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Sunday, Fifth Week of Lent B (March 21, 2021)
Your Daily Blessing: May God level all the mountains and fill up the valleys in your life. Amen.
Read Ezek 37:12-14; Rom 8:8-11; John 11:1-45; pray Psalm 130[129].
Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to it. It is so tiny but when ‘planted’ it first dies, then germinates, or brings forth life, and grows into a tree that sometimes is amazing to see the size! Our life of faith is like that.
Sometimes our faith seems so small and insignificant. But it amazes us how that ‘small faith’ has been able to help us scale through mountains of problems or sufferings in our lives.
Our theme today is ‘life comes from death.’ In previous reflections I have nibbled at what this means. At some point in our life of faith, we will come to the realization that we must necessarily ‘die’ if we must move forward in the spiritual life.
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It is either an intentional or deliberate decision or we find ourselves ‘pushed’ to the wall by circumstances to die to self so that we can move to the next level.
The first reading speaks of how our father’s broke the covenant they made with God and he had to ‘show them he is their master’ through suffering. Suffering is usually a form of death from which new life emerges. Even Jesus has to “learn obedience through suffering” (2nd reading).
And in the Gospel, Jesus says, “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Our suffering is in this life is never a waste. It is the very seed of new life and fruitfulness for eternal life. Nobody should boast of suffering or seek it out, it comes to all in different forms. Even Jesus asked his father to ‘remove’ the cup of suffering, if it pleased him.
Pray in like manner, but do not run away from pain but embrace your ‘cross’ with faith, like him, and it will do its work in transforming your life. He says, “whoever loves his life, will lose it…” And he adds, “whoever wants to serve me, must follow me…”
He went to the cross – accepted the cup of suffering and died, but his death brought life to so many. Have the same attitude towards your suffering, if it is your father’s will for you. He will raise you to new life if your faith holds till the end.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, I am scared of suffering more than anything in this life. But I know it is a tool of transformation in your hands. Increase my faith in the work you are doing in my soul.
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