Beads of Joy Blog II (2025 - 2026)

🌿 Wednesday, March 11, 2026 I Have Not Come To Abolish The Law I Came To Fulfill It Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20 Gospel: Matthew 5:17-19 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 5:17-19 Jesus makes a statement that must have shocked His listeners, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. And not the smallest letter, not the smallest part of a letter, will pass away until all things have been accomplished. 🙏 Gospel Reflection There is a tendency in every generation to want a Christianity without demands, a faith that is warm and affirming and asks nothing difficult of us. And Jesus looks at that tendency straight in the eye and says, not the smallest letter will pass away. Not the tiniest stroke of the pen. The whole thing s...

🌿 Tuesday, March 10, 2026 Not Seven Times Jesus Says But Seventy Times Seven Photo created by James Dacey, Jr using Co-Pilot. Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Daniel 3:25, 34-43 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 18:21-35 Peter comes to Jesus with what he clearly thinks is a generous question, Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother? As many as seven times? And Jesus looks at him and says, not seven times, but seventy times seven. And then He tells a parable about a servant forgiven an unpayable debt who immediately goes out and throttles a fellow servant over a few coins. 🙏 Gospel Reflection Seventy times seven. In the ancient Jewish understanding, that number wasn't meant to be calculated; it meant without limit, without counting, beyond all human reckoning. Jesus is not giving Peter a new quota to track. He is dismantling the qu...

🌿 Monday, March 9, 2026 Go Wash and Be Clean Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-15ab Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 42:2-3; 43:3-4 Gospel: Luke 4:24-30 📖 The Gospel - Luke 4:24-30 Jesus stands in the synagogue at Nazareth and says the thing that many don’t like: God has always reached beyond the comfortable and the familiar to heal the outsider, the foreigner, the unexpected one. And the crowd's reaction tells us everything about how hard that truth is to receive. 🙏 Gospel Reflection Naaman's story is a favorite of mine in Scripture because it is so completely human. Here is a great man who is a decorated military commander. Powerful, respected, used to getting things done his way, but he has leprosy. And a little slave girl, a captive, someone with no power whatsoever, tells him there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him. And eventu...

🌿 Sunday, March 8, 2026 Living Water at the Well If You Only Knew the Gift of God Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. Third Sunday of Lent • Year A • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Exodus 17:3-7 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9 Second Reading: Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 Gospel: John 4:5-42 📖 The Gospel - John 4:5-42 Jesus sits down at Jacob's Well in Samaria, tired, thirsty, and a woman comes to draw water alone in the heat of the day. What begins as a simple request for a drink becomes one of the most extraordinary conversations in all of Scripture. Jesus offers her living water. And she becomes one of the first evangelists in the Gospels, running back to her village crying: come see a man who told me everything I ever did. 🙏 Gospel Reflection She came to the well alone at midday. In that culture, women drew water in the cool of the morning, in groups, together. She came alone at noon. Which tells us...

  🌿 Saturday, March 7, 2026 The Prodigal Son His Father Sees Him and Runs To Him Photo created by James Dacey, Jr using Co-Pilot. Saturday of the Second Week of Lent • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12 Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 📖 The Gospel - Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 The prodigal son. The younger son takes his inheritance, wastes it, hits rock bottom, comes to his senses, and starts the long walk home, not expecting to be welcomed as a son but hoping to be taken on as a servant. And while he is still a long way off, his father sees him and runs. He throws his arms around him. He puts a ring on his finger and calls for a feast. 🙏 Gospel Reflection This is a deeply emotional parable that most of us can relate to. Because every single person who has ever lived has been a child. Some of us have taken our share of our parents' gifts and wasted them in one w...

🌿 Friday, March 6, 2026 The Rejected Stone Became the Cornerstone Photo created by James Dacey, Jr using Co-Pilot. Friday of the Second Week of Lent • Day of Abstinence • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II ✝️ Today's Mass Readings First Reading: Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 105:16-17, 18-19, 20-21 Gospel: Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46 📖 The Gospel - Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46 Jesus tells the parable of the vineyard tenants, a landowner who plants everything, leases it out, and sends servants to collect the fruit. The tenants beat one servant, kill another, and stone a third. Finally, the owner sends his own son. They kill him, too. And Jesus asks: What will the owner do? Then He quotes the Psalm, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 🙏 Gospel Reflection Joseph and Jesus. Two stories, centuries apart, played in the same key. Joseph, the beloved son, wrapped in his father's coat of many colors, was thrown into a pit by ...