What the World Needs Now is Love
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At our parish, the decision was made a few years ago that all Masses would hear the readings for the Scrutinies and not just at the morning Mass where the RCIA candidates attend. Somehow, I had missed this shift as it was just this year that it was announced at each Mass which readings would be read.
First Scrutiny Readings were Exodus 17:3-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 and John 4:5-42
Water is one of the essentials of life. Going to the well to obtain water was part of everyday life. Here we hear of the living water that Christ provides which will sustain us in ways that physical water can not.
Do we seek to only care for our physical bodies and not our souls?
Second Scrutiny Readings were 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, and John 9:1-41
“I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”
The blind man is now able to see thanks to Christ. His blindness was from birth and believed to show his sinfullness.
How many of us are BLIND as in not seeing the truth in front of us? Don’t we all need Christ to open our eyes and other senses so we might see the truth?
Third Scrutiny Readings were Ezekiel 37:12-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:8-10 and John 11: 1- 45
“Master, the one you love is ill.” (verse 3) Now Jesus loved Marth and her sister and Lazarus. (verse 5)
Here we see that Christ IS the savior and way to resurrection. Ezekial prophesized the raising of Lazarus (“You shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and make you come up out of them, my people!”) And, Lazarus’ resurrection from the dead foreshadows our own resurrection which Christ bought with his death on the cross.
Christ LOVED Lazarus, yet some wondered why he lingered instead of rushing to heal him at first notification of his illness. Instead, he responds to the initial call with “This illness is not to end in death,* but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Of course, he saw the BIG picture and life eternal which those around Him did not fully grasp. Instead, they took it as Lazarus’ body would not die.
As you progress through the readings for the Scrutinies, you find an underlying theme that we ALL need Christ. Not just as our Savior, but as our lover. We yearn for and seek His love, even when we do not recognize it. Even more than that, HE yearns for us.
The scrutiny readings remind us that we Christ can give us what we need if we just believe that He loves us and died for us. We DO need what Christ offers: living water, sight and to be called forth from the tomb of sin and death.
This post is linked up to 40 Days of Seeking Him Lent 2016. Visit the Palm Sunday anchor post to find more content related to Lent and Easter.
