Scripture Reflections for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

"The first readings for Sundays 1 to 4 of Lent sketch for us the history of salvation, reminding us that, from humanity’s beginnings, we have needed, and received, rescue from..."

"How do we know what’s going on? How do we read the signs of the times? We could do so politically, sociologically, culturally, or economically. But the Bible insists that..."

"God sometimes expresses his anger at his people Israel. This is not an emotional snit into which God falls; rather, it is a way of expressing his passion to set..."

"Though the Enlightenment taught us to privatize and interiorize our religion, the Bible has a robustly “political” sense of God’s activity. God’s will is revealed in the movements and struggles..."

“The big statement, if you like, that the cross makes is about the depth of divine love for you and for me; but it also reminds us of uncomfortable truths about what human beings are capable of”

"In this Gospel we have Jesus talking in an unusual way to an unusual man. When we hear Jesus speaking, usually to crowds, it is loud and clear, even if..."

"One of the most important words in St John's Gospel is 'glory'; right at the beginning we read that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld..."

"As so often the Scripture reading regrettably gives us the text -- what the lectionary thinks is Christ's 'teaching' -- without giving us its context. In this case the context..."

"Within each of us there is a longing which draws us beyond ourselves. We reach out to something that calls on us. There is a sense of belonging to something..."

“belief implies ethics and ethics is essentially the practice of faith. Belief is the fundamental first step in the art of creating right relationships with God and the world around us.”

"Friends, our Gospel for today contains one of the most important lines in the entire Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that..."

“Jesus makes clear that believing in our Creator and the divine presence of God in creation is key to understanding that which stretches beyond Earth, into the cosmos and in the realms of Heaven”

“Let yourself feel all that longing and apply it to your situation with God now. He’s inviting you HOME to be closer to him, to better match yourself to him. He gives you grace to do it.”

“What has God not done for us? What has He not given to us to win our love? Who are we to have merited the free gift of His Son?”

“Let’s remember that Baptism is not merely the sacrament of water but of light”

"The Gospel points back to the time of the Great Exodus, when the Israelites were instructed to seek salvation from the pestilence of fiery serpents by raising their eyes to..."

“Are we giving an authentic witness to our faith, by how we live our lives?”

"With the mitigated penance signified by the rose of the fourth Sunday of Lent we signal the conclusion of the first part of this season. In these four weeks our..."

“Christ is present in ways that are beyond my heart, beyond my faith community, even beyond those who believe in Him. Because God so loves the world, we believe that Christ’s presence continues in the world, in all aspects of world, even where Christ’s name is not known or honored.”

"The Divine Love is the great theme of the Bible, but one of the mistakes we can make is to project onto God our way of being. God’s love is..."