3rd Sunday of Eastertide Year C 2022

 

3^rd Sunday of Eastertide (C)

(Acts 5:27-32, 40-41; Rev. 5:11-14; John 21:1-19)

 

 

 

These Eastertide appearances gave great joy to the Apostles and disciples of Jesus and so they have continued to rejoice Christian souls throughout the ages even to this very day, when, in our Gospel reading, we heard of the Apostles on Lake Tiberias/Galilee -- after fishing all night without success -- catching sight of the Risen Lord walking on the shore and guiding them to a most remarkable catch of fish! John rejoiced on recognizing Jesus and Peter immediately hitched up his fishing attire and, diving into the sea, hastened to greet their Lord while the others brought the boat heavy with fish to shore.

Thereupon, Jesus invited them to share with Him a meal He had already prepared:

As soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread,

and He urged them to:

            Bring some of the fish you have just caught.

What a joyful occasion and what a wonderful meal that was on the shore of Galilee!!

You will recall that Jesus had promised His Apostles that He would make them into fishers of men and here they are about to be taught – by that very celebration -- about the essential nature and wonderful dignity of the mission and ministry to which He was calling them.

Jesus had brought bread with Him – He told them He was the bread of life … and this very fact was to be the key to their calling as His co-operators in a truly sublime piscatorial work of salvation by their proclamation of Jesus to all those of good will and despite those of ill will.  As the Church of Jesus they were to gather into their net an abundance of fish – believers in Jesus’ saving grace -- for whom He, Jesus, would Himself become the true bread from heaven, the bread of eternal salvation.

Moreover, the future Apostolic ministry of these His chosen and faithful disciples would not only make them co-operators in Jesus’ world-wide work of salvation, but also prepare them to personally receive a crown of righteousness for having themselves come to know and proclaim world-wide the One, true God and the Saviour of His sending:

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus Whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.  Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Saviour, to give (the opportunity of) repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  And we are His witnesses to these things (Acts 5:30-32); witnesses chosen by God … who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead (Acts 10:41).

Jesus’ own choice food had always been to do His Father’s will, as He said, and now the Apostles of His choosing would imitate their Lord by themselves seeking to do the will of Jesus in building up His Church on earth.

Let us, therefore, observe how those Apostles actually carried out their mission; let us see them -- in the power of His Spirit – starting His Church towards its world-wide fulfilment.

Notice first of all, People of God, that the Apostolic proclamation was not a humanly persuasive message about themselves, saying: "Come and join us; see how much we love Jesus and share the joy we find in serving Him".  Indeed, the Apostolic proclamation was not, first of all, even a message about Jesus' love for us: "Come to Jesus, Jesus loves you!"   The first, the most important, the absolutely essential content of the Apostles' preaching was about God, what God, the Father, had done with, in, and for Jesus:

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus Whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.   Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Saviour.

And why, did the Apostles say, God had done this? 

To give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

God exalted Jesus ‘to give Israel an opportunity to repent’; and then, after such repentance has been embraced, ‘to give forgiveness of sins’.

Consequently, the first aim of the Apostolic proclamation of the Gospel and its ultimate purpose was to proclaim, above all, the glory of God ‘Who raised up Jesus’, while declaring the indisputable fact of human sinfulness shown in all its horror by the crucifixion of the Son of God and Lord of Life.  By then highlighting the forgiveness of sins, they were to intone a paean of praise for the fact that by the unimaginable mercy of the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ humankind are no longer subject to the power of sin:  we can now be FREE to live, love, and work henceforth with Jesus, by His Spirit, for the glory of God and the salvation and better-being of those of good will here on earth; in all things we are called to fight with Him, by His Spirit, against the devil and our own former sinfulness, knowing that we can overcome such trials and learn to love and live by the Cross of Life.

We are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit Whom God has given to those who obey Him.

No matter what violence was threatened or used against them:

(The Apostles) day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. 

Such, People of God, was the way the Apostles -- under the guidance of the Spirit of Holiness and Truth given them by Jesus -- preached the Good News.  That was how Peter, restored and confirmed as the Prince of Apostles, carried out the commission given him when Jesus said:

            Feed My lambs; take care of, feed, My sheep.

Notice too, this time from our second reading, that, in heaven -- as seen by John whilst banished to the isle of Patmos -- the song is the same as the Apostles' proclamation, namely, a song, a celebration, of Jesus as the slain Lamb, raised and glorified by God:

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: "Blessing and honour and glory and power be to Him Who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!"

Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing! 

  And why?

For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:9-10)

People of God, notice, LEARN, and take courage.  The Catholic Church proclaims truth, God's truth, to the whole world.  She does not say, "Look at us Catholics: how holy we are, how happy we are.  Come and join us, become holy like us, share in our happiness".  No!  Mother Church has a message for all who are aware of sin in their lives and who long to be freed from their bondage to sin; and to them her message is: "This is what God has done in, through, and for, Jesus and what He wants to do for all who will believe in Him: acknowledge and  confess your sinfulness, embrace the new life of baptism, and open -- Oh yes open! -- your mind and heart to the Holy Spirit Whom God is offering you and all mankind in Jesus.”

Of course, Mother Church can point to many signs that help to confirm her message: her own enduring of hatred and oppression throughout the ages; the holiness of so many of her children's lives; the wonderful way in which her truth understands, answers, transforms and fulfils, our human condition; the miracles which have, throughout the ages, transfigured the envelope of humble creation.

However, since all these are dependent on and secondary to the fundamental message contained in Mother Church’s Apostolic proclamation of the glory of God and the salvation to be found in Jesus through repentance and faith, we, children of Mother Church and disciples of the Risen Lord Jesus, should never, ever, be ashamed or embarrassed, to proclaim the Apostolic, Catholic, truth about Jesus.  Let no one disturb, or frighten you with words such as, "Look at you!"  or, "Who are you to talk?"; for when we proclaim Jesus as Saviour we are acknowledging ourselves as sinners: we should be better, we want to be better, we will seek and strive to be better, but we will never be found among those who proclaim themselves, rather than Jesus.   Jesus came to call sinners, and that is precisely why we hope in Him, because He came to call and to save us and all sinners.  His message, the proclamation of Mother Church, is not for those who deny the reality of sin; for, until they become aware of the sin which is active in their own lives and corroding the society, and indeed the world, around them, and until they conceive a fear of the consequences of and punishment awaiting such sin, then they are and will remain, deaf both to the saving truth proclaimed by Mother Church and unable to receive the gift of the most Holy Spirit, Who alone enables all of us to walk with Jesus along the way to eternal life.

People of God, join in the heavenly choir; join, in all sincerity, your voice to theirs as they cry with a loud voice:

Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing! 

For, by so joining your voice to that of the heavenly throng, the final words of the prophet will be brought closer to their eternal fulfilment:

I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, everything in the universe, cry out: “To the One Who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour, glory and might, forever and ever.”

                                                                 (2022)

2nd Sunday of Easter Year C 2022

 

2^nd. Sunday of Easter (C)

(Acts 5:12-16; Revelation 1:9-19; John 20:19-31)

 

 

On thinking about today’s Gospel reading it might seem strange that the risen Jesus should go to such lengths to prove to the apostle Thomas that He was no ghost, that He was a real man of flesh and bones.  He was glorified indeed -- had He had not just entered the room although the doors were closed? -- but He was nevertheless still recognizably real and objectively present to and with His apostles in the room:

     Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see My hands.  Reach out your             hand and put it into My side.  Stop doubting and believe.

After doing so much for Thomas, why does Jesus today refrain from doing anything similar for modern people to prove that He is really with us?  We have to accept the truth about the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and presence to us, for us and with us, by faith ... how come that Thomas got so much proof?

First of all, notice that Thomas did indeed have faith.  On touching Jesus’ wounds, he immediately declared his faith with those momentous words, My Lord and my God!

Thomas’ sense of touch only confirmed what his eyes saw; and with those earthly eyes he did but see the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side, he did not, could not, see God.  It was the light of faith alone which enabled him to recognize the divine truth about Jesus and proclaim, My Lord and my God.

There is more to it, however, than that.  Something happened to the apostles when Thomas was absent, as we heard in the Gospel reading:

            Jesus came and stood in the midst of the Apostles and said to them, ‘Peace be              with you.  As the Father has sent Me, so I send you.’  And when He had said                 this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins             you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’

Until then the Eleven had been a group of individuals, united indeed by their love of Jesus, but still a more or less somewhat disparate group of people capable of breaking up and each going their own way, as they in fact did when Jesus was apprehended.  However, when the Risen Jesus appeared to them -- in Thomas’ absence -- He gave them a distinct identity and an exclusive mission:

         As the Father has sent Me, so I send you! 

He then bestowed on them the Gift of His own most Holy Spirit, with power to forgive and retain sins, as you have just heard.   From that moment on, therefore, those ten Apostles in the room with Jesus were no longer individuals devoted to the memory of Jesus; now, they had all been formed into one, all of them looking towards a common future and common endeavour for Jesus; all now had become a perduring unity of unique significance and universal consequence for mankind’s salvation: the Body of Christ, Mother Church.

When Thomas refused to believe what his fellow Apostles and Mary Magdalen had said, he apparently knew nothing about any Church ... sent by Jesus as Jesus said He Himself had been sent by His Father; sent therefore to continue serving in the name of Jesus the mission Jesus Himself had inaugurated and served in the name of His Father:

             As the Father has sent Me, so I send you.

Thomas, was not strengthened, drawn along, by any common feeling of sympathetic response as the Eleven had been when Jesus first appeared; Thomas was spiritually alone on first hearing their words about Jesus; and even at this second appearance of Jesus, Thomas still only knew his companions as individuals, as a familiar group of friends and disciples of Jesus, each with their personal and at times quite obvious limitations and failings which Jesus had occasionally needed to point out;  he knew nothing, as yet, of the Church they had just become by Jesus’ Gift of His Holy Spirit to be with them on that very mission Jesus was committing to them.

That is why Thomas needed -- and was given by his Lord and God -- that extra help that we today are not offered, because we have the witness of the universal Church established by Jesus and which, though persecuted by Emperors, despised by Kings, mocked by ignorant and sinful people from the very beginning, still endures as the authoritative witness to the beauty, truth and power of Jesus in our days.  In her we are become members of His very own Body, personally ennobled by His most Holy Spirit, and enabled to recognize, love, and fight for the faith which is union with Jesus for the glory of His Father, and for our salvation as His true children.

The Church, God’s Chosen People, is, as I have said, the Body of Christ, and ‘doubting’ Thomas did not experience that sympathetic Body-of-Christ-awareness-and-surging-response to Jesus’ presence, which is so very necessary for all of us and which is so very rarely even mentioned; Thomas only heard the apparently bare words of individual friends from whom he had, unfortunately, become separated.

Dear People of God, Mother Church is essential to our living with and for Jesus; she is the Temple where Jesus has promised to be -- for our finding -- until the end of time; she is the Spouse He will never desert, and the loving Mother of all God’s children born in baptism, through faith in Jesus.  Her sacraments give us the food of life, and the word of Jesus -- alive in her -- is a light to enlighten the nations and glorify all God’s children.  And, most importantly, though often ignored, our Catholic oneness in appreciation of and response to her beauty and truth is a divine gift and an infallible support.

Thomas’ longing for companionship in faith was indeed God’s prompting that would prepare him to embrace his second opportunity when Jesus once again appeared to all Eleven of His apostles.  This ‘opportunity’ became the most decisive moment of Thomas’ whole life:  his touching of Jesus’ wounds, and Jesus’ own words, prompted and encouraged him to make a total personal commitment of faith in the Risen Lord he had so long and faithfully followed.

Dear People of God, we Catholics rejoice in Mother Church and our Faith, two supremely wonderful and complementary gifts of God.  Our faith is indeed a joy because it is SURE when so much in life is belittled, betrayed, and riddled by insecurity ... life-long love and enduring commitment and fidelity between man and wife is hardly expected today and, indeed, frequently mocked in so many presentations of modern life in society where personal gain and pleasure, public approval or even mere acceptance or tolerance, are more than enough to tip the scales against any prospective possibility of sacrifice.   For intellectual, or even religiously-inclined people, Catholic faith can be deemed impossible because the world and our knowledge of it are changing ever so rapidly that no one can know what time may bring.  One former learned Anglican acquaintance of mine, thus afflicted, could not say, when I asked him concerning the divinity of Jesus, what he might ‘believe’ in ten years’ time!

Consequently, for so many, instead of the sure light of faith guiding them towards the fulfillment of our human destiny and the abiding promise of a God-given future, there is only an individual, or at best shared, opinion; available, not indeed to guide onwards, but merely to hopefully justify one’s personal past and future choices.  There is no love in-and-through life, just adventitious adaptations to whatever might seem the best available personal option at the moment in question.

Catholic Faith, because it is founded on the Word of God, is both sure and certain: it is essential for salvation because it alone can respond fittingly to the great Goodness of God and the sublimity of His promises made to mankind in Jesus.  Even though, for example, one can still read past issues of national and international papers recounting the wonders witnessed by thousands at Fatima and Lourdes, even though pilgrims still today experience startling cures at those and similar shrines, nevertheless, every new generation wants to experience for itself to such an extent that, without such corroborating personal experience, the reports of others gradually lose compelling attention and are, inevitably forgotten or simply no longer taken into account.  Faith alone can respond to and overcome such depradations of our human character by time and cupidity.

People of God, there has been so much truth and beauty brought to our attention today; however, the order of the day – so to speak -- is heart-felt gratitude to the God of our Faith for Thomas’ ‘blunt’ confession, and for the enduring apostolic proclamation of Mother Church, which afford us so much comfort and peace while, nevertheless, inspiring us with an ever-deeper longing for and delight in Jesus Christ our Risen Lord and Saviour.

 

Easter Sunday Year C 2022

 

Easter Sunday (C) 2022                                                    (Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9)

 

           

God raised (Jesus) on the third day and granted that He be visible to us.

Those words of St. Peter are the culmination of an age-long awareness and expectation in Israel, where the third day was of special significance for Jewish piety.  In the book of Genesis, we are told that Abraham, in obedience to the voice of God, was taking his only son Isaac to offer him in sacrifice to the Lord on the mount which the Lord would show him.  Sorrowing father and innocent, unknowing son, were journeying on, together with some servants, when:

On the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you."   (Genesis 22:4-5)

On that third day Abraham had observed Mount Moriah where he believed his son had to be sacrificed to the Lord; in the event, however, it would turn out to be the mount where the son was not only restored unharmed to his father, but restored as the sign of God’s enduring promise of blessing for Abraham and God’s Chosen People (22:16-17):

Because you have not withheld your only son – blessing, I will bless you and multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.

Again, in the prophecy of Hosea (6:1-3) there is consolation for sinful, suffering, Israel:

Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.   After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.   Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.  His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.

You can understand, therefore, what Easter comfort and joy the disciples experienced on recalling such texts after having found the empty tomb and seen the Risen Lord!  The ultimate bearer of God’s promise, Jesus Whom they had known and loved, had risen on the third day: death could not hold Him!  Satan had been defeated, and his power over mankind forever broken and shattered!!  That is why Peter could so confidently proclaim to Cornelius and his family whom, under the command of the Holy Spirit, he was about to baptise (Acts 10:39-42):

We are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, Whom they killed by hanging on a tree.  Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.  And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He Who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead.

Let us now turn to our reading from St. Paul and allow him to guide our thoughts:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.   For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.   

Paul thus extends this wondrous event of Jesus’ rising from the dead to include us:

You have died (with Christ), and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 

How can he say that we died with Christ?  Because Christ – the very Son of God made flesh -- died as Lord and Saviour of all mankind; though sinless, He died a sinner’s death for our sake and on our behalf; and when He had died to sin, what chance was there that anyone else could ever overcome the power and the horror of death which is the sting in the tail of sin?  Indeed, when He died on Good Friday all our hopes seemed to die with Him; and on Holy Saturday His disciples experienced only the hopelessness, helplessness, and indeed the emptiness of our native, sinful, condition, and their own deep personal loss.

But now, Peter and Paul, together with all the apostles, bear witness that God has, in fact, raised Jesus from the dead; and, since He is risen, Paul says, you – you, who believe in Him and in the God Who raised Him -- you too are risen with Him since you have the opportunity of sharing in His new, risen, Life: because of your faith in Him you are no longer subject to the frustrations and ultimate horror of earthly death, no longer bound by sin in your native pride and self-solicitude:

“O Death, where is your sting?  O Hades, where is your victory?"  The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the Law.  But, thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-58)

But Paul also said that we too are seated with Christ at the right hand of God.  Now, we firmly believe that Jesus, the Holy One of God, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and we also believe that He continually intercedes for us; but how are we seated with Him at the right hand of the Father?

The answer is that we are not, of course, physically seated with Him now in heaven; nevertheless, heaven is where the vital powers of our spiritual life originate and whither they are leading us.  Jesus is physically, in His glorious humanity -- our humanity received without sin from Mary and now glorified as Jesus’ Personal humanity in heaven -- at the right hand of the Father.  Moreover, He is also physically with us -- in a sacramental manner -- in the Eucharist, whereby He draws us up, into Himself through the Spirit.  Our heavenly food -- the driving force of supernatural life within us -- is the living Body of the One seated at the right hand of the Father in glory; and the more we live by that food, the more we live by His Gifted Spirit, the more He draws us closer and more intimately into Himself.  For the sake of all mankind, He has taken our humanity into glory: none are barred from sharing His glory by reason of their humanity.

However, we have a yet surer basis for hope than the mere fact that our human nature is no longer barred from heaven: for each of us has been called, drawn to Jesus -- personally and individually -- by the Father Himself, as Jesus most explicitly said:

No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.  (John 6:44)

And so, having obediently answered the Father’s call, we have allowed ourselves to be drawn by the Father to Jesus, and we have come to believe in Jesus as the Son-of-God- made-Man; and, having been baptised into Him as our Lord and Saviour, we have now been endowed with, and justified by, His Gift of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul tells us:

Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?  (Rom. 8:30-31)

Today Jesus is risen and we are potentially risen with Him; no, more than that, we who have faith in Him are already initially glorified in Him: for we who receive the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord in true faith are now assured that we are being actually guided by the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God, towards heaven – as both our destiny and our home -- because our food of life, the Eucharist is, sacramentally, the very same Body which is Jesus’ in heaven; and thus God’s Gift of the Holy Spirit, bestowed on us through the Eucharist, is now at work forming us ever more in Jesus’ likeness, so that we -- as living members, in Spirit and Truth, of His Mystical Body on earth -- might ultimately be able to share in the eternal glory which is His, in the Spirit, before His Father in heaven. 

For your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

The Father has received His Beloved Son back; and, living in the Father’s heavenly presence, His Son is the bearer of an eternal promise, that where He is, we -- who through faith and baptism are members of His mystical Body -- may be:

Father, I desire that they also whom You have given Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

Such is, indeed, the Lord Jesus’ prayer today in our regard; and what hope of glory and fulfilment it holds out for us in the future, what joy and peace it can bring us now, if we pray in unison with Jesus, and live in a way that makes such a prayer credibly ours!  Consequently, we who entertain such hopes surely cannot allow ourselves to live a life of worldly obsession, constantly searching and striving for what the world promises, whilst largely forgetting our heavenly vocation and future.  Even Jesus’ prayer that we ‘may be with Him where He is’ can only bear effect in the lives of those who are open to, and in tune with, such a prayer; that is, in the lives of those who seek communication and communion with Him more seriously and lovingly than they search for earthly success, earthly rewards, human sympathy and human companionship.  And so, let us never forget St. Paul’s admonition in today’s readings:

If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking what is above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on the things above, not on the things on earth.

Let us, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, follow such advice in the spirit of today’s wonderful celebration, taking very much to heart the words of the prophet Nehemiah:

Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8:10)

Palm Sunday Year C 2022

 

Palm Sunday (C1)

(Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; St. Luke 22:14-23:56)

Today’s reading of the Passion and death of Our Blessed Lord Jesus was written by St. Luke who was not one of the Twelve Apostles nor was he present at Our Lord’s crucifixion.   The other two synoptic Gospel accounts of the crucifixion were written by SS. Mark and Matthew: Matthew was, indeed, himself present on Calvary, while St. Mark is generally understood to have been the disciple and amanuensis of St. Peter, and thus His Gospel gives us Peter’s unique experience and memory of Jesus’ life and teaching before the horror of His sufferings and death on Calvary.

For such close disciples of Jesus as Peter and Matthew (Levi), being present on Calvary when Jesus’ crucifixion took place must have been an overwhelming experience, and both Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospel reflect their authors’ seared memories of that tragic event.  Luke was not present on Calvary and, by that very fact being less traumatized by the visual horrors of the Crucifixion, he alone thought to tell us of the beginning of the Last Supper Jesus held with His Apostles before Calvary:

 

When the hour came, Jesus took His place at table with the Apostles.   He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”  He took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves.” Then He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of Me.”  And likewise, the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which will be shed for you.”  

 

Notice that People of God: immediately before His dreadful suffering, Jesus rejoiced at being able to eat that supper with His Apostles, and taking a celebratory (!) cup of wine He gave thanks!  Then, He took some bread and said, “This is My body, which will be given for you, do this in memory of Me”; and finally, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which will be shed for you.”   All expressions of Our Lord’s deep joy at loving beyond measure, and humbly expressing that touchingly human desire that His love be both remembered and returned by these unique Apostles of His own choosing.

Dear fellow disciples of Jesus our Lord and Saviour, Saint Luke has left us a treasure here!  Where he got it, so to speak, is irrelevant, for this is God’s Gospel truth and it is essential for our right understanding of the saving Passion and Death of Him Who was sent by the Father as Saviour of mankind!

In life’s sufferings we all are offered -- what SS. James and John so eagerly desired for themselves (Mt. 20:22) -- a share in the chalice Jesus would drink, and St. Luke shows us how Our Lord Himself prepared not only to accept but to positively embrace His cup of most outrageous sufferings! And we, as Catholic and Christian disciples of Jesus, can only fruitfully accept our God-given share of life’s trials IF we try to embrace them with love as Our Lord and Saviour embraced His crucifixion, for Personal love of His Father and for love of us and our salvation! 

The Father created us and wanted us to be saved: our salvation originates in the Father’s saving will for us.   Jesus loved His Father totally, and, loving His Father totally, He willed above all to carry out His Father’s desire for our salvation (John 10:14–15):

             

I am the good shepherd, and I know Mine and Mine know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and consequently, I will lay down My life for the sheep.

 

Jesus’ agony in the garden before His Father showed most clearly that He knew what was going to happen to Himself, but in preparing to undergo it He willed -- for Himself and for His Apostles -- to face it resolutely, and He most earnestly urged His Apostles to rejoice -- quite deliberately -- with Him.  He said:

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” And then, He took a cup, (a celebratory cup!)  gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves.”

Only after having thus established the appropriate atmosphere, did He mention His body and blood, to be sacrificed and become sacramental.

Dear friends in Christ, deliberate joy and obedient love make a cross-conquering and a life-affirming weapon for all who in Jesus aspire to become true children of the heavenly Father, Who calls us, draws us, to Himself in Jesus by the Spirit of them both, the Spirit of Truth and Love.   Come, Lord Jesus, come!

 

5th Sunday of Lent Year C 2022

 

.. 5th. SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

(Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John: 8:1-11)

 

Today’s Gospel about the woman taken in the very act of adultery was much loved and worshipfully understood by Mother Church from the beginning, and in the course of her development of our Catholic liturgy she decided to ‘assign’ two other readings to support, strengthen, or broaden our understanding and appreciation of the Gospel passage.  Today, the jewel of divine wisdom contained in our Gospel is most admirably displayed in the fulness of its liturgical setting for today’s Eucharistic celebration.

 

Our first reading emphasized the very essence of our human nature and the ultimate purpose for its creation.  Mankind, having been originally created in the likeness of God, His very own Chosen People were formed for God that they might announce His praise:

My Chosen People, whom I formed for Myself, that they might announce My praise.

And to prepare, help, and guide His Chosen People for the fulfilling of that duty of praise, God gave them -- through Moses -- the Law; and then, His chosen prophets -- ‘ad hoc’ interpreters of the Law of Moses over the ages -- to perfect and prepare God’s Chosen People that they might recognize the sovereignty of Jesus’ Person when He came and appreciate His fulfilment of that original Law.

In accordance with the great prophet Isaiah’s appreciation of the wonder and the goodness of God we heard him, in our second reading, declare in God’s name:

Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am DOING SOMETHING NEW.

And this gradually developing newness in God’s providence for His Chosen People came to its glorious climax when the Law was ultimately superseded by the GOOD NEWS of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.

Now, in Mother Church’s proclamation of that Good News, St. Paul was our Risen Lord’s own Personal choice as teacher of the nations, and he testified most eloquently in our second reading concerning the newness of God’s Providence for us:

I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know Him and the power of His resurrection and (the) sharing of His sufferings by being conformed to His death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Surely, dear People of God, those words resound in our minds and stir our hearts, who have ourselves learned -- through the gift of Faith -- something of the truth and beauty of God’s great goodness and majesty, and have experienced something of the loving proximity of the glorious Jesus Himself in the Holy Eucharist.  The Scriptures and the Holy Eucharist are truly sublime blessings, thanks to Jesus’ Gift of His most Holy Spirit, abiding with Mother Church and sacramentally bestowed on her faithful children.  St. Paul assures us (1 Corinthians 10:13) that that resonance with Jesus for the glory of God can thrill and fulfil our whole being, and is a privilege to be treasured with firm confidence and sure hope despite all the world’s trials and opposition, because:

God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength but with the trial will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.

 

However, in that context of the fullness of today’s liturgy there came, in our Gospel reading, an anti-climax so tragically characteristic of mankind’s response to God today.  The Scribes and Pharisees – having appropriated the seat of Moses for themselves (Matthew 23:2) – planned to destroy both the Mission and the very Person of Jesus by taking advantage of human persistence in and affection for sin:

Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now the Law of Moses commanded us to stone such women.  So, what do You say?

Their secret thoughts and deepest plans they did not dare mention, for they were poisoned by bitter pride, and instead of humbly seeking to understand God’s truth for God’s Chosen People, they were using devilish cunning to further their own presumptive authority: ‘The people expect us, and You most especially, to uphold our Jewish Law, but the Romans – our oppressors -- will not allow us to put anyone to death. What do You say?’

What a scenario!!  The religious leaders try to use God’s Law against God’s Son; they try to turn the people against Jesus their Saviour and thwart His redeeming mission and also to provoke the Roman authorities against His regal Person!

It is our Gospel reading that finally makes crystal clear the seriousness and depth of the issues involved in the apparently every-day issue of human infidelity:

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”

Those words of Jesus show us that although the time for the condemnation of sinners is not yet, nevertheless, such sexual infidelity was in no way trivial.

Let us now therefore, dear People of God, turn our attention to Jesus’ very self, in His human attitude, to both His ‘professional antagonists’ -- the Scribes and Pharisees -- and so many of His thoughtless pseudo-supporters, so easily yielding themselves to pleasure like the woman in the Gospel story, and ever comforting themselves with words such as, ‘it doesn’t really matter’; and we find yet again Divine Love’s wisdom and patience most beautifully Personified.

Jesus does not argue with the Pharisees and Scribes, He respects what measure of love for the Law of God might possibly be behind their exposure of such immorality; He even seems to go just a very few steps along the way with them:

 Let one among you be the first to throw a stone at her, IF HE IS WITHOUT SIN.

And thus, His opponents are enabled to reluctantly withdraw, slink away, from the scene with a certain measure of humility-for-public-appreciation.  What a wonderfully wise and divinely simple discomfiture!!

He then turns to the woman.

Notice there are no emotional words; no modern gestures (comforting arms round shoulders) of humanistic sympathy in order to make manifest the speaker’s own understanding and caring attitude.    For Jesus, sin is sin, ever real and hateful in whatever circumstances; the sinner, however, is not yet bound hard and fast, and salvation can still be hers, true joy can still fill her heart and mind with peace, if she will turn her face from the easy and pleasurable way and begin to look for God:

Woman, has no one condemned you?   Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.

Dear People of God, so many knowingly allow themselves to foolishly listen to the Liar, the Persuader, and weakly follow his suggestion, ‘it doesn’t really matter’. 

Today, one third of young people do not know their own sexuality we are told, because too many young people with no principles follow bad examples for reasons as puerile as popularity and immediate personal pleasure: trying this sexuality on for so long, so to speak, and then another sexual attitude for another time: dabbling with what God made seriously beautiful and thus befuddling themselves concerning what was created to be fulfilling and has now become for them a meaningless puzzle and source of bitterness and pain. In that so modern setting, devotion has to face up and respond to not only to thoughtless disregard and disdain for religious observance and love of God, but also to the more diabolical opposition of professional and powerful pride, big-time money and the large-scale promotion of pleasure and excitement.

And, though this world of pleasure, power, excitement and greed allows itself to ignore and even ridicule the name and teaching of Jesus, nevertheless His words are eternal and true, offering life or pronouncing judgement:

If I had not come and spoken to them they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both Me and My Father.