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Lifelong Catechesis

Forming Catholic identity across generations
October 13, 2024
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Lent

Forty days before the Triduum, the Lenten season disposes Catechumens and the faithful to celebrate the paschal mystery through prayer and penitential practices.

Sunday Readings and Backgrounds

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Fourth Sunday of Lent

Reading I : 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a

David is anointed king of Israel.

  • Saul the first king anointed by Samuel is rejected by God for disobedience.
  • God sends Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint Saul’s successor. Samuel anoints David.
  • The first reading is a story of seeing. God sees David as no one else sees him.

Reading II : Ephesians 5:8-14

You are people of the light.

  • The passage from Ephesians expands on the division between the sightless and the seeing.
  • Those who believe in Jesus are children of light.
  • With Christ they have been raised from the darkness of death and live in the light of Christ.

Gospel : John 9:1-41

Jesus gives us sight.

  • At the start of today’s Gospel story of the man born blind, the disciples believe that sin is the cause of the man’s blindness. When Jesus gives the blind man sight, both the disciples and the blind man move from darkness into light.
  • The Pharisees accuse Jesus of sin because he healed the blind man on the Sabbath. The man with new sight however sees more clearly, he calls Jesus a prophet.
  • The Pharisees refuse to believe; they are truly blind.