Water runs throughout our Scripture readings today…no pun intended…
John tells us, the water in the pool of Bethseda was believed to have healing and life-restoring powers. This is not too foreign of a concept. Many people travel to Lourdes, France every year to bathe in its healing waters. Many miracles have been attributed to bathing in that place where Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Bernadette.
Almost 70 healing miracles at Lourdes have been officially declared by the church. The lame, the crippled, those riddled with disease have received healing there. And there have no doubt been hundreds, if not thousands of other healings, for those who have washed in those sacred waters.
In the first reading ,the power and presence of God are symbolized as water flowing from the temple, and this water is life giving: Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of water in our scripture readings this Lent.
On the 3rd Sunday of Lent we hear Jesus’ invitation to come to him to drink of the living waters of God. Jesus promised: "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty; no, the water I give shall become a fountain within him, leaping up to provide eternal life" (Jn 4:14).
Every member of the human race longs and years and thirsts for God himself. Only God can quench man’s deepest thirst.
Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving brings us back to those life giving, healing waters. In fasting, we detach ourselves from those things which does not ultimately satisfy. In prayer we drink deeply of the love of God and bathe in his presence, and in almsgiving we taste the sweet drink of engaging in loving charity towards others.
The choice is ours though. He will not make us bathe; He will not make us drink.
We hear these readings two-and-a-half weeks before we renew our baptismal promises in the Easter waters. May our Lenten practices continue to draw us to those life-giving, soul-cleansing, freeing, healing waters, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
John tells us, the water in the pool of Bethseda was believed to have healing and life-restoring powers. This is not too foreign of a concept. Many people travel to Lourdes, France every year to bathe in its healing waters. Many miracles have been attributed to bathing in that place where Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Bernadette.
Almost 70 healing miracles at Lourdes have been officially declared by the church. The lame, the crippled, those riddled with disease have received healing there. And there have no doubt been hundreds, if not thousands of other healings, for those who have washed in those sacred waters.
In the first reading ,the power and presence of God are symbolized as water flowing from the temple, and this water is life giving: Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of water in our scripture readings this Lent.
On the 3rd Sunday of Lent we hear Jesus’ invitation to come to him to drink of the living waters of God. Jesus promised: "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty; no, the water I give shall become a fountain within him, leaping up to provide eternal life" (Jn 4:14).
Every member of the human race longs and years and thirsts for God himself. Only God can quench man’s deepest thirst.
Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving brings us back to those life giving, healing waters. In fasting, we detach ourselves from those things which does not ultimately satisfy. In prayer we drink deeply of the love of God and bathe in his presence, and in almsgiving we taste the sweet drink of engaging in loving charity towards others.
The choice is ours though. He will not make us bathe; He will not make us drink.
We hear these readings two-and-a-half weeks before we renew our baptismal promises in the Easter waters. May our Lenten practices continue to draw us to those life-giving, soul-cleansing, freeing, healing waters, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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