22 March 2026 - do you believe this?

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“This illness is not to end in death, 
but is for the glory of God, 
that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

The illness did not end in death, but it did pass through it as a middle point. Jesus did not act immediately so as to avert all suffering. Rather, he delayed, Lazarus died, and the hearts of Martha and Mary were broken. Yet we read that it was precisely because "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus" that, "when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was". This is hard for us to reconcile. It did not seem like the act of a true friend, since it seemed clear by that point that he had the power to save him. And yet we are forced to recon both with the intentionality of Jesus in his choice but also with his obvious love for Lazarus and his sisters. We are not allowed to believe that he didn't care, for the evidence is against that option. Nor can we believe that he couldn't have acted, since by now his power as a healer was evident. Nor can we assert that he didn't fully understand the situation, since they made sure he was aware of it. No. He had sufficient knowledge, power, and goodness. But he did not use them as we would have done. His plan involved a greater good, and an objective that was less temporary than the momentary avoidance of suffering.

“Where have you laid him?”
They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”
And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”

We cannot even conclude that Jesus didn't act because it was easier for him, as though he were too lazy or disinterested to prevent the death of Lazarus. Rather we see that although he allowed suffering in order to bring forth a greater good, he did not disdain to share in that suffering. He asked Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to share in his cross in preparation for the when he himself would bear it. But the fact that Jesus allowed any suffering at all in the world was always predicated on the plan of God in which the death and resurrection of Jesus would redeem all suffering. It wasn't as though he allowed suffering and then remained aloof. Rather, he allowed suffering and then bore the brunt of it for us. Like Mary and Martha we don't always or often see the connection of our particular trials to the Paschal Mystery. But we can be sure that in us, as in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, the consequences of sin and death are being overcome.

“Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me; 
but because of the crowd here I have said this, 
that they may believe that you sent me.”

The immediate upshot to the fact of the death of Lazarus was that it demonstrated something about the power of Jesus that would have been otherwise merely hypothetical. As the time drew near for his own suffering and death he began to plant the seeds that that too would be intentional, not a defeat, but rather a victory of love. This was not something he could have conveyed on a chalkboard in a classroom, not something they could have accepted if he merely said it. They had to confront the reality of death in order to truly come to believe that Jesus was himself the resurrection.

Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the life; 
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, 
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”

We would suggest that the greatest good we see accomplished because of this specific plan of Jesus was precisely the fact that Martha was able to affirm her belief that Jesus was the resurrection and the life, something she did even before Jesus called Lazarus forth from the grave. Indeed it was almost as if it was her faith that drew the future reality of the resurrection into the present moment for Lazarus. Thus the sisters obtained something greater than to merely have their brother again for a few more years or decades. The witnesses were empowered to understand that, with Jesus, even death was not final. But they were also prepared to live on in the era of faith, during which they would still have to endure the consequences of sin and death, until the last day, when the reality they tasted that day would finally destroyed death forever and all things were transformed. 

There is something more important in this present age than to avoid death and prolong life. If our life is merely fleshly life, it does not avail, since in such a state we cannot please God. We are then living on a death-ward trajectory, not connected to the only life that can truly last. Here below what we need more than life itself is the gift we receive when we believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life, when we confess that he is the Christ the Son of God. That gift is his Spirit. When his Spirit is within us we may still feel the effects of death. The body is still in some sense dead because of sin. But the Spirit already has access to the resurrection. The connection is so real as to go beyond the spiritual into physical reality. It is actually precisely this that guarantees that our mortal bodies too will be raised to life. Thus we become the recipients of the promise made through the prophet Ezekiel:

Then you shall know that I am the LORD, 
when I open your graves and have you rise from them, 
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live, 
and I will settle you upon your land; 
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.

David Crowder Band - How He Loves

 

21 March 2026 - believe the hype

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
"This is truly the Prophet."

They thought that Jesus was the one promised by Moses when he said that "your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen" (see Deuteronomy 18:15). If this were true Jesus was more significant than if were merely a compelling teacher or miracle worker. In that case he would not be speaking his own words, no matter how clever, since God said, "I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him" (see Deuteronomy 18:18), implying that adherence was no longer an optional extra for those who happened to vibe with what he said. The Lord continued speaking to Moses saying, "And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him" (see Deuteronomy 18:19).

Others said, "This is the Christ."

People were probably primed to debunk messianic claims, since there had been other pretenders to that position in the past. Others had claimed they fulfilled these promises of God to David for the restoration of Israel, but had failed to do so. Now people were on guard against believing hype or daring to hope. They had been disappointed before by people who might have been something but turned out not to be. So they easy thing for them to do was to poke holes in anything which dared them to hope again. They had been jaded. In many ways people in our world share this cynicism. They have placed their hope in many places and been disappointed. Most things that seem too good to be true are, in fact, not true. But the defensive posture of cynicism can lead us to miss the ways that God really at work in the world. We may use confirmation bias to support our assumptions. We may line up any number of purported 'facts' to justify what we believe a priori. We won't be open to the encounter God desires to have with us, nor to the good he desires to do, which far surpasses all our hopes and dreams.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, "Why did you not bring him?"
The guards answered, "Never before has anyone spoken like this man."

Somehow it is often the sophisticated people who fail to find Jesus, because their own cleverness becomes a trap. Whereas it is the simple who are often less committed to intellectual abstractions and thus able to actually experience encounter with Jesus. The chief priests and Pharisees, if they heard the words of Jesus at all, only heard them through several layers of mental filters. But the guards heard what he actually said. They had probably heard other teachers, sophists, and charlatans. And they knew that this one was not like those others. They knew that he was not like anyone else, then or ever.

Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.

Sometimes experts only use their authority to endorse their own existing positions. They take offense at the prospect of anything that would diminish or usurp their authority in the eyes of others. The Pharisees saw themselves as the ones who knew the law, and Jesus as an outsider and a threat to that claim. They became increasingly committed to the idea that Jesus was a fraud in order to protect their own positions. Or most of them did. But some of them were able to remain open enough to at least hear him out. 

Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, 
"Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?"

Nicodemus already had a sense that Jesus someone extraordinary. He saw his fellow Pharisees claiming to object on the basis of the law while not even giving Jesus the fair hearing which the law required. He was suspicious of this rush to condemn too quickly without hearing him out. Nicodemus himself maintained and encouraged a posture of humble openness to the possibility that one or more of the things that were claimed about Jesus were true. Such a posture is an antidote against both jaded cynicism and prideful cleverness. He is in this sense worthy of our emulation. If we open ourselves to the full reality of Jesus, if we allow ourselves to truly hear his words, and if, in response, we give him our hearts, we will find that he not only fulfills our deepest desires but that he indeed far surpasses them.

Elevation Worship - Here As In Heaven

 

20 March 2026 - where he is from

Today's Readings
(Audio)

But we know where he is from.
When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.

What they knew about where he was from in earthly terms was partial at best, missing the most important data about his birth in Bethlehem, the city of David. It is always bad to judge people based on our assumptions about their origins. We typically overlook many concrete details of their existence and only arrive at stereotypes and prejudices rather than anything real. All the more so when the individual in question was both son of God and son of man. For, as much as they misunderstood his earthly origin, even more did they fail to grasp his heavenly origin. Though he already explained that he had been sent by the Father, they clearly didn't understand or accept it, so he challenged them.

You know me and also know where I am from.

They knew if they believed what he told them. Otherwise it could be taken ironically, in the sense of, 'So you think you know where I am from?'. Thus he went on to explain the sense in which they definitely did not know where he was from, and could not, since they did not know the who sent him. Sure, they knew about that One in some sense, and even worshiped him as their God. But they did not understand him on the sames terms that his only begotten Son understood him. Obviously, they weren't privy to the plan in which the Father decided to send the Son and the Son obeyed and allowed himself to be sent. So any understanding they did have was external, did not penetrate into the heart of God, and thus could not account for the origin of Jesus. Their preconceptions about Jesus and their presumptions about God were both insufficient.

Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.

Here was an opportunity for the confused crowds to look beyond what they thought they knew in order to ask, 'Could it actually be as he said?' But instead of taking it as an invitation they received it as a challenge and became, first defensive, and then aggressive. They might have received the good news of the Gospel but instead heard only blasphemy. They were provoked like the wicked described in the first reading from Wisdom:

Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

And so the judgment given in Wisdom applied also to those opponents of Jesus in Jerusalem in today's Gospel: 

These were their thoughts, but they erred;
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they knew not the hidden counsels of God;
neither did they count on a recompense of holiness
nor discern the innocent souls' reward.

Importantly, Jesus knew all this, and yet did not suddenly deviate from his plan to die for these very people who tried to arrest him and would one day agitate for his execution. They were his enemies, and yet, as with us all, he desired to offer his life to save them. Because we know this we can be sure that even when we make mistakes or fail to live as good friends of Jesus he does not on that basis turn aside from us either. He continues to pour out his love in the hope that we may eventually receive it and be restored. It is important for us to recognize in Jesus the presence of this God-like agape love that transcends any other love we have ever known. It is precisely in our weaknesses and failings that it becomes possible for us to be convinced of this love at the deepest level of our being. It is then that we will say with Saint John, and in the same spirit of wonder in which he said it, that "we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us" (see First John 4:16).

Newsboys - You Are My King (Amazing Love)

 

19 March 2026 - father in faith

Today's Readings
(Audio)

she was found with child through the Holy Spirit

It was discovered that Mary came to be with child through supernatural circumstances. Whatever may be said of Joseph's response, one thing is clear: he didn't plan for this. He understood that Mary was special, that he had a mission to watch over her and protect her throughout her life. But the element of the supernatural had probably not entered into his calculations. He saw himself as up to the task when it seemed to be a merely human task. But now it seemed to be much more.

Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.

Joseph was probably already concerned about the way an imperfect man such as himself could bring shame to his immaculate bride. It was precisely because he was righteous that he had an appropriate sense of his own weakness. And it wasn't as though he needed the definition of the Immaculate Conception handed to him in order to understand that Mary was special. But he probably still saw his mission to her in terms of his superficial value as a Jewish man, and what he could offer her on that basis. He thought of the ways in which he might have been interchangeable with a thousand other men, and so could conceive of filling that role himself. But when it was revealed the way that God was at work in the life of Mary it became clear to Joseph that more was needed. What she needed was not something that any decent man whosoever could provide. Instead, she needed the one specifically anointed and chosen by God for the task. The destiny of the child demanded it.

Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.

Holy fear made Joseph rightly doubt his own capacity. But the angel conveyed the fact that it was not merely what Joseph was in himself that mattered. What mattered was that he was in fact not an accidental addition to the story. He was chosen as a specific and necessary part of the plan. He was the son of David the great king, through whom Jesus himself would be a part of the royal lineage. It was precisely because of Joseph that Jesus was the heir to the promise made to David in our first reading:

I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
It is he who shall build a house for my name.
And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.

Of course just hearing that he was part of the plan still gave Joseph no sense of how a relatively ordinary man such as himself could somehow play that role. Thus the angel reminded him that it was in fact the Holy Spirit that was directing the show. Joseph knew well enough that he did not have the necessary competence in supernatural matters to make good decisions for the Holy Family or even to provide them sufficient protection from the forces arrayed against them. But he didn't need that competence. He needed instead to rely on the Holy Spirit who was already at work and would continue to work, not only in the lives of Mary and Jesus, but also in the life of Joseph himself.

She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.

Thus Joseph was commanded to do something that only he could do. He was told to name the child, claiming him as his son, but also and at the same time as his savior. Joseph, for his part, did not argue the point or hesitate as he wavered between possibly choices. Rather, when he awoke, he obeyed. Such was the character of Joseph. He didn't always know the right way immediately. But when he learned it, he always gave immediate assent of faith. He was, in this sense, like Abraham, a father in faith. Thus, the following passage is also true of Joseph. Let us honor him with the words of Paul:

I have made you father of many nations.
He is our father in the sight of God,
in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead
and calls into being what does not exist.

Damascus Worship Featuring Aaron Richards - Hail Joseph

 

18 March 2026 - doing the work

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"My Father is at work until now, so I am at work."
For this reason they tried all the more to kill him,
because he not only broke the sabbath
but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.

Jesus explained the sense in which it was appropriate for him to work on the sabbath by stating that it was in keeping with the way his Father himself worked on the sabbath, as a commentary says, "Jewish reflection on the nature of God’s sabbath rest (Gen 2:2–3) led to the conclusion that God continued to perform two major activities on the sabbath: giving life and passing judgment on the dead, as seemed evident from the fact that people are born and die on the sabbath"¹. 

Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also.
For the Father loves the Son
and shows him everything that he himself does,

The basis was not merely that God did it and it was thus acceptable for anyone. It wasn't as though everyone was eligible to dispense both life and judgment. Rather Jesus said it was appropriate for the Son to do what he received from the Father. He had a privileged relationship with the Father that was different from that of others. To say a normal man could do something because God did it would be blasphemy. For example, we are not to give our own moral laws or dictate our own ideas about good and evil. Jesus was indeed acting like God, but because he was himself God from God and True God from God.

and he will show him greater works than these,
so that you may be amazed.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life,
so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.

Jesus did give life on the sabbath, in the sense of restoring those whom he healed. But he promised to demonstrate greater works than those healings. Those healings, and his judgment on those who were critical of them, were only meager foreshadowings, since the lives of those whom he healed would still end in death. But they pointed beyond to the resurrection on the last day. On that day those who had heard the words of Jesus and believed in him would pass definitively from death to life. The dead would hear the voice of the Son of God and live. So too would there be definitive judgment on that day, not merely like the temporary judgment of Jesus on the religious leaders, after which repentence was still possible. When the dead heard the voice of Jesus and came out from their tombs those who had done good deeds would be raised to life, but those who had done wicked deeds would go on to the resurrection of condemnation. Thus the activities from which God did not cease on the sabbath, that Jesus continued in his earthly ministry, would find their fulfillment on the last day when the just would enter into the perpetual sabbath rest of life together with God, and the wicked would be cast out.

I cannot do anything on my own;
I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just,
because I do not seek my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.

The opponents of Jesus may have been concerned that he was setting himself up as an alternative, a potential rival, to the God of Israel. They knew that for a mere human to actually have such power would result in selfish egotism preventing judgment from being truly objective. But, humanly speaking, Jesus did not introduce any of his own preferences or predilections into the judgment of God. Rather, he did what mere humans could not and perfectly received, internalized, and conveyed the will of the one who sent him. Thus he was able to judge with perfect justice. But not only that. Because of his connection to the Father he is the one who is able to help lead us beyond our own self-will in order that we too may truly seek the will of the Father. In this way, God fulfilled in Jesus what he promised through Isaiah.

In a time of favor I answer you,
on the day of salvation I help you;
and I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,
To restore the land
and allot the desolate heritages,
Saying to the prisoners: Come out!
To those in darkness: Show yourselves!

1) Martin, Francis; Wright, William M. IV. The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture): (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS) (p. 100). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Who Is Like Thee?

 

17 March 2026 - leaving the pity party

Today's Readings
(Audio)

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
"Do you want to be well?"

It may have once been the case that the man would have been able to answer Jesus with an unqualified yes. But now, after thirty-eight years, although he was at the pool as though he were still seeking healing, it was clear that he had in fact given up. After struggling for so long, seeing others healed, but not being able to make it to the pool in time, he was no longer able to maintain his hope. He was, at this point, going through the motions. But, we might wonder, why bother, if it wasn't helping?

The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."

It seemed that if he couldn't attain the goal of healing he could at least indulge in self-pity. Maybe such a sad story was occasionally rewarded and he was given alms, encouraging the behavior. But one wonders if such an attitude wasn't actually self-destructive. Perhaps he could have found a way to the pool if he had showed a little more spirit. Or, if not, perhaps there was a better way to spend his days than in close proximity to a constant reminder of what could never be.

Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Jesus, however, neither indulged the man nor did he turn his back on him. Rather, if Jesus couldn't find the fire in the man's spirit that he desired to see, he would put it there himself. His answer was so powerful and direct as to bypass all of the man's apparent tendencies toward self-pity, hesitation, and self-sabotage. It had probably been long years since he had done anything in a way that would be described as immediate. But in response to the command of Jesus he demonstrated at once that not only his body but also his soul had been healed.

After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
"Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you."

Jesus did not imply that the initial illness was necessarily caused by sin. Rather he saw the tendencies that had developed in the man as a result of the illness and was aware that they could sabotage not only his daily life but also his spiritual growth. It would be far worse to abandon spiritual progress because of perceived lack of growth than to give up on a healing that was merely physical. Although Jesus healed him on both levels it would be necessary for the man to persist in the grace he had been given. The old ways he used to live need no longer define him. Our guess is that he probably took this positively, and truly valued what Jesus had done for him. If so, then telling the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him was well-intentioned, rather than revenge for ruining his pathetic but perhaps comfortable lifestyle. But. We each face both options as possible responses when we are healed by Jesus. We can begin to be active agents in the story of salvation using the grace we have been given. Or we can be upset by what is expected of us and turn against the one who healed us. Not sinning so that nothing worse may happen is indeed a lifelong process. But we who have been touched by the healing power of Jesus, who now walk by the Spirit, ought to know the goodness of what we protect by avoiding sin. It is the life of God within us, leading us to eternal life with him.

Wherever the river flows,
every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
and there shall be abundant fish,
for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

Switchfoot - Meant To Live

 

16 March 2026 - believing and seeing

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

Jesus said this in order to call those who heard to deeper faith. The royal official in particular might have been uncertain of whether or not Jesus could help, desperate to try anything with a possibility of saving his son. Even when Jesus critiqued those who had to see in order to believe he persisted in his initial request. He asked him to go to the place where the child was so that the healing could be accomplished in a manifest and observable way. He intensified the request, and perhaps also his faith, by addressing Jesus as Lord. It was as though he was admitting the critique of Jesus was correct but also that he didn't know any other way to ask.

Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”

The response of Jesus was almost certainly a challenge to the royal official's faith. He called him Lord. But what did that really mean? Jesus responded to the effect that he would not and need not come but that the beloved son of the official would nevertheless be healed. If the official put his faith in the words of Jesus, he could believe in order to receive the desire of his heart. It reminds us of the lepers who were told by Jesus to show themselves to the priests and who were healed as they were obedient to his command. One might have thought that in his desperation the royal official would have pressured Jesus to come to be physically present to his son, to take every possible measure to see and make sure that the healing was accomplished. But it seemed rather that his desperation, which was certainly real, actually made him open to deeper faith. There was no indication of an argument with Jesus. Rather, he was told "You may go" and he went. As a consequence he received news along the way that what he had asked had been granted, precisely in the moment that Jesus had said, "Your son will live", precisely in the moment he believed.

and he and his whole household came to believe

The way that Jesus orchestrated the healing of the official's son brought him and his whole household to a deeper level of faith than if he had merely come and performed the healing in person. They now had every reason to trust the primacy of belief and understand how faith attains its goal. Yet stories such as this do also serve as signs for others. They are able to understand, not only that a sick child was healed, but also that a family was transformed, and it was through faith that it came about.

What Jesus did for the royal official's son was in fact a preview of coming attractions. The faith of the royal official called a little bit of the future described by Isaiah into the here and now of his present moment. He came to experience that:

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;

Matt Maher - Lord, I Need You