March 16, 2015 Monday, 4th Week of Lent
1st Reading: Is 65:17–21
Gospel: Jn 4:43–54
In those days Jesus left Samaria for Galilee. Jesus himself said that no prophet is recognized in his own country. Yet the Galileans welcomed him when he arrived, because of all the things he had done in Jerusalem during the Festival and which they had seen. For they, too, had gone to the feast.Jesus went back to Cana of Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. At Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill, and when he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked him to come and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Jesus said, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe!” The official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” And Jesus replied, “Go, your son is living.” The man had faith in the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way. He was already going down the hilly road when his servants met him with this news, “Your son has recovered!” So he asked them at what hour the child had begun to recover and they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday in the afternoon about one o’clock.” And the father realized that it was the time when Jesus told him, “Your son is living.” And he became a believer, he and all his family. Jesus performed this second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in
the Assimilated Life Experience)
“Faith is to believe what you do not see”, wrote St. Agustin. By this standard, the warm welcome given by the Galileans to Jesus hardly qualifies as sign of faith. Any witness to miraculous performances would do the same. Unimpressed by their reception Jesus exclaimed: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe!” When he had said this, an official from Capernaum came and asked Jesus to heal his dying child. Jesus assured him of the recovery of the child. When the official went home and realized that the child recovered at about the same time Jesus gave him the assurance, he and his family became a believer. But it was a foregone conclusion. If the same miracle were done in your family, you’d all become instant followers of the miracle worker.
To have faith after seeing miraculous signs is to put the cart before the horse. We believe even if we do not see because we have faith, not the other way around. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1). St. Augustine wrote, “Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.” – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website:www.frdan.org.
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