From the responsorial psalm: “Sing praise to the LORD, you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger lasts but a moment; a lifetime, his good will. At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with the dawn, rejoicing. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (Jn 4:43-54)
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
The Galileans welcome Jesus as he enters Galilee because they had seen the miracles he performed while at the feast in Jerusalem. From among the people whose faith in him was strong, Jesus encounters a royal official whose child was sick to the point of death. In seven words, “You may go; your son will live,” Jesus cures the child of the illness, and the official learns of this from a messenger while he is on his way back home. As a result, John tells us “he and his whole household came to believe.” In this miracle, Jesus gives us a glimpse of the love of the LORD that Isaiah speaks of in the first reading: “Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create.”
God, just as the father reveals great faith in the power Jesus has with mere words, give me the grace of complete trust in you in this world and in the life of the world to come. Trust is essential. As the psalmist says, there is nightfall in this life; there is the pit, the netherworld; there is weeping. And while facing this, just as the father faced his son’s death, what is the song the psalmist hears in his mind and heart? “O LORD, you brought me up from the nether world; you preserved me from among those going down into the pit. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.” Be with me, Lord!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.