May the Lord give you grace and peace in the Holy Spirit.
It is 30th March 2022.
We reflect on Isaiah 49:8-15 and John 5:17-30.
When we begin forgetting God, we believe that God has abandoned us. This was the experience of the people of Israel who lamented at the first reading. God on His part, God assures repeatedly that God neither leaves us nor abandons us. Our better times come from God when we least expect it. Have you been going through a challenging and tough time in your personal, social, and family life? Today’s reading indeed offers the assurance we all need times we are afraid and broken. God might allow us to walk again in desert-like Israel. But it is not a desert experience of Exodus to Egypt but from Babylon to Zion. Consolation of God can never be concealed by the efforts of human endeavour. Salvation and sustainability come from the Lord.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Is.49:15). God’s love is incomparable even with the supreme love of a mother. God always wanted to treat us as God’s children, yet we love to treat God as master as we feel like God’s servants.
Jesus repeatedly demonstrated His special and loving relationship with the Father by the acts of healing and preaching that provoked so many. In the passage we have today, He claims God as His Father. God alone gives life and the power to give life comes from the Father to Jesus which in no way makes Jesus inferior to the Father.
We, the faithful need to show the compassionate Heart of Jesus in the way we handle people in our life.
God alone has the power to judge yet God has given the power to judge to the Son. The purpose is not for condemnation from the Son but to offer respect and honour due to Him. “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (Jn. 5:30). Jesus wanted to show the compassionate face of the Father. May we change our perception of God and accept God as our loving Father. May God bless you.