There is a restlessness in the Church during these days between Easter and Pentecost. We are a people who have heard the great news — He is risen! — and yet we are still waiting, still longing, still incomplete. The disciples knew this feeling intimately. Jesus had been crucified, buried, and raised — and now He was preparing to leave them again. And they were afraid.
Into that fear, He speaks some of the most consoling words in all of Scripture: 

"I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you."

​Jesus looks into the faces of His frightened disciples and makes them a promise they could not yet fully understand:

"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." (John 14:16–18)
The word orphan cuts to the heart. An orphan is one who has been left:  abandoned, bereft, without a protector, without a home. And Jesus, who knows every wound in the human heart, names that fear directly. I will not leave you like that.

He will ask the Father and the Father will give another Advocate. The word used in the Greek is Paraclete: one called alongside to help, to defend, to intercede, to strengthen. Jesus Himself is the first Paraclete; the Spirit is the second, the one who will carry the presence and the work of Jesus forward in every age, in every soul, in every corner of the earth. This is the promise: the Spirit of truth, dwelling in us. Not visiting, or just passing through but Remaining.

But notice how Jesus opens this passage:
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
The gift of the Spirit is not given in a vacuum. It is given within a relationship of love and obedience between the disciple and the Lord. Jesus does not say if you perform all the rituals correctly or if you master all the theology. He says: if you love me.

And what does love look like? It keeps the commandments. Not out of fear or, as a legal transaction, but as the natural expression of a heart that has been won over. A child who loves a parent does not obey grudgingly; they want to please. A disciple who loves Christ does not find the commandments a burden; they find in them the shape of the life they were made for. 

This is important because it tells us something about the condition of our hearts as we prepare for Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is not poured into closed vessels. The Spirit comes where love is;  where there is a genuine desire to live for God, to follow Christ, to let go of the things that block His entry into our lives. As we approach Pentecost, the question to carry this week is not merely: Do I believe? But: Do I love? And does my love show?

Let us turn to our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, and notice something remarkable. Philip had gone down to Samaria and proclaimed the Christ. The people believed and were baptized. And yet something was still awaited:

"They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the holy Spirit." (Acts 8:16–17)

What it reveals is this: from the very beginning, the gift of the Holy Spirit was understood as the heart of Christian initiation: the very goal of baptism itself.
When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent Peter and John, the senior witnesses of the Resurrection  specifically to pray that the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit. This was not incidental. It was urgent. It was essential. And this connects directly to what Jesus promises in today's Gospel. He says: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate" (John 14:16). The giving of the Spirit comes through prayer, through asking. Jesus Himself intercedes with the Father., and the Church, following Christ's example, has always surrounded baptism with prayer precisely because she knows that the Spirit is a gift to be sought, invoked, implored. The Church has always understood baptism and the gift of the Spirit as bound together. 

Then, Jesus says something sobering about the Spirit of truth:

"the world cannot accept it, because it neither sees nor knows it" (John 14:17).

We live immersed in a world that operates by entirely different logic: the logic of power, of wealth, of self-promotion, of pleasure, of immediate gratification. That world has no category for the Holy Spirit. It cannot perceive the Spirit because it is not looking with the eyes of faith, not listening with the ears of love. The world cannot give what only God can give. The world offers comfort; the Spirit gives peace. The world offers distraction; the Spirit gives truth. The world offers belonging to a crowd; the Spirit makes us children of the Father. These are not the same things,  and only those who have tasted the Spirit know the difference.

Next Sunday we celebrate Pentecost. The great fifty days of Easter will reach their culmination. The Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation, who anointed the prophets and kings, who overshadowed Mary, who descended upon Jesus at the Jordan, who filled the Upper Room with wind and fire,  that same Spirit is poured out again and again, for each generation, for this generation, for us.
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But we must ask. We must prepare. We must open ourselves.

Ask: Lord, what do You want to do in me that I have not yet permitted?
Ask: Come, Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus has made you a promise:

"I will not leave you orphans."

We are not alone, or abandoned. We are not left to find our own way through the confusion and darkness of this world. The Spirit of truth, the Spirit of the Risen Lord has been given to us, dwells in us, remains with us, at work in us, even now, even when we cannot feel it.

We were baptized into this. We were sealed with this. We have been fed week by week, renewed in this Spirit at every Eucharist. And yet there is always more. The Spirit is inexhaustible. The depths of God's love have no floor. So let us not be content with a Christianity of the shallows. Let us love Christ. Let us keep His commandments; not as a burden, but as the joy of those who are loved. Let us open ourselves, this week and always, to the One who was promised, who has been given, who is even now saying to each of us:

"I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you."

​Come, Holy Spirit. Come.

Peace.

Deacon Michel

"Do not let your hearts be troubled."
Jesus says this to his disciples on the night before he dies. They are scared. They don't understand where he is going. Thomas blurts out what they're all thinking: "Lord, we don't know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

Jesus gives one of the most stunning answers in all of Scripture: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
Not I will show you the way. Not I know the truth. But I am — present tense, total identification. The destination and the road are the same person. We live in a world that is desperately searching for the way. We are flooded with paths: numerous algorithms that promise to optimize our lives and steer us on our path, ideologies that promise meaning, wellness programs that promise peace. Everyone has a map. But Jesus doesn't hand us a map. He says: Walk with me. I am the road beneath your feet. Thomas's question is truly representative of the human condition: He doesn't pretend to understand. He interrupts and says, I'm lost. And Jesus doesn't rebuke him for it. He answers him and  all of them — with loving tenderness: "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

Friends, I must confess, that no matter how many times, I've heard that, I've read that, I've proclaimed that, I feel just as lost and confused as Thomas. I feel lost, I cannot find the way and I am full of anxiety.  But Jesus speaks to me:  "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

Here we are, still in the Easter season, celebrating the Resurrection, but sometimes in the busy-ness of ordinary life a month later,  in May, with all its noise, war, disease, financial upheaval, just to name a few, we can forget that we are a Resurrection people. We can go back to being troubled. We can forget the cornerstone.

Today Jesus speaks to us exactly as he spoke to Thomas and Philip and the rest of them in that upper room. In every anxiety, every confusion, every moment when we feel lost and cannot see the road ahead — he says the same thing:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

Jesus does not promise that life will be easy, or the road will always be clear. But promises that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life And He is not going anywhere without you.

Trust the way. Walk with him. Be a living stone as Peter declares to us. Make sure no one at your table is forgotten, as we hear in Acts. Indeed the diaconate to which I belong is a life of service.

That is the Resurrection life. That is the way.
Peace.

​Deacon Michel

 The 4th Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday and the imagery of shepherd and sheep is pervasive in today's Scriptures and I want to focus in particular  on knowing the Shepherds voice. 

We live in a world that is drowning in voices. From the moment we wake up, voices compete for our attention — voices on our phones, voices in the news, voices of friends and strangers, voices of politicians, voices of doubt, voices of fear, voices of ambition. Every voice promises something. Every voice claims to know the way. Today's Gospel is not merely an ancient pastoral image meant for first-century shepherds. It is a piercing, urgent question for every one of us gathered here today: “Do you know the voice of the Shepherd?”

In today's Gospel, Jesus uses a double image that might seem, at first glance, somewhat puzzling. He speaks of Himself as both the shepherd who enters through the gate, and then, remarkably, as the gate itself. It is worth sitting with this for a moment, because it tells us something profound about who Jesus is and what He means to do for us. You see, in the ancient near East, a shepherd's fold was not simply a fence. The shepherd himself would often lie across the opening at night, becoming, in his very body, the gate. Nothing came in and nothing went out without passing through him. He was the boundary between safety and danger, between belonging and being lost. He was, as Jesus says, the one through whom the sheep “will come in and go out and find pasture” (John 10:9). These are not small promises. Therefore the gate  is an invitation to abundance.

On the other hand are the thieves and robbers. Jesus is explicit: they do not enter through the gate. They climb over walls. They sneak in. And their purpose is not life: “The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy” (John 10:10). Here, Jesus is warning us that not every voice, not every path that appears open to us, leads to life. Some voices steal. Some paths destroy.

“The sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” — John 10:3 (NABRE)

One of the most beautiful details in this passage is that Jesus, our Shepherd , calls us by name. Not by number or category. By name. That means He knows who you are: He knows your story, your struggles, your doubts, your hidden grief. He knows what you are carrying when you walked through that door today. The sheep, on the other hand, know His voice because they have spent time with Him. Shepherds in the ancient world spent day after day with their flocks: walking with them, feeding them, calling to them. And the sheep, gradually, unmistakably, learned to distinguish their shepherd's voice from every other voice.

So it is with us. Knowing the voice of the Shepherd is not a feeling you get once and carry forever. It is a discipline. It is cultivated through daily prayer, through the reading of Scripture, through the Eucharist, through quiet and stillness. If we are never quiet — if our ears are always filled with the noise of the world — how will we ever learn His voice?

You see, sheep, when they wander, do not usually run away dramatically. They simply put their head down, nibble this patch of grass, then another, then another and look up to find they are completely lost, with no idea how they got there. That is how most of us stray. Not in one dramatic act of rebellion, but in a thousand small distractions and compromises. A little less prayer. A little more noise. A voice that seems reasonable — a cultural value, a comfortable sin, an addiction to comfort — gradually, quietly leading us away from the fold. But the Shepherd always calls, He never stops.

But let us be practical for a moment. How do we discern, in the noise and complexity of our daily lives, which voice is the Shepherd's and which belongs to the thief? Jesus gives us a clear distinction “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The voice of the Shepherd leads to life. Not merely comfort, not merely what feels good in the moment, not what flatters us or confirms our biases, but genuine life, fullness of being, growth in love and holiness and truth. The voice of the thief, by contrast, may be very appealing. It may promise liberation or fulfillment or authenticity. But follow it far enough, and you find yourself more anxious, more empty, more alone, more enslaved. The thief always takes more than he gives.

So ask yourself, when you hear a voice — whether it comes from the culture, from social media, from your own interior monologue — ask: Does this voice lead me toward love, toward truth, toward self-giving, toward God? Or does it lead me toward self-absorption, toward darkness, toward the erosion of my dignity or the dignity of others? The best protection against deception is intimacy with the truth. If we know the Shepherd's voice deeply, we will recognize the counterfeit the moment we hear it.

So let us make a commitment today to carve out some silence. Open the Scriptures, take five minutes — just five — to sit before the Lord and listen. Not to speak, but to listen.

Because the Shepherd is calling. He knows your name. He is standing at the gate.

​There is a road in the Gospel of Luke that I think most of us have walked. We may not know it by name, but we know it by feel. It is seven miles long, it leads away from Jerusalem, and it is walked by two people whose hope has just been buried in a tomb.
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Emmaus. The road to Emmaus.

Cleopas and his companion are not running away in cowardice. They are simply doing what grief does to us: it moves our feet. It pulls us away from the place where the thing we loved was lost. They had believed, as Cleopas tells the stranger, that Jesus was "the one who would redeem Israel." And now he was dead. And yes, some of the women had gone to the tomb and found it empty, had even reported a vision of angels — but as Cleopas admits: "him they did not see." And so they walk.
Maybe you know this road. Not in Judea — but in your own life. The diagnosis that changed everything, or the marriage that fell apart, the child who drifted away, the prayer you lifted up for years that seemed to vanish into silence. The faith that once felt so alive and now feels like a language you've half-forgotten. That is the Emmaus road. Seven miles of disappointment. Seven miles of trying to make sense of what God didn't seem to do.
And here is the staggering thing Saint Luke tells us.
"And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them."
He drew near. He sought them out. They did not find Jesus — Jesus found them. He fell into step beside two people who had given up, who were walking away, who "were prevented from recognizing him." And he didn't announce himself. He didn't say, "Stop — it's me. Turn around." He simply walked with them in their confusion and asked: "What are you discussing as you walk along?"
What a question. The Risen Lord of history asking a heartbroken disciple: what's on your mind? He let Cleopas pour it all out:  the hopes, the crucifixion, the women's report that they couldn't bring themselves to believe. Jesus listened. He walked their road with them before he revealed himself on it.
This is who the risen Christ is. He is not waiting for us to clean ourselves up before he approaches. He is not standing at a distance, arms folded, waiting for us to find our way back to joy before he will speak to us. He seeks us. He finds us on the road we are actually walking, not the road we wish we were on. As we heard from the First Letter of Peter this morning: we were ransomed "with the precious blood of Christ" — a God who spends himself like that does not abandon us to our grief.

But then something remarkable happens. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus "interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures."
The first place the risen Lord makes himself known is in the Word. He opens the Scriptures to them on the road. And something happens inside them — they will name it later: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?"

My friends, that burning heart is not merely a first-century memory. It is what the Word of God is meant to do to us right now. Every time we gather and these Scriptures are proclaimed, the Risen Christ is doing what he did on the road to Emmaus. He is walking with us. He is speaking to us. He is opening himself to us through every page. The question is whether we are listening the way those two disciples listened — like people on a desperate road, hungry for a word that is true.

We sometimes treat the Liturgy of the Word like a prelude. Like the warm-up act before the main event. But Jesus was already present on the road, in the Word, before the breaking of the bread. Don't miss him there. Come to Scripture the way a thirsty person comes to water. Come hungry. Come willing to let your heart burn.

And then they reach Emmaus. He makes as if to go on, but they urge him — "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." And he stays. He takes his place at table with them. And then: "he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them." "With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him."
There it is. The moment of recognition. And where does it happen? At the table. In the breaking of the bread. Luke uses those words — the breaking of the bread — deliberately. His first readers would have heard immediately what he meant. This is the Eucharist.
We are not meant to read this passage and think: how wonderful for them. We are meant to read it and look up at this altar. Because what happened in that house in Emmaus happens at every Mass. The same Risen Lord takes bread, speaks the words of blessing, breaks it, and gives it to us. And if we have the eyes of faith, we can say with those first disciples: I have seen the Lord.
The Eucharist is not a symbol of Jesus. It is not a fond memorial of the Last Supper. It is the real presence of the Risen Christ — the same Christ who walked that road, the same Christ who is walking yours right now. He gives himself to us under the appearance of bread and wine because he knows we are fragile, because he knows we need him close, because the road is long and the day is far spent and we grow weary.

This is the heart of our faith. He is not distant. He is not absent. He is as near as the Word that is proclaimed and as close as the Bread that is broken.
And one more thing. After he vanishes from their sight, those two disciples do not linger in Emmaus. The Scripture tells us they "set out at once" — that same hour, in the dark, back to Jerusalem. Back to the very place they had fled. The encounter with the Risen Lord does not leave us paralyzed. It sends us. It turns us around. We come to this table broken, and we leave it as witnesses.
Whatever road you are walking this week — whatever Emmaus you are trudging toward — know this: you are not walking it alone. He has already drawn near. He is already in step beside you. He is speaking to you in the Word. He will meet you at his table.
Remember, we do not find Jesus. Jesus finds us. He always has. He always will.

Peace.

​Deacon Michel

Brothers and sisters, we meet Thomas today at his worst — and perhaps at his most relatable. The other disciples have rushed to him with the most extraordinary news in human history: We have seen the Lord. And Thomas, grieving, shattered, perhaps feeling the fool for having followed Jesus, draws a hard line. Unless he sees the wounds himself, he will not believe.

Let's not rush to judge him too quickly. Thomas loved Jesus deeply enough that earlier in John's Gospel, when Jesus announced He was going to Judea where enemies waited, it was Thomas who said, "Let us also go to die with him" (John 11:16). I don't believe that his doubt is the doubt of a cold heart, but of a broken one. He had given everything, and it had seemed to end on a cross. I'm sure we can all identify with some form of disappointment and regret.
Then Jesus comes. Notice what He does not do. He does not scold Thomas in front of the others. He does not withdraw His offer. He comes through locked doors — the same mercy that walks through every locked door and wall we build around our wounded hearts — and He offers Thomas exactly what Thomas asked for: "Put your finger here and see my hands." The Risen Lord meets us in our doubt, not despite our doubt.
And Thomas, overwhelmed, does not need to touch anything. He simply falls to his knees: "My Lord and my God!", probably the most complete confession of faith in all four Gospels. The man who doubted most completely believed most profoundly.
But here is what we must not miss: that encounter changed Thomas forever. And it changed all of them. Look at what we heard in the First Reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. These are the same men who, just weeks before, were cowering behind locked doors for fear — the very same fear the Gospel describes. Now look at them: They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.  They are no longer hiding. They are in the temple, in the streets, in homes — proclaiming openly, healing boldly, sharing everything they have. Fear has become fearlessness. Doubt has become witness.
What happened? The mercy of the risen Jesus happened. He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them. He said peace to people who deserved none. He showed His wounds not as accusation but as invitation. That mercy — experienced personally, especially by a doubting Thomas — became the fuel of apostolic boldness.
This is the pattern of Divine Mercy, a feast we celebrate today. God does not wait for us to be certain before He comes to us. He comes to us in our uncertainty, in our locked rooms, in our wounds, and He shows us His own. And when we finally say — even trembling — My Lord and my God, something is set loose in us that no locked door can contain.
St. Peter puts it beautifully in the Second Reading: although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy. That is Thomas's testimony handed down to us. We are the ones Jesus speaks of when He says, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."
So we need to ask ourselves what locks are still on our doors? What doubt, what grief, what disappointment makes us say, I will not believe unless...? Bring it to the risen Lord. He is not offended by it. He walks right through it. His mercy endures forever — the refrain of today's Psalm — and it is strong enough to turn our doubt into testimony, our fear into witness, our broken faith into the boldest proclamation of your life: My Lord and my God.
Say it. Mean it. And then, like the apostles, go and live it.

Peace.
​Deacon Michel

Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen. 
Happy Easter to all as we remember the most important day in human history: Christ's resurrection, signifying his victory of sin and death, and the promise of eternal life to those who believe in Him.​

The Stone has been rolled away, and light once more has overcome the darkness. Have there been any period in your life when the darkness seemed to envelop you, leaving you feeling alone, abandoned, and with no hope? I know I certainly have. I remember 12 years ago when my primary doctor called and said you need to get to the ER because bloodwork done had shown a heart attack with positive troponin. Heart attack? It really didn't hit me at first but at the hospital they drew more labs that should a higher level of troponin then what my primary had found; and then it got real! Now we're talking open heart surgery if the blocked arteries could not be opened and stented. I now stared at my mortality, pondering all that I had done and not yet done. I would be leaving all I've loved: wife, children, mother, sisters and so many family and friends. I had the 'last rites'. That first night alone in the hospital was the darkest, loneliest, lowest point of my life. But the stone was rolled away. Here I am writing this to you: Easter 2026.

Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen.

There are certainly other times, other circumstances, when darkness threatened to overpower me, but I learned through a brother deacon, that asking 'why me?' is the wrong question. The proper question is 'what for, what am I supposed to learn? Easter always reminds me: That God gave all in His Son and the Son gave all in his life, because he loves me. He loves you. He loves us too much to let darkness overpower us. The tomb is not the final answer; the stone has been rolled away. May you always be bathed in Resurrection light.

Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen.

Peace.

Deacon Michel

It was going so well, how could it go so wrong? Coming down on that dusty road from the Mount of Olives, crowds waving palm branches, others spreading their cloaks before him, was Jesus, the Nazorean, riding on a donkey, with its foal alongside. Just as the prophet Zephaniah had prophesied, o so long ago: 
Say to daughter Zion, "Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden." 

As they drew nearer their song of praise rose so that all could hear: "Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest." Jesus' entry into Jerusalem was so triumphant, so spectacular, so full of hope...How could it go so wrong?

Crowds can be so fickle. In a matter of days their 'hosannas' changed to 'crucify Him', from spreading their cloaks before him to stripping Him naked, palm branches replaced by the wood of the cross. Yes, crowds can be so fickle.

This is the beginning of Holy Week, and we will journey, step by step, through the sanctity of Holy Thursday, the darkness of Good Friday, the silence of Holy Saturday, to the glory of Resurrection Day. However, in order to fully prepare for the glorious celebration of Easter, let's not rush the week.

Take your time, put yourself in the story. Who are you? Are you shouting 'Hosannas', or are you calling for His blood? Are you one who plotted and betrayed him, or ran from him, or denied him or watched him die on the cross from a safe distance? Are you one who mocked, spat and jeered at him? Are you one who taunted him, even as you hung next to him on a cross you deserved, or are you one who humbly asks, "remember me, when you come into the kingdom", even as you hung next to him on a cross you deserved? Are you the one who understood and said "Truly, this was the Son of God"?

Palm Sunday asks us to be honest about our own inconsistency; we can be all of the above in our lifetime, but Jesus cannot be inconsistent: He loves us with all he has, despite all we've done. He traversed the road from the Mount of Olives to the top of Calvary for us. Holy Week celebrates life, not death.  He died and rose again for us, so let us rise to new life in Christ by dying to our sin.

Peace.

Deacon Michel

As we draw closer to Holy Week, the Church gives us one of the most powerful and dramatic signs in all of Scripture: the raising of Lazarus. This is not just another miracle. It is a turning point. It is a revelation. It is a promise.
At the heart of today’s Gospel from John 11 is a simple but profound truth: Jesus is Lord of life, even in the face of death.

Lazarus is dead. Not nearly dead, not in a coma; dead. He has been in the tomb for four days.  When Jesus arrives, he does not arrive to a scene of quiet resignation. He arrives to grief: deep, loud grief. Martha meets him first, Mary falls at his feet weeping. The crowd is weeping. And then, and this is one of the most beautiful and astonishing verses in all of Scripture: Jesus wept. Lazarus' two sisters say basically the same thing to Jesus: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Jesus responds to Martha: "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

But when Jesus tells them to roll away the stone, Martha interjects: "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days." It's now too late because in their tradition, the soul lingers, unattached, near the body for three days, and moves on when decomposition begins, around the fourth day. She had already forgotten that He said "I am the resurrection and the life". Jesus calls Lazarus out of the dark tomb, still bound by the trappings of death, until Jesus tells the community "untie him and let him go".

"Do you believe this?" It is as pertinent today as it was then; right here, right now, in this church, aimed directly at each one of us. Do you believe this? in the middle of your own darkness, in the middle of your grief, your failures, your sins, your fears? Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

St. Paul tells us in today's second reading from Romans: "You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you." There are two ways of living — life according to the flesh, which is life turned inward and away from God, and life in the Spirit, which is life opened up to God's transforming power.

Sin is a kind of death. When we give ourselves over to habits of selfishness, to bitterness, to pride, to lust, to despair — something inside us closes off. The light dims. The tomb door rolls shut...until...until Jesus calls us by name and commands us to "come out". Out of sin, out of despair, out of bitter unforgiveness, out of addiction, out of fear, out of whatever tomb that keeps us in the dark.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and we enter Holy Week. We will walk with Jesus to the Upper Room, to the Garden of Gethsemane, to the cross, to the tomb. It will be dark. It is supposed to be dark, but we walk that road knowing what Lazarus knew: that the voice of Jesus can shatter the silence of any tomb.

So today, the question Jesus asked Martha is the question he asks you and me, here, now, on this Fifth Sunday of Lent: "I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?" Ponder that question through this final week of Lent. Let it open something in you, let it roll back whatever stone is sealing you off from God's loving mercy. Jesus is already standing outside, already weeping with you. He is already speaking your name...

​Peace.

Deacon Michel

We are halfway through Lent. Laetare! Rejoice!. The rose vestments worn today are a gentle mercy — a reminder that even in the desert, there is an oasis. Easter is coming. And so the readings today do not give us ashes and sackcloth. They give us something far more startling: light breaking into darkness.

The Gospel focuses on Jesus' encounter with a man born blind. His disciples are with him and, seeing him they are not moved with compassion, but curiosity:  "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They are debating the cause of his condition rather than seeing the person before them. Jesus has to refute the question: "Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him." (John 9:3). Jesus heals the man who returns after washing in the Pool of Siloam and is able to see, a miracle. Laetare! Rejoice! ...right? Nope. 

What unfolds next seems more akin to a courtroom drama. The Pharisees drag the man in for questioning. Then they drag in his parents. Then they question the man again. They are looking, hard but they are not seeing. Why? Because they have already decided on the outcome. Their minds are made up before the evidence arrives. They know, with certainty, that Jesus cannot be from God because he healed on the Sabbath. And if Jesus cannot be from God, then whatever happened here cannot be a work of God. Case closed. 

This is the great irony of this passage and it is devastating. The people with sight are blind. The man who had no eyes to see his whole life is the one who sees with perfect clarity. Look at the progression now that his blindness is gone. When strangers ask him what happened, he says simply: "The man called Jesus." When the Pharisees push him, he tells them Jesus is "a prophet." And when Jesus finds him again at the end of the chapter and reveals himself, the man falls down in worship and says: "I do believe, Lord." He went from "the man called Jesus" to "Lord" all in a single day. And the Pharisees went from certainty to deeper certainty choosing to remain in their spiritual blindness.

The key to all of this is found in the first reading with Samuel's interactions with Jesse's sons, from whom God has chosen one to be the next king of Israel. He sees Eliab, firstborn; tall, strong, impressive, and thinks, "Surely the LORD's anointed is here before him." But what the Lord says to Samuel, should stop us cold: "Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. The LORD does not see as mortals see; humans see the appearance, but the LORD looks into the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

What blinded the Pharisees? Firstly, Certainty: They already knew the answer, no need to look further. Secondly: self-interest: Accepting that Jesus performed this miracle would require them to change, to reconsider their authority, their interpretation of the Law, their entire framework. And that was too costly. Thirdly, they judged by appearance: Jesus was from Galilee, a nobody from nowhere. He had no credentials they recognized. He broke the Sabbath. He used mud and spit. A true prophet of God, they reasoned, would not work this way.

Brothers and sisters, where are we in this story? Lent call us to hold up a mirror. How we see people? Do we see the homeless person on the corner, or do we look past them the way the crowds looked past that blind beggar every single day? How do we see our coworkers, the difficult family member, the person who voted differently, the immigrant, the addict; or do we see a category, a problem, a threat, a type? What if the Lord saw us as we see them? Thankfully,  The LORD does not see as mortals see; humans see the appearance, but the LORD looks into the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) 

Saint Paul, writing to the Ephesians, gives us the alternative. He says: "You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth." (Ephesians 5:8-9)

This Lent, as we prepare to renew our baptismal promises at Easter, let us ask for the grace of real sight. Not the sight that confirms what we already believe. Not the sight that looks past the poor and the suffering. Not growing so comfortable with our darkness that we fear the light.
Let us ask for the sight that falls to its knees and says: "I do believe, Lord."

Laetare! Rejoice! The Light has come!

Peace.

​Deacon Michel

Today's readings are woven together by a single thread — water, thirst, and the surprising ways God responds to both. On this Third Sunday of Lent, the Church sets before us one of the most profound conversations in all of Scripture: Jesus and a Samaritan woman at a well in the heat of the day. In the encounter between these two thirsty souls, we discover who God truly is — and who we are called to become.

In the first reading, the people of Israel have been freed from slavery in Egypt and now find themselves the wilderness, parched and angry. Their complaint is painfully human: "Is the LORD in our midst or not?" (Ex 17:7).
Notice what they are really asking. It is not merely a question about water. It is a question about presence. Is God with us? Does God see us? Does God care? Their physical thirst manifests the soul's desperate need to know that it is not abandoned.

Instead of rebuke God instructs Moses to strike the rock, and water flows. God produces life-giving water. The place is named Massah and Meribah, "testing" and "quarreling," not a monument of shame, but a memorial of God's faithfulness in the face of human doubt. I've said it before, the wilderness is not a punishment, it is where God reveals to us who He is. And the lesson always begins with thirst.

In the gospel, centuries later, at Jacob's well in Samaria, we find a tired traveler, a woman with a water jar, the midday heat. "Give me a drink," Jesus says (Jn 4:7). It is the most natural thing in the world. He is thirsty. He asks for water. The woman, astonished at the request basically replies: 'who me?' To which Jesus responds very openly: "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." (Jn 4:10)
She is also, without knowing it, asking one of the most important questions in human history:Where do you get this living water?

We can learn a lot by taking note in how Jesus encounters a soul. He knows her five husbands, her complicated present, her daily walk to the well at an hour when others are not around — Jesus sees all of this; and he does not condemn, but instead, he makes her an extraordinary promise:

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (Jn 4:13–14)

She may not fully understand, but asks: "Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water" (Jn 4:15). 

This woman at the well  is, in many ways, each one of us. We too try to satisfy our thirst, in relationships, achievements, distractions, pleasure, but it never fully satisfies, and we thirst again. 

The Israelites in the desert were not simply dehydrated, they were afraid that God had forgotten them. And we too, in our dry seasons of sickness, grief, disappointment, confusion, spiritual emptiness — we too cry out: "Is the LORD in our midst or not?" Lent is precisely the season when the Church invites us back to the well to seek the 'living water'. 

Also connecting Exodus and John's Gospel is the character of God, not just the image of water. Both stories show us that God is not waiting for us to be worthy before He provides. The Israelites are grumbling, testing, accusing God, and yet water flows from the rock. The Samaritan woman is an outsider, a person with a complicated history, and yet Jesus sits with her, speaks with her, reveals himself to her in a way he has not yet done to the religious authorities of Jerusalem.

This is the logic of grace: it does not wait. It does not require us to deserve it. It flows, like water from the struck rock, precisely in the moment of our greatest need and our least deserving. Saint Paul tells us in the Second Reading: "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). 

There is a practical question beneath all of this: "Where do you get this living water?"

The answer: It is the Eucharist, "the fountain of life," as the early Church fathers called it. It is the Word of God, it is prayer, not the performance of prayer, but the real conversation, like the one Jesus had with the Samaritan woman, where we are known completely and loved anyway.

The woman became a missionary. She went into the very city and people she shunned to say "Come see...". She who was thirsty became a source of living water for others. That is a movement the Gospel always makes: from our thirst, to encounter, to mission. When we have truly drunk from the living water Jesus offers, we cannot keep it to ourselves. We go back into our cities, our workplaces, our families — with something to offer.

The rock struck in the wilderness, the well in Samaria, the pierced side of Christ on the cross, from which blood and water flowed (cf. Jn 19:34). The font of baptism through which we were reborn, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. These are all the same water, the same grace, flowing from the same source: the inexhaustible mercy of God.

On this Third Sunday of Lent, the Church invites all of us to come to the well, to hear, the words Jesus spoke to one weary woman on one hot afternoon in Samaria:

"The water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (Jn 4:14)

The Lord is in our midst. Come, let us drink.
 
Peace.

Deacon Michel