From Catholic Charities USA <[email protected]>
Subject 2023 CCUSA Lent Reflection - March 21
Date March 21, 2023 9:00 AM
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Catholic Charities USA


Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Today's Lectionary Readings
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And it will come about that
every living creature 
which swarms in every place
where the river goes, will live...
and will grow all kinds of trees for food...
whose fruit will be for food and whose leaves for healing.
Ez 47: 9

In today's Gospel Jesus is persecuted for healing on the
Sabbath.  He encounters a man suffering from a lifetime of
crippling infirmary and tells him to take up his mat and walk. A
miracle by anyone's standards! However, people don't see
the miracle but only the breaking of the Sabbath laws. And when they
learn it was Jesus who did the healing, they persecute him, seeing not
mercy but only violation.

John tells us people were threatened by this itinerant rabbi, this
healer.  I suspect it was not the mercy that scared them, nor the
recipient of the mercy. It was, perhaps, not even of the breaking of
the Sabbath. What was scary, then as now, was what this act of mercy
would demand of them.  

And so we return to the first reading from Ezekiel and his powerful
metaphor: the life-giving power of mercy that flows like a great river
in whose presence people are healed and fed. Can this be our
invitation to let mercy flow like a river with all that demands of
us?  Small actions, at first, and then greater ones as we offer
food and healing? 

Do we have the courage, even in the face of attacks, to move from
legalistic responses to merciful ones for the sake of God's
suffering children?  Can we offer mercy to those whose fear calls
them to place regulations above mercy?  Can we rest in the sure
knowledge that "where these waters flow, they refresh every
living thing"?

Dr. Marti R. Jewell is an Associate Professor Emerita of pastoral
theology.  She does research, training, and writing in the areas
of ministry and pastoral leadership.

                                                                 
This and other Catholic Charities USA reflections may be viewed here.
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