March 16, 2026
IV Monday of Lent
Fr. Massimo Luca
May the Lord give you peace. I am Fr. Massimo Luca, of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, convent of the Flagellation in Jerusalem.
At Cana of Galilee Jesus performs two signs, the miracle of the wedding feast (Jn 2,1-11) and the healing at a distance of the son of the royal official (Jn 4,43-54). Cana means "to acquire" and both accounts conclude with the acquisition of a people, the one of the wedding feast of Jewish origin who are the obedient servants, and the one of pagan origin, the official who converts with his family.
In today’s Gospel passage we are called to meditate on the second account, the healing of the son of the royal official. In this account we can identify three key words, three interpretative words of the narrative itself.
Hope. The royal official, in order to seek Jesus, leaves his daily habits and sets out on a journey. He looks for the only person who can listen to him and grant his request. It is likely that he had turned to other people without success. He is moved by love for his son, by the desire to see him healed again, and he is moved by the hope of meeting Jesus and interceding for the boy. He does not yet know where he will meet Jesus, he does not know if he will meet him in time before the son becomes worse and dies, he does not know if Jesus will accept his request. Yet he has unlimited trust in the good outcome of the encounter. His hope does not bend or weaken even when Jesus puts him to the test by saying, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe". Even then he remains confident.
Authority. The royal official is someone who has authority over many people, he is an important person who can decide and whose decisions matter. By seeking Jesus, meeting him and submitting to him his request, intercession for his son, he recognizes that Jesus has an authority different from his own, greater than his own, capable of defeating the distress of illness and death. He is a royal official, he asks Jesus to come down with him to Capernaum. But Jesus does not go down with him to Capernaum, he dismisses him with a word, "Go, your son lives". The royal official "believed the word of Jesus and set out on his way", he submits and obeys. Along the road he discovers that his hope has not been disappointed, that hope which made him humble and guided him first to seek, then to listen to Jesus.
The Word. The Word spoken by Jesus, "Go, your son lives", is effective, it accomplishes what it proclaims. It heals the boy. This Word is the same with which God called all things into existence when he created the world, "Let there be light". And there was light (Gen 1,3). It is the same Word spoken through the prophet Isaiah, "so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it" (Is 55,11), and it is the same that echoes in the letter to the Hebrews, "while God also bore witness to it with signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will" (Heb 2,4). The Word of Jesus is listened to by the royal official who, by obeying and trusting him, recognizes the divine origin of the sign. The official "recognized that it was at that very hour Jesus had said to him, 'Your son lives'". The sign thus generated and nourished faith in this man and made it contagious because it was generated in his whole family.
The three key words that we have identified in this Gospel passage have a common root, they testify to a journey generated and nourished by faith.
We too need to leave our habits, set out on a journey that is synonymous with effort, renunciation of securities and comfort, going toward the unknown.
This expresses well the penitential journey, so that in this Lent our renunciations may help us seek Jesus with hope and with the goal of arriving renewed at the Easter celebrations in order to meet, recognize and confess that Jesus, the Son of God, is the true and only Savior of the world.
May the Lord give you peace.
