Wednesday 4th week of Lent
"Jn 5:17-30"
Jesus said, "My Father is working still, and I am working...Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise...I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgement is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me."
Today's Gospel follows immediately on from yesterday's account of the healing of the crippled man by the pool. Apparently some Jews thought that healing on the Sabbath was a bad idea. But Jesus answered them that His Father was working on the Sabbath and so was Jesus, because He does what the Father does.
Jesus is a Good Son, always doing what His Father wants, in perfect unity with Him. Like Father like Son. That's what good children do: they learn everything from their parents. They take after their father and mother in the way they move, speak, or act... It may have happened to you sometimes that someone recognises in you some features or gestures of your mother or father and says: 'you remind me a lot of your mother' or 'your father does the same thing'. Do I remind people of my Father God with my bearing?
Jesus' mission was "to remind us of His Father" so that we become good children of God, because we learn from Jesus, our Brother, to take after Our Father: 'birds of a feather'... If we are like Jesus Christ, we will be like the Father. And that's what He commanded us: "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48).
A protestant man was asking a priest about some points of our Faith that he didn't understand: the devotion to Mary, priestly celibacy, the practice of mortification, obedience... The prudent priest said: "I love Mary because Jesus loves Mary; I'm celibate because Jesus is celibate; I mortify myself because Jesus mortified Himself, I obey because Jesus obeyed... I want to be like Him, I want to say what He says, I want to do what He does, I want to love what He loves, I want to be where He is, I want to go where He went... so I do what He did: I follow in His footsteps." Mary, my Mother, help me to do the same.
