Lent 4th Sunday Deacon Louis Zemlick 3 15 2026 Rejoice God Choses, Lord is my Shepard

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7,10-13a read all the missing scriptures CCC= Catechism Catholic Church CCC436,495

Psalm 23:1-6 CCC304,1293 the sacraments are real and we will die, make God your shepherd or you will get lost.

Ephesians 5:8-14 CCC1216,1454,1695,2641 Pray, receive ALL 7 Sacraments.

Gospel John 9:1-41 Jesus is God, he creates eyeballs out of mud per St. Ephrem an act of creation not just a healing. CCC575,588,595,596,1151,1504,2173,2827

Jesus meets this blind man on the steps of the temple what will you do ? help the blind and help yourself to your own blindness. Hear the Word and trust.

DeaconLouisZemlick.com

Blessed Mother Mary Pray for us. Help us trust in Jesus and in you

Transcript

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Hi, everybody. This is Deacon Louis Emlik here in the Diocese of Kalmazou. We're glad you're with us here today on this fourth Sunday of Lent, also called Godate Sunday or Latare Sunday, where they wear the rose vestments at Mass. And it's a time for us to rejoice because we know that the resurrection is near. We have these long gospel readings, which are very beautiful, these the healings of Jesus and in a very powerful way, this healing this weekend of the man who was born blind, uh Saint Ephraim, who lived back in the 300s, early, early. I believe he's a church father as well. The belief is and the thought is on this is that he was born with this birth defect, so to speak, of not having eyes, actual eyeballs, right? And so I've got a reading from Saint Ephraim that's very beautiful about that, and we'll read that as we when we get done with the scriptures. But um, this is the this is the healing power of God, that God creates, Jesus creates so my brothers and sisters, my you know, seventh-day Adventists and Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses, Jesus is God, Jesus is God. Look at the scriptures, and here it is, three weeks before Easter, and it's being proven to us in the scriptures that Jesus is God.

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Wow!

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It's so it's so amazing and so beautiful. So um, yeah, stay tuned, right? Stay tuned. So here we go. Um this is the 15th, March 15th, 2026, St. Patrick's Day, two days away. As we uh I'll read that St. Ephraim one, uh, you know, just uh I'm almost in awe of it, you know, when I think about that, you know. And of course, uh, you know, we've had a lot of storms in the area, and we pray for all of those who have been affected by these storms. We have uh, you know, wars going on throughout the world, right? Any given time, you know, 20, 30 wars going on all the time. And of course, you know, our military is active, you know, so we we ask for prayers for for those who are in harm's way. And we ask for those who are in the military, you know, we pray for their safety as well. And that uh, you know, I heard someone talk about this, you know, that uh this is the last resort. And of course, you know, I've heard from you know, we've heard church fathers and such bishops and such saying recently, you know, that we need to dialogue. Well, we've been dialoguing with Iran with for 45 years. Dialoguing, you know, while they have um, you know, accomplished, and as well as the Chinese have accomplished to kill more Americans in the last 50 years than just about anybody at any regular war, right? So it's um it's so sad that it comes to this, my brothers and sisters. We all pref prefer peace, right? As Ronald Reagan would say, you know, peace through strength. So pray, pray, pray, pray, my brothers and sisters, for a free uh world, for a free world in every country, uh that uh let freedom ring, right? In every country, let freedom ring. And the only reason why it doesn't is you know, totalitarian dictators, and we have a few totalitarian dictators even in our own country, mostly Democrats, that uh love to uh keep people in slavery, literally in slavery, whether it be financial or you know, their families or their jobs, or their you know, your job depends on that. You believe this set of uh doctrines, right? It's almost a religion of sorts, you know. Um be common communist or socialist or uh or Marxist, you know, that you have to believe these things or else, right? Or else this, that, and the other thing happens. So let us go right into our readings today. Hopefully that's all the politics I've got, got on my system, and and we have some beautiful readings here for this fourth Sunday of Lent. And uh for us to believe with our our minds, believe the gospel with all of your mind and your heart and your strength, right? Yes. First reading is from 1 Samuel verses 16, 1, 1b, and I'll read A. Uh 6 through 7, we'll get 2 through 5, um, not much there, and uh, and then there's another gap, 6 through 7, and then 10 through 13a. And um we'll try to touch on those, but most of those are just genealogies. Um, but there are some big gaps in our gospel reading because we have a long gospel, and because we have a long gospel, we have a short gospel, and the short gospel is kind of torn apart like it was torn apart last week. So very sad. You know, there's there's um you know devils in the church too. You know, Judas picked 12, but Jesus Jesus picked 12, but but even Judas got in there out of the 12. And then even that, you know, I heard someone else say this week, you know, that even after picking the 12, there is still there is still only one showed up at the foot of the cross, uh, the apostle John, right? And the other 11 is poof, just disappeared, right? So here we go. First Samuel verse uh chapter 16. The Lord said to Samuel, this is A, this is the whole thing, how long will you grieve for Saul, whom I have rejected as King of Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have chosen my king from among his sons. As Jesse and his sons came to the sacrifice, Samuel looked at Elib and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed is here before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not judge from his appearance, for from or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. In the same way Jesse presented seven sons before Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not chosen any one of these. Then Samuel asked Jesse, Are these all the sons you have? Jesse replied, There is still the youngest who is tending the sheep. Samuel said to Jesse, Send for him. We will not begin the sacrificial banquet until he arrives here. Jesse sent and had the young brought to him, brought to them. He was ruddy, a youthful, handsome to behold, and making a splendid appearance. The Lord said, There, anoint him, for this is the one. Then Samuel with the horn of oil, with the horn of oil in his hand, anointed David in the presence of his brothers. And from that day on the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. Responsorial Psalm today is Psalm 23, David's Psalm. Psalm 23, verse 1 through 3A, 4 through 6. It's basically 1 through 6. The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In verdant pastures He gives me repose. Besides restful waters, He leads me, He refreshes my soul. The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. He guides me in right paths for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the dark valley, I fear no evil. For you are at my side, with your rod and your staff that give me courage. The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come. The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. Our second reading is from the book of Ephesians, chapter five, verses eight through fourteen. Brothers and sisters, you were once you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness. Rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, and everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our gospel reading today is from the Gospel of John, chapter 9, verses 1 through 41. Longer gospel, but we're going to read the whole thing. You may hear the shorter version when you attend Mass today. I hope you go to Mass today. Yes. As Jesus, a reading from the Holy Gospel, according to John, glory to you, O Lord. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who send this man or his parents? That he was born blind. Jesus answered, Neither he nor his parents sinned. It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no work can be done, when no work when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva. He smeared the clay on his eyes and said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means scent. So he went and washed and came back able to see. His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, Isn't this the one who used to sit and beg? Some said it is, but others said no. He just looks like him. He said, I am. So they said to him, How were your eyes opened? He replied, The man called Jesus, made clay and anointed my eyes, and told me, Go to Siloam and wash. So I went there and washed, and was able to see. And they said to him, Where is he? He said, I don't know. They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a Sabbath. So when the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see, he said to them, He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, How can a sinful man do such signs? And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, What do you have to say about him since he opened your eyes? He said, He is a prophet. Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight, until they summoned the parents of one who had gained his sight. They asked them, Is this your son who you say was born blind? How does he now see? His parents answered and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age, he can speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as Christ, they would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason, his parents said, He is of age, question him. So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner. He replied, If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see. So they said to him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too? They ridiculed him and said, You are that man's disciple. We are disciples of Moses, and we know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from. The man answered and said to them, This is what's so amazing that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything. He answered and said, Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have seen him. The one speaking with you now is he. He said, I do believe, Lord, and he worshipped him. Then Jesus said, I came into the world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind. Some of the Pharisees who were also with him heard this and said to him, Surely we are not also blind, are we? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But you are saying, We see, so your sin remains. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. The words of this gospel, wipe away our sins. Well, welcome, my brothers and sisters. My name is Deacon Louis Zemlick here in the Diocese of Kalmazou, Michigan. We're glad you're with us here today on this fourth Sunday of Lent. Ask for prayers for our world, our world who is once again at war. And I was like Father Mitch Packell would always say, you know, there's 20 or 30 wars going on constantly. And uh wars in the Middle East, wars in, you know, Russia and Ukraine and just all over the world. And, you know, little countries fighting against countries and and peoples, you know, and uh sometimes it doesn't even matter what religions they are. You know, the religions fight against their own religions and kill their own people and torture their own people. And uh it's just a great sickness, a great soul sickness that God uh, you know, puts us here to try to work things out. That's so that's what our calling is. I really believe that is our our calling is for peace, right? And much as we see with this man born blind, you know, arguing over the miracle of God, you know, and I think in some ways it's like, you know, nobody wants to be upstage. No one wants to um, no one wants to really uh ask for help or gee whiz, you know, maybe I should pay attention to this. So let's let's do that uh, you know, especially in our own families, my brothers and sisters. And you know, I know I talk a little bit about politics here and there and that type of thing, but try to keep it to a minimum within your own family, you know, especially if it's going to cause arguments and and hatred. Uh please just try to keep it to the to the bare minimum, right? Um and pray for one another, pray for each other, pray for our conversions. But we also have to always consider the source, you know, how the per how a person is raised, you know, if you're listening to the news all the time, I'll tell you my brothers and sisters, it's not healthy. It's not, you know, if you're if you're watching murder shows on TV all the time, it's not healthy. If you're watching um, you know, cussing and swearing and pornography and and and you know gambling and you know uh uh all kinds of insane things, living that kind of a life, uh living that kind of an existence, I should say, uh, you are not healthy. You're definitely not healthy spiritually, physically, emotionally. And um, this is why we must cry out for Jesus. We must cry out for God. So, so beautiful, you know, the man born blind, right? I kind of, well, let me just go to this. Let me do the first one, the first uh reading first, where the the different catechism teachings we have, but uh we're gonna have to kind of do this uh quickly because of the long gospel reading, but isn't it beautiful to meditate on that, right? So here we go, 2 Samuel. The word Christ comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means anointed. It became the proper name to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that Christ signifies. In effect, in Israel, those consecrated to God for mission, and he gave where he anointed his name. This was the case for the kings and priests and rare instances for prophets to be anointed. That we all be anointed, my brothers and sisters. And of course, we're anointed, you know, it's a sacrament of the church in healing. It's a it's anointing happens when you're baptized in the Catholic Church. And of course, the Catholic Church has all seven sacraments, right? And you know, unfortunately, maybe a Christian church, maybe they have one, maybe they just do baptism. And then we have to look at validities of these things too. You know, is it valid or not? Done in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. But these things, my brothers and sisters, we've been going on for years and years of talking about this. But you're welcome to come to the Catholic Church to sit and listen. The only thing you're not able to do if you until you decide to become a follower of Jesus Christ, become Catholic in the whole one holy Catholic Apostolic Church, you are not supposed to receive Holy Communion until that happens. And um there's lots of different ways you can come into the church. Sometimes you know, if you've been sitting in the pews for the last 20 years, you know, your parish priests will probably bring you into the church immediately. But you know, if you're new to the church, you know, only a week or two, you know, it might be a whole year before you know your schooling is completed and you really know, you know, what you're what you're in for, you know, what you're signing up for, so to speak. So the Holy Spirit working powerfully, uh, especially in the church, because the church, especially in the United States and in Africa, is uh growing again. We go through these cycles, you know, where we hit rock bottom and we hopefully we're we're uh heading on our way back up, right? So here in Psalm 23, mostly heard at funeral masses, but good for us to hear, right? This recognition that we're all going to die someday, we become dust. We become dust once again. But this anointing also happens in Psalm 23, the Psalm of David, and treating the rite of confirmation, which is another sacrament in the Catholic Church. It is fitting to consider the sign of anointing, which signifies and imprints a spiritual seal. Anointing is biblical and other ancient symbolism, rich in meaning. Oil is the sign of abundance and joy, and we are to be joyful this day. And that's uh 1293 of the catechism. And on to our second reading from Ephesians, also this sacrament of baptism, sacrament of anointing, uh, the acts of the penitent, where uh the uh for reconciliation to confess your sins to Christ, also in talking about that, and the Holy Spirit as well in this Ephesians 5. Quite beautiful, beautiful indeed. And then we got our gospel reading. Wow, and I just got to read this, only a few minutes left. Um, but I I encourage you to look in our podcast and and and share it with people too, deaconlouisemlick.com and share that with people as well, and all the catechism teachings when I talk about these things and talk about things that are, you know, are going on in my life too, you know, to uh appeal to you know the newness, the realness of our lives. And we all go through these storms of life, you know, just like the storms we've seen, the wars that are happening right now, the conflicts that are happening right now, maybe even conflicts within our own uh minds, our own hearts, you know, hardships of losing jobs or losing businesses. And I just tell you, my brothers and sisters, God is with us. God is with us. And just to hold on that one more day, to hold on that one more week, um, that God is with us. And and in some ways, you know, the the storms of life call us to surrender, call us to remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. And that's when the miracle happens. That's when these miracles happen in our lives, my brothers and sisters. This blindness is taken away, or even more so, when God smears dirt in our eyes and spittle, He creates. God creates. And so I want to talk about that really quick before I run out of time. Um, but I encourage you to read this bit about Saint Ephraim um in his about the man born blind. And it's not just that his sight is restored, but his eyeballs are created from the mud. And guess what? Only God creates, my brothers and sisters. God can perform miracles, but when it's creation, just like when Adam and Eve were created out of the dirt of the ground, right? These eyeballs are created in this blind man. And the and and the amazing thing is, is he's he's on the steps of the temple, too. He can't even get into the temple. No one will even help him into the temple because all he's born blind, you know, you're you're you're you're cursed, you know. Sad, so sad how we treat each other. So Saint Ephraim of Syria understands that the blind man healed in John 9 6 had been born without any pupils. The miracle is not is thus not just a healing, but constitutes an act of creation. As baptism bestows upon us grace of a new creation, so the blind man experiences being created anew through his encounter with Christ. Saint Ephraim writes in one of his poems. He has renewed the heavens because of foolish men. He had worshiped all kinds of stars, he had renewed the earth in which he had grown old in Adam with his spittle. He took the place of a novel fashioned. Wow, it is so beautiful. And some of his poems from St. Ephraim as well. So, my brothers and sisters, make it to Mass today. If you haven't gone to reconciliation, I know we're always preaching about reconciliation, of going and becoming new, become a new creation, have this, you know, even though you know we're told to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Well, we tell you this day to go and wash at the church, at the Holy Catholic Church to receive the graces of these sacraments and to pray for peace. Pray for peace all over the world, because that's what all of us really want, my brothers and sisters, to raise our families in peace, to have you know jobs, and and to to get away from this um I'm right and you're wrong uh attitudes and the violence of it. Uh, but you know, the the the storms that are happening now, my brothers and sisters, were bound to happen. You know, it's been 40-some years of us not dealing with this um this evil that's in our world and having to confront it. And it's difficult. And unfortunately, you know, American uh men and women service men and women uh have lost their lives, and Jewish people and other people of other faiths too have lost lives too. And we need to pray for them, pray for their families, pray for peace, pray for understanding. Pray that uh in somehow, in some way, God knows that we're praying for each other, that we love one another, that we want the best for one another. And we need to work at this. This is a lifelong thing that we have to work on and to remove the hate and to want people to be able to live in freedom and in peace. So, my brothers and sisters, make it to Mass. Don't stop praying. And if you're not praying, maybe your prayer is the prayer that's needed. May Almighty God bless you all. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you all. We love you. Have a good day.