Life... the Word, Spirit and Truth

Conversion – from death to life

THE WORD IN LENT 2026 – FRIDAY FIFTH WEEK

March 27 – Jeremiah 20:10-13; John 10: 31-42

Our journey from death to life, is obviously as the term itself says, a life long journey, a life-journey in fact. And this is what Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman – the Lord worshipped in spirit and truth! Our reflection on Listening and Fasting… has to remind us of this life-journey as journey of conversion!

“Terror from every side!” – that is how Jeremiah explains his situation… just as it was for Jesus too, as the elders and the scribes were out to catch him for a word or a gesture that they can accuse him of. It would be so for anyone who belongs to God – the generations that we spoke of yesterday, the sons and daughters of Abraham, that is persons of faith. The reason is, the persons of faith, persons with God, are persons who stand by truth!

Be it Jeremiah or any other prophet, or be it Jesus, the problem was that they were speaking the truth, they were saying what God wanted them too. Yesterday we came across in the Gospel the controversy that they accused Jesus of speaking about himself as someone equal to Abraham – and the discussion continues today. Jesus does not evade the question, he deepens the controversy – the Father is in me and I am in the Father. For those who were scandalised that Jesus was equating himself to Abraham, to hear him speak in these terms about the Father and himself, was indeed a breaking point!  But Jesus does not mind – because he was speaking the truth.

In Jesus’ vision, this truth is the light – it makes one understand oneself and see oneself in the right light; this truth is liberty – it makes one fearlessly genuine and authentic; this truth is life – life in the Father, life in the Spirit, life eternal. It does not matter that there is terror all around, there are persons plotting against me, there are those who consider me a threat and look forward to my death – because the Spirit, the truth makes me shift my gaze from that death that surrounds to the life that is promised me! 

This has to be seen in our concrete choices, in our works, as Jesus teaches us today in the Gospel. Our works need to testify to the fact that we are from the Father, that we are daughters and sons of that merciful Father, that loving generation of God’s own. Our Life, the Word today wishes to point to us, as a watershed has to orient our entire existence, and not just ours but of every single person who encounters Christ – taking us towards life, towards Spirit and truth