Jn 3: 7b-15
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Finding God More
“The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
A question for so many of us has to do with God’s will for us. In the image used by Jesus in today’s Gospel, Jesus uses nature to answer that question. We do not know God’s will for us, but we feel it. God’s will flows through our lives and if we listen, we can hear the sound it makes.
So many say they connect most with God in nature, yet when asked what that means, they don’t know. God is inviting us to notice God in nature and to be aware of each other as well. We see God in the joys and hopes, the griefs and anguish of all people, all of those we meet and encounter. God is in all we know, we share, who and what we are. Ignatius invites us to find God in all, not just in some. May this season of Easter help us find God more.
—Fr. Kevin Schneider, SJ, is a Jesuit of the Midwest Province and a spiritual director and priest in residence at The Cloisters on the Platte Retreat Center in Gretna, Nebraska.
Prayer
The joys and hopes, the griefs and anguish of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, griefs and anguish among the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts.
—Gaudium et Spes #1