Monday, March 31, 2014

'Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe!'

'Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe!'  When Jesus told this to a father desperate for his son to be well, the father kept insisting telling Jesus, “Come down, before my child dies.” I can relate so much to the man’s persistence, I can feel the kind of desperation in his voice that I too have experienced too many times. Jesus for sure was frustrated when he said this to the father, but still in that instance, he performed the miracle and made the man’s son well. In that instance.  In spite of his frustrations about our human misgivings and faults. Too many times in my life, I feel ashamed and even embarrassed to be kneeling down in front of God and asking him for something. Who am I to ask anything from him? Who am I to demand anything from him? But every time these prayers are answered, I hear God telling me, “You are my daughter and I am your father.”  Just like any parent, God gives in to us when we want something so desperately. And that thought gives me so much comfort in this precarious journey.  I have a father who takes care of me, no matter what.



Reading 1, Isaiah 65:17-21

17 For look, I am going to create new heavens and a new earth, and the past will not be remembered and willcome no more to mind.
18 Rather be joyful, be glad for ever at what I am creating, for look, I am creating Jerusalem to be 'Joy' and my people to be 'Gladness'.
19 I shall be joyful in Jerusalem and I shall rejoice in my people. No more will the sound of weeping be heard there, nor the sound of a shriek;
20 never again will there be an infant there who lives only a few days, nor an old man who does not run his full course; for the youngest will die at a hundred, and at a hundred the sinner will be accursed.
21 They will build houses and live in them, they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-13

2 Yahweh, my God, I cried to you for help and you healed me.
4 Make music for Yahweh, all you who are faithful to him, praise his unforgettable holiness.
5 His anger lasts but a moment, his favour through life; In the evening come tears, but with dawn cries of joy.
6 Carefree, I used to think, 'Nothing can ever shake me!'
11 You have turned my mourning into dancing, you have stripped off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.
12 So my heart will sing to you unceasingly, Yahweh, my God, I shall praise you for ever.

Gospel, John 4:43-54

43 When the two days were over Jesus left for Galilee.
44 He himself had declared that a prophet is not honoured in his own home town.
45 On his arrival the Galileans received him well, having seen all that he had done at Jerusalem during the festival which they too had attended.
46 He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum;
47 hearing that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judaea, he went and asked him to come and cure his son, as he was at the point of death.
48 Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe!'
49 'Sir,' answered the official, 'come down before my child dies.'
50 'Go home,' said Jesus, 'your son will live.' The man believed what Jesus had said and went on his way home;
51 and while he was still on the way his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.
52 He asked them when the boy had begun to recover. They replied, 'The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.'
53 The father realised that this was exactly the time when Jesus had said, 'Your son will live'; and he and all his household believed.
54 This new sign, the second, Jesus performed on his return from Judaea to Galilee.


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