Never Forgotten

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today reinforce the Love of God that will never forget us as we are the focus of the Work of the Son calling us to transformation.

"Never Forget You"

The Reading from the Prophet Isaiah 49.8-15 asserts the constant Love of God for humanity.

* [49:8] You: the individual is not named; perhaps Cyrus or the prophet.

* [49:12] Syene: now called Aswan, at the first cataract of the Nile in southern Egypt. (Isaiah, CHAPTER 49 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 145 proclaims God’s mighty acts show forth divine kingship.

* [Psalm 145] A hymn in acrostic form; every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Acrostic poems usually do not develop ideas but consist rather of loosely connected statements. The singer invites all to praise God (Ps 145:1–3, 21). The “works of God” make God present and invite human praise (Ps 145:4–7); they climax in a confession (Ps 145:8–9). God’s mighty acts show forth divine kingship (Ps 145:10–20), a major theme in the literature of early Judaism and in Christianity. (Psalms, PSALM 145 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus presents The Work of the Son.

* [5:17] Sabbath observance (10) was based on God’s resting on the seventh day (cf. Gn 2:2–3; Ex 20:11). Philo and some rabbis insisted that God’s providence remains active on the sabbath, keeping all things in existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging (=ruling, governing). Jesus here claims the same authority to work as the Father, and, in the discourse that follows, the same divine prerogatives: power over life and death (Jn 5:21, 24–26) and judgment (Jn 5:22, 27).

* [5:19] This proverb or parable is taken from apprenticeship in a trade: the activity of a son is modeled on that of his father. Jesus’ dependence on the Father is justification for doing what the Father does.

* [5:21] Gives life: in the Old Testament, a divine prerogative (Dt 32:39; 1 Sm 2:6; 2 Kgs 5:7; Tb 13:2; Is 26:19; Dn 12:2).

* [5:22] Judgment: another divine prerogative, often expressed as acquittal or condemnation (Dt 32:36; Ps 43:1).

* [5:28–29] While Jn 5:19–27 present realized eschatology, Jn 5:28–29 are future eschatology; cf. Dn 12:2. (John, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB, n.d.)

Mike Cherney comments that the challenges of human conflict, economic inequality, political corruption, environmental crises, and social fragmentation are immense. I feel that I cannot ignore the call to engage with these issues through the lens of faith. Both Isaiah and John offer a vision of a world restored to righteousness through divine intervention, but I do not see this vision as something passive. I feel that there is an imperative for my personal action. That is the focus of my prayer today.

Dear Lord, I struggle to understand the frequent hardness of human hearts. On a personal level, I worry for my children and grandchildren. Help me to find peace as I strive to discern my mission. Open my heart and my mind to your call. Guide my actions as an agent of Your kingdom. (Cherney, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “The wonderful exchange,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"Unless the Word of God had first assumed our mortal flesh he could not have died for us. Only in that way was the immortal God able to die and to give life to mortal humans. Therefore, by this double sharing he brought about a wonderful exchange. We made death possible for him, and he made life possible for us." (excerpt from Sermon 218c,1) (Schwager, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments are not available at publication time.

The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 49:8-15 comments that God had to reassure the people of Zion that he treasured them even more than a mother cares for her newborn child. Even if she should forget, the Lord says, “I will never forget you” (49:15).

So today, if you’re feeling forsaken, like the people of Zion, imagine yourself as an infant being cradled in the arms of your heavenly Father. Cry out for him to hold you close to his heart. Let his loving gaze, his strong arms, and his soothing voice reassure you that he has not forgotten you. He will always show you his tender mercy. He really does have good plans for you. Rest and relax in his loving embrace.

“Thank you, Lord, that you never forget me.” (Meditation on Isaiah 49:8-15, n.d.)

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Author and CAC team member Cassidy Hall who reflects on the cost of making choices out of shame and the “toxic silence” it creates.

In the Christian context, the toxicity of silent bystanders creates and feeds countless acts of violence: the sexual abuse in many church settings and its continuation through empty apologies; Christianity’s lack of reckoning with its history of colonization; denominations’ refusal to honor and elevate the leadership and dignity of women, people of color, refugees, people with disabilities, and people from other marginalized communities; churches filling with Christian nationalism and white supremacy culture; the countless times the silent acceptance of bad theology has caused an LGBTQIA+ person to hate or harm themselves; and more. This is the silence of harm, violence, shame, and toxicity….

Toxic silence is embedded in the fabric of our daily lives…. Yet a [contemplative] loving silence can also be pursued, and we can seek and find it even in the chaos of our days. Sometimes it seeps in with our efforts to repeat an internal mantra or take an intentional pause, and other times it pours in like the colorful morning light through the east-facing window. This is the contemplative silence I continually seek and practice. This silence regenerates, regulates, allows for the emergence of loving presence and action. The more we engage in the silences that aren’t toxic—the beautiful, loving, and infinite possibilities of silence—the more we encounter silence as a creative, generative force and not a destructive one. (Rohr, n.d.)

We contemplate the analogy of being known by God as an expectant mother knowing the child of her womb and invoke the Spirit to extend our prayer petitions to include all the experiences of life in the womb that can include both connection in love and Divine Presence in distress.

References

Cherney, M. (n.d.). Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-march-18-2026 

Isaiah, CHAPTER 49 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/49?8 

John, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5?17 

Meditation on Isaiah 49:8-15. (n.d.). Word Among Us. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://wau.org/meditations/2026/03/18/1520771/ 

Psalms, PSALM 145 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/145?8 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Silenced by Shame. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/silenced-by-shame/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). My Father Is Working Still, and I Am Working. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 18, 2026, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/ 

 

Healing and Discipleship

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to ponder our healings and share our transformation through Grace as followers of Jesus.

A Wonderful Stream

The Reading from the Prophet Ezekiel presents The Wonderful Stream.

* [47:1–12] The life and refreshment produced wherever the Temple stream flows evoke the order and abundance of paradise (cf. Gn 1:20–22; 2:10–14; Ps 46:5) and represent the coming transformation Ezekiel envisions for the exiles and their land. Water signifies great blessings and evidence of the Lord’s presence (cf. Jl 2:14).

* [47:8] The sea: the Dead Sea, in which nothing can live. This vision of the Temple stream which transforms places of death into places of life is similar in purpose to the oracle of dry bones in 37:1–14: it offers the exiles hope for the future.

* [47:10] From En-gedi to En-eglaim: En-gedi is about halfway down the western shore of the Dead Sea; En-eglaim may have been at its northern end. (Ezekiel, CHAPTER 47 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 46 proclaims the security of God’s presence.

* [Psalm 46] A song of confidence in God’s protection of Zion with close parallels to Ps 48. The dominant note in Ps 46 is sounded by the refrain, The LORD of hosts is with us (Ps 46:8, 12). The first strophe (Ps 46:2–4) sings of the security of God’s presence even in utter chaos; the second (Ps 46:5–8), of divine protection of the city from its enemies; the third (Ps 46:9–11), of God’s imposition of imperial peace. (Psalms, PSALM 46 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus third sign involves Cure on a Sabbath.

* [5:1–47] The self-revelation of Jesus continues in Jerusalem at a feast. The third sign (cf. Jn 2:11; 4:54) is performed, the cure of a paralytic by Jesus’ life-giving word. The water of the pool fails to bring life; Jesus’ word does.

* [5:1] The reference in Jn 5:45–46 to Moses suggests that the feast was Pentecost. The connection of that feast with the giving of the law to Moses on Sinai, attested in later Judaism, may already have been made in the first century. The feast could also be Passover (cf. Jn 6:4). John stresses that the day was a sabbath (Jn 5:9).

* [5:2] There is no noun with Sheep. “Gate” is supplied on the grounds that there must have been a gate in the NE wall of the temple area where animals for sacrifice were brought in; cf. Neh 3:1, 32; 12:39. Hebrew: more precisely, Aramaic. Bethesda: preferred to variants “Be(th)zatha” and “Bethsaida”; bêt-’eśdatayin is given as the name of a double pool northeast of the temple area in the Qumran Copper Roll. Five porticoes: a pool excavated in Jerusalem actually has five porticoes.

* [5:3] The Caesarean and Western recensions, followed by the Vulgate, add “waiting for the movement of the water.” Apparently an intermittent spring in the pool bubbled up occasionally (see Jn 5:7). This turbulence was believed to cure.

* [5:4] Toward the end of the second century in the West and among the fourth-century Greek Fathers, an additional verse was known: “For [from time to time] an angel of the Lord used to come down into the pool; and the water was stirred up, so the first one to get in [after the stirring of the water] was healed of whatever disease afflicted him.” The angel was a popular explanation of the turbulence and the healing powers attributed to it. This verse is missing from all early Greek manuscripts and the earliest versions, including the original Vulgate. Its vocabulary is markedly non-Johannine.

* [5:14] While the cure of the paralytic in Mk 2:1–12 is associated with the forgiveness of sins, Jesus never drew a one-to-one connection between sin and suffering (cf. Jn 9:3; Lk 12:1–5), as did Ez 18:20. (John, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB, n.d.)

Rev. George Meze, SJ, comments that in 1986, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, an apology for the incarceration of Japanese Americans. While fear is understandable, acting on fear to dehumanize fellow human beings is never justified. Dehumanization marginalizes everyone, including the oppressor, because dehumanization is our vocation.

In contrast to fear is love. Commitment is a necessity for love. According to John Futrell S.J., Christian discernment “involves choosing the way of the light of Christ and living out the consequences of this choice… and actions are demanded to follow Christ here and now.” In this commitment to do good, God heals our fears and blesses us to live a human vocation. (Meze, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “Christ our physician,” by Augustine of Hippo, 430-543 A.D.

"Our wound is serious, but the Physician is all-powerful. Does it seem to you so small a mercy that, while you were living in evil and sinning, He did not take away your life, but brought you to belief and forgave your sins? What I suffer is serious, but I trust the Almighty. I would despair of my mortal wound if I had not found so great a Physician." (excerpt from Sermon 352,3) (Schwager, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments that the account of the vision of Ezekiel from Babylon of the river expanding symbolizes the grace of the liturgy. The liturgy is for all even those outside who can sense goodness. We bring that goodness to others. Jesus encounters the paralytic at Bethesda, where post WWII archaeologists searching for the pool found five porticoes. The pool of the men was separated from the pool for women. Next door was the shrine of a pagan god of healing and the sign of doctors today. ( note the difference in the Caduceus (left) and the Staff of Aesculapius (right))1  Jesus says to the cripple for 38 years “Do you want to be healed?” We are sometimes hesitant to utilize a gift of grace because the old things are familiar and the new may be a cause of fear. The Jewish authorities declared that healing on the Sabbath is prohibited unless someone is at the point of death. Jesus was not going to make him wait another second. Jesus exhorts the man not to sin anymore unless something worse happens. Friar Jude identifies this healing as prior to the fourth sign in John which is the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, prefiguring the Eucharist.

1Bohigian G. The Caduceus vs. Staff of Aesculapius - One Snake or Two? Mo Med. 2019 Nov-Dec;116(6):476-477. PMID: 31911724; PMCID: PMC6913859.

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 5:1-16  comments that this man’s story is a cautionary tale for all of us. Jesus wants to answer our prayers, but he also wants to change us. He wants to heal us: to tell us to take up our mat and walk (John 5:8), but he also wants us to “not sin any more” (5:14). Of course, he knows we’re not perfect, but he does want to see us take up the life of discipleship and obedience to him. And for that, we need to listen to his word and try our best to live out that word.

You don’t have to wait a full thirty-eight years to enter the promised land that Jesus has in store for you. It’s available to you right now. Will you take up your mat and walk, determined not to “sin any more”?

“Jesus, thank you for setting me free! Help me to follow you wherever you lead.” (Meditation on John 5:1-16, n.d.)

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Theologian Yolanda Pierce who grew up in a church that offered her a sense of belonging. She grieves that churches often fail to follow Jesus’s example of welcoming and including everyone.

So it grieves my spirit that so many churches, so many religious spaces, have been sites of humiliation and shame for individuals and groups. I mourn that a place that taught a little Black girl that she could go to a college no one had ever seen before is the same place that tells someone else they are going to hell for who they love or who they marry. I lament the private and public humiliations suffered by those whose truths and identities are mocked from the pulpit. I grieve with those whose humanity, vocational calling, or salvation seems under debate by way of narrow-minded sermons and poor biblical exegesis….

These hierarchies, in which those with power and privilege—or those who simply wield the microphone—shame and blame others and reinforce their “superior” social standing, diminish the radical equality God promises in places like Galatians 3:28. These hierarchies fail to recognize that we are all one in Christ Jesus and that our work as Christians is to exalt God, not to shame our neighbors…. (Rohr, n.d.)

We seek the grace of the Spirit as we are thankful for our ongoing transformation and affirmation of our faith in our mission to bring faith, hope and love to the people we encounter daily.

References

Ezekiel, CHAPTER 47 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ezekiel/47?1 

John, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5?1 

Meditation on John 5:1-16. (n.d.). Word Among Us. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://wau.org/meditations/2026/03/17/1520292/ 

Meze, G. (n.d.). Daily Reflection. On line Ministries. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-march-17-2026 

Psalms, PSALM 46 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/46?2 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Daily Meditations — Center for Action and Contemplation. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Walk and Sin No More. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/