Homily: Monday of the 4th Week of Lent - Do you want signs or a savior?

We now begin the second half of Lent. And, all of the Gospel readings this week are taken from the Gospel of John. John arranges his Gospel around seven signs—acts of power calling us to have faith that Jesus really is the Son of God come to save us from our sins.

We hard the second of St. John's signs in our Gospel today: the healing of the royal official's son.  At first, the royal official who comes to Jesus for healing doesn't really seem to get who Jesus is. He may have heard something about Jesus' miracles throughout Galilee. But when the royal official asks Jesus to come and heal his dying son, Jesus rebukes him: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

Much later in John's Gospel, after he rises from the dead, Jesus praises those “who do not see, and yet believe.”

Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospel each relate about 20 miracles each, while John's Gospel only relates seven. Remember, Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels were written for primarily pagan audiences, John was written for those who had already converted. John is not primarily concerned with moving people from unbelief to belief, but from immature belief to deeper faith.

Perhaps this is why he records so often Jesus rebuking people for needing signs. He calls believers like us, to a deeper faith, a faith not based on signs and wonders, but faith which has to deal sometimes with the absense of such things. We are called to walk by faith not by sight.

I prayed and prayed and prayed for healing, and yet my loved one still died. I prayed and prayed and prayed but I still can't get a job. I prayed and prayed and prayed and I am still being assaulted by terrible temptations.  

We are reminded by this Gospel passage today, that Jesus didn't merely come to bring us earthly comfort, but to prepare us for the new heaven and new earth which Isaiah talked about in the first reading.

We undergo our Lenten penances of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving in order to purify our weak faith. Fasting to remind us that we aren't on this earth simply to enjoy earthly delights, prayer that we may abandon ourselves and surrender our minds and wills and hearts to God in all things, and almsgiving that we might learn to give and sacrifice even when there is no promise of earthly reward.

May the Holy Spirit purify our faith from all that keeps us from that total abandonment to God and belonging to Christ without hesitation, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.