Second 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 the Gospel and bestowal of the Spirit opens up for us.

At the Last Supper Jesus offered His imminent crucifixion and death on our behalf to His Father, saying:

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.  (Jn. 17:18-20)

You will notice that Jesus was about to sanctify Himself, that is, offer Himself totally to the Father in obedient, sacrificial, love, in order that His disciples -- the Apostles being sent to continue His own mission – might also be sanctified in truth, so that their preaching and living of Jesus’ ‘Good News’ might be acceptable to the Father and might enable those who would subsequently hear and embrace their proclamation to come together into His Church -- chosen from all nations, gathered over all ages -- there to live securely and fruitfully, being gradually guided in the gospel of Jesus by the transfiguring power of His Spirit for the salvation willed by the Father for mankind.

Now, in our Gospel today, we see the beginning of the fulfilment of that prayer:

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." 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 disciples, the Apostles, as a whole, not individually.  Later on, in the presence of many other disciples and of the Jews, the Holy Spirit would appear as tongues of flame over the head of each one of them, consecrating them for their individual tasks; but here, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them as the original Apostolic College of Mother Church, that she, through them, might take His Gospel to the furthest ends of the earth for the salvation of 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. 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 truth of her proclamation and the spiritual power of her sacraments, will bring about our ultimate salvation and glorification in Jesus, to which end Mother Church has indeed been specially endowed with the fullness of Jesus’ Spirit of Truth and Holiness as we hear in St. John’s Gospel (Jn.16:13-15):

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. 

Moreover, Mother Church has not only been thus wonderfully endowed, she is also sublimely protected by God:

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

as Jesus had earlier promised to Peter:

the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her. (Mt. 16:18)

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 (Gen. 3:14-15):

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."

The serpent will always be trying to “strike at the heel of the Lord”, that is, to lead individuals into sin, and -- be those involved laity, religious, priests, bishops, or even popes -- about that we should never be scandalized, because it has been foretold and we have been forewarned.  We should, however, pray for those who are thus used by the devil in his attempts against our Lord and His Church; for, although Individuals always can, and sadly sometimes will, fail, the Church as a whole can never fail in her truthful proclamation of the 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 endowed and protected but that she has also been empowered to fight against the devil, as was also 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 and publically forgiving sin in the world:

If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.

But in addition to such public conflict with sin in the confessional or internal forum, there is also a much wider attack and more bitter fighting being engaged in by all those faithful disciples of Jesus and true children of Mother Church who have not only been freed from the devil’s power and protected from his snares, not only blessed with the fullness of truth in Mother Church, but also realize themselves to have been called and empowered to fight – by their faith and their witness -- against the sin which still remains in us and in the world around us.

Thus, at every level of her being -- prelates, priests and religious; men, women and children; – Mother Church strives to extend her Lord and Saviour’s Kingdom of love and truth throughout all time, over all the world.

My dear people, at this time especially, we should be supremely grateful to God for the gift of the Faith which is ours; and as today we admire Our Lord’s faithfulness unto death on the mission received from His Father, and as we rejoice in His constant love for us and tender solicitude for our well-being, we should pray that, as His disciples, we too -- in Him -- may remain faithful to death in the Faith and fight the good fight for a share in His Resurrection and eternal glory.

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.  

When it is really so easy to respond faithfully to the Father’s call that first led us to Jesus, why do too 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 (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:

Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, He gave us new birth into a living hope, the hope of an inheritance reserved in heaven for you, which nothing can destroy or spoil or wither.  Because you put your faith in God, you are under the protection of His power, until the salvation now in readiness is revealed at the end of time.  This is cause for great joy, even though for a little while you may have had to suffer trials of many kinds.  Even gold passes through the assayer’s fire, and much more precious than perishable gold is faith which stands the test.  These trials come so that your faith may prove itself worthy of all praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.  You have not seen Him, yet you love Him; and trusting in Him now without seeing Him you are filled with a glorious joy too great for words, while you are reaping the harvest of your faith, that is, salvation for your souls.

May we too walk in their footsteps, with the joy of hope and gratitude to God in our hearts and His praises with our thanksgiving on our lips.    

Easter Sunday (A)

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

On this Easter morning we are gathered to rejoice in the Lord for the glory and beauty of His triumph over sin and death and for the wondrous salvation He has thereby won for us.

If we look back to our origins we can learn there something of the true significance of what, at first glance, would appear to have been the utter degradation and revolting ugliness of Our Lord sufferings and death on Calvary.

God had been wonderfully good to us at our creation: making, forming, us in His own image and likeness, to rule over all that He had made in a way that would give glory to His holy Name and provide for all our needs.   There was, therefore, a close bond of friendship between God and our forebears, Adam and Eve, and God used to walk in the Garden He had prepared for Adam and Eve and hold converse with them:

The Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day called out to the man …

There had been only one restriction to Adam’s total freedom in the garden, and that had been established when God had told him:

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

Notice, People of God, that prohibition was made by God because such fruit would be harmful to Adam … eat of it and you shall surely die … and Adam recognized God’s goodness without difficulty for we learn how God subsequently, having lovingly taken notice of Adam’s situation, decided:

It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him … and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man.   Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman.”

Thus there was indeed joy and closeness between Adam and Eve and God before the Serpent poisoned Eve’s mind by insinuating that God’s command not to eat of the tree of knowledge had been made not out of love for them but out of His own oppressive wilfulness.

Ultimately the true nature of the bond between Adam and God was determined by the issue of obedience, for Adam chose to follow Eve into disobedience to God’s command… and that, People of God, is why Jesus declared so very frequently that He had come among men not to do His own will but the will of Him Who had sent Him:

            My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. (Jn. 4:34)

             I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me.

I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (5:30; 6:38)

Jesus made many more such assertions so that we might surely recognize the root of our human sinfulness.

From the very beginning, there has been no true love for God in man where there was no obedience.  On the other hand, the obedience we show to God should never be cold or automatic, for that would be a betrayal of its true nature … it is essentially a supremely authentic expression of human love for God.

Now, bearing in mind what we have learnt about our origins, let us look for the glory and the beauty of Our Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection brought about on Jerusalem’s mount of ignominy, which was called Calvary.

We were told in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles that:

            They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree.

How wonderfully beautiful!!   The beautiful fruit of God’s good tree in Eden which -- with the Serpent’s deception of sensuous Eve and Adam’s subsequent weak compliance -- had become a stone of stumbling, was totally transformed by Jesus’ obedient self-sacrifice into the death-destroying, life-enhancing, fruit of divine bounty which is offered to us in the Eucharist.

What delight in His Father, what love for us, enabled Jesus to hold His head high throughout those atrocious torments on the Cross?  Of that we are told  in the Psalter from the very beginning:

Blessed is the man (whose) delight is in the law (the command) of the Lord … He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. (Ps. 1:2-3)

·        Later (Ps. 110:5,7) we read:

The Lord is at your right hand (yes, Father, for Jesus is doing what pleases You, suffering for Your glory and our forgiveness) ….…. He will drink from the brook (whose waters signify Your Holy Spirit) by the way; therefore (like the tree planted by streams of water) He shall lift up His head.   

How wonderful!!

            They put such a man to death by hanging Him upon a tree ..

where He was destined – by His Father’s gift -- to become the fruit of salvation, the fruit of Calvary to be received with faith and humble gratitude, not grasped with pride like that of Eden :

Take this, all of you, and eat it, this is My Body which will be given up for you.

           

When the serpent deceived Eve he had promised her that:

When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

And, because he had already secretly poisoned her with pride Eve did not realize that only the goodness of God could sustain the challenge and overcome the threat of evil … and thus being deceived in her folly she became a fitting tool to implicate complacent Adam in her fall.

Our blessed Lord and Saviour, on the other hand, opens our eyes to the full truth of our situation when He offers us the strength of His grace with the call to repent and the warning that only those who humbly believe in Him and in His Father’s goodness are able to receive with profit the full fruit of His sacrifice which is His Holy Spirit.

People of God, today we should rejoice!   Rejoice in God’s infinitely beautiful wisdom that extends throughout all ages and shapes all our destinies; rejoice in His omnipotent and universal might that manifests itself in a love willing to suffer in order to conquer; rejoice in the goodness of Him Who knows no evil and suffers no evil, and Who, in His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Love, and our Saviour and by His Most Holy Spirit, our Light and Life, our Joy and Peace, is so uniquely able to transform all our evils to His greater glory and our eternal salvation.

(Easter 2011)

Fifth Sunday of Lent (A)

(Ezekiel 37:12-14; St. Paul to the Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45)

In our Gospel reading we heard that, although Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, had sent Jesus a note telling Him of their brother's serious illness, nevertheless, Jesus had remained where He was for two days, with the result that He only arrived at their home some four days after Lazarus’ body had already been put in the tomb and was then expected to be smelling of corruption.  Jesus had, therefore, very deliberately kept away until there could be no possible doubt that Lazarus was dead.  Why?  Obviously He had some reason, and, equally obviously, that reason had to be an extremely important one, able to balance, so to speak,  both the loss of Lazarus and the grief of Martha and Mary.  Let us therefore try to understand something of the issues Jesus had to face and resolve.

The Jewish people had been prepared over two thousand years to hope, long, and pray, for the coming of their Messiah, and Jesus – the Eternal Word of God born of the Virgin Mary in answer to, and fulfilment of, those prayers -- was having to prepare His disciples for His own forthcoming death. He needed to deepen their hope so that, though He were to die and be physically removed from their presence, nevertheless, they would still be aware of His spiritual closeness to them, able to appreciate His enduring oneness with them from beyond the grave in the glory of His heavenly Father.  It was absolutely essential that they should have such hope in Him beyond death, because, just as Israel of old had hoped and prayed for His first coming as Messiah, so the Church, the new People of God, might be uniquely empowered and enabled, in this sinful world, to hope and pray for His ever-present help in the building up of God’s Kingdom among men in preparation for His ultimate and glorious return as Lord of all creation and Judge of mankind. If their faith in Jesus were to flower into divine charity, it had to be sustained and nourished by such an imperishable hope preparing them to fittingly receive and embrace the coming of the Holy Spirit; and for that end Jesus behaved as we have heard, in order to instil and root this hope-over-and-beyond-death into the hearts and minds of His disciples.  This work of Jesus -- His apparently gross neglect of dear friends – was, therefore, an essential part of His preparation of His disciples, and indeed Lazarus, Martha, and Mary themselves, for their future proclamation of the Good News of Jesus to the Jewish people and to the whole world.

Jesus said to (Martha), "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live, and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.  Do you believe this?" 

Notice that Jesus does not simply say that He has power over life and death as the miracle of bringing Lazarus back to life would show.  That power, as I have just said, needed to be shared with and implanted in His future apostles, and therefore He declared:

I am (that is, eternally) the resurrection and the life.

The fact that Jesus deliberately allowed Lazarus to die and his sisters to suffer without comfort from Himself, even though it was His intention to bring Lazarus back to life again when the time was right, must surely tell us something about the question that inevitably troubles many Christians: why is suffering – apparently, at times, both meaningless and purposeless – still so prominent in the lives of good Christian people?

Jesus’ own death was close at hand; had He not prepared His disciples to hope beyond death, they could not have understood His subsequent Resurrection; His Holy Spirit could not, therefore, have been sent into such closed hearts and uncomprehending minds; nor would His Gospel ever have been proclaimed as the Good News for all mankind. 

In fact, though, because of the indisputable death and the manifestly public raising of Lazarus from the tomb, an appreciation of the ultimate purpose, meaning, and significance of Jesus’ own life, death, and resurrection, was being prepared: here Jesus’ disciples could begin to appreciate Him as the Lord of LIFE in its fullest meaning: life that begins with the cradle, endures through death, and blossoms into eternity:

I am the resurrection and the life.

Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.  (Matt 28:20)

The suffering of Martha and Mary was their share in the forthcoming Passion and Death of Jesus, a sharing that would help His supreme purpose of giving glory to His Father and winning salvation for mankind.  The phrase, ‘offer it up with Jesus’, used to be commonplace and at times almost trite, but its sublime meaning and significance can be learnt from the sufferings which Jesus willed for Lazarus and his sisters.

            I am the resurrection and the life.

Jesus said this because, henceforth, those who would believe in Him, those in whom His Spirit could thereby make His home, as St. Paul said, would never die the death of fallen mankind, because Jesus, dwelling in them through His Spirit, is eternally, both in Himself and for them, the resurrection and the life.  Therefore He went on to say to Martha:

            Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die;

because His eternal, resurrection, life would always be open and responsive to their prayers.

Having entered the world through human sinfulness, death could neither claim nor hold Jesus the Holy One of God.  Jesus chose to die on our behalf, for our sins, in order that when death was unable to hold Him -- the resurrection and the life -- His rising to life again would mean the destruction of death’s power and the opportunity for all who would henceforth live by faith in Jesus, to receive His Spirit and thereby be prepared to share in His victory over death and share in His blessedness in heaven.

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live; and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?

We belong to Jesus through faith, therefore the only question for those who turn to Him is “do I believe in Jesus' words firmly enough to hope in Him through and beyond death?” 

Don't imagine that such a hope is impossible or foolish.   Listen to St. Paul again:

Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.

Pleasure, pride and power, seem to offer something new, something fresh, something untried, to those who are young enough, foolish enough, or evil enough, to become hooked on them; and those who have grown old in such addictions  can frequently be found still cherishing their addiction despite the fact that -- with death coming ever closer -- it can afford them neither comfort nor security, still petulantly trying to cling to a power and authority they are far too frail to exercise any longer.   Likewise, those who delight in the flesh never give up hoping for further pleasure no matter how old and ugly they may have become: they still cling to pleasures even though the memory of such things is being gradually smothered by the ever-increasing pains of an approaching, sinful, and culpable death.

Such radical and ultimate frustration, however, was no part of God’s original plan for human kind, and therefore there are other people, many other people who, as St. Paul tells us, are continually being made more authentic and more fulfilled as human beings by their faith in Jesus:

Live according to the Spirit (and) set (your) minds on the things of the Spirit.

Yes, People of God, we servants of the Lord, are called to learn from today’s Gospel to root our lives in Christian hope, hope in Him Whose promises are unfailing and eternal.  No matter what the situation may be, hope in the Lord, for He is able and willing to help and to save no matter what our difficulties might be; and if Jesus does will some of His servants to suffer, it is always an invitation to share more closely with Him in His work of salvation.  Even though He seems to delay, as indeed was the case for Martha and Mary on the death of their brother Lazarus, even His apparent absence is for our greater good: He is forming us more and more in His own likeness, so that we  too might -- in Him and with Him – overcome, not only the world and its blandishments, but also Satan together with all His principalities and powers who vaunt themselves over fallen mankind with the threat of death; and so that we too might be able to rejoice ever more fully in His heavenly glory.  For, the death of a true believer in Jesus in whom the Spirit of God has made His home, is not like the anxious, painful, parting, death of the sinner; rather it is filled with hope and joyous expectation which Jesus Himself expressed on hearing of Lazarus' passing away:

            This sleep is not to end in death, but (will be) for the glory of God.

Jesus shared our death, and by His dying He destroyed the dark shroud of suffering and sorrow which enveloped it.  In His rising He offers us the glorious hope of sharing, with Him, in the life and blessedness of heaven: a sharing which will fulfil beyond all measure our deepest longings and aspirations, a sharing whereby heaven will be our dearest home, and God's presence, the embrace of the One Who is our truest Father. 

People of God what makes you a true disciple of Jesus is not so much whether you keep the rules but whether you have the Spirit, as St. Paul said:

            Unless you possess the Spirit of Christ you do not belong to Him.

And we can only possess the Spirit if we allow Him to possess us, by allowing Him to make His home in us and direct our ways.  Therefore, when Jesus, Who is the resurrection and the life, says to us, as He did to Martha:

He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe these things? …

then, we must let the Spirit within us give answer, and, setting our minds on the things of the Spirit, reply wholeheartedly with Martha:                            

Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God.

Faith, hope, and charity, are, as you well know, the three theological virtues, and -- as St. Paul tells us -- the greatest of these is charity because charity persists and flowers in heaven.  But here on earth we cannot practice charity without confessing faith and cherishing hope, because it is faith that determines Who we love, and it is hope that enables us to persevere and grow in loving with Charity.

            I am the resurrection and the life:

by faith we confess the divinity of Jesus contained in those two words, “I am”; by hope we embrace the promise He offers us when He speaks of “the resurrection and the life”; and by the grace of the Holy Spirit we grow in the supreme virtue of charity as we try to live our life on earth in response to and accordance with the light of that enduring confession and the confidence of that unshakeable hope.