Daily Gospel Reflection
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May 13, 2022
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way.”
Thomas said to him,
“Master, we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Reflection
The words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” are part of a recurring pattern in the gospels: again and again, God tells his people to be not afraid.
Often these words precede some seismic, joyous event, as when the angel Gabriel greeted Mary at the Annunciation (Lk: 1:30) or when the angels visited the shepherds to proclaim the birth of Jesus (Lk: 2:10). What is particularly remarkable about the words in today’s gospel is the heartbreaking timing and setting in which they are shared.
Jesus is at the Last Supper with his apostles, having just announced that Judas will betray him and Peter will deny him. He is about to enter into his agony, crucifixion, and death. The world of his disciples, who have given their lives entirely to him, is about to crumble. And yet Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
Of course, Jesus knows that his disciples’ hearts will be troubled. Jesus himself was “deeply troubled” in announcing the betrayal of Judas and was in such agony in the garden that his “sweat became like drops of blood” (Lk 22:44).
Perhaps then, these words to the apostles—and to us—are best understood not as a command but rather as a consolation. Like a parent to a child, Jesus speaks words of tender care, knowing the anguish to come.
Amidst the trials of our lives, the weight of our sin, the failure of our dreams—amidst our greatest pains and sorrows, Jesus says again, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Why? Because this life’s suffering will pale in comparison to the promises of the next life, where Jesus has prepared a place for each of us to be united with him in everlasting joy.
Prayer
No one knows the troubles we suffer, dear Lord, and sometimes our lives are hard to bear. Help us to trust in your consoling words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” You know the depth of all people’s suffering and still you offered yourself on the cross to save us from ourselves, our pride, our self-centeredness. May the Spirit who raised you from the dead raise us up to serve others in their needs today. Alleluia!
Saint of the Day
In the middle 1916 in Portugal, three children were tending sheep in a pasture near the poor village where they lived. The oldest, Lucia, 10, was in charge, and Francisco and Jacinta—brother and sister—helped. They were raised in faithful homes, and often would spend their time praying the rosary while they watched the sheep. Several times during that summer, they were visited by an angel while they were in the fields, and the angel taught them a prayer to the Trinity.
They added this prayer to their devotions, and the next year, on this date in 1917, a bolt of lightning caught their attention as they tended the sheep. When they looked in that direction, they saw a brilliant figure, a woman described by Lucia as “brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.”
The lady, Mary, asked the children to pray for the conversion of sinners and for an end to the war (World War I) which was devastating Europe at the time. She asked the children to return to the site on the 13th of every month.
Mary visited the children on the 13th of June and July. By the end of the summer, their stories had drawn much attention. On August 13, authorities prevented the children from going to the fields, but Mary appeared to them on August 19 instead. On September 13, the Lady asked the children to pray the rosary, and to pray for an end to the war. In her last appearance, on October 13, she identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary, and again asked for prayer and repentance.
On the day of that last appearance, a crowd nearing 70,000 gathered with the children to witness the appearance, though only the children could see Mary. In her first appearance, Mary told the children that they would witness a sign in the heavens during that last visit, and the whole crowd saw the phenomenon: the sun seemed to dance in the sky and fall towards the earth.
Mary also shared three “secrets” with the children that have been revealed over time. In the first secret, the children witnessed a vision of hell. In the second, Mary asked for the conversion of sinners, and especially communist Russia, and told of another phenomenon in the heavens that would precede a second great war. (In the month before Hitler seized Austria, an occurrence of the aurora borealis covered most of Europe—it was the widest display in 200 years; people in Paris called the fire department because they thought a huge fire had broken out in the city.)
The third secret was sealed until 1960 and was finally revealed by the Vatican in 2000. It told of a vision in which the children saw a figure like the pope killed by soldiers. They also saw many other of the faithful killed in persecution. Pope John Paul II interpreted the secret to refer to his survival of an assassination attempt (which happened on this date in 1981), and to the many persecutions and wars of the 20th century. Read more about the Fatima secrets at the Vatican website here.
Within two years of the apparitions, the two younger children, the brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta, died of the Spanish Influenza. Lucia died on February 13, 2005.
In the end, Mary’s message at Fatima is a call for Christians to convert and repent from their sins, and to pray. "I have come to exhort the faithful to change their lives, to avoid grieving our Lord by sin, to pray the rosary,” Mary told the children. She also asked for a special veneration to her Immaculate Heart, which was fulfilled by Pope John Paul II when he consecrated the world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
The apparition is portrayed in statues that stand at what used to be the Fatima Retreat House across the lake from campus. The retreat house is now a residence for Holy Cross religious. A part of the tree in which Mary appeared to the children rests in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica on campus.
Our Lady of Fatima, you call us to prayer and conversion—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image for Our Lady of Fatima is in the public domain. Last accessed March 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
