This month concludes our Lenten observance, contains the high holy days of the Triduum (28-30), and ushers us to Easter Sunday (31). We'll perform scrutinies for our Elect (3, 10, 17) and welcome them into the church in sacraments of Initiation.

God's love is on full display in today's readings. Though we fail time and again—"infidelity to infidelity," God continues to love, show mercy, and bless us abundantly.

To speak of faith as an activity may sound strange. Most of the time it seems like such a passive commodity.

Twelve-year-old me didn’t get it. I remember sitting in Mrs. Agar’s sixth-grade religion class at St. Monica’s Elementary School, listening to her teach us the story about how the Israelites were being bitten by poisonous snakes in the desert and God instructed Moses to mount an image of a snake on a pole and any Israelites who looked upon it would be healed—and how it foreshadowed the cross of Christ.

Grandma was in her glory because her grandchildren were circled all around her. She gloried in their presence, looking at each fresh-scrubbed face, peering, it seemed, deep down into each of their souls. And she liked what she saw.

As we prepare to celebrate the mystery of Christ’s love, let us acknowledge our failures and ask the Lord for pardon and strength.

This is how you pray continually—not by offering prayer in words, but by joining yourself to God through your whole way of life, so that your life becomes one continuous and uninterrupted prayer.

Browse our library for additional Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B material.

Click here to view the Take Five weekly for March 10, 2024.