Many Believed in Him

March 26, 2021, Friday
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent (Violet)
CYCLE B - YEAR I
RDGS: JER 20:10-13/ PS 18:2-3. 3-4. 5-6. 7
GOSPEL: JN 10:31-42

The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.

Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?"
The Jews answered him,
"We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God."
Jesus answered them,
"Is it not written in your law, 'I said, 'You are gods"'? 
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? 
If I do not perform my Father's works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained. 
Many came to him and said,
"John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true."
And many there began to believe in him.

GOSPEL REFLECTION:

This passage reminds us of the trouble Jesus has in being accepted by the Jewish authorities as speaking on behalf of God. We are coming closer to Holy Week when we recall the huge costs to Him of this rejection. His ability to love us to the very death points to His divinity from which he received the power to carry through to the end. Our way of praying today is to ask for the awareness and realization of this great love the Lord has for you. In this realization lies the depth of our thanksgiving.

The works of Jesus are the works of love. This is the love we know of him – love unto death. What we see in Jesus, we can see of the Father. What the Father sees in Jesus, he sees and loves in us. We pray that our hearts may be made like the heart of Jesus.

PRAYER:

Show me, Lord, where my life falls short of what I profess. Close the bible up and show me how The Christ you talk about is living now.