GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY : Saturday - April 1, 2023

Saturday - April 1, 2023

“As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus’ thirst… ‘Repent and believe’ Jesus tells us. What are we to repent? Our indifference, our hardness of heart. What are we to believe? Jesus thirsts even now, in  your heart and in the poor – He knows  your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you.”

--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

April 1, 2023

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Lectionary: 256

 

Reading 1                                                     Ez 37:21-28

 

Thus says the Lord GOD:

I will take the children of Israel from among the nations

to which they have come,

and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land.

I will make them one nation upon the land,

in the mountains of Israel,

and there shall be one prince for them all.

Never again shall they be two nations,

and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.

 

No longer shall they defile themselves with their idols,

their abominations, and all their transgressions.

I will deliver them from all their sins of apostasy,

and cleanse them so that they may be my people

and I may be their God.

My servant David shall be prince over them,

and there shall be one shepherd for them all;

they shall live by my statutes and carefully observe my decrees.

They shall live on the land that I gave to my servant Jacob,

the land where their fathers lived;

they shall live on it forever,

they, and their children, and their children's children,

with my servant David their prince forever.

I will make with them a covenant of peace;

it shall be an everlasting covenant with them,

and I will multiply them, and put my sanctuary among them forever.

My dwelling shall be with them;

I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Thus the nations shall know that it is I, the LORD,

who make Israel holy,

when my sanctuary shall be set up among them forever.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              Jeremiah 31:10, 11-12abcd, 13

 

R. (see 10d)  The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.

 

Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,

proclaim it on distant isles, and say:

He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,

he guards them as a shepherd his flock.

R. The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.

The LORD shall ransom Jacob,

he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.

Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,

they shall come streaming to the LORD's blessings:

The grain, the wine, and the oil,

the sheep and the oxen.

R. The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.

Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,

and young men and old as well.

I will turn their mourning into joy,

I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.

R. The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.

 

Verse before the Gospel                                                                                     

 

Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, says the LORD,

and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

 

Gospel                                                                       Jn 11:45-56

 

Many of the Jews who had come to Mary

and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.

But some of them went to the Pharisees

and told them what Jesus had done.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees

convened the Sanhedrin and said,

"What are we going to do?

This man is performing many signs.

If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,

and the Romans will come

and take away both our land and our nation."

But one of them, Caiaphas,

who was high priest that year, said to them,

"You know nothing,

nor do you consider that it is better for you

that one man should die instead of the people,

so that the whole nation may not perish."

He did not say this on his own,

but since he was high priest for that year,

he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,

and not only for the nation,

but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.

So from that day on they planned to kill him.

 

So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews,

but he left for the region near the desert,

to a town called Ephraim,

and there he remained with his disciples.

 

Now the Passover of the Jews was near,

and many went up from the country to Jerusalem

before Passover to purify themselves.

They looked for Jesus and said to one another

as they were in the temple area, "What do you think?

That he will not come to the feast?"

 

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What was the dark night of the soul of Jesus?

Jesus on Good FridayJesus experienced a dark night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsemane. (I learned this from a meditation by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household, which he gave to Pope Saint John Paul II in 2002.)

 

Dark nights often begin with rejection. Perhaps the dark night of Jesus’ soul began, as we see in the Gospel reading (John 11:45-56), when plans to kill him prevented him from walking around in public. How difficult and sad that must have been for him!

 

Although it happened several days before Good Friday, his hands were already being tied and his feet were being shackled, in a sense, because he was no longer free to minister to everyone or to reach out to and offer healing and salvation to those who needed it.

 

Have you ever been constrained from doing good for others? How do you feel about it? Does your soul cry out from a deep love for those you cannot reach?

 

Jesus hunkered down in Ephraim with his disciples while the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and asked, “What are we going to do to stop Jesus?”

 

Has anyone tried to stop you from fulfilling your calling, your God-given dream, your ministry?

 

We are reaching Palm Sunday. The whole of Holy Week is wrapped inside this special feast day, which is why it’s also called Passion Sunday. This is a week like no other week, and now is the time to ready ourselves to enter into it in such a way that we are transformed by it.

 

To live this week like it’s any other week is to waste a very precious gift. By next Saturday, we should be different than we are today: Our lives, or our relationship with Jesus, or the wounds in our hearts should somehow be changed between now and then.

 

The key to receiving this change is to unite your rejections and your sufferings to the Passion of Christ. Think of how your life imitates Christ’s Passion. For what reasons have you been mocked? Scourged? Crucified? Thank Jesus for being with you through it all. Make it redemptive (give it a purpose) by asking the Father to make good come from it. Pray that your sufferings will purify you. And ask God to bless those who persecute you. May the redemption of Christ reach their hearts and souls!

 

Today's Prayer

 

Jesus, forgive me for the times that I was not a living witness to Your goodness and Your active presence in the world. Grant me the grace to be a bold witness to Your work in my life and in the world. Amen.

 

 

God Bless You.....

The Rosary Family

The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”