Night Office
FIFTH WEEK OF LENT Year 1
Sunday
First Reading:
Hebrews 10:26-39
Responsory
... The unbeliever shall falter; + the just will live by faith.
V. Without faith it is impossible to please God. + The just will live by faith.
Alternative Reading
From
the writings of Henri J. M. Nouwen (Show Me
the Way, Readings for Each Day of Lent, 33-34)
Doing God's will
Everything we know about Jesus indicates
that he was concerned with only one thing: to do the will of his Father.
Nothing in the gospels is as impressive as Jesus' single-minded obedience to his
Father. From his first recorded words in the temple, Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father's affairs? to
his last words on the cross, Father, into
your hands I commit my spirit, Jesus' only concern was to do the will
of his Father. He says: The Son can do
nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees the Father doing. The
works Jesus did are the works the Father sent him to do, and the words he spoke
are the words the Father gave him. He leaves no doubt about this: If I am not doing my Father's work, there is no need
to believe me; my word is not my
own; it is the word of the one who sent me.
Jesus is not our Saviour simply because
of what he said to us or did for us. He is our Saviour because what he said and
did was said and done in obedience to his Father. That is why Saint Paul could
say, As by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.
Jesus is the obedient one. The centre of his life is this obedient
relationship with the Father.
Our lives are destined to become like
the life of Jesus. The whole purpose of Jesus' ministry is to bring us to the
house of his Father. Not only did Jesus come to free us from the bonds of sin
and death, he also came to lead us in the intimacy of his divine life. It is
difficult for us to imagine what this means. We tend to emphasize the distance
between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful
Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But in thinking
this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us
up into loving community with the Father. Only when we recognize the radical purpose
of Jesus' ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life.
Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus
does we may also do.
Responsory
The unbeliever shall falter; +the
just will
live by faith.
V. Without faith it is impossible to
please God. + The just will live by
faith.
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