2nd. Sunday of Eastertide (B)
(Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35; 1st. John
5:1-6; John 20:19-31)
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There are wonderful truths contained in our readings today, but their beauty can only be recognized by those who possess, by the grace of God, that faith of which Jesus spoke when He said to Thomas
Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29)
St.
Peter in his first letter, which Mother Church recommends for our reading this
Eastertide, tells us
Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who in His great mercy has
caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance that is imperishable, kept in
heaven for you who… through faith are protected by the power of God for
salvation. (
Faith
is indeed a wonderful gift: through faith we have been given a new birth to a
divine life and are shielded by God’s power for the gradual the fulfilment of
that Faith which has only one and supreme purpose, our eternal salvation as children
of God.
Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ, our Faith invites us to become CHILDREN OF
GOD. That is the relationship of
Faith: a childlike trust in, love for, GOD-OUR-FATHER. In all our relationships of prayer or devotion
with the individual Persons of the Father, the Son become our Saviour, and the Holy
Spirit, that spirit of trust, confidence in, and love for God-our-Father is utterly
basic and absolutely essential. There are overtones with the individual Persons
but these are always expressive of that basic childlike awareness and
response to God-our-Father. Catholic and Christian Faith can never be
understood, interpreted, correctly if that foundational childlike awareness and
response is disturbed, disorientated or threatened.
Nevertheless,
many today have difficulty with what they wrongly think pertains to faith; they
are not satisfied, for example, with today’s words of Jesus: “blessed are those
who have not seen and yet have believed."
They want to believe in something they can see here and now. Faith, to them, implies delay; whereas they
want more or less immediate experience.
That is a large part of the success of modern TV soaps, which are
continually moving every few minutes from one dramatic scene to another. With a classic novel you may have to read for
hours of gradual development and build up before you come to a climax. Today, many cannot wait that long, they want
a continuous flow of easy climaxes, not only on TV., but also in life and also
in their religion of choice. Jesus’
words and teaching are therefore, for many of our contemporaries, unpalatable
and difficult: hard to swallow and easy to reject.
Peter,
however, had no such difficulty with the teaching of His Lord. For Peter, the words of Jesus were
sacrosanct, and so he wrote in his letter to these early Christians:
Though
you have not seen Jesus, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now,
you believe in Him.
I
would now like to remind you of another aspect of that faith by which we live,
and through which, as Peter tells us, we have hope. We heard in the Gospel reading:
Jesus
said (to His Apostles), "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent Me, I am sending
you." And with that He breathed on
them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive
them, they are not forgiven."
In
other words, Jesus came among us for the one, ultimate, divine, purpose: to
free us from servitude; not just from Egyptian overlords as was the case with
Moses and Israel of old, but to free the whole of mankind from its universal servitude
to SIN:
Repent and believe the Good News I bring.
And
that is why, dear People of God, our Risen Lord first of all
equips His Church to serve His Spirit and bring to fulfilment His one purpose
of salvation from sin and death for all men and women of good will.
Our
readings today show us who, as Christians and Catholics, we should love,
The
community of believers was of one heart and mind.
Everyone
one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God and every one who
loves the Father loves also the one begotten by Him;
And
in that oneness of mind and heart, loving Jesus and the Father, they consequently
hated the ‘sin of the world’:
Whoever
is begotten by God conquers the world; and the victory that conquers the world
is our faith.
Another
aspect of our faith from today’s readings is also to be noted, the words are
those of the Apostle of love, St. John (I John 5:2):
This
is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out
His commands.
However,
such words are from faith and for faith, whereas, as I have already
insisted, modern people love experience; they find faith distasteful, saying,
for example, that somehow God’s commands prevent them loving. They prefer to give expression to the immediacy
of (whatever) love, whenever it strikes them.
They are much more at ease with their idea of the immediacy of love than its perdurance, faithfulness, reliability and patience; after all, the words
they use speak of “making love”.
Their immediate love for their children shows itself by giving them
all they want, together with the self-indulgent hugs and kisses, never
chastising, training, or teaching, always seeking the immediate reward of childish
joy and giggles. Such people likewise say
it is love which motivates those who promote euthanasia, abortion, and the
right to a dignified death by one’s own hand and at one’s own choice. And so, the idea of John that we can only
truly love our neighbour by loving God first of all is not acceptable because
it does not give us any immediately appreciable feelings of ‘goodness’.
‘Sin’,
that only God can truly heal, is now rejected in favour of ‘sickness’ which is
humanly treatable: society today seeks in that way to take on God’s work: people
do so want both self-approbation and the approbation of others that they are
willing to reject as icy-cold God’s long-term commands, and loll about on the
beach of immediate self-satisfaction and general approbation anticipating the
presumed success of popular treatment through easy-to-hand worldly ideas for
what is spiritually totally beyond their ken.
And of course, all that takes place with the inevitable result that sickness
and death continue to reign in ever more degrading disguises, causing ever more
unimaginable pain.
However,
the words of St. Peter do not speak only of a faith which does not yet see,
because he continues:
Even
though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an
inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith,
the salvation of your souls.
Because
we, who believe, are already being prepared for and enriched with the blessings
to come, we can experience, here and now, what Peter calls “an inexpressible
and glorious joy” in the practice of our faith.
In other words, in faith we can already experience here on earth some measure of the joy of divinely personal
experience and love. In the words of St.
John of the Cross, try to put love -- your personal heart and mind’s intention
-- into your practice of the faith and you will find love: experience a
personal relationship with God of “inexpressible and glorious joy”. Let me give you an example.
At
the Easter Vigil we heard the story of our father Abraham journeying with his
son Isaac to a place the Lord would show them where Abraham was to sacrifice
his beloved son to the Lord as he had been told to do. You can imagine the deep grief and deadening
sorrow in Abraham’s heart as he walked along with his son by his side who was
asking him; “Father, I am carrying the wood for the sacrifice, but where is the
victim to be sacrificed on the wood?”
“The Lord will provide” his father answered. They arrived at Mount Moriah and there
Abraham prepared to offer his son in sacrifice to the Lord. But the Lord did indeed provide: “Do not harm
the boy” Abraham was told, and turning round he saw a ram provided by the Lord,
to be offered in sacrifice instead of the boy Abraham loved so much. Imagine what joy filled the heart of the old
man as he returned home with his beloved son by his side. Now Isaac, the son to be offered in
sacrifice, was a figure of Jesus whom the heavenly Father would send to offer
Himself for us in sacrifice on Calvary.
But what about Abraham? Was he,
somehow, a figure of the Father in heaven?
Indeed, he was! Think of the joy,
then, of our heavenly Father this Easter on receiving back His beloved Son,
glorious in His Easter rising. And then
realize what joy you can give to the Father by offering your
participation in this Mass, by offering Jesus back glorified to His Father,
to be at His Father’s right hand for ever in heaven. Try to delight in giving such joy to your
heavenly Father: do what only you can do; personally offer Jesus back to
your heavenly Father here in this Mass, and you will begin to experience
something of that “inexpressible and glorious joy” of which Peter spoke.
People
of God, there are two aspects to our faith: obedience and joy, the one protects
us and the other delights us. God wants
to receive the one and give us the other because obedience is meant by Him to
lead to a personal relationship of total fulfilment for us. Indeed, ultimately it will lead to a Personal
relationship in Jesus with the Father that will be overflowing with fulfilment
for us in the Holy Spirit. That is
already beginning to take place if we live our faith with personal commitment
and love, and that is why Peter says today:
Though
you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now,
you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for
you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
