Saturday of the Second Week of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” In another place the scribes and Pharisees will ask, “Who but God can forgive sins” (Mark 2:7)? Indeed, forgiveness of sins is what reveals Jesus’ divinity. It was absolute blasphemy for this man to do what was possible for God alone.

Fr. Francis Carvajal comments:
The lukewarm person becomes blind to the supernatural. In contrast, the person with a lively interior life knows how to find God in the most trying of times. We may recall that some of the Jews were not converted even after they had witnessed the resurrection of Lazarus. Instead of being won over to the Lord, those people reacted to the miracle by moving farther away from Christ. Paradoxically, it is when the Lord’s divinity is most concealed on Calvary that a common thief responds to divine grace. (Lukewarmness: The Devil in Disguise 66)

Jesus’ death was the sacrifice that reconciled God to humankind, it was the source of our forgiveness. And it is only the one man who was also God that could stand in our place. Thus, hidden in the Cross is the glory of divine power (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18)!

This forgiveness and our participation in the death and Resurrection of Jesus through baptism make us the heavenly Father’s children. So we should never feel like we are poor, weak, or unloved. It is precisely when Christ is enthroned only on the Cross that He becomes the richest man who ever lived – because He was fully embraced by the Father. The elder son in the parable could not hear this truth: “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.” May we never doubt this divine adoption!

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB