Newsletter Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year A) 15th March 2026
Updated: Mar 19
GOSPEL REFLECTION
LAETARE SUNDAY
Our Lord heals a blind man by using a paste of clay – ordinary elements from nature. The miracle today is unusual – a paste of clay. In the first reading from the book of Samuel, David is anointed with oil and this oil causes the Spirit of God to work powerfully upon David from that day until his death.
Today, God continues to use ordinary elements from nature to give His Life to us - in the Sacraments for example. A Sacrament is when God becomes present or gives His Spirit to the person receiving the Sacrament.
In the Sacrament of Baptism, for example, God taught us to use water.
(Jn 3:5 “Unless one is born of ‘water’ and the Spirit one cannot enter the Kingdom of God”). Sometimes God wants us to use the natural elements.
Through water a baptized person receives Our Lord’s Spirit.
In the Sacrament of the Eucharist the ordinary elements of bread and wine become Our Saviour Jesus Christ. By becoming our Food, Our Lord gives Himself, His Spirit, to us.
In the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, oil is used. This gives Our Lord’s Spirit to us so that our sin is forgiven and so that we may be healed in mind, body and spirit. We read in the Book of Jonas 5:14-15 “Are there sick people among you?…let the Priests lay their hands on them anointing them with oil…the prayer of faith will save the sick persons, and the Lord will raise them up. If they have committed any sins, they will be forgiven.”
The Sacraments can be infinitely powerful. Fr Richard Woldum has a personal story: He is a priest in California. In 1980 he was a hospital chaplain. This is his account:
One morning I received a call to come to the emergency room to see an 11-year-old boy named Johnny who was dying. I found him on a breathing machine, his head swollen; very large.
Johnny’s parents told me that he had been riding his bike on a gravel road near his home when a truck hit him head on. Half his brains had scattered in the field. They literally picked up the pieces of his brain, shoved them into his head and took him to the hospital.
When I asked Johnny’s parents if he had been baptized, they said no. They informed me they attended no church. They also said if I wanted to I could baptize him into the Catholic faith. That night, with the parents and two nurses as witnesses, I baptized Johnny.
The next morning, I was doing communion rounds when my beeper went off. Johnny’s doctor wanted me in the intensive care unit. ‘What you do last night?’ he asked in broken English as I met him outside Johnny’s room. I explained to the doctor, a Buddhist, that I had baptized Johnny so that he could go to heaven. When I asked him why he was so concerned he informed me that the boy’s swelling had disappeared. The doctor was still convinced that the boy would die however, or if he lived, remain a vegetable, never moving, talking or even moving his eyes.
That night Johnny’s parents thanked me for baptizing him. I then explained about the ‘Anointing of the Sick’. With their agreement and in their presence, I anointed Johnny.
The next morning during communion rounds the doctor again paged me on my beeper. He met me at the door of intensive care and directed me to Johnny’s room, explaining on the way that he had heard from the nurses that I had again prayed for Johnny.
Then he pointed to Johnny’s eyes and asked, ‘What you do?’ I saw that Johnny’s eyes were moving. ‘It is just the power of Jesus through prayers for the sick,’ I responded. He gave a faintly sarcastic grin and said, ‘It no matter. Boy no talk or move. He remains a vegetable.’
It was now the third night, counting the night of the accident. I suggested to the parents that they permit me to give Johnny the sacrament of confirmation. They agreed.
The following morning his legs and arms were moving. The doctor said to me in front of the parents, ‘I no longer in control.’ He was simply unable to explain what was happening. The parents turned to me and said they wanted to become Catholics.
That evening when I explained to them about the Eucharist, they said they wanted this for Johnny too. I gave him some Precious Blood with an eye dropper. The next morning, he was making sounds.
They took another x-ray of his head and found that the part of his brain that had spilled out into the field had grown back. The boy had completely recovered and is now a perfectly healthy boy. The doctor in the case started looking into Christianity. Three nurses converted to Catholicism.
Sacraments are also powerful.
SACRAMENTALS:
Holy water:
Fr Gabrielle Amarth sprinkled holy water on clothing. A man who was possessed was to put non that clothing. The man was unaware that the clothing had been sprinkled with holy water. The man could not put the clothing on because he said to do so would be “unbearable.”
At a weekend Mass here about 3 years ago, a woman manifested. She howled like an unknown animal. I gave her a plastic cup of Holy Water. She didn’t know that the water was blessed. As soon as the water touched her tongue, she spat it out and crushed the cup in her palm.
The Rosary:
An exorcist heard a devil say: “Every Hail Mary is like a blow to my head. If Christians knew how powerful the Rosary is, it would be my end.”
Finally, the Brown Scapular:
In October 1952, an air force officer in Texas, also a non-practicing catholic, testified that after being enrolled in the Brown Scapular he had a conversion almost immediately. He started going to Mass every day and he said, “I kept Lent with a fervour I never had before.”
The Lord sometimes performs His miracles through things He has created.
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