“SPRINGS OF LIVING WATER”
Daily Spiritual Reflections
2nd April 2022
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SATURDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT
Jer 11: 18-20; Ps 7: 2-3, 9-12; Jn 7: 40-52
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WE PRAY FOR YOUR MERCY, O LORD
Jeremiah the prophet announces to the people the wrath of God that is about to come upon them because they have broken the covenant that the Lord made with their ancestors. Proclaiming the word of the Lord, he says, “The Lord revealed it to me; I was warned.” The Lord himself revealed to Jeremiah about the evil being schemed against him, and he, on his part, committed his cause to the Lord. We see here Jeremiah’s tremendous faith. He is not afraid to proclaim God’s message despite the threats and plots against him. In his vulnerability and weakness, he puts his trust in God. Where there is trust, there is no place for fear.
On the other hand, in the Gospel, there is a division among the people, concerning Jesus. They have just heard him speak about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive. Some people believed in him as the Christ, while others try to rationalize why he was not and even ridiculed the idea. Even the officers sent to arrest him are amazed at his words. Nicodemus pleads with the chief priests for a fair legal process for him only to be ridiculed, just as the officers and the people who believed were. We see here a tremendous struggle of faith among different groups of people.
Sometimes we too come across difficult situations regarding faith. What do we do in these situations? Do we try to protect the little faith that we have? Or, when things and events turn against our thinking and understanding, do we ridicule those trying to see the situation through the eyes of faith? St Francis de Sales said, “Only little fires have to be sheltered; great ones are fanned by the wind.” It is the Holy Spirit who fires our faith according to the trust that we put in God. In this fourth week of Lent, is our faith little, that it needs to be sheltered? Or, is it great enough to only need fanning in times of tribulation?
Response: O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.
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