Daily Gospel Reflection
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May 13, 2025
The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem.
It was winter.
And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon.
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him,
“How long are you going to keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe.
The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me.
But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.
My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
No one can take them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,
and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.
The Father and I are one.”
Despite all of the excitement and possibilities I’ve experienced since arriving at Notre Dame last semester, I’ve also contended with feelings of fear and self-doubt: Why am I here? What should I be doing? Who is God calling me to be?
In today’s reading, Jesus reminds us of the power and necessity of faith—that those who believe in him will never be out of his hand and that he will give them eternal life. He calls us to be one of his sheep by hearing his voice and following it.
Last semester, I was like the crowd in the temple. God was with me, calling to me, and still, I would pray and ask God what I should do, as if I could not hear God’s call. I was afraid of walking down the wrong path, of being lost from my faith, or accidentally disobeying God’s will. I spent the whole semester like this, in doubt and hesitation.
This semester, to escape that endless indecision, I decided to fully trust in God. Once I let go of being excessively and overly meticulous, I realized that my fears, my potential missteps, were nothing in the face of God’s love. If we have faith, if we listen and follow God’s voice as Jesus asks us to, then nobody can take us out of God’s hand—not even ourselves—and God will lead us where we are meant to be.
Since the start of my Spring semester, my faith has guided me to deeper friendships, greater confidence, and a true sense of belonging and direction. It’s easy to want a concrete answer and know the outcome before taking the first step, but true faith comes in believing in God’s will and following God’s call even when we are not certain where it leads. When we do, nothing will be able to take us away from God.
Prayer
Christ, our Good Shepherd, you tirelessly seek out the lost, and you give strength to the weary sinner. In your unfathomable mercy, you never cease to pour out blessings upon those who despair of finding you. Help us to extend this same spirit of consolation to our brothers and sisters in need, and may we always imitate your example of tender care towards the poor. We ask this in your name. Amen.
Saint of the Day
In the middle of 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 Pius XII 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.
