March 26, 2026
V Thursday of Lent
Fr. Amjad Sabbara
The Lord give you peace.
I am Fr. Amjad Sabbara, parish priest of Nazareth. After listening to the word of God, the key word of this page of John, chapter eight, is the death of Jesus.
It is this word that Jesus seeks to give another name, from His own foretelling of His life, which is Easter. Because death is no longer, with Jesus, the last word for man. Rather, it is the passage from one reality to another reality. Death, which speaks and ends the limited life, gives way to eternal and immortal life.
We are all invited, especially in this Lent, to grow in understanding this reality of Easter, to make it a personal culture and a culture of living together in this world, looking toward this new horizon that Jesus has promised us and has also allowed us to see beyond death and this life.
And who can live this reality, according to the word of Jesus? The one who keeps His word. In keeping the word of Jesus, we do not experience death, but we experience life.
We know that, just as in the time of Jesus and also in our present time, man does not look at this reality, he seeks to see that the most logical truth is death, and so he does not see beyond. But we must truly know how to trust in the word of Jesus, just as the people trusted in the word of Moses when they left Egypt, they passed through the Red Sea and there they understood that, in crossing this Red Sea, trusting in the word of Moses, they passed from slavery to freedom, from a limited reality to the reality promised by God and given to us.
And this is not only what the people of Israel experienced. We also have our founder, Saint Francis, who experienced and understood that in the encounter with Jesus and in keeping His word, we can experience life and also have a new vision, a new horizon for daily life. For this reason we see Saint Francis reconciled with everything, with all creatures, with all creation, and he composed this Canticle of the Creatures in which he praises all these realities that he encounters each day.
And in the end he was able to say that death is a sister because it allows us to meet the one whom we love on this earth and whom we also seek to meet. Sister death opens for us this door to the encounter with this divine reality and with Jesus, with all the saints whom we reach in that reality. And as this year we also celebrate the 800th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis, what we must truly meditate on, what we must truly grow in, is understanding that death is no longer a word that ends our life but an Easter through which we pass and live this reality.
So in this reality we are all called not to throw stones, because the Pharisees and the scribes did not understand this word of Jesus and thought that Jesus was going astray. They thought that by throwing stones they would put an end to this person. But what did Jesus do at that moment? He hid Himself and then left the temple.
So this moment in our meditation during this Lent is to live this hiddenness of Jesus. To hide does not mean to escape or withdraw from this reality, but to know how to meditate on it, because even if the world does not understand now, we will understand one day. But who will make us understand, who will make us perceive? The hiddenness. Therefore in this Lent we need personal prayer, meditation, and to let this reality grow, which is the true moment and also the right moment in which this reality will be revealed.
First for us, and we also try to show it to others. And this is the experience that, by giving this reality in communion with all the saints whom we seek to know, we too will live this true holiness in our life. So let us take advantage of this Lent to better understand this reality of Easter, so that it may make us capable of growing with Jesus, of understanding His words, and of making from His words a new personal culture and also seeking to live it here with others.
So from this very holy place, which is the Basilica of the Annunciation, we send you our best greetings and our best wishes, so that like the child who grew in grace and wisdom, this place may become in this Lent a school for growth in divine wisdom and divine grace, and thus we may also know how to be His disciples in our life.
We send you our best wishes for a good Lent and a happy Easter, asking truly that the Lord grant us true peace, which is first in the heart and also in the world.
Peace and good from this Holy Land.
Best wishes.
