Gospel-Homily for Fourth Sunday of Lent (2026)

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Great Endings.

How do you create a great ending? You need a horrible story. At the end of my first year in the seminary, I went to the Rector’s office for my evaluation. It didn’t go very well. He said my grades were low, and the staff didn’t think I could cut it as a priest. Against sending me away, the rector decided to give me one more semester. I was devastated. I remember going to the church after the meeting and putting my head down. I said to God. “I thought You wanted me to be a priest. It was You who instilled in me the desire since I was in second grade. Did I get the signals mixed up?” God then spoke to me. “Peter, Peter, I am not done. Will you let Me finish the story?” I said, “Fine.”  

Many years later, after I was ordained, I was driving out to St. John’s Seminary, where I am the professor for classical languages and the New Testament. I was with my confrère, Fr. David Beauregard, a Shakespearean scholar was also a teacher at St. John’s. While we were at a stoplight, I turned to him and asked, “Do you remember my first year in the seminary when you and the staff wanted to kick me out because I was not smart enough? Did you ever think back that it would be me who would team up with you to teach? Of all the great students and protégés, you had over the years, did you ever think that it would be the two of us?” He turned to me and said, “That was God.” After he said that, God spoke to me again. He said, “So, what did you think of my story.” I said, “The story was awful, I had to work very hard and nothing came easy, But I love the ending.” God replied, “Everyone likes my endings.” We have to remember that. It is true. Every horrible story in the Bible has a great ending.

Remember Joseph? He was in a dysfunctional family. His brothers hated him so much that they sold him to Egypt as a slave. There, Joseph was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and was thrown in prison. I stopped reading the story and said, “God, why do you not step in and do something.” God said, “Peter, will you finish reading the story?” In the end Joseph saved the nations from starvation and was reunited with his loving family. You could not ask for a better ending.

The story of a man born blind is tragic. He did nothing wrong and did not deserve to endure his entire youth in darkness. Yet, one day, he washed his eyes in the pool of Siloam after Jesus put clay in them, he stepped back, opened his eyes, and in that moment, light, color, depth, and height filled his body. What a great ending.

Here is the faith lesson–if life is hard, and you are wondering why God does not step in to help, just hear Him say to you, “Will you let me finish the story.” You will be glad you did.