{"id":1053,"date":"2020-03-20T09:05:21","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T09:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2020-03-20T09:05:21","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T09:05:21","slug":"reflection-22-march-2020-a-fourth-sunday-of-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"Reflection 22 March 2020 (A) Fourth Sunday of Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflection\n& Dialogue<\/em><\/strong>: Jesus and the Church the light of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Three clear points emerge from today\u2019s liturgy\nand readings and they give rich material for reflection on Christian life and\nour dialogue with the age in which we live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             The first is that Christ is the light of the\nworld. It is for this purpose that he has been sent into our world by his\nheavenly Father. He was \u201cthe One Sent\u201d, the Siloam, who cured the man born\nblind. He came so that the world might have a vision of the glory of the\nFather. That is clear from today\u2019s Gospel reading, and from many other places\nin the New Testament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The second point is that all this is\nnot just for the lifetime of Jesus on earth. He chose apostles and disciples so\nthat the Good News would be proclaimed to the ends of the earth, and to the end\nof time. The followers of Jesus are sent out to be the light of the world and\nthe salt of the earth. That is how the Church understood and preached the\nGospel from the beginning. The Church is the universal sacrament and mystery of\nsalvation in its teaching and in the lives of the faithful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            This takes us to the third point:\nthe dialogue of the Church with herself and with the world of our own day. The\nchurch must constantly renew herself, to live as the second reading calls for,\nfrom a Christian light that is seen in complete goodness and right living and\ntruth. Very often today when mention is made of Church renewal, renewal of\nchurch structures is what is intended, especially of the Vatican and its\ncuria. While such reform is called for, where necessary, the renewal in keeping\nwith today\u2019s reading is not quite that. Rather is this renewal in question a change\nin the minds and religious practices of the faithful in keeping with the Gospel\nmessage, to bear witness to Christ, the light, in the world in which we live. A\nmatter worth mentioning here in the question of dialogue with our age, but one\nnot to be developed here now, is that many moderns believe that what New\nTestament readings and Christians regard as light, are in their view darkness,\nold-fashioned views and practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflection & Dialogue: Jesus and the Church the light of the world.  Three clear points emerge from today\u2019s liturgy and readings and they give rich material for reflection on Christian … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}