5 March 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malabar Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.” Genesis 21:17
Yesterday Hagar and Ishmael were sent into the wilderness; today we follow them there. The water runs out. Hagar lays the boy under a bush and goes a bowshot away, “for she said, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.” It is one of the loneliest scenes in the Bible: a foreign slave woman, cast out, with a dying child, in a desert. And then: “God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.’” The name Ishmael means “God hears.” God hears him not after he is brought back to Abraham's tent, but “where he is,” under the bush in the desert. “Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.” The well had been there all along; she needed God to open her eyes. In the Great Fast many of us feel that our water skin is empty. The Lord who heard Ishmael hears us where we are.
The Gospel shows us the Shepherd who hears and knows: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Ishmael was outside the tent, but not outside God's care; Christ's heart reaches the sheep outside the fold, and he lays down his life to gather them. St Gregory the Great taught that “I know my own” means: I love them; and “my own know me” means: they obey me in love, for one who does not love does not yet truly know (in substance). Today our Church gives thanks for the anniversary of the enthronement of our Major Archbishop-Catholicos, Moran Mor Baselios Cardinal Cleemis, in 2007. We pray that he may be a shepherd after the heart of Christ, who knows his flock and seeks those far away. And Paul's farewell to the Corinthians becomes our prayer for all shepherds and for ourselves: “Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” He ends with the ancient cry of the Church in Aramaic, which the NRSV renders: “Our Lord, come!”
Theme: “God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.”
Ishmael in the desert, Paul's farewell, and the Good Shepherd who gathers one flock; on the anniversary of our Catholicos' enthronement.
“This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble.” Psalm 34:6
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Matthew 7:7
Apply: Bring your driest place to God in prayer every day this week and ask him to open your eyes.
“I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Colossians 3:14
Apply: Choose one duty you do grudgingly and do it this week with love.
“I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.” Ezekiel 34:23
“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” Ephesians 4:4–5
Apply: Pray daily for our Major Archbishop-Catholicos and for Christian unity.
God hears the cry of the outcast and opens eyes to hidden wells.
The Good Shepherd gathers his flock through shepherds who stand firm and do all in love.
Take-home resolution: Trust that God hears you where you are, and pray every day for the shepherds of the Church.
Dear friends, Hagar and her son are in the wilderness, and the water is gone. She lays the boy under a bush and weeps (Genesis 21:15–16). It is one of the loneliest scenes in Scripture.
But God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel said: do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water (Genesis 21:17, 19). God hears us where we are, not only when we are where we ought to be.
Jesus says: I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold; so there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:14, 16). Today we pray for our Major Archbishop-Catholicos on the anniversary of his enthronement, that he may shepherd us with the heart of Christ.
And Paul tells us all: keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love (1 Corinthians 16:13–14). Amen.
Children, a little boy named Ishmael was crying in the desert because he was thirsty. God heard him! And God showed his mother a well full of water. Ishmael's name means “God hears.” God hears you too, every time you pray, wherever you are. Today let us also pray for our Catholicos, the shepherd of our Church.
God who hears, you heard the voice of the boy Ishmael under the bush in the wilderness, and you opened Hagar's eyes to see the well of water. Hear us where we are, in our dryness and our fears. Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd, you know your own and lay down your life for them; bring home the sheep that are far away, and make us one flock under one shepherd. Bless our Major Archbishop-Catholicos, Moran Mor Baselios Cardinal Cleemis, on the anniversary of his enthronement; keep him alert and firm in faith, courageous and strong, doing all things in love. Our Lord, come! Amen.
Today we follow Hagar and the boy into the wilderness, where God hears a voice no one else hears and opens the eyes of a mother who has given up. The Gospel gives the shepherd's own word: “I know my own and my own know me”, and it looks beyond the fold. The Epistle (1 Corinthians 16:13–24) closes Paul's letter with “Let all that you do be done in love”, and with an Aramaic prayer that the Greek text keeps untranslated, marana tha, “Our Lord, come!” Our Church also remembers today the enthronement of our Major Archbishop-Catholicos.
Setting.
Hagar has been wandering in the wilderness of Beer-sheba with bread and a skin of water (21:14). This is the second time she has been in the desert with God's promise. In 16:7–14 she fled there while pregnant, was found by an angel at a spring, and gave God a name: the God who sees. Now the water is gone. The writer tells the scene slowly and in small details.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.” (21:16)
The Hebrew has the mother weeping, and the NRSV follows it. The Greek Old Testament has the child crying, and the POC agrees with that reading. The next verse says that God heard the boy's voice, though in the Hebrew we have not yet been told that he spoke. Both are in pain, and God is listening to both.
“And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven” (21:17)
God does not wait to be asked in the correct words, and he answers a cry from outside the household of the promise.
“Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.” (21:19)
Despair narrows sight. God's first gift to Hagar is the ability to see what was close to her all the time.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism names the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, and the cry of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, among the cries that rise to heaven (CCC 1867). Hagar, a foreign slave woman with a dying child, is one of the Bible's strongest witnesses that such a cry is heard. Her son is not forgotten by the family story either: Isaac and Ishmael together bury their father Abraham (25:9). St Paul's allegory in Galatians 4 has its own purpose, and it does not take away this plain word of God's mercy to a slave woman and her child.
Setting.
Jesus has just given sight to a man born blind, and the religious leaders have put the man out (John 9). He now speaks of those who care for sheep. The Old Testament stands behind the discourse: God accuses Israel's bad shepherds in Ezekiel 34 and promises to shepherd his people himself, and to set one shepherd over them (Ezekiel 34:11–16, 23). John's sayings are directed at those particular leaders in that dispute. They are not words about the Jewish people.
The Panchangam's reference for today's Gospel is not clear, and it may mean John 10:1–16 or John 10:14–16. We follow the shorter reading here, and your parish lectionary should be your guide.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me” (10:14)
He does not say first what the sheep must do. Being known by him comes first.
“And I lay down my life for the sheep.” (10:15)
The hired hand runs away (10:12). The shepherd gives himself, and verse 18 says that he does so of his own accord (see CCC 609).
“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (10:16)
Most interpreters take these others to be the Gentiles, who would be gathered with Israel; compare John 11:52. Christians also hear in the verse the wound of our own divisions, and our duty to pray that they may be healed.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the Good Shepherd ought to be the model and form of the bishop's pastoral office (CCC 896). It calls the Church a sheepfold whose one gateway is Christ, and says that the sheep, though ruled by human shepherds, are led and nourished by Christ himself (CCC 754). It teaches also that Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but that she must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce and perfect it (CCC 820).
Who are the “other sheep”?
In John's Gospel the most natural reading is the Gentiles, who were to be brought in with the believers from Israel: Jesus was to die “not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (11:52). The verse should not be used against other Christians. It tells all of us how far the shepherd's care reaches and what he wants: one flock.
Today is the anniversary of the enthronement of Moran Mor Baselios Cardinal Cleemis Catholicos as Major Archbishop-Catholicos of our Church (2007). It is fitting that the Gospel of the Good Shepherd should be read today. Pray for him, for the bishops of our eparchies, and for the priests who share in this ministry, that they may know their people and be known by them. Our Church's own story, of entering full communion with the Bishop of Rome under Mar Ivanios in 1930, gives the words “one flock, one shepherd” a special weight for us, and our prayer for unity goes on.