but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. We have had to live without the Eucharist and this has been a great loss for many Catholics. The first letter of Peter was written from the church of Rome to churches that are now in modern day Turkey. Jesus speaks both as a mystic and as one who serves those who are overburdened. There is a need for different groups of people to take responsibility for different ministries. The people, seeing this sign that he had given, said, This really is the prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus, who could see they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, escaped back to the hills by himself. The words of Jesus to Nicodemus in this mornings gospel reading are one of the strongest and most positive statements in the New Testament about God. In the words of todays responsorial psalm, we are invited to taste and see that the Lord is good. New book for 2021 'You Have the Words of Eternal Life' ~ Weekday Reflections for Liturgical Year 2020/21 at messenger.ie & @veritas.ie Fr. His last appearance in the gospel is alongside Joseph of Arimathea, as they both arrange for Jesus to have a dignified burial. There will always be forces in our world that are hostile to our coming to Jesus. Catholic Daily Reflections - Today's Gospel Meditation for Mass Lectio Divina with the Carmelites - CatholicMom.com We all have something to receive from someone else. One of the tasks of life is to try and listen to the particular call that the Lord is addressing to me here and now. In todays first reading, Philip preaches the gospel in Samaria and the people there unite in welcoming the message Philip preached. The Lord stood in the midst of his fearful disciples; he spoke to their fear, Peace be with you, and he drove out their spirit of fear by breathing the Holy Spirit into their lives. but work for food that endures to eternal life, We are called to listen attentively to the word of God, especially as proclaimed and lived by Jesus who is Gods Word in human form. The gospel reading says that they were talking together about all that happened. Today we might call such a person a facilitator or an enabler of others. God who began to draw the Ethiopian to his Son through the Scriptures now draws him fully to his Son through the spiritual accompaniment of Philip, the preacher of the gospel. Where did this man get all this? And they took offense at him. As he now comes to meet his Lord face to face, we pray that his hopeful faith will continue to inspire us all. As our faith seeks understanding, we are assured of the guidance of the Spirit, without whom true understanding is not possible. She died at the age of thirty three. In coming to us there he directs us to take the path he wants us to take, just as he directed Paul. Philips response to Jesus showed that he felt overwhelmed by the problem. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. So slow to believe the full message of the prophets! It was an unexpected moment which expressed an important truth about how the Pope sees his ministry in the church. If human birth makes the child a son or daughter of his or her parents, birth from above or birth of the Spirit, makes us sons and daughters of God, thereby giving us a share in Jesus own relationship with God as Son. Yet, all we can do is stay with our questions and be faithful to our search. Our presence at the Eucharist is one of the primary ways we come to the Lord in faith and open ourselves to his presence as the bread of life. It was as if a heavenly light helped him to see everything in a new way. We have a whole year to reflect upon that sense of being called by God. To look for Jesus, to search for him, is a good thing. There is an interesting sequence across the two readings this morning. We are called to love others for themselves rather than for what we can get from them. Eternal life is not just a life that begins after death. Jesus presents himself as the one who can satisfy this spiritual hunger. We are then sent out from the Eucharist to nurture and protect life in all its forms. and one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. The light of Jesus, rather, is the inviting light of Gods love, calling out to us to come and to allow ourselves to be bathed in this light, and promising those who do so that they will share in Gods own life, both here and now and also beyond death. In various ways, calls are made upon our time, upon our gifts, upon our energies. He goes ahead of us towards this place and he calls us to follow him. According to the Book of Genesis, God created Adam by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. They seemed lost without Jesus. That reflects the other image of Jesus that we find in the gospel reading today, the image of the shepherd who calls his own sheep, one by one, by name, and leads them out. Sometimes the wind will be at our back and will help us along as we walk. Lectio Divina - Carmelites Yet, it is language which expresses the depth of communion which Jesus wants to create between himself and his disciples. That is good news for us all. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything to him. They were telling each other the story of what happened. Yet, the Lord finds other ways of coming to us when we cannot receive the Eucharist. The gospel reading says that they were talking together about all that had happened. Jesus knows that if the boy is prepared to part with his precious little store, great things can happen. The gospel teaches us that if we give generously from our resources to others, the Lord will work powerfully through those resources, small as they may seem to us. Every day we try to discern what we need to do to give expression to our desire to take Jesus as our gate. Whenever two people share a significant experience together, they invariably talk about it together afterwards; they each tell their own story about what happened. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. On January 6 last, the Pope went to a parish on the outskirts of Rome and he visited a live nativity scene, which had various animals including sheep and lambs. Marks gospel was the primary written source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Like Nicodemus, we all need to keep opening our lives more fully to the Spirit whom the risen Lord is always offering us, so that we can boldly proclaim by our lives the good news of his life, death and resurrection. Yet, without Marks gospel the church would not have had the gospels of Matthew or Luke in the form they have come down to us. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers. Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them. It is not a light to be feared or avoided. In walking with the two disciples, the Lord transformed them from being downcast to having their hearts burn within them; he rekindled their hope. We were born of the Spirit at the time of our baptism. Please join us in praying these daily Lenten Reflections with Fr. It was getting dark by now and Jesus had still not rejoined them. We also cannot control the strength of the wind. He saw in his relationship with the risen Lord the completion of his Jewish faith. Having come to Gods Son, we need to remain in him, to remain in his love, and we do that by keeping his word, by living out his new commandment to love one another as he has loved us. Many believers can be troubled by their sense that the light of Easter does not seem to have penetrated their lives sufficiently. All we can do is to surrender to the breath of the Spirit within us and around us, to allow the Spirit to direct us and to lead us. In both of our readings this morning we have an example of such resistance. In the gospel reading, Jesus speaks out of an experience of resistance on the part of some to what he says and does. For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He never ceases to come to us, and in coming he says to us what he said to his disciples on that first Easter morning, Peace be with you. We can all draw strength in these times from that very personal relationship with the Lord he invites us to have with him. As Jesus received all from God and gave what he received to us, so Jesus looks to us to receive all from him and to give what we receive to one another. We take a tentative step in his direction and the Lord calls on us to take a more generous step. The questions and doubts of our reason are an inevitable part of seeing dimly. The Lords unique call to each one of us is with a view to our being fully alive. In the language of this fourth gospel, it is Jesus, who is close to the Fathers heart, who has made him known. As such times, we need people like Barnabas who recognize that the Lord is behind this new direction and who encourage us to trust that the Lord is present in what is happening. Now Jesus was challenging him to live by the Spirit. The story is a reminder to us that we need each other on the journey of faith. Life after such a loss can be very difficult. The Acts of the Apostles suggests that as soon as the gospel began to be preached after Pentecost efforts were made by people in authority to suppress it. What is of God will also endure. We need to listen to the strangers in our midst. Putting words on the events that have caused us such grief can help us to find some meaning in what has transpired. As he read from the prophet Isaiah, questions rose in his heart and mind. The Lord points to that relationship to express something of his own relationship to us. Jesus immediately challenges him to take a much bigger step towards him; he calls on Nicodemus to allow himself to be born from above, to be born of water and the Spirit.

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