Saints + Scripture: IV Sunday of Quadragesima

Better Late than Never | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Involuntary Eucharistic Fast: Day 5
In today's Gospel, the Pharisees cast out from their midst a man born blind whose sight Jesus restored. As a way to keep holy the Sabbath, this morning I dressed up in my Sunday best & sat outside of my parish church when the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass would normally be celebrated, & reflected on my having been cast out, cut off from the sacramental life of the Church not as a chastisement for my many sins but putatively for the good of others.

'Tis the Fourth Sunday of Lent, A.K.A. Laetare Sunday (Lent meaning "Spring;" Quadragesima is the Latin name, meaning "fortieth;" Laetare is Latin, meaning "rejoice"): Quadragesima-link, Wikipedia-link Quadragesima, Wikipedia-link Laetare Sunday.

Scripture of the Week
Mass Readings—Fourth Sunday of Lent
The First Book of Samuel, chapter sixteen, verses one(b), six, seven, & ten thru thirteen(a);
Psalm Twenty-three (R/. one), verses one, two, & three(a); three(b) & four; five; & six;
The Letter to the Ephesians, chapter five, verses eight thru fourteen;
The Gospel according to John, chapter nine, verses one thru forty-one
(or, the Gospel according to John, chapter nine, verses one, six thru nine, thirteen thru seventeen, & thirty-four thru thirty-eight).

Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):

Friends, today in the strange and strikingly beautiful account of the healing of the man born blind in John’s Gospel, we find an iconic representation of Christianity as a way of seeing. Jesus spits on the ground and makes a mud paste, which he then rubs onto the man’s eyes. When the man washes his eyes in the pool of Siloam as Jesus had instructed him, his sight is restored.

The crowds are amazed, but the Pharisees—consternated and skeptical—accuse him of being naïve and the one who healed him of being a sinner. With disarming simplicity the visionary responds: “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”

This is precisely what all Christians say when they have encountered the light of Christ. It was St. Augustine who saw in the making of the mud paste a metaphor for the Incarnation: the divine power mixing with the earth, resulting in the formation of a healing balm. When this salve of God made flesh is rubbed onto our eyes blinded by sin, we come again to see.

Reflect: How is the Christian way of seeing different from the culture’s way of seeing?

Video reflection by Father Greg Friendman, O.F.M. (U.S.C. of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.

Video reflection by Mary Jean Jones (Array of Hope): Easter of Hope.

Audio reflection by Scott Hahn, Ph.D. (St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology): Breaking the Bread.

Scripture Study—Exodus 90: Day 70
The Book of Exodus, chapter thirty, verses eleven thru twenty-one.

Commentary: The Half Shekel for the Sanctuary (Exodus, 30:11-16) & the Bronze Laver (Exodus, 30:17-21).

Scripture Study—Wisdom Books
The Book of Sirach, chapter forty (verses one thru thirty).

Commentary: Human Wretchedness & Joys of Life (Sirach, 40:1-30).

Scripture Study—The 3:16 Project
The Book of Isaiah, chapter chapter three, verse sixteen.

The LORD said:
Because the daughters of Zion are haughty
and walk with outstretched necks,
glancing wantonly with their eyes,
mincing along as they go,
tinkling with their feet;"

†

Otherwise, 22 March would be the commemoration of Saint Paul of Narbonne, Bishop (died circa 250, one of the "Apostles to the Gauls"): Saint-link & Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Wayback Machine.

'Twould also be the commemoration of Saint Avitus of Périgord, Hermit (died circa 570): Saint-link & Wikipedia-link.

'Twould also be the commemoration of Saint Nicholas Owen, Martyr, S.J. (circa 1562-1606, A.K.A. John Owen, "Little John"), martyred in the reign of the Anglo-Scottish king James VI & I, in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot; one of the Forty Martyrs of England & Wales, he was the realm's foremost constructor of priest holes: Martyr-link ūnus, Martyr-link duo, & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Gunpowder Plot & Wikipedia-link Priest Holes; & Martyr-link England & Wales & Wikipedia-link England & Wales.

'Twould also be the commemoration of Blessed Marian Górecki & Bronisław Komorowski, Priests & Martyrs (died 1940), martyred in the reign of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, two of the One Hundred Eight Blessed Polish Martyrs: Martyr-link Mike Golf & Wikipedia-link (List, № 53), Martyr-link Bravo Kilo & Wikipedia-link Bravo Kilo; Martyrs-link Polska & Wikipedia-link Polska.

'Twould also be the commemoration of Blessed Clemens August von Galen, Bishop (1878-1946, the "Lion of Münster"), Bishop of Münster (1933-1946), who led the Church's resistance against the Nazis' euthanasia programs: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Münster & Wikipedia-link Against Euthanasia.

Proverb o' the Day (Sirach, 40:26)

Riches & strength lift up the heart,
but fear of the Lord is better than both.
There is no loss in the fear of the Lord,
& with it there is no need to seek for help.

Papal Quote o' the Day

"We are working for the Kingdom of God, & we do not do so with the gloomy spirit of those who see only insufficiencies or perils. We work with the firm trust of those who know that they can count on the victory of Christ."
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)

Saint Quote o' the Day

"From the cross our Lord looks down to his Blessed Mother and St. John, and he develops this new relationship in the kingdom of heaven. Now we've always thought, and rightly so, of Christ the Son on the cross and the mother beneath him. But that's not the complete picture. That's not the deep understanding. Who is our Lord on the cross? He's the new Adam. Where's the new Eve? At the foot of the cross. This is not just Christ and his mother; it's the new Adam and the new Eve. How did the old humanity begin? With the nuptials. How will the new humanity begin? With the nuptials. If Eve became the mother of the living in the natural order, is not this woman at the foot of the cross to become another mother? And so the bridegroom looks down at the bride. He looks at his beloved. Christ looks at his Church. There is here the birth of the Church. As St. Augustine puts it, and here I am quoting him verbatim, 'The heavenly bridegroom left the heavenly chambers, with the presage of the nuptials before him. He came to the marriage bed of the cross, a bed not of pleasure, but of pain, united himself with the woman, and consummated the union forever. As it were, the blood and water that came from the side of Christ was the spiritual seminal fluid.' And so from this nuptials 'Woman, there's your son': the beginning of the Church."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Chesterton Quote o' the Day

"Great joy has in it the sense of immortality: the triumphant moments of our life may have been only moments, but they were moments of eternity."
—G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)