4th Sunday of Eastertide Year A 2023

 

4^th. Sunday Eastertide (A)

(Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 36-41; 1^st. Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10)

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Dear People of God, on this Sunday of the Good Shepherd there is something of particular interest for us in today’s reading taken from the first letter of St. Peter, because Peter, you will remember, was specially commissioned by Jesus – because of his unique love for Jesus – to ‘feed His lambs and His sheep’.  In other words, Peter was chosen and Personally urged and encouraged to be himself a good shepherd for Jesus’ flock in the likeness of Jesus Himself.

Those Christians to whom Peter was writing were only recent converts and he was seeking to encourage, strengthen, and guide them in the ways of Christ; and I want to draw your attention to the way he sets about it.

 You had gone astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

 Thus Peter congratulated those converts, and rejoiced over the salutary change in their lives.  However, Peter did that in order to confirm them in what he evidently considered to be of primary importance for new-born Christians and Catholics to learn, namely, that ordinary ideas of morality were not good enough for them:

           What credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated,  you endure it                 with patience?

 You new Christians, who are still rejoicing in the wonder of your conversion, must, Peter said, realise that though you are now suffering for your faith, Christ Himself also suffered, moreover, He suffered for us, which tells us that our suffering is not just to be passively endured, we must try to embrace it with patience and for a good purpose, as He did:

             Leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.  To this you were                  called.

Peter then ended his proclamation of the saving Gospel of Jesus, by adding:

 But if, when you do what is right and suffer, you take it patiently, this is  commendable before God;

thereby commending the manner in which he, Peter himself and his fellow Apostles, had themselves suffered for Jesus:

 They left the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonour for the sake of the Name.  (Acts 5:41)

Such was the way the early Church was built up: Christians were taught to live for righteousness and encouraged to face up the difficulties of their personal situation with their eyes firmly fixed on the historic Person of Christ who suffered and died to redeem us from the sin which is in the world and of the world.  In such teaching Peter was being absolutely faithful to Jesus Who had said to His disciples (John15:19):

         If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  Yet, because you are not          of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Isn’t it strange then, that in response to today’s world-wide persecution of Catholic and Christians, we hear few Church messages of whole-hearted Christian support, encouragement, and guidance.  Far too often we hear mere appeals for peace to people who have no interest in such appeals expressing human sympathy for the suffering, as if such anonymous human sympathy was the best that could be offered, indifferently, to all, whether they be pagans, religious, Muslims, Jews, free-thinking Christians, or Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

The nascent Church, however, knowing perfectly her role and function, proclaimed and bore witness to the Gospel of Jesus while fully acknowledging that only God Himself spoke in the secret depths of the hearts of those who listened, and that those He thus chose, He then gave to Jesus (John 6:44):

            No one can come to Me unless he Father Who sent Me draw him. 

 In today’s first two readings Peter is so very confident in offering the Jesus he proclaims as the sublime Example and supreme Reward for all those seeking God and salvation:

     Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the             forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit.   For the     promise is made to you and to your children, and to all those far off, whomever         our God will call.

And we were also given an example of Peter endevouring to be the  ‘good shepherd’ Jesus wanted and expected him to become, by showing us that Peter had no qualms or hesitation whatsoever in offering Catholics under persecution not mere sympathy but Gospel encouragement and help by exhorting them to face up to their trials with patience, confidence, and courage: 

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.

Too often today public statements by prominent servants of Mother Church seem to be over-much politicised, serving primarily to cause no trouble rather than to preach and proclaim Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and to offer the encouragement of Christian and Catholic teaching for suffering disciples of Jesus in need of that spiritual backbone and moral strength which can only be bestowed by a sure, ‘Holy Spirit based’ hope for now, and Jesus’ Personal promise of eternal fulfilment to come.

After rising from the dead in glory Jesus did not live again here on earth.  He did, indeed, show Himself to His intimate disciples several times, but on all those occasions He appeared as One Who had ascended, that is, as One already living at the righthand of the Father in heaven.  He had risen in order to ascend, because the life in which He rose, the life He offers to share with us, was, is, heavenly life, eternal and glorious.  Those who imagine they can live as good Christians and Catholics while aiming no higher than earthly happiness and earthly fulfilment are, at the best, like those fireworks we call ‘damp squibs’: made to be rockets, they do indeed burn when their match is applied, but they find it hard to lift off, and if they should begin to rise they go up only for a few fretful yards before spluttering and flopping down to ground again, with no further possibility  of fulfilling  their promise.

Those whom Peter addressed his message, on the other hand, were true disciples of Jesus, under no illusions that the world which had crucified their Lord might in some way come to love them:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you.

However, they did know, and whole-heartedly accepted, that thanks to Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, they were no longer helpless under the power of sin.  They rejoiced In the conviction that they could now overcome the world’s deceit, in and with Jesus Who conquered sin and death by rising in the glory of the Holy Spirit, and Who now offers to all who will believe in Him and in His saving proclamation of the heavenly Father’s love, a share in the presence and power of His Most Holy Spirit (John 16:33):

     These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world         you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Peter was very realistic in his address to the new converts of Asia Minor, and he not only warned them of the difficulties they would have to face, but even said it was their vocation, their calling, not only to suffer in such a way but also to triumph over their trials in the strength of Christ:

     What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently?          But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable             before God.  For to this you were called, because Chris when He was reviled, did      not revile on return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed                 Himself to Him Who judges righteously.

Speaking in this way Peter was preparing and strengthening them for whatever might arise; and we ourselves – aspiring to be sincere believers in and true disciples of Jesus – also find his words, after nearly two thousand years, still refreshingly pertinent and inspiring, oppressed as we are by the sin that is not only blatantly rampant in the world around us, but also visible in our own society, and even to be found skulking in our very own selves.  

Saint Peter makes very clear to us why we have felt the need to come here today, to meet Jesus where He promised to be with us, that is, in His Church, our Mother.  We have come wanting to be healed by Jesus, to learn from Him, and to be empowered by His Spirit, that we might, by overcoming the sin-of-the-world in ourselves, bear authentic witness to Him and to the wondrous love of the Father Who sent Him among us to save us.

 We know, however, that our healing will be a lifelong process, for the Holy Spirit of Jesus must open up our most secret selves so that, penetrating to the core of our being, He might form us in all truth and sincerity into a likeness of Jesus.  God needs to temper His power to our frailty with the result that the Holy Spirit working in us can only change us gradually.  Moreover, the Spirit, having begun to work His wonders in us, has then to encourage us personally to commit ourselves to following His influence and guidance with confidence, trust, and courage; and that too is difficult and takes time, because we instinctively want to walk with others, to be comforted and appreciated by our fellows; and too often we find ourselves unable to hear or understand when the Spirit of Jesus would lead us along a way that is not level, well sign-posted or well-trodden, by others.

Today, therefore, dear People of God, let our Easter rejoicing be both whole-hearted and truly profitable for ourselves and for Mother Church; let us make it our delight to proclaim Jesus as our Saviour and our Risen Lord, our whole confidence and sure hope; and as we do that, let us renew our admiration of and prayers for all those saints in Mother Church suffering for their faithfulness to Jesus and His Church.  With them, let us bolster up our hearts as we listen carefully and trustfully to Jesus’ words:

Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door.  I anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

Jesus is indeed the Way, the firstborn from the dead; He is the Truth which alone can satisfy and fulfil our deepest longings; He is life itself, in the fulness of all its possibilities and divinely eternal.  Through faith in Jesus we have entered into the flock of God, and Jesus like a good shepherd leads His flock to nourishing pastures.  Having conquered the sin of the world, and having been raised – still in our likeness – to new and eternal life in the Spirit of Glory, Jesus is able to fulfil what He promised (John 10:29-30):

     I give them eternal life, they shall never perish neither shall anyone snatch them         out of My hand.  My Father, Who has given them to Me is greater than all; and         no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.  I and My Father are one.

Eastertide is a time of supreme joy for all Christians, so let us learn from Peter who, inspired by the Spirit of Jesus, spoke words of truth that pierce the fog of worldly deceits around us, and our own self-indulgent fancies:

             Be saved from this perverse generation!

                             

 

 

 

 

3rd Sunday of Easter Year A 2023

 

 3^rd. Sunday of Easter (A)

(Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 22-23; 1^st. Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35)

 

As the two disciples walked towards Emmaus they were talking about Jesus, the events of His life, and His crucifixion and  death they had so recently experienced in Jerusalem.

Reminiscences, however, dear People of God, no matter how loving, are not faith:

The Father himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God.   (John 16:27)

What saved those two former followers (‘we had hoped’) of Jesus from becoming ‘no-hopers’?   What indeed inspired them to throw away their baggage of regrets, shake off their sorrow, and become renewed and true believers in Jesus? 

It was not directly due to Jesus having explained to them the Scriptures about Himself.  For, though having gladly heard Him as a companion-on-the-way, they were, nevertheless, initially prepared to see Him part from their company a little later on.

No.  It was not Jesus’ enlightening of their minds that changed their dispositions, but the fact that, on seeing Him begin to go off on His own way, they suddenly remembered how their hearts had been so deeply touched:

            Did not our hearts burn within us?

It was not the event itself – Jesus’ explaining the Scriptures -- but their recalling, and for the first time appreciating, its effect on them, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

These words of Jesus to His Apostles can give us some guidance here:

It is to your advantage that I go away, because if I do not go away the Helper will not come to you. (John 16:7)

Dear People of God, Jesus -- though a visible ‘companion’ to those He had joined on their way to Emmaus -- was not of this world.  He was, in fact, glorified by the Spirit.   It was surely the Helper for Whom Jesus had prayed on behalf of His Apostles and His nascent Church, Who was already at work within those erstwhile companions of His on the way, bringing to their minds the spiritual significance of what happened to them so recently:

            Did not our hearts burn within us?

Dear People of God, facts of all sorts impinge upon -- entering and leaving -- the active awareness of our minds.  Some thoughts, some facts, penetrate deeper -- like darts -- when they catch our attention and cause our minds to recognize something of their importance.

There are, however, spiritual arrows that penetrate deepest of all when we find ourselves hit by what may seem to have been but a mere glimpse of their beauty; but notwithstanding, a glimpse revealing a beauty that solicits almost painfully -- nay even demands -- some response, some acknowledgement of our appreciation,  some embrace emanating from our deepest self.

They urged Him, ‘Stay with us,  it is nearly evening and the day is almost over’.

This Man had found them ‘looking sad’ and now, as He was on the point of leaving them, they realised that something wonderful had happened to them in His company, and they knew they had to acknowledge it immediately, they must not forget it.  It was almost as if they themselves were being tested: they must not fail, could not lose the opportunity that this Man had offered them:

Stay with us,  it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.

We know that God speaks to, draws, all who are seeking Him. Indeed, Jesus, answering some Jews questioning Him and His teaching, once said that anyone sincerely seeking God would know – that is, by God’s grace and gift – that His, Jesus’, doctrine was, indeed, authentic divine teaching.

Whoever chooses to do His will shall know whether My teaching is from God or whether I speak on My own.  (John 7:17)

Dear People of God, our God is not unknown to us; He is not un-knowable for  whoever sincerely wants and seeks to know something of His truth.  But such seekers must also be humble enough to be prepared to both wait and pray that they might notice when He contacts them in His own way,  for we cannot test Him.

Notice, that Jesus kindled the faith of the walkers to Emmaus through an appropriate understanding of the Scriptures, and that is what God is trying to do with and for every one who, like us, is hearing Mother Church’s chosen readings and perhaps a homily during the sacrifice of Holy Mass.  Jesus is offering them, giving us, an opportunity, whether you have heard those readings until you are ‘sick’ of hearing them,  whether you think the priest’s words are convincing, his person acceptable enough, or not …. Despite all that may be going on in your heart and mind Jesus is at your side, at this time, offering an opportunity, and ready to welcome and further any positive response!!

However, it was in the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist itself that the disciples actually recognized, found, Jesus their Lord and Saviour.  And we, dear People of God, must approach the sacrament – our Eucharist today – with faith and love most of all.  But also with a most necessary measure of humility and openness-of-spirit if we wish to recognize Christ truly and embrace Him sincerely: a humility and openness-of-spirit ready to be manifested in our gratitude and our obedience to God’s comfort or guidance, to His commands and strength, should He deign to visit us.

There are other considerations that could be taken up from our readings today.  For example, turn over in your minds the fact that Jesus accompanies us – as He did those two going to Emmaus – only if we walk our way-of-life in communion with Him, sharing  a few moments with Him perhaps only occasionally,  but never unwillingly, if and when we find ourselves free to do so.  Dear friends in Christ, one of the greatest, most profitable, habits we can possibly learn, is to learn from and imitate the blind beggar Bartimaeus (Mark 10: 46-48) who heard that Jesus was passing by and simply put himself in Jesus’ way by crying out:

            Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!

No one will ever hear your cry, for you will be crying out for Jesus’ hearing only; but it will sooner rather than later win you a blessing far greater than that which so greatly rejoiced Bartimaeus … the Spirit, the Gift, of Jesus awakening and warming your hearts and deepening your companionship with Jesus on the way to your heavenly home.

 

 

 

2nd Sunday of Easter 2023

 

2^nd. Sunday of Easter (A)

(Acts 2:42-47; 1^st. Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31)

  

My dear brothers and sister in Christ, we are brought together on this day to celebrate the glory of Christ and the goodness of God, and also to rejoice in Mother Church for the hope which her proclamation of Jesus’ Gospel, and her sacramental gifting of His Most Holy Spirit, offers and opens up for us.

At the Last Supper Jesus  expressed the desire that the imminent crucifixion and death He would embrace for love of His Father -- His sanctification – would also serve for the sanctification of those He was sending to proclaim His Gospel truth, and all those who would believe that Apostolic proclamation:

Father, as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world; and for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.  I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.  (John 17:18-20)

Notice the contrast and the complementarity between Jesus’ sanctification and ours: Jesus would sanctify Himself, by lovingly embracing His crucifixion and death, and thereby sanctify all who would lovingly believe His truth as proclaimed by His Church.

Jesus, by sanctifying Himself for His disciples, redeems them from their sins by winning for them the Gift of God’s Most Holy Spirit, Whose abiding presence would both establish the Apostolic Church on the unshakeable basis of Jesus’ Gospel Truth, and also inspire her to proclaim that truth for all subsequent living members to embrace as the Apostolic understanding and appreciation of Gospel truth throughout time, that mankind’s salvation might be accomplished and human-kind itself be transfigured by their Christian inheritance of Jesus’ Gospel truth -- alive and life-bestowing -- in Mother Church.  In every nation among all peoples, the universal Catholic Church teaches the authentic Christian truth, while the local, national, Church serves and sanctifies their Christian believers.

In our Gospel reading today, we see the beginning of the fulfilment of that divine purpose:

The same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you."  Now when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.  So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."  And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit”.

Here Jesus breathed upon the assembled disciples, the Apostles, as a whole, not individually.  Later on, in the presence of many disciples and of the Jews, the Holy Spirit would appear as a tongue of fire over the head of each one of them, consecrating them for their individual tasks; but here, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them, to abide with them, as the Church; that she, through them, might take His Gospel to the furthest ends of the earth for the salvation of all mankind, as Jesus said In His prayer at the Last Supper:

(Father) now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.  I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.  (John 17:13-17)

People of God, recognize the beauty and the glory of Mother Church; consider, rejoice, and put all your trust in God Who, through the Spirit-guided truth of her proclamation and our, believers, appreciation of, love for, and commitment to, that truth, will bring about our ultimate salvation and glorification in Jesus, to which end Mother Church is uniquely endowed with the fullness of Jesus’ Most Holy Spirit of Truth and Holiness:

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.  All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.  (John 16:13-15)

Mother Church is protected by God so that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against her”:

I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. (John 17:15)

However, although thanks to Jesus’ prayer and His gift of the Holy Spirit, the devil can never deceive Mother Church into falsifying the Gospel of Jesus, nevertheless, the same devil is always, and ever more ferociously and cunningly, warring against her and her children, as was foretold from the beginning:

So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.   And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." (Genesis 3:14-15)

The serpent will always be trying to “strike at the heel of the Lord”, to lead individuals into sin, and -- be they people, priests, bishops, local churches, or even popes -- about that we should never be scandalized, because it has been foretold and we have been forewarned. Individuals can and will fail, and we should always pray for those who are thus used by the devil in his attempts against our Lord and His Church, but Mother Church as a whole can never fail in her truthful proclamation of the Apostolic Gospel, for in this, her God-given task, she is – as we have learned -- divinely guided and protected.  That is why today, as we celebrate the Easter glory of Jesus, we also delight in her, in whom and through whom He continues His saving work in our world today.

Finally, we note those other words of Jesus in our Gospel passage:

He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

And here we recognise that Mother Church is not only protected but has also been empowered to fight against the devil, as was foretold from the beginning:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He (the woman’s Seed) shall bruise your head.

Jesus bruised the serpent’s head by destroying the tyrannical hold sin and death had exercised over mankind; and, in the power of His victory, Mother Church too continues His work – through her priests and prelates authoritatively forgiving sin in the world:

If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.

Thus, all faithful disciples of Jesus and true children of Mother Church are not only freed from the devil’s power and protected from his snares, not only blessed with the fullness of truth in Mother Church, but are also called and empowered to fight – by their faith and the witness of their lives -- against the sin which remains in the world around and still tries to entice or threaten us.   Thus, at every level of her being -- priests, prelates, and people; men, women and children; young and old – Mother Church strives to extend her Lord and Saviour’s Kingdom of love and truth throughout time, over all the world.

How best can we do this?  According to the Scriptures the best way to respond to God’s great goodness to us in Jesus is to praise Him, to thank Him, to obey Him.   Nothing more than that is required, nothing better than that can be offered.

When it is really so easy to respond faithfully to the Father’s call that first led us to Jesus, why do so many imagine that Christian living is a wearisome, unrewarding (at least here on earth)  struggle?  The answer is simple: such people look too little at God’s goodness and mercy, beauty and truth (with examples of which the Scriptures are replete), and too much at themselves and their worldly anxieties and desires.  Let us hear again St. Peter writing to encourage those magnificent early Christians who first faced the power of pagan Rome confident in the name of Jesus:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Though now you do not see Him; yet, believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith — the salvation of your souls.

May we too walk in their footsteps, with joy and gratitude to God in our hearts and praise and thanksgiving on our lips.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Sunday 2023

 

Easter Sunday (2023)

(Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; Saint John’s Gospel 20:1-9)

 

You have just heard that both John and Peter ran to the tomb and how John first glanced inside and saw that Jesus’ body was not there:

He bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

Next Peter came up and, characteristically, went straight into the empty tomb where:

He saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered Jesus' head, not with the burial cloths but folded up in a separate place.

The author of John’s Gospel tells us that John was the first to look into the tomb and see the strips of burial linen lying there, and that is all.  He does not say that John believed at that moment.  It was only on entering the tomb after the slower-running Peter and then seeing the face-cloth that had been around Jesus' head folded up by itself and separate from the other linen, that we are told that he believed.

On the other hand, Peter -- an older and much more humanly-experienced and emotionally-developed man than the young John -- on catching up, with John, had straightway entered the tomb and saw. What he saw caused him thoughts so deeply personal that he did not make any comment to his younger companion, fellow-disciple though he was.  No, Peter seems to have just slowly left the tomb and walked away quietly, lost in deep, absorbing, thought -- like Mary’s own behaviour – treasuring in his heart what his eyes had just seen. The face-cloth, which had been placed around Jesus’ head to preserve His human dignity by preventing His jaw from sagging in death, was not with the other linen cloths.  Why had Jesus  lovingly rolled up, what He had earlier --  so decisively and carefully -- removed from around His head? And why had He then placed it so clearly apart from the other burial cloths?

At His trial, Jesus had told Pilate:

For this was I born, for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice. (John 19:27)

And now that He was risen from the dead it would seem that He wanted to make it perfectly clear that He had removed the face cloth and thereby set His mouth free, in order to symbolise the enduring proclamation of His truth.  That seems to have been His first symbolic-statement on rising from the dead: never again would His truth be silenced!  It was a statement He expected these two special disciples – Peter the disciple who loved Jesus most, and John who was most loved by Jesus – to be able to puzzle out, and understand that His voice, His teaching, was to be heard throughout all ages to come, thanks to their – and to their fellow Apostles’ -- continuing and enduring proclamation of HIS truth, under the guidance and protection of HIS Spirit, to all mankind, in and through HIS Church!  

The Risen Lord was glorious, not of this world; but HIS VOICE, HIS GOSPEL, had to be proclaimed to this world and it was for that very reason He had called His chosen Apostles!

Let us now consider the Resurrection no longer from the point of view of Jesus the Son of Man but from that of Jesus the Son of God, and glimpse something of the supreme Christian mystery: the most Holy Trinity.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: three divine Persons, one God.  How are we to think of our Risen Lord in that respect?   God the Father, to be Father, must have a Son.  God the Father eternally begets His beloved Son Who is like Him in all things save that the Father begets and the Son is the only-Begotten.  The Father from all eternity loves and most intimately knows the Son He begets, and the Holy Spirit is that power of begetting, that Bond of infinite knowledge and love, uniting Father and Son.  That is why the Holy Spirit is called Gift;  for, in and through Him, the Father and the Son give Themselves to each other in total love.  Therefore, you will understand that when God determined that the Son should become man, the Son, sent by the Father, was conceived of the Holy Spirit; and that is why, when the Son -- after His Passion and Death -- was raised to new and eternal life, we read in the Scriptures that both the Father and the Spirit raised Him.

Paul preaching the Gospel to the Jews at Perga said:

We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers He has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father.'  (Acts 13:32-33)

Yet when writing his letter to the Romans (8:10-11) the same Paul said:

But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.   And if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He Who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, Who lives in you.

And in the letter to the Hebrews (9:14) we see the Holy Spirit again uniting the Son to His Father in Jesus’ very act of dying:

Christ, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, to cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

Jesus rose from the dead because He was glorified by the eternal Spirit of glory, love and power, Who is One with the Father and the Son, the eternal Bond in the one living God.

The human flesh of Jesus had been brought to perfect Sonship through His Passion and Death, as the letter to the Hebrews (5:8-9) tells us:

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.

Jesus, learned that obedience as Man for our sake, for our example and consolation; and His human flesh --  now glorified by the Spirit -- is the channel through which we can, in full confidence and hope, receive the divine Spirit into our poor, sinful, lives.  In the power of the Spirit, the humanity of Jesus Itself becomes a bond, uniting us sinners -- as adopted children in Jesus -- with the All-Holy God.  Jesus comes among us today offering us His Eucharistic Body and Blood in order that, by receiving His glorious Flesh and Blood, we -- who are of His flesh and blood -- might receive His most Holy Spirit, so that God’s Spirit of holiness -- abiding in Mother Church and now given to us -- might gradually form us in the likeness of our beloved Lord and Saviour as children of God.

Dear People of God, may Easter praise and gratitude fill and rejoice our minds and hearts!   Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit in holy mother Church for ever and ever!!  And may these Easter joys find abiding refreshment through the faith -- the Catholic and Christian faith -- which has been bestowed on us, which we have embraced, and to which we now re-commit ourselves with most loving and grateful hearts.  Amen.

(2023)

 

Good Friday 2023

 

Good Friday 2023

 

Today we are called to look an absolutely essential aspect of our Catholic, which means universal, Christian faith.  We should not, and indeed cannot, identify Christian values with those currently prevalent in our Western world, because our present, faithless and deeply secularized, Western society and culture is quite perverse, often doing materially and socially good things for purposes we consider at the least perverted or even evil at times.  All such tendencies can be summed up conveniently in the exaggerated emphasis and value Western culture puts on living long to experience and enjoy all that life has to offer.

This fixation on satisfying human desire for pleasure – of even the most vulgar kind -- and worldly fulfilment – even of the most blatant kind – has led our Western society to regard death as the end of everything that is desirable or credible, and consequently death, with all its concomitant forms of suffering, is to be regarded as something to be avoided above all else. 

We Catholics and Christians, however, need very much to remember that we celebrate today, this holy FRIDAY, as GOOD beyond all measure, because on this day Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour, embraced suffering and death in their most horrific Roman form, out of, because of, love.  We celebrate this day with soul-shuddering wonder and joy because, on this day, Christ’s LOVE overcame mankind’s SIN, and thereby destroyed mankind’s subjection to sin and death, and offers us eternal life and beatitude with Him, in Him, in His Father’s heavenly Kingdom,

What is that wondrous, life giving, beauty-revealing-and-restoring, Christ(ian) love?  It is a flame, first lit when the Son of God chose to become, by the power of God’s most Holy Spirit, a man.

           Just as the Father knows Me, I KNOW THE FATHER; AND I WILL LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR THE SHEEP. This is why the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life in order to take it up again.   (John 10:15–17)

Who were those sheep?  Humankind, created in the image and likeness of God whom, though vitiated by their collusion with Satan, were eternally loved by the Father, and whom the Son -- for love of His Father -- willed to become  a human-being named Jesus through Mary of Nazareth, the most beautiful flower of God’s Chosen People.

Jesus came to live among us, one of us thanks to beautiful Mary, but not like us thanks to His heavenly Father; for Jesus came as perfect God and perfect Man to be our Saviour.  As Perfect Man He obediently embraced death for love of His heavenly Father, for the perfection of  God’s original creation, and for the salvation and redemption of sinful mankind, now flesh with Him and potential members of His glorious Body, to be freed by the grace of His blood poured out as one with us for love of the Father of us all.

Yes, People of God, today we celebrate Jesus’ death.  We embrace, rejoice in, Jesus’ death, Jesus’ way of dying, Jesus’ use of death, for us.  We regret, we mourn, we weep for, our own sins, and for mankind’s hatred, killing, self-centred and self-seeking disregard, of Jesus, His truth and His love.

Looking now, on this Good Friday, at the crucified Jesus, we recognize that, for Him, death was not the end but rather the climax of His life on earth; it was not the loss of all that He had loved, but rather the sublime moment when He was at last able to give supreme expression to the love which had filled His life.  When Jesus said, “It is finished”,  He was aware, and filled with joy that He had finally and fully completed the task His Father had given Him when sending Him into this world.  What was it that was finished?  Not simply the work of our redemption, because the full fruit of that has still to be gathered in over the ages by His disciples working in the power of His Spirit in the Church and in the world.  What then was finally and fully finished?  It was Jesus’ constant desire to give Himself entirely to the Father in His earthly life; to express, as much as the limits of His human body would permit Him, the consuming love He had for His Father (Luke 12:50):

          I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 

On Good Friday Jesus was finally able to say, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit” and then He deliberately breathed His last.  Life did not just slip listlessly out of His grasp: He wholeheartedly gave over His life -- in total trust and absolute confidence -- to His Father as He breathed His last.  This final and total gift of Himself to the Father was, in that way, the fullest expression He had ever been able to give of the love that filled Him.  For Christians, therefore, death can be supremely desirable, should be supremely reverenced, because it offers us the supreme opportunity to express our love for the Father, our trust in Jesus, our hope in the Spirit.

We can gather some impression how Jesus longed, how long He had longed, to be able to give total expression to the depth and the intensity of His love for His Father when we recall that as a young boy, having been taken up to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, afterwards He had totally forgotten to set off back home to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph in the caravan, because of His absorption in His heavenly Father:

          After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the  teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. (Luke 2:46)

Such a Son had forgotten all about Mary, His mother, about Joseph, and the journey back home, because He was totally absorbed in discussions with the teachers in the Temple concerning His Father in heaven!  There He was only 12 years old …. how great that blaze of love for His heavenly Father must have become by the time He was 30!!  And finally, the consuming intensity it must have attained over the last two years of His life, when He was occupied in His public ministry expressing and trying to communicate His love for the Father to the Chosen People of Israel, is, indeed, beyond our conceiving, for Jesus Himself found human words inadequate for His needs, since the only way He could begin to describe it, was, as you heard, “how distressed I am until it is accomplished“!

Now, however, on the Cross, that work has indeed been accomplished, that longing has been fulfilled: He has, at last, been able to give Himself entirely to His Father in total love and trust, to give Himself completely, not only with and in His human mind and heart, but also with and in His human body, given over, totally and completely on the Cross, for the Father’s glory!  Jesus had never tried to direct His own life, He had always tried to do His Father’s will and to follow His Father’s lead: even in the choice of one to serve as the foundation rock for His future Church.

To do His Father’s will had been the whole aim of Jesus’ life on earth, because, as Son before all time, His whole heavenly Being was a response of total glory, an expression of total love, for the Father.

That is how disciples of Jesus should regard their lives too.  We know that God has a purpose for us to fulfil: we believe that each of us has a distinct role to play in the realization of God’s Kingdom.   We do not know what that purpose is; no; the disciple has, like Jesus, only one aim: and that is, under the guidance of the Spirit of Jesus, to fully live out the Father’s will, going wherever He indicates, doing whatever He wills.  The disciple of Jesus knows that life is not, as with the animals, just for living; life has been given us for a purpose which God has planned, a purpose which, if followed out to the end, will lead to a revelation of the ultimate significance and glory of our being.

Dear friends in Christ, I can think of nothing better to take home with us from this holy hour, than a desire to die with dispositions like to those of Jesus, freed from the fear of death, loving and trusting our heavenly Father totally; and despising those ideals of love and prosperity being instilled into so many in modern western societies, and which have been recently formulated by one such ‘successful’ couple boasting:

“ We have sex four times a week and twelve holidays every year; we don’t have any kids, they would get in the way!”

 

(2023)