A Latin spiritual journey with discerning hearts, from ashes to glory.

Day 39. Hope in the midst of opposition.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John, chapter 11, verses 45 through 56.

Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him. But some of them

went to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting. Here is this man working

all these signs, they said, and what action are we taking? If we let him go on in this way,

everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy the holy place and our nation.

One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said,

You do not seem to have grasped the situation at all.

You fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people

than for the whole nation to be destroyed.

He did not speak in his own person.

It was as high priest that he made this prophecy

that Jesus was to die for the nation,

and not for the nation only,

but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God.

From that day they were determined to kill him. So Jesus no longer went about

openly among the Jews, but left the district for a town called Ephraim in the country bordering

on the desert, and stayed there with his disciples. The Jewish Passover drew near, and many of the country people who had gone up to Jerusalem to purify themselves, looked out for Jesus, saying to one another as they stood about in the temple,

What do you think? Will he come to the festival or not?

This gospel sits in the shadow of the raising of Lazarus.

That incredible sign of life was not welcomed by all.

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