4th April 2020
Saturday of the 5th week of Lent
For today’s Gospel reading click the link below
Mass Readings
Meditation: Do you allow fear or opposition to hold you back from doing God’s will? Jesus set his face like flint toward Jerusalem, knowing full well what awaited him there (Luke 9:51; Isaiah 50:7). It was Jewish belief that when the high priest asked for God’s counsel for the nation, God spoke through him. What dramatic irony that Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus must die for the nation. The prophet Ezekiel announced that God would establish one people, one land, one prince, and one sanctuary forever.
Jesus
suffered for us sinners the punishment we deserved for our sins
Luke adds to Caiphas’s prophecy that Jesus would gather into one the
children of God who are scattered abroad. Jesus came to lay down
his life for the many, but not in a foolish reckless manner so as to throw
it away before his work was done. He retired until the time had come when
nothing would stop his coming to Jerusalem to fulfill his Father’s mission.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) wrote:
“The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the hope of glory and a lesson in patience… He loved us so much that, sinless himself, he suffered for us sinners the punishment we deserved for our sins. How then can he fail to give us the reward we deserve for our righteousness, for he is the source of righteousness? How can he, whose promises are true, fail to reward the saints when he bore the punishment of sinners, though without sin himself? Brethren, let us then fearlessly acknowledge, and even openly proclaim, that Christ was crucified for us; let us confess it, not in fear but in joy, not in shame but in glory.”
The way to glory and victory for us is through the cross of Jesus Christ. Are you ready to take up your cross and follow Christ in his way of victory?
“Lord Jesus, may we your disciples be ever ready to lay down our lives in conformity to your will, to willingly suffer and die for you, that we may also share in your victory and glory.”
Psalm 22:1, 6-10
1 My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my
groaning?
6 But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads;
8 “He committed his cause to the LORD; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in
him!”
9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you kept me safe upon my mother’s breasts.
10 Upon you was I cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been
my God.
A Daily Quote for Lent: The crucifixion is always lived, by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
“The crucifixion is something that must continue throughout our life, not for forty days only, although Moses, Elijah, and Christ fasted forty days. We are meant to learn from them not to cling to this present world or imitate what it says, but to nail our unregenerate selves to the cross.” (excerpt from Sermon 205,1)
copyright (c) 2020 Servants of the Word, source: www.dailyscripture.net, author Don Schwager