Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent - April 3, 2019

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Isaiah 49:8-15  John 5:17-30

“The Son cannot do anything on his own.” This phrase sticks out to me in today’s gospel. Jesus speaks about his oneness with the Father: that Jesus is not acting alone; all things come from the Father and are given to Jesus the Son. That is to say that the Son depends on the Father. As a mother and father of a two-year-old and an eight-month-old, Katie and I also find ourselves saying, “I cannot do anything on my own.” Well, perhaps not anything but certainly, we depend on God as a married couple and as parents.

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks of the relationship between Father and Son: “...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...”

As parents, what an awesome gift we have been given to be an influence over our children. It’s incredible that our two-year-old, Annabelle, is learning sentences, colors, numbers, drawing, singing and dancing and it is in large part because of the examples we have shown her. What beauty! What responsibility.

But let’s be real: we are not perfect parents. There will be times when we are not the best examples. Yet will we be successful in instilling in our daughters compassion, kindness, respectfulness and integrity? How will we balance the fact that we use cell phones for our work or otherwise but still teach appropriate cell phone boundaries? How can our children be like the well-behaved children at mass that Katie and I see every weekend at Vis!?

Well, we are learning from what God has instilled in this faith community--from people like yourselves! Just as we are examples to our children, we all are examples to each other. And of course, we learn by continuing to learn the ways of Jesus. To follow His example and to listen to His words.  Like you, we depend on Jesus, in the midst of the Trinity, the ultimate community of love.  We depend on our faith and we depend on all of you. As I said before, “we cannot do it on our own.”

Q: Who do I look to as an example to emulate – in my family? In my Visitation community?

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