LENTEN MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS

Every moment of our lives is a time for believing, hoping and loving.

 Have I lived the message of Christ during these days?


TODAY'S WORD

By


Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Rector and Parish Priest
Don Bosco Shrine
Lingarajapuram, Bangalore

Mathew: 26:24 "The Son of Man goes as it is written of Him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”


TODAY'S REFLECTION

FIRST READING

In today’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the Lord as giving him a disciples’ tongue to reply to the wearied and as waking him every morning to hear, to listen, like a disciple. 


It is the listening like a disciple that allows him to speak like a disciple. 


A disciple’s ear makes possible a disciple’s tongue. 


A disciple was someone who sat the feet of the Master and listen attentively and then lived accordingly. 


We are all called to be disciples in that sense. We try to develop a disciple’s ear, a readiness to listen ever more deeply to what the Lord is saying to us through his word. 


As we grow in our listening ability, we will be enabled to speak like a disciple, to have a disciples’ tongue, and to live like a disciple.


GOSPEL READING

 In the gospel reading, the disciples show a willingness to listen like disciples and to put what they hear into practice. 


Having listened to Jesus’ instructions about making preparations for the Passover, they respond fully to those instructions. 


Yet, as the passion of Jesus unfolds they will not behave as disciples. Judas will betray Jesus, Peter will deny Jesus publicly and all the other disciples will desert him at the time of his arrest.


Jesus entered into communion with them at the last supper, sharing himself with them under the form of bread and wine.


Almost immediately afterwards, however, they broke communion with him, some of them in very dramatic fashion. 


None of us lives as the Lord’s disciples all the time. We can all break communion with the Lord, especially when remaining in communion with him becomes costly.


Yet, the Lord keeps calling us back to listen like a disciple and he continues to offer us a disciple’s tongue so that we can reply to the wearied.


All he asks is that we keep returning to him when we lose our way. 


If we do so, we will always find him waiting for us, for, in the words of today’s psalm, ‘the Lord listens to the needy’.

Let's resolve to listen to him and to remain faithful to His words

Have a blessed Wednesday.

Having recourse to St. Joseph asking him to intercede for all Christian families especially those on crossroads.