I am driving on the turnpike with a friend. We pull into a rest stop to get something to drink. He insists this is the rest stop we were at last week. I argue it was a different one. As we walk into the building, he asks, "If there is a woman with blond hair and red eyeglasses at the cash register with a nametag that says 'Cookie', will you believe me?" Yeah, right, I say, looking around for the restroom. I find him a few minutes later, at the end of the building, by a cashier who is a woman with blond hair and red eyeglasses. He smiled the you didn't believe me look - and says, "Greg, meet Cookie." Like the crowds Jesus encountered, we often need to be right. We are certain of where we have been and where we are going; what we are owed and what we should do. A life of faith, Jesus insists, is something more. It is about allowing yourself to be led, to surrender the need to be right, and to open your eyes. We are now near the end of the lenten journey. We look back on these weeks and may regret that our Lent was not what we had hoped. There is still time to pull over, to rest, and to meet Jesus.
Reflection based on John 8:31-42
Monsignor Gregory E.S. Malovetz
Mighty God, let me surrender my need to be right and,
in doing so, encounter Jesus once again.
Today's suggested penance: Instruct the ignorant.