Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent:

Reading I: Jeremiah 11:18–20
Psalm: 7:2–3, 9bc–10, 11–12
Gospel: John 7:40–53

Like so much of John’s Gospel, today’s passage points us to the centrality of Christ. Amidst so many differing reactions to His identity and mission, even the Jewish guards can’t help but blurt out, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”

We can detect a huge spiritual irony in the Pharisees’ response. “Have you also been deceived?” they demand. Those who are the most deceived accuse everyone but themselves of seeing things incorrectly.
John’s Gospel repeatedly underscores for us the fact that Jesus Christ truly is the answer to the deepest longings of our heart, and that is why skeptics and tyrants in every age have found Him impossible to ignore. Pope Benedict XVI often said that Jesus shatters all our categories. As he explains further in Deus Caritas Est, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

That person is Jesus; He is that same person who divided public opinion in first-century Palestine and who continues to divide opinion in our world today. We should pray for the grace today to accept Jesus for who He is and to have the humility and self-knowledge to avoid the kind of spiritual blindness exhibited by the Pharisees. Lord Jesus, help us to see you more clearly!

Why do the great spiritual masters describe self-knowledge as the beginning of the spiritual life?

How can I grow in humble recognition of both my faults and my gifts?

Reference:

Journey Through Lent: Reflections on the Daily Mass Readings by Clement Harrold