Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
GATHERING WHAT IS SCATTERED
Introduction
At the time of the purifying trial of the exile, Ezekiel preaches God’s utopian dream: Israel will be gathered into one: one nation, one land, one sanctuary, ruled by one shepherd and a servant king under one God in a covenant of peace.
After the resurrection of Lazarus, the cynical High Priest and leaders decide to put the embarrassing troublemaker, Jesus, to death for opportunistic reasons of the state. But John, and Christians with him, realize that Jesus’ death, for the sake of all, will ultimately unify us all in his kingdom.
We are today still scattered and divided tribes, within the Church and outside it. Is unity for us utopia or a firm hope? Do we realize that it can be attained only by respect, love and sacrifice?
Opening Prayer
Lord God, creator and Father of all,
your sons and daughters
are still scattered and divided:
Christians and non-Christians,
various Churches and sects
claiming exclusive rights on your Son,
and each of them full of factions.
Make us dream again the dream
which you alone can make possible:
that we can all be one
if we believe and follow him
who died to unite all that is scattered,
Jesus Christ, our Lord for ever.
Reading 1: Ez 37:21-28
Thus says the Lord GOD:
I will take the children of Israel from among the nations
to which they have come,
and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land.
I will make them one nation upon the land,
in the mountains of Israel,
and there shall be one prince for them all.
Never again shall they be two nations,
and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.
No longer shall they defile themselves with their idols,
their abominations, and all their transgressions.
I will deliver them from all their sins of apostasy,
and cleanse them so that they may be my people
and I may be their God.
My servant David shall be prince over them,
and there shall be one shepherd for them all;
they shall live by my statutes and carefully observe my decrees.
They shall live on the land that I gave to my servant Jacob,
the land where their fathers lived;
they shall live on it forever,
they, and their children, and their children’s children,
with my servant David their prince forever.
I will make with them a covenant of peace;
it shall be an everlasting covenant with them,
and I will multiply them, and put my sanctuary among them forever.
My dwelling shall be with them;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Thus the nations shall know that it is I, the LORD,
who make Israel holy,
when my sanctuary shall be set up among them forever.
Responsorial Psalm: Jeremiah 31:10, 11-12abcd, 13
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
proclaim it on distant isles, and say:
He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,
he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
R. The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.
The LORD shall ransom Jacob,
he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,
they shall come streaming to the LORD’s blessings:
The grain, the wine, and the oil,
the sheep and the oxen.
R. The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.
Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
R. The Lord will guard us, as a shepherd guards his flock.
Verse Before the Gospel: Ez 18:31
and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
Gospel: Jn 11:45-56
Many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees
and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him.
So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews,
but he left for the region near the desert,
to a town called Ephraim,
and there he remained with his disciples.
Now the Passover of the Jews was near,
and many went up from the country to Jerusalem
before Passover to purify themselves.
They looked for Jesus and said to one another
as they were in the temple area, “What do you think?
That he will not come to the feast?”
Intenrcessions
– That our world may become one in seeking peace for all; with access for all nations to the goods of our world and respect and understanding for every people on earth, we pray:
– That the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus may bring together the divided and scattered Churches, we pray:
– That our communities may find unity in prayer, sharing and mutual service, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord our God,
you have called us together
at the table of your Son.
Unite us in him,
make us one of heart and mind,
that we may become to a divided world
a sign that unity is possible
when we can meet in Christ Jesus,
your Son and our Lord for ever.
Prayer after Communion
Lord, our God and Father,
you want us to become one
under Christ, our shepherd and servant.
May we learn from him
to be servants of love and truth
and to sacrifice our clannish interests
for the sake of the good of all.
Under the guidance of your Son,
may we truly be your people
and you our God, for ever and ever.
Blessing
How far we are still from the ideal of one heart and one mind, be it our world, our Churches, our communities? May God bring his scattered children together and bless us, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Reflection:
23 March 2024
John 11:45-56
For the good of humanity
We are now on the threshold of Holy Week. The Gospel narrative today picks up the events that followed immediately after Jesus raised Lazarus to life.
An official meeting of the religious leadership at the highest level takes the decision to put Jesus to death because he brought a man back to life. In raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus sealed his own death sentence. “…It is better for you that one man dies for the sake of the people than that the whole nation is destroyed.”
Members of the Sanhedrin were more concerned with maintaining their power base than with protecting national interests. Caiaphas succeeded in manipulating the Sanhedrin and convinced them to kill the prince of peace!
Jesus, in his free will, chose the Feast of the Passover for the journey to his life-giving death and freedom because the Israelites had taken their first steps towards freedom with the original Passover.
During the first Passover in Egypt, lambs were killed, and their blood was sprinkled on the doorsteps of the Israelites; thus, they were saved from the sword of the angel of destruction.In the new Passover of Jesus, the new liberation begins, but not by the blood of lambs but by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Tomorrow, on Palm Sunday, we enter the Holy Week. Let us prepare ourselves to walk with Jesus to witness his passion, death and resurrection.