A time oflexio divina for the discerning heart.

Friday of the fifth week in Lent.

As you begin, take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

For the next few moments, surrender all the cares and concerns of the stay to the Lord.

Say slowly from your heart, Jesus, I trust in you.

You take over. Become aware that he is with you, looking upon you with love, wanting to be heard deep within your heart.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John Chapter 8, verse 12 through 20.

The Jews fetched stones to stone him, so Jesus said to them,

I have done many good works for you to see, works from my father,

for which of these are you stoning me?

The Jews answered him,

We are not stoning you for doing a good work, but for blasphemy.

You are only a man, and you claim to be God.

Jesus answered,

Is it not written in your law?

I said, you are gods?

So the law uses the word gods,

of those to whom the word of God was addressed, and Scripture cannot be rejected. Yet you say to someone the Father has consecrated and sent into the world,

you are blaspheming, because he says, I am the Son of God. If I am not doing my father's work, there is no need to believe me.

But if I am doing it, then even if you refuse to believe in me, at least believe in the work

I do, then you will know for sure that the father is in me and I am in the father. They wanted to arrest him then, but he eluded

them. He went back again to the far side of the Jordan to stay in the district where John

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