Hello everyone! Heyo! Welcome back to Scattering Flowers with Elise and Miles, a podcast where we read the daily gospels and the saint of the day.
Let’s get started! Today is Tuesday, March 17th, and the gospel reading is John 5, 1-16, and the scripture to reflect on is John 5, 14.
After this, Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, Look, you are well.
Do not sin anymore.
I love to go swimming.
I have goggles to help me see better underwater.
I need to protect my skin with some sunscreen, and sometimes it’s fun to bring extra toys.
Oh, and a nice big towel.
In today’s gospel, a man was waiting by a pool, but not the kind of pool like we go in.
Imagine what it must have felt like for the man in today’s gospel.
He had been unable to walk for 38 years.
Then Jesus heals him.
How do you think it felt to take those first steps?
Later on, Jesus finds the man and tells him that now he is well.
He should not sin anymore.
Jesus has given this man a great gift, and he expects him to do something good with his life.
Today’s Saint of the Day, St.
Patrick.
Happy St.
Patrick’s Day! He was born 387 and died 493.
He is a patron saint of Ireland.
Patrick’s parents taught him how to love Jesus and pray often, and Patrick willingly learned.
But when Patrick was 16, he took his life as a strange turn.
Patrick was captured by thieves and sold as a slave.
He was taken away from his parents and from his home.
But the thieves couldn’t take Patrick’s God.
For six whole years, Patrick worked as a slave, tending sheep for his owners in an unfamiliar place called Ireland.
Patrick kept praying.
He even learned the language of people who captured him.
He eventually escaped slavery, but one day he did the unthinkable.
He went back to spread Christianity to Irish people who had captured him, and many became Christians.
He built churches and monasteries, organized dioceses, and created infrastructures of the church in Ireland.
Patrick worked there for about 30 years.
One hundred years after Patrick’s death, the island had responded to God so wholeheartedly that Ireland was renowned as the Isle of Saints and Scholars.
The pool was called Bethsaida, which means House of Mercy.
It was near the temple, so people had ideas that it was holy or special.
In fact, there was a superstitious legend that every now and then an angel would come and stir up the water in the pool.
The legend said that the first person to get into the water after the stirring would be healed.
So lots of people who were sick or blind or lame would sit by the pool day after day, just hoping they’d be lucky to make it into the water first if they saw the special whirlpool action.
Jesus only told him to pick up his bed and walk, and he was immediately healed and didn’t take angels, and it didn’t take another 38 years or some bubbling water.
It was just a word from Jesus and an action of obedience from the man.
Although his ministry consumed much of his attention and energy, Patrick spent long periods of time with God in prayer.
Sacred Scripture was an important element of his spiritual life.
When he prayed with the Scriptures, he experienced God’s revelation and presence.
They nourished him so deeply that his writings were filled with biblical phrases.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, show me how to use the gifts that you have given me and to help me to always believe in you.
And help me that I may discover your life-giving presence in Scripture, and help me to open my mind and heart to be filled by your presence.
St.
Patrick, pray for us.
Amen.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Thank you so much for listening.
We’ll be back tomorrow, scattering more flowers.
See ya! Thank you!