First Reading: Daniel 3:13-20, 24 ,49-50,91-95
Gospel: John 8:31-42

We are in the fifth week of our Lenten journey. The coming Sunday and the coming week we will be already in Holy Week.
Today, we starting a new month of April. We want to renew our hope, faith and trust in the Lord that we may be able to fulfill his will even in this difficult and challenging pandemic crisis.
In today’s reading from the Prophet Daniel, we read a beautiful episode of King Nabuchadnezzar and of the three young faithful Jews, who refused to worship a golden statue. “They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God”. The king raged in anger and ordered his guards to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. But God saved them from this awful danger. This precisely reminds us of the current situation we are living in. We are put into this pandemic, the unseen enemy, from which only the true God will set us free, when we truly worship him with all our hearts, with all our soul and with all our minds (cf. Mt 22:37).   
Today’s gospel reading: Jesus challenges the hypocrisies of the Jew leaders and he invites them to true discipleship with these words: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:31-32). Certainly, Jesus wants to set us free, but do we want to be set free?  Truth and freedom are two important words that help us to relate to the God who created us. By being good and free from sin and from the many deceptive satisfactions of this world, we can truly become children of God, sisters and brothers more closely united to each other and more a part of the integrity of creation. The Jews were proud to be children of Abraham, their ancestral origin.  Do you think that because one is born of a specific family or a nation, it makes them more than the other in front of God? Jesus gives the answer to them, as well to each one of us when he says: “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am (Yahweh) here” (Jn 8:42). Our God is Yahweh, ever living, ever present and all knowing.  Stay safe and well.

Fr. Mussie