Easter Sunday, 2024

 

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

Today’s readings give directly, the Good News of Jesus’ glorious resurrection from the dead; and indirectly, a picture of the Church and her Scriptures that is both admirable and reassuring.

Let us look at the Gospel reading first, which tells us about the Apostles Peter and John, and the appearance of the tomb with its contents, along with a passing mention of Mary Magdalen and the previously opened (by whom??) entrance to the tomb.   However, all that we are told about what might have happened to Jesus is to be deduced from the following few words:

            As yet, they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.

None of that is very surprising, People of God, to us who believe; because we know and appreciate that the Resurrection was a supernatural and transcendentally holy occurrence to serve God’s glory and mankind’s salvation, not an intriguingly mysterious event staged for the titillation of human curiosity.  Let us therefore turn our attention to what we are told directly about the Apostles Peter and (presumably) John, and indirectly about holy Mother Church, her Scriptures, and her proclamation of Jesus.

On hearing from Mary Magdalene about the empty tomb, Peter and the other disciple went to see for themselves:

Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there;  and the cloth that had covered His head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

The order of precedence is important because some have tried to use the following words of the Gospel account to the detriment of Peter:

Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.

They have carpingly picked up on the fact that John is there reported to have seen ‘and believed’, whereas Peter is only said to have seen.  This enhancing of John at Peter’s expense is shown in other ways by those who would say that John showed the greater courage at Jesus’ trial, by going into the High Priest’s house, whereas Peter remained fearfully outside.  And, of course, John – alone of the Apostles – stood by Jesus’ cross on Calvary with Mary.

None of this special pleading, however, detracts from Peter or disturbs the faithful who are well aware that John was a very young man who could lean on Jesus’ chest at the Supper, someone whom the Temple guards or Roman soldiers would not have regarded as a possible threat; Peter, on the other hand, was known to be strong Galilean fisherman who had a sword which he had already used in an attempt to protect Jesus.  As a result, the fully adult and manifestly strong ‘man-of-business’  was under far greater threat at the trial and thereafter, than John.  

There is, I believe, further thought to be given to the difference between Peter and John, between the fully mature man and the gentle youth, John.

Simon Peter came, and went into the tomb.  He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.  Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.

John – who would become the great mystic among the Apostles and author of the supremely spiritual Gospel – was youthfully impressed by the atmosphere of the tomb and what he saw there, especially the cloth -- that had been used out of respect for the deceased to prevent the bottom jaw of Jesus from sagging – which was carefully rolled up in its own place, separate from the other cloths.  Had he, John, ever seen one of those before?  It is not outlandish to guess that, as a youngster with mystic inclinations, John might have seen and appreciated much in that ‘removed and separately-positioned cloth’ which would later stir him to deeply consider the ‘never-to-be-silenced’ aspect of Jesus’ Gospel preaching in his own unique writings

Peter however, who -- as leader of the Apostles -- was also being  graced for that supremely responsible future role to be his, as head of the Church,  carefully weighed up what he found in the tomb.  He then went away, undoubtedly recalling what Jesus had said and done since he had known Him, and what the Jewish Scriptures had foretold about the coming Messiah.   Again and again he would have gone over all these considerations together with what he had seen in the empty tomb, praying so, so much, that he might appreciate how such insights would come together into the one whole, and essential, Apostolic truth about Jesus.

Thanks to our first reading today we have the result of Peter’s thinking and praying,  for there he proclaims the Good News, about Jesus, at the ‘command of God’ and in the name of the Church:

(Cornelius said) We are all here, in the presence of God, to hear all that you (Peter) have been commanded by the Lord. 

Peter then gave his summary of the Good News about Jesus:

He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.  And we are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree. But God raised Him on the third day and caused Him to appear, not to all the people, but to us, who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us   to preach to the people and testify that He is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness of sins through His name.

There, People of God, you can appreciate the wonder of Jesus pictured and proclaimed by Mother Church through Peter, under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit: with the Resurrection of Jesus as the centre-piece --the absolutely essential centre-piece indeed -- but nevertheless, a piece that fits into, and binds together, an even more wonderful and coherent mosaic of divine truth: giving us a sublime presentation of God’s goodness, love, wisdom, and mercy for the whole of sinful mankind through all ages.

John, the contemplative, understood and revealed most beautiful and intimate truths of the relationship of love between Jesus and His Father, truths in which one can immerse ones-self – not to proudly investigate, but – to most humbly and gratefully admire, and hopefully imbibe some of the heavenly honey contained there. For the whole picture, however, in all its majestic embrace of God’s goodness and mankind’s needs and possibilities, look to Peter and the proclamation of Mother Church, passed down to us and interpreted for us today by St. Paul, the most providential link between the wisdom of the Old, and the revelation of the New, Testaments, and our own, special,  guide — as Doctor of the Nations – to a right understanding of the fulness of the Church’s doctrinal truth and heavenly spirituality:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ Is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Good Friday, 2024

 

(Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1 – 19: 42)

Our first reading today began with the words:

            Behold, my servant shall act wisely.

And we are here today to learn from Jesus’ supreme wisdom, how to face up to the end of our days with love and commitment, for, as we were told in the second reading:

In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able save Him from death.

Our faith teaches us that the only wise way to lead one’s life, is, indeed, to “offer up prayers and petitions” with Jesus.  Today, however, lots of people want to just slip out of life easily and comfortably with assisted dying, drugs, or the oblivion of ignorance:

            The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." (Ps. 14:1)

We know, however, because the book of Proverbs assures us (14:16) that:

a fool is reckless and careless;

one who easily and quickly turns to evil ways and actions, actions that are but an outer manifestation of the inner folly of his thinking “There is no God”.  How could it be otherwise, because Scripture (cf. Job 1:8) assures us that only a truly wise person fears the LORD and shuns evil?

Such then is our philosophy of life as disciples of Jesus: to live wisely by seeking what is good, shunning what is evil, and offering up prayers and petitions to God.

However, it does sound somewhat strange when we recall the words of the second reading where it said:

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.

How was He heard?? 

Jesus cried out in His troubles and He was not, it would appear at first glance, heard, because the cup, the chalice, of suffering was not taken away from Him.  Far from it: He was given the most atrocious cup of suffering to drink; that cup loathed and feared above all by even the cruel Romans who were aware and very appreciative of the world’s stock of tortures: Jesus’ cup was the cup, the chalice, the torment, of crucifixion.

But Jesus was wise and He did not let appearances or fear persuade Him that His Father had turned away from Him.  No!  He trusted all the more.  And this is what we have to learn, this is the elixir, the touchstone, of life: God’s wisdom is beyond our scrutiny, but God’s wisdom is infinite love, and is infinitely beautiful.

The Father was leading Jesus along ways He could not fathom, ways that threatened pain and promised darkness to His human eyes, but which were -- in the infinite wisdom of His Father’s plan -- ways of infinite love and unimaginable beauty.  Jesus trusted His Father, and in that He was, as the prophet foretold, infinitely wise.

Now that is indeed a difficult life question for many who merely glance at Christianity and then turn aside; but very that same question leads us who are disciples to the very fount of wisdom, as we were advised in the first reading:

            See (look carefully at, learn from) my servant acting wisely;

because if you learn aright from Him, you too, will, with Him and in Him:

Be raised, lifted up and highly exalted.

We, dear People of God, must learn this lesson from today’s liturgy: no matter how threatening the clouds of difficulty and trial may be in your life, if you are trying to walk according to God’s commandments, then His love will be infallibly enfolding and embracing you.  If you trust God, if you imitate Jesus who trusted His Father totally:

            Father, not my will but yours be done.  Into your hands I commit My spirit

(Luke 23:46) then, it will be the Father’s embrace that leads you on to what He has planned for you, something more beautiful than you could ever imagine:

It is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Maundy Thursday, 2024

 

This is a most holy and a most joyful night: it is a night of family feasting in grateful remembrance of God’s wondrous blessings.  It is indeed a family night because the Passover feast was from the times of Moses not a temple feast celebrated according to minute details of ritual, but a family gathering in the privacy of one’s home, a celebration with family and friends.

On returning home for this celebration and after prayer the head of the family gathering had to consider himself a prince, decorating his table with the best food and the most acceptable wines: in fact it was his duty to prepare sumptuously according to the measure of his possibilities.   We are told in the gospels that Jesus reclined at table with His disciples for the Last Supper as we call it today.  This was prescribed for faithful Jews;  they would have been seated for an ordinary meal, but for this special Passover meal they had to eat reclining, stretched out on one’s left side with head towards the food; it was a symbol of the liberty they were celebrating, the liberty God had won for His Chosen People by the wonders He worked in Egypt and throughout their desert wanderings to deliver them from slavery and bring them to the freedom they now enjoyed.  They had much to be grateful for and this was the night on which they gave whole-hearted expression to that gratitude in accordance with the Lord’s command.  Each generation of faithful Israelites was taught to consider that they themselves had been brought out of Egypt, saved from slavery, by the Lord; they were not celebrating something that happened in the past to their fathers only, no, they had to realize that they themselves had also been saved by the Lord.  The sages, the wise men, of Israel, when speaking of this night’s celebration, tell us that when it is celebrated in these dispositions the God of Israel, the Holy One Himself, leaves His normal, familiar, entourage of angels and of the righteous in the Garden of Eden, and comes, this night, to watch with delight the children of Israel here on earth rejoicing in the deliverance He won for them, gratefully singing His praises and loyally observing His commandments.

This was an occasion to which Jesus had really been looking forward:

And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. (Luke 22:15)

We must be quite sure of this: the Last Supper was no sad occasion for saying “Good-bye” and our memorial of it too should be a festal gathering.  How on earth could Our Lord have “eagerly desired” to eat a sorrowful leave-taking meal with His disciples?  This was, on the contrary, something to be “eagerly desired”, something towards which His whole life’s work had been leading, something that would express the fulfilment of all His efforts and desires for His disciples and for us.  This was no leave-taking sorrowfully anticipating the end of a lovely relationship, it was the celebration and setting in motion of a new and wonderful future together:

And he said to them, “How eagerly I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”

Why so eagerly?  Because this meal was both the symbol of, and the ultimate preparation for, that heavenly banquet celebrating the salvation brought by Jesus, freedom from sin and membership, as adopted children and members of Christ, in the family of God, where all can call Him “Father” and have a share in His eternal blessedness in the Son:

“Happy are those who are called to His Supper”.

That was the blessing the Son had come to bring to a humanity which had long been in darkness, had long been alienated from true happiness and life: a humanity created by God and for God, but deceived by Satan and enchained by sin; a humanity which stirred such compassion in the Father that He sent His only Son to share in and to save the weakness of human flesh by dying sinless and rising again; and in the power of His Resurrection pouring out His Holy Spirit upon those who would believe in His name, the Spirit who would form those disciples in the likeness of their Lord for the glory of the Father.

It was now so near to fulfilment; this was no time for sad reminiscences of the past but for ardent longings for what was to come: Jesus was indeed to suffer and to die but that was for a purpose which would surely come through His suffering and death.

Let us now just look at that suffering and death, which was so close at hand but which, Jesus refused to allow to deter Him:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb. 12:2)

It might have seemed that Jesus’ life was to be taken from Him by the superior power of death after having been betrayed and condemned by human treachery and hatred.  Had that been the case, then indeed, Jesus’ death would have been a tragedy and the Last Supper an occasion for agonizing farewells and deep-felt loss.  That was not what Jesus wanted and was not what Jesus was going to allow.  This meal and the morrow'’ crucifixion were to be occasions of deepest fulfilment, joy and love.  That is because at the Supper Jesus deliberately offered His coming crucifixion and death to His Father, because He would accept it and embrace it out of obedient love for His Father; it would not be the power of sin and death which would take away His life from Him, but rather, He was offering it, giving it, to His Father in obedience to His will and purpose for His Son made flesh.  Neither would that suffering and death be the tragic betrayal that Judas’ action would signify; rather that Passion and Death was dedicated and offered by Jesus now for our salvation, for love of sinful, suffering, mankind.  The whole tenor of tomorrow’s crucifixion was being pre-determined now, at this meal, by Jesus.  He would die out of obedient love for His Father, out of redeeming love for His disciples.

At the Passover Meal the Jews celebrated God’s wonders in Egypt which saved the nation from physical slavery; how much more should we, the new People of God, celebrate the wonder of God’s love for us in giving His Son for us?  How much more should we rejoice in the love which Jesus had and has for us; that love which led Him to endure the Cross and to scorn its shame so that He might enable us to have access, in Him, to our heavenly home:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Tonight Jesus rejoices that by dying He is going to destroy death and turn betrayal into supreme love; He rejoices that soon He will meet once again with His disciples in the supreme joy of a banquet shared among friends, for whom, in the meantime, He is going to leave this pledge and this food with the loving words: “do this in memory of Me”.

Palm Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians: 2:6-11; St. Mark:15:1-39)

In the Responsorial Psalm we heard that horrendous cry of Jesus:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

For a man like Jesus, that cry can only have been forced out of Him by unimaginably intense suffering.  For although Jesus was indeed a man like us in all things but sin,  nevertheless, we are ordinary people, and even the saints I have mentioned also began as ordinary people and only the gradual triumph of God’s grace over their sinful inclinations enabled them to became saintly people.  Jesus, on the other hand, began as man was loved and taught by Mary,  protected by Joseph, and grew up in constant favour with God and man and had been given the task of saving the whole of mankind, saints and sinners together: so just how deep were the sufferings of Jesus, sufferings which led Him to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Look at the psalm:

All who see Me mock Me:  He trusts in the Lord, let Him deliver Him.

It is hard to suffer unjust, ignorant, derision; derision from those whose life and actions could not stand any investigation at all: from those who have no principles, who will bend with every prevailing wind, and whose only courage is to join in with and enjoy the hounding and the violence of the mob.  But even those suffering in such circumstances, when they have been brought low, when their suffering and agony is visible to all, even those will usually hear some voices being raised on their behalf, will find some compassion and help from one or other a little more tender-hearted than the mob.  There were, indeed, some such more tender-hearted ones who witnessed Jesus’ agony.  But they were only tender-hearted, they had no sympathetic understanding of Jesus’ aims, why He was suffering thus: they only lamented like the women of Jerusalem as Jesus passed by carrying His Cross, or else, after the crucifixion, went home striking their breasts in sorrow as we are told.  None spoke up for Him.  And the persecutors laughed at His loneliness.  Laughed; but even worse, in their laughter they mocked His very thread of life:

          He trusts in the Lord, let Him rescue Him for He delights in Him.

How Jesus had trusted in the Lord, His Father!  Throughout His life He had trusted totally in His Father and He knew that His Father was totally trustworthy.  But now it seemed as if His life was closing and bringing about a totally opposite result to that which He wanted above all: He had wanted to lead the Jews to recognise the one true God they worshipped as the Father Whom Jesus alone knew and loved above all, and here were those to whom He had been sent mocking His Father, their God: “let Him save this fellow if this fellow is His friend”.

Compared to this agony the physical torment was as nothing, but physical torment it was: the cramps as He hung there; the horrible difficulty He had in breathing, continually struggling to raise His rib cage to find relief from the dreadful and continuous feeling of being about to be smothered to death.  The “holes in His hands and His feet” the blood pouring out and His terrible thirst.  Every one of His bones He could count!

We know that the psalm, which Jesus recited, went on:

          O Lord, do not be far off , O You my help, come quickly to My aid!

He did not give up trusting in His Father, and indeed the psalm closed with word of triumph:

I will tell of Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise You. Give Him glory; revere Him, Israel’s sons.

The question becomes all the more pressing, however, granted that outcome: Why did Jesus have to suffer so dreadfully in order to complete His saving work, the work His most loving Father had sent Him to accomplish, the work of our salvation?

Jesus suffered to give us the opportunity to be free from sin.  Sin is such a horror and the extent and depth of that horror had to be shown to us. 

Think of some old person, even more try and picture an old person, better an old woman,  who has lived a bad life and one whose face now shows what sort of life she had been living for many years: the selfishness, the effects of degrading passions in her eyes and on her lips, the short temper and the vicious tongue, the greed and the hatred she has for her present state of old age with its weakness and suffering.  Look at such a person in your mind and then think of a picture of a young girl of three or four, how fresh and full of life, how simple and innocent, how charming and loving.  Such was the old woman years ago, and now, what a terrible transformation!  Sin had entered that young and beautiful person‘s life and turned her into a parody of a human being. Sin has entered and disfigured, and now seeks to ultimately destroy: destroy  by severing, through despair, the bond with God which had originally conferred such beauty to the child and had offered such hope for her future as a woman; destroy by finally robbing the body of the life which raises it above the dust.

Now that is how Jesus saw each and every one of us when He came into this world.  That is what made Him sweat blood in His agony in the Garden, that is why He hated sin so much: sin was trying to totally destroy what His Father had made so beautiful!

Through sin, suffering and death came into the world: suffering and death are the threats whereby the Devil holds the world in thrall.  Men and women will do anything to escape suffering  and death.  Modern techniques of torture can break down even the most determined and most courageous of people.  That is why, for example, spies are given the cyanide pill, or something else of that nature, to escape from the unsupportable.

Jesus had to feel abandonment, He had to suffer and to die as He did without yielding to despair, because He had to conquer for us the total threat of the devil: loss of God in the soul, suffering and death in the body.  Only by enduring and triumphing over the worst the devil could inflict could Jesus free us from fear of the devil and give us hope and power to follow Him on His way and with Him begin to free our world from the sin which weighs so heavily upon it today.

You were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.

You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.

(1 Corinthians 6.20, 7:23)

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.  He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:18-21)

5th Sunday of Lent Year B, 2024

  

(Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; Saint John 12:20-33)

The whole purpose of Our Blessed Lord’s life and death upon earth can be summed up in the words of His prayer:

            Father, glorify Your name!

In today’s Gospel account He was near the end of His life: He had performed striking miracles, healed countless sick, and possessed persons.  Above all, however, it was His teaching-with-authority that had provoked most attention from Galilee to Jerusalem among those who exercised or coveted power (John 15: 24):

If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. 

And now, among the crowds coming to Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean and  Middle East for the imminent Jewish Passover, certain Greeks had sought out Philip of Bethsaida, a disciple of Jesus, asking that he might introduce them to Jesus. Philip asked Andrew to back him up in making such a  striking request known to Jesus.

Learning of the pagans’ request to speak with himself as a unique religious teacher, Jesus immediately realized that the climax of His life, as God-made-man for God’s glory and mankind’s salvation, was at hand. The Romans had over-all military power to control (crush if necessary) the crowds, and punish trouble-makers; The Sadducee Temple authorities had their share of (Roman) power to govern Jerusalem’s world-famous Temple and its ceremonial worship; the Pharisees and their Scribes had assumed authority over the traditional religious teaching being given to faithful Jews, and now there was Jesus of Nazareth: whose Personal, and Teaching authority, was alarming all those I have just mentioned, exercising and coveting more people-power.

At this juncture, Jesus had come to realize that His life’s fulfilment would only be attained by His allowing, by His embracing, His Father’s authority, and will-to-bring- to-fulfilment that for which He, Jesus, had been sent as God’s ultimate response to Abraham who -- out of obedience to God – had, long-ago, been willing to sacrifice his own son; a response that leads all one-God believers (Jews and Muslims), and all Christians to speak of ‘father Abraham’ (Genesis 26:3-5):

I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, … in your offspring all the nations God’s of the earth shall be blessed, for Abraham obeyed My voice.  

And, likewise, fulfilment for all Jews obedient to the Law of Moses and believers in the promise made there of a coming God-inspired prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15):

The Lord your God shall raise up for you a prophet like me (Moses) from among you, from your brothers – it is to him that you shall listen.

And to that sublime end the devil himself would be permitted, in his overweening pride and ultimate stupidity, to bring about his own downfall by doing to Jesus what he had long-desired to do since having being humiliated in their desert contest at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  This renewal of that contest would be the decisive moment when the ignorance and hatred of sin would be cast out, and the beauty and truth of the Kingdom of God ushered in as the ruling power for the future formation, development, and fulfilment of a new People of God throughout the whole world: a people called to embrace a transformation of life, from an earthly life inexorably enmeshed in sin, into the freedom of the children of God: a heavenly and eternal life to be bestowed upon all believers in Jesus as Son of God and only Saviour of mankind:

Now the ruler of this world is to be cast out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.

Those around Jesus heard Him glorify His Father, but when a voice came from heaven proclaiming that the Father was about to be supremely glorified through the death of His Son, they were divided in their opinions: some were humbled by the mystery and said, ‘It was an angel speaking to Him’. Others, probably the majority, shrugged off what they could not immediately understand and said, ‘It was a clap of thunder!’

People of God, a like division still arises today, when Christian, even Catholic, people, are faced with personal suffering.  Such suffering is inevitable in this life and we who want to be true disciples of Jesus, must learn, with Jesus, to allow our heavenly Father to lead us to our fulfilment as disciples of  His by embracing our suffering – in the power of Jesus’ most Holy Spirit – as our share in His self-sacrifice of love.

For there are certain truths in life, People of God, which can only be appreciated by allowing life to teach us; our intellect alone cannot, in the case of such truths, give us a satisfactory understanding, and most certainly cannot give us an adequate appreciation of them.  For example, authorities in free societies try to carefully avoid making martyrs of opposing factions or individuals; somehow punishment seems to strengthen, focus, such opposition, not destroy it.

Now such truths are especially prominent in matters of religion.   Our Blessed Lord Himself said earlier in St. John’s Gospel (7:17):

If any man’s will is to do God’s will, he shall know whether My teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on My own authority.

In other words, we can only begin to truly recognize God’s will for us individually, personally, by our acting in conformity with the whole of His revelation, and, above all, by obedience to His Church-proclaimed and Scripture-manifested will.   Such moral, spiritual truth, however, can only be gradually assimilated into our being by being humbly received, sincerely obeyed, and patiently loved, as an integral, essential, and indeed decisive aspect of our on-going life.

The greatest of all the Christian truths which can only be understood by living them,  is   that the Father’s name, and Jesus Himself, are supremely glorified by Jesus’ death on the Cross.  Jesus’ following words resulted from His living of that truth:

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life,  (John 12:25)

At first hearing, those words seem contradictory and meaningless, yet they are, in reality, spiritually logical and redolent with divine wisdom, because Jesus added:

            If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me. (12:26)

Of course, the word ‘hate’ is not to be understood literally, we can’t hate our life in this world literally, any more than we can hate our father and mother, brother and sister as we read in one of Our Lord’s sayings; it is a figure of speech, a way of speaking current in Our Lord’s time in Palestine, meaning that, under certain conditions, we must be prepared to regard our life in this world, our love for father, mother, brothers and sisters, children and possessions, reputation and respect, as of secondary importance.  When, that is, their consideration would conflict with the absolute demands of the Supreme Good: God and eternal life.

This doctrine that suffering, humbly accepted and fully embraced in faith, can be the gateway to a higher and better life, is one of the greatest lights and supreme blessings of Christianity.  It is, however, a light and a blessing we must cherish by putting it into practice in accordance with those words of Jesus: allowing it to guide, rule our response to the ever-recurring, difficulties, problems, and alas, even sorrows, we come across in our experience of life as His true disciples.

We Catholics especially need to be convinced of this, that God can make the inevitable sufferings we experience on earth into blessings for eternal life for those who love His beloved Son enough to imitate Him, walk in His way here below.

People of God, when grief, anxiety, pain, come your way, try to recall what our Faith teaches us: that in God alone is our fulness of life and being.  Because He made us out of nothing, He alone knows us entirely through and through, and because He made us for Himself, He alone loves us for what we most truly are.  With such an awareness, in times of trial, short prayers – deeply intended -- are most fitting: Lord,  I thank You, I trust You, I love You, my God and my All’

Don’t look for results from Him; rather, put and keep yourself at peace, cradled in faith.

That attitude well befits a true disciple of Jesus Who, when His own agony was beginning, took His suffering to His Father in prayer. Indeed, it was by His persevering in such loving obedience and total trust, that what had been lost by the first Adam in the Garden of Eden, was redeemed by the Second Adam in the Garden of Gethsemane.  As we heard in our second reading:

Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered; and being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.

Therefore, surely, we His disciples should endeavour to follow in His steps.  The greatest opportunity that can come our way is the moment when suffering comes -- unasked for, unsought, unprovoked – into our lives; that is the moment when God Himself is, as it were, knocking at the door of our will for permission to Himself glorify His own name in us and through us, by means of the suffering He wants us to share with Him. Such suffering is found abundantly in family life where there are grand-parents, parents, and children, and where children can so easily be used as bargaining-chips for either grand-parents or parents, to get what they want … creating situations where emotion rules imperiously and God’s teaching and guidance is ignored.

 

Dear People of God, Jesus did not ask to understand His Cross, but He prayed most earnestly that He might have strength to embrace it.  We, for our part, cannot fully understand our crosses, but let us gratefully follow Our Blessed Lord’s example in His prayer, and in His consenting ‘YES’ to His Father, and death to Himself.

4th Sunday of Lent Year B, 2024

  

(2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-21; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21)

In the desert, on their way from Egypt to the promised land, and fleeing from pursuing Egyptian forces, God’s People had allowed themselves to “speak against God and against Moses”  and God punished them severely by fiery serpents whose bites killed many.  In the general panic  the more devout members of the children of Israel besought Moses’ prayers and ultimately were saved by looking up – yes, just that -- by looking up at a bronze likeness of those deadly serpents, and thereby realising through their Israelite Faith, that their bitter complaints against God and Moses, had been a scandal of national sinfulness, and had brought down upon them those fiery serpents as had Eve’s sin against God’s command in the garden of Eden, and Adam’s subsequent compliance with her action – both dupes of the ‘original serpent’-- ruined their idyllic relationship with God. 

That saving incident has carried, and still bears with it, salutary teaching for Jewish/Christian people of all times.  For God, having sent the punishing serpents to do their work among a sinful and rebellious people, was subsequently willing to turn that deadly surgical weapon of His wrath into a medicinal instrument of His saving grace, willing to save, that is, those who --- looking up at the bronze serpent --- were able and willing to recognize their own sinfulness.

God’s  chosen People, for they were learning to recognise and appreciate sin in their own lives nearly one thousand years before the ‘glory’ of the Greeks’, with their love for beautiful boys,  constant intellectual searching and social experiments, and before the might of Rome with its lust for military power, pride in technological expertise, and claims to a ‘divine’ promotion of world-wide peace, could even imagine soul-destroying sin.

Both Greeks and Romans --- are so esteemed, admired and imitated by the intellectuals of our modern Western ‘woke’ cultures.  And yet, all of them were quite unable to seriously recognise their own sinfulness, an ability which is, in all reality, the priceless -- God-given to those who love Him – key to human concord and spiritual fulfilment. 

    
Jesus says that God the Father allowed His only begotten Son, His Beloved, to be rejected by the religious authorities of His own people, before being cruelly lifted up on a Cross by the powers and principalities of imperial Rome, as an exhibit condemned to suffer an agonisingly slow death.  Could that most brutal, most degrading and horrendous event of human sinfulness ever be used to serve any good purpose? 

Most assuredly so, only because an absolutely unique love – that of the Son-of-God-made-Man -- was involved: a love which permeated the whole of that degrading suffering and sublime offering; a love that can still find a home today in the hearts and minds of faithful Catholics and Christians, and can inspire  authentic resonance among sincere God-believers even today.

As Son, Jesus was consumed with divine love for His Father, Who, eternally loves those He originally created in His own image and likeness; as Man, Jesus loved us because He had put on our flesh and blood in the womb of His mother, Blessed Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, and had been ‘sent’ to be our Redeemer. 

Dear People of God, our Gospel reading today brought us to face to face with that Jesus, when we heard those words: 

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. 

The serpent was lifted up because it was the cause of the suffering, pain, and   because it was the cause of the suffering, pain, and death of many of God’s sinful People in the desert.  “So must the Son of Man be lifted up” because sin, the true cause of sinful Israel’s suffering ‘at the hands of God and man’ could only be shown in all its horror by showing its effects on One who was the unique example of pure humanity, absolutely sinless and holy: HE had to be lifted up in agony on the Cross, to show that though God-Man, He knew – from Personal experience -- the pain and agony of all those He had been sent to save.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin the world. (Jn. 1:29)

Look on the bronze serpent, raised up on high that all might be able to see it, and find healing!  The bronze serpent showed the ultimate cause of Israel’s suffering, for it recalled the original serpent in Eden who injected the poison of sin into human life; Jesus-crucified-on-high likewise represents the horror all humans suffer from sin.

But Jesus’ Pasch did not end with suffering, end with suffering, for His suffering was entered upon and embraced as the initial stage of His way back to His Father; and now it is Jesus -- having returned to His Father and been lifted up in the glory of God by the Spirit of God -- Who manifests the healing power now being offered to all mankind against the primordial and still enduring ‘bite’ of sin and death.

The LORD said to Moses, "Make a serpent and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover."

People of God, it is not enough for us -- the new Chosen People of Spirit and Truth -- to look on Jesus crucified with nothing more than sentimentally sincere sorrow, merely decrying such barbarity, for many humanists and ‘woke’ ones pride themselves on such sentiments.  It is necessary for us Catholics and all who aspire to salvation, to look at Jesus on that pole of suffering not only humbly confessing Him to have been raised up there for our sins, but also gratefully acknowledging that that same Jesus – still in His human flesh -- has now been raised up on high in glory, as our Saviour.  The Risen and Glorious Lord Jesus is the One to Whom we must commit our sinful selves with absolute faith in His promises of Divine Goodness for our salvation, and with unshakeable confidence in the dying manifestation of His now-eternal human compassion:

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise. (Lk. 23:34, 43)

Only thus will we come to that living hope of which St. Peter speaks with such gratitude and confidence in his first letter (1 Peter 1:3):

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who in His great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

People of God, the message of message of Christianity is clear:  in order to reach the fullness of our human capacity for life, that fullness for which we were originally created by God and subsequently redeemed by God’s Christ, we must first of all recognise and then leave behind our own sins and sinfulness, by faith in, obedience to, and companionship with, Jesus our Saviour, present to us and for us in and through His Church today, here and now.

St. Paul in today’s second reading guides us to the ultimate root of our faith:

GREAT LOVE HE HAD FOR US, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought
us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with Him,
and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus.

Dear People of God, the great tragedy and the ultimate wrong afflicting and threatening our world today is ingratitude to, wilful ignorance and defiance of, God’s love for us and all mankind.  Above all, however, such ingratitude, ignorance, and defiance is shown by some who were or are nominally Catholic Christians!  The very first petition in the only prayer taught us by Jesus goes immediately, as did His whole life, to this most radical evil afflicting our world today: Father, HALLOWED be Thy name.

We all have to treasure our God-given faith most carefully as was explained in our second reading:

For by grace you have been saved through FAITH, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.

And I think it is essential today in lands formerly Catholic and Christian, to think of those former brethren now delighting in a pseudo-freedom to sin – which, they assert, is not real, only imaginary – to be free to do whatever they want in order to enjoy the ‘pleasures of life’ and to proclaim themselves, by boasting about the ‘good’ things they now do without any need of God or grace. 

In the words of Jesus Himself, Faith -- for us -- really means, Life and Love:

Now this is eternal life, that they should know You, the only true God, and the One Whom You sent, Jesus Christ.     (John 17:3)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, may our lives, refreshed and renewed by today’s fellowship in and with Jesus our Lord, help Mother Church bring to fulfilment His work and our glorious legacy:

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world the world but that the world might be saved through Him.

3rd Sunday of Lent Year B, 2024

 

(Exodus 20:1-17; 1st. Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25)

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I want us to carefully consider the words and actions of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading: 
 
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.   in the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there.   And making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen.   And He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  And He told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make My Father's house a house of trade.”   
 
Where, in our modern Church, could one find any responsible Catholic leader who would, under any imaginable circumstances, behave as did Jesus?  And yet, Jesus most certainly meant His actions to be examples for His disciples.  Here, He assaulted the money changers; He damaged, and possibly deprived them of, some of their goods; He drove the sheep and oxen out in a far from gentle manner; and speaking of the pigeons He said, “Take these things away”!  And, on top of all, He did this in Israel’s most holy place, before the Temple authorities, and hundreds(?) of devout worshippers coming from what is called the Diaspora … where Jews, exiled originally, were living in many countries but yearning to participate, if possible, in Israel’s great annual feasts, bringing money with them, national enthusiasm, and offering a perfect stage for the proud, largely Sadducee, Temple authorities and ‘guardians’. 
Later, Jesus’ disciples, trying to ‘take-in’ such a remarkable event and wondering what Jesus could have possibly meant them to learn from it, found themselves thinking humbly -- for they were Galilean ‘yokels’ in such a concourse of important and motivated people -- but also with quiet confidence and calm expectancy, sure of their Lord’s Personal authority and Scriptural ‘provenance’, so to speak.  And we are told that they ultimately found what they were seeking in the Scriptures: words they could now try to understand and learn from, that they might gradually assimilate Jesus’ actions into their appreciation of life and their response to it, as His Apostles. 
 
They remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume Me."  
 
Dear People of God, where is Christian zeal to be seen today?  Is it still surviving in our ‘woke’ world? Jesus’ actions certainly did not always call for His disciples’ literal imitation, but they always offered teaching stronger than mere words.  Such zeal as Jesus showed was indeed proscribed by the Temple authorities, but human proscription could not dampen the love and concern, the zeal in Jesus’ heart.  Can it be that zeal -- consuming love for God -- is too dangerous for contemporary Western Catholicism to handle?  Can it be that modern, ‘woke-shadowing’ Catholicism, is too fearful of human authority, too desirous of public approval, to be able to allow any expression of real zeal for God or – what is  much worse – to even be able to conceive any real zeal for the Faith of our fathers, especially for the Apostolic faith of our Apostolic Fathers, any consuming love for Our Lord and Saviour, our heavenly Father?  
 
Our question today is about the difference between the zeal of Jesus Himself, openly manifested and clearly expressed, as distinct from the prevailing Western Catholic ethos.   Are we afraid today of a zeal that cannot be fully comprehended, that might ‘get us into trouble’, a zeal that cannot be fully and authoritatively controlled because it is a zeal that relates to God first and foremost, above all other considerations.  Jesus was filled -- the disciples realized and the Gospel tells us -- with a zeal for God that drove Him to do what no recognized, approved, and responsible, Christian teacher and leader today would dream of doing, and which no modern, official, Catholic teaching would countenance or admit in His disciples. 
 
For officialdom (even in the Church), the work of the Spirit -- because it is humanly unpredictable and difficult both to appreciate and justify by merely human thinking; because it a consuming fire which sometimes comes to burn away human mediocrity and comfortableness; because it is divinely inspired and not humanly conceived; -- the work of the Spirit is becoming something alien and alarming, something increasingly disconcerting for a Catholicism, a Christianity, too centred on human considerations --  accommodating popular human, on-this-earth desires, rather than  elevating human aspirations to what is indeed above them, yet what is possible and even promised, to all who will, in divine obedience, seek it. 
 
Jesus Himself made the question of priorities quite clear when, on being asked by a scribe for guidance:  
 
Which commandment is the most important of all? 
 
He addressed the crowd around most solemnly: 
 
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength”.  The second is this, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. There is no other commandment greater than these.      (Mark 12:30-31) 
 
The two commandments do indeed go together, but there is only one that is first.  This was clearly appreciated in earlier times; of late, however, since Mother Church finds herself, in the West especially, in a secularised ‘society’ which enjoys wealth and promotes pleasure, idolizes popularity and worships success, there is an almost overwhelming pressure to ‘promote’ the Faith by accommodating it to modern humanistic tendencies -- why can’t gays and lesbians marry, adopt (buy) children, openly become members of the cloth?  How can God want us to  cause suffering by holding on to hard doctrines and insisting upon so-called ‘unpopular’ teachings, especially concerning ‘sin’, which today is increasingly rarely committed because it is neither recognized or admitted; nor can it be condemned, for  – “Who am I to judge?” -- when the sinner is so frequently said to have a most-understandable human excuse which it is the duty of modern ‘woke charity’ to compassionately recognize, and accept.  In these and similar ways the second command is twisted in its application and, as it were, ‘escorted’ into prime place. 
 
Jesus was never in any doubt about which command was first and which second, because He lived His earthly life in response, not to the Mosaic  ‘I am the Lord your God’, but in response to, and for the love of, the Person of His beloved Father; for the Honour, the Will, and the Glory, of the Father Who had also sent Him to give supreme and complete expression to what the second commandment can only put into human words, sometimes most blatantly abused, e.g. ‘love’.  
 
People of God, if love of the Father does not predominate in our lives, if the guidance and inspiration of the Spirit is not prayed for  as much as human opinion and approval is sought for, we shall in no way be able to proclaim Christ as: The power of God and the wisdom of God; or agree with  St. Paul when he says that: The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  
 
The Church in our Western – and Western-influenced -- world today most urgently needs to be more fully committed and much more devoted to GOD our Father, the God Who commissions and commands her to proclaim His Truth: she must proclaim the Good News and help those seeking to understand, but not cajole, wheedle, or ‘persuade’.   And that means that we, as children and living members of the Church our Mother, must turn more trustfully to the Father, and whole-heartedly beg that His Holy Spirit come to us ever anew and establish His rule in us and over us, inspiring, guiding, and strengthening us to walk along ways of His Son’s choosing, doing work for His Kingdom, and abandoning our worries and concerns about what ‘the world and its  authorities’ may think of us: 
 
I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me.