Before we go over today's readings, let's look at the part of the Mass called the "Collect":

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent - Cycle A 

COLLECT PRAYER

O God, who renew the world through mysteries beyond all telling, grant, we pray, that your Church may be guided by your eternal design and not be deprived of your help in this present age. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

First Reading

Isaiah 65:17-21

For I am about to create new heavens
    and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
    or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
    and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
    and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
    or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
    an infant that lives but a few days,
    or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
    and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
    they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Psalm

Psalm 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
    and you have healed me.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,
    and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment;
    his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning.
As for me, I said in my prosperity,
    “I shall never be moved.”
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
    you have taken off my sackcloth
    and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Gospel Reading

John 4:43-54

When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus heals the son of a royal official.

Healer: that’s why he’s come; that’s who he is. In Jesus, divinity and humanity meet. His hands and mouth and eyes—his whole body becomes a conduit of God’s energy. What’s God’s energy, God’s purpose? To set right a world gone wrong, a suffering world. Out of every pore of his body, Jesus expresses the healing love of God.

Jesus’s ministry of healing expresses in history God’s ultimate intention for the world. In Jesus we see a hint of that world to come where there will be no more suffering, no more sadness, no more sickness.

He does not wait for the sinner, the sufferer, the marginalized to come to him. In love and humility, he goes to them. This same Jesus, risen from the dead, present and alive in the Church, is still seeking us out, coming into our homes—not waiting for us to crawl to him but seeking us out in love and humility.