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Monday of the Fourth Week in Lent
He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. And there was a court official whose son was ill at Capernaum; 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. Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe!” “Sir,” answered the official, “Come down before my child dies.” “Go home,” said Jesus, “your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus had said and went on him way home. John 4:46-50
The descending way of Jesus, painful as it is, is God’s most radical attempt to convince us that everything we long for is indeed given us. What he asks of us is to have faith in that love. The word “faith” is often understood as accepting something you can’t understand. People often say: “Such and such can’t be explained; you simply have to believe it.” However, when Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love. That’s why Jesus tells Nicodemus that, through faith in the descending love of God, we will be set free from anxiety and violence and will find eternal life.
The mystery of God’s love is not that he takes our pains away, but that he first wants to share them with us. Out of this divine solidarity comes new life. Jesus’ being moved in the center of his being by human pain is indeed a movement toward new life. God is our God, the God of the living. In his divine womb life is always born again. . . . The truly good news is that God is not a distant God, a God to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle.
Our Prayer
Integrity and generosity are marks of Yahweh
for he brings sinners back to the path.
Judiciously he guides the humble,
instructing the poor in his way.
Adoration I offer, Yahweh,
to you, my God.
— Ps. 25:8-10
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