Saturday of the Fourth Week in Lent

Today's Mass Readings

“All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God,” announces the response of today’s psalm. We hear these words today immediately after we hear the story of Paul and Barnabas and the great mission to the gentiles. His universal call is one of the most distinctive things about Jesus. He came from the Jewish tradition and He’s very clearly rooted in it, but He has come to call all people to Himself. His mission is universal. This mission is connected to Jesus’ particularly unique relationship to the Father that we hear about in today’s gospel: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). There is an intimate relationship here. Many scholars think that the Aramaic word that Jesus would have been using to address the Father here is “Abba,” a personal and familiar term for father that would best be translated as “Daddy.” Because of Jesus’ intimate relationship with the Father, we too “have the courage to say” (in the words of the Mass) “Our Father.” While having this unique relationship with the Father, Jesus is also “like us in all things but sin” (Eucharistic Prayer IV). He makes God known to us as One who is compassionate, merciful, and loving. One who we can call Abba. One who’s “saving power” reaches to “all the ends of the earth.”

Jesus has made God known to us and we must respond like the apostles Paul and Barnabas. “Apostle” literally means “one who is sent.” In today’s gospel, Jesus gives one of many exhortations to go and do likewise, “whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these” (John 14:12). We have seen throughout the Acts of Apostles over the last few weeks that indeed the apostles are doing the works that Jesus does – healings, baptizing, and even raising the dead – with the power of His Holy Spirit. The apostolic work that Jesus calls us to extends to all of the ends of the earth and is for everyone.

Let us reflect today on how we can make that apostolic call alive in our own place. Looking at the whole world as our personal apostolic mission is overwhelming and often paralyzing. Let us focus, rather, on how we might do Jesus’ work in our families, in our workplaces, in our schools, in the various organizations we are parts of, and the city of Dayton. Jesus’ mission doesn’t involve merely words, but as we hear in today’s gospel, it’s also about works. How might we allow God to breathe His Spirit into these various spaces we inhabit as we walk through this day?

– Tim Gabrielli