Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
March 27, 2026
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.
Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner. The full readings of the day from the Lectionary are available here.
In a new document, titled “Quo vadis, humanitas?”— “Where are you going, humanity?”—the Vatican’s International Theological Commission has warned that humanity risks replacing God with virtual gods if we place our trust and find our truth solely in technology. Relevant to contemporary discussions of AI, today’s reading offers insights into responsibility, goodness, and humility.
Jesus alludes in verse 34 to the provocative idea that humans are already like “gods,” that is, we possess delegated power. For example, humans have named and tamed non-human parts of creation, built and destroyed civilizations, and shaped and altered reality through technology. Such power is extended exponentially through AI, which is not divine but derivative from massive data inputs. Though human AI developers are not creators per se, they are stewards with immense responsibility to understand the source, purpose, and limits of this new power.
Jesus then says essentially to judge by the works, not the claims. This teaching can become a moral test for AI: insofar as it serves humanity, reduces suffering, and expands understanding, it reflects responsible stewardship. Insofar as AI deceives, manipulates, concentrates power unjustly, or harms humanity, then the claims of progress by the creators are problematic. AI can be measured by its contribution to the common good, not just its sophistication and speed. Examples already exist of AI agents transcending what the human developers predict or even comprehend.
The QVH document points out that our societies are “driven by pressing dreams of unlimited enhancement or even replacement of the human.” In the face of this threat, the Christian faith makes a theological, pastoral, and cultural proposition that we have a vocation not to be (or make) gods, but to be God’s images and likenesses, especially when we responsibly harness power, produce good works, and proceed with humility and wisdom.
Prayer
Gracious Father, we possess many stones of arrogance and blame. Help us not cast our fears onto others. Help us transform our grudges, resentments, and moments of pride that darken our souls. May these stones of sin be turned into bread. May we learn to feed on the miracles of your healing presence, no matter the turmoil in our hearts. May we become bread for others, our true signs from heaven. May peace feed us into eternity through Christ, our Lord. 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.
