Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 27, 2020
Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret.
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”
Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”
Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.
As I write this I am in prayer for the entire Notre Dame community, in all parts of the globe, that all will come through this perilous time safely.
Jesus knew about perilous times. We can sense his dread of going into Judea in today’s gospel, but it was the Festival of Booths, one of the three festivals during which Jews were mandated to perform a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His friends had already arrived, and he came into the city quietly. Here we see the great similarity between Jesus and the prophet Jeremiah, who also lived in perilous times. Although he did not want to be rejected by his own, soon his mission became like a fire in his bones, and he cried out for those in the Temple area to listen to him.
The thing is, they knew where he came from. Ah, that delicious Johannine irony. They didn’t really know where he came from but, since they thought they knew, that meant that Jesus couldn’t possibly be the Messiah. That’s the problem throughout John’s Gospel, from the very prologue, where we learn that he came unto his own and dwelt among his own but his own would not receive him. They thought they knew where he came from.
Sometimes it takes seeing a childhood friend get a prestigious award to really see who our friend has become. Other times, we wish those who have known our faults our whole lives would give us a second chance, a millionth chance, so we could finally rise to the occasion and get it right. It’s sad when “our own” won’t see who we really are.
Jesus longed for his own to really know him. Please, don’t miss the chance to know him.
Prayer
Jesus, Son of God the most high, you live in intimate union with the Father and you invite us to share in your life. May the fruits of our own Baptism be more evident than ever these Lenten days, that we may celebrate Easter with unrestrained rejoicing. You live and reign with the Father and the Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. John of Egypt was known for walling himself up in a cave and staking his survival upon God and the goodness of others.
John was born in Egypt around the year 305, and spent his early adult years as a carpenter. When he was 25, he left everything he knew to seek God in the desert with prayer.
He spent a decade with a hermit, taking direction from him and learning self-surrender. The hermit, for example, had him water a dry stick every day for a year. John learned obedience and humility, and when the hermit died, John traveled and visited other monasteries for five years.
Finally, John settled at the top of a steep hill near Lycopolis, Egypt, and carved three small cells out of rock. He slept in one, used another for work and living space, and prayed in the third. Then he walled these cells up with himself inside and lived this way until he died in his 90s.
He left a small window through which he could speak to people and receive food and water they might bring him. He only ate after sunset, and his diet was mostly dried fruit and vegetables—nothing cooked over a fire.
He spent five days a week in conversation with God alone, and two days a week, he conversed with people seeking spiritual direction and advice. Crowds would gather on those two days to hear him preach.
Other ascetics and hermits saw him as an example and a father, and many people sought him out for wisdom, including the emperor. John was given the gift of seeing the future and knowing details from the lives of people he had never met. He could discern what was secretly hidden in people’s hearts.
Foreseeing his own death, he asked that no one visit him for three days, and he sealed off his window. He died peacefully, and his body was found in a position of prayer. He was known and admired by the great saints of his time, including St. Augustine and St. Jerome. The cell he lived in was discovered in the early 1900s.
St. John of Egypt, you were the hermit whose life of prayer and self-surrender inspired other great saints—pray for us!
Image Credit: (1) Our featured image of St. John of Egypt is available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed February 13, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons. (2) The image above is from the book, Trophaeum Vitae Solitariae, by Thomas de Leu (1560-1612). Preserved at Pitts Theology Library at Emory University. Used with permission.
