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Tuesday of the Fourth
Week of Lent • Feast of St. Patrick • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
✝️ Today's Mass Readings
First Reading: Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
Gospel: John 5:1-16
📖 The Gospel - John 5:1-16
Jesus comes to the
pool of Bethesda, where a man has been lying ill for thirty-eight years. He asks
him the question that cuts right to the heart, do you want to be well? The man
gives excuses about why healing hasn't happened. Jesus says, " Rise, take up your
mat, and walk." And the man is immediately healed.
🙏 Gospel Reflection
Today is the feast
day of St. Patrick, the man who was enslaved, escaped, heard God calling him
back to his captors, and returned to Ireland to set a nation free with the
Gospel! There is something wonderfully fitting about celebrating Patrick on a
day when Ezekiel gives us the vision of water rising from the temple, ankle
deep, then knee deep, then waist deep, then a river too deep to cross, the
grace of God expanding and deepening and overflowing until it becomes something
you cannot contain.
That is exactly what happened in Ireland.
Patrick planted a seed, and the water rose. And that same water has been rising
for centuries, through missionaries, through martyrs, through mothers who
taught their children to pray the Rosary, through faith communities that
survived persecution and kept the flame burning. The water keeps rising.
The man at the pool of Bethesda had been
waiting thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight years lying near the water but not in
it. And when Jesus asks him, " Do you want to be well, the man's first response
is an explanation of why it hasn't happened yet. I have no one to help me.
Someone always gets there before me. And Jesus doesn't engage the explanation.
He just says, " Rise. Take up your mat. Walk." The water that heals you doesn't
need the pool. The water that heals you is standing right in front of you, asking if you want to be well.
That is the question for today. Not, why
hasn't it happened yet? But do you want to be well?
💭 Reflection Question
Is there an area of
your life where you have been lying near the pool for a long time, close to
healing, close to change, close to God, but still waiting for circumstances to
be just right? Jesus is standing in front of you today, asking the only question
that matters: Do you want to be well?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Scourging at the
Pillar
The man at the pool
was helpless for thirty-eight years. Jesus at the pillar was bound and helpless
by human hands. In both cases, what looked like complete powerlessness became
the moment of God's greatest action. As you pray these beads today, bring whatever
has left you feeling helpless and bound, and let the One who was bound for you
set you free.
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
Ezekiel's river that
keeps rising and deepening until it becomes uncrossable, that is a beautiful
image of Our Lady's intercession through the Rosary. What begins as a small
daily prayer, a few beads, a few mysteries, slowly deepens over time into
something that carries you rather than you carrying it. St. Patrick brought the
faith to Ireland through persistent, rising prayer. Our Lady of Fatima asks for
the same persistent, rising devotion through the Rosary. Keep going. The water
keeps rising. Ankle deep to knee deep to waist deep to a river that carries you
home.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, do I want
to be well? Yes. Completely, totally, unreservedly yes. Rise up in me today and
heal whatever has been lying beside the pool for too long. I take up my mat. I
walk. Amen. And St. Patrick, pray for us today!
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
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