Wednesday of the 4th week of Lent was an important day for the early church in Rome which met today at the church of St. Paul Outside the Walls with its catechumens who were to be baptized at Easter. The cross was traced on their foreheads. They were given the Apostles’ Creed  to be memorized and reflected upon as a summary of faith.  They were also given the Our Father to be prayed as their basic prayer. 

Penitents were also reconciled to the church this week.

This week the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world, reading from the same scriptures read then, still gathers those to be baptized to pray for them and to give them the creed and the Our Father to sustain them in their Christian life. 

What about the penitents? Certainly there are penitents of the usual kind we should pray for today,  but  what about those who have left our church angry over the sexual abuse issue or issues of discrimination? What about the young who have left? We need to pray for them.

Our readings and prayers this week recognize that God gives the gift of faith and restores it in us.  John’s gospel, read from now on till after Easter at Mass, reminds us we need God’s grace.  The man waiting for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda, the man born blind, Nicodemus in the dark, Lazarus in the tomb are signs of the helplessness of humanity that waits for the life-giving Word of God. God alone makes the weak strong and those who have nothing live.

Waters from the temple flow through the world, yesterday’s reading from Ezechiel says. We’re not meant to be a small church.

Baptism is a gift meant for all, today’s first reading states. God is a mother who never forgets the children of her womb, but calls them from all parts of the world, Isaiah says:  

“I will cut a road through all my mountains,

and make my highways level.

See, some shall come from afar,

others from the north and the west,

and some from the land of Syene.

Sing out, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth,

break forth into song, you mountains.

For the LORD comforts his people

and shows mercy to his afflicted.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;

my Lord has forgotten me.”

Can a mother forget her infant,

be without tenderness for the child of her womb?

Even should she forget,

I will never forget.”  (Isaiah 49, 8-15)

We start to read today from the long gospels of John where Jesus announces he is “I am” to an often hostile crowd . “I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does…I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

John’s gospel was St. Paul of the Cross’ favorite and he drew much of his spirituality from it. John’s theme of the light shining in the darkness described the spiritual journey for him. The Word made flesh leads us to the Father through the dark world of  temptation and sin.

Even now, we can find rest in the light of God’s Presence. Even now, we can rest in the Father as adopted children. John’s Gospel calls us to remember our “nothingness”, a favorite expression of  St. Paul of the Cross. Only through humility and mystical death can we receive God’s saving power. Only through humility and mystical death does our church live.