becomes a sign and the Cross takes on its full meaning :’The Son of Man”must" be raised up. This is necessary, for in its misery the world cannot raise itself up all by itself. God’s love comes to us so as to create a furnace of love. God’s Love will be revealed at this point. The torrent of God’s Love will take along with it humanity which once again will be able to encounter God’s infinite Love , so rich in Mercy. In being true with true works in our lives we come to the Light , so that our lives may shine with this gentle presence of the Spirt dwelling within us.