4th Sunday of Easter Year C 2022

 

4^th. SUNDAY OF EASTER (C)

(Acts 13:14, 43-52; Revelation 7: 9, 14-17; John 10:27-30)

 

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today our Easter joy continues by centering us on Jesus as our Saviour from sin and the Lord of Life.

In the episode partially recorded in our first reading, Paul proclaimed Jesus to fellow Jews in Antioch, a major city in the Roman province of Pisidia, in the following words:

He Whom God raised up did not see corruption.  You must know, my brothers, that through this Man forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you; by this Jesus   everyone is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.  (Acts 13:37-39)

Those Pisidian Jews, however, rejected Paul’s Good News about Jesus’ ability to save believers from sin and to give them eternal life:

Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life, we turn to the Gentiles.

In our second reading from the book of Revelation, the apostle John – banished by the Romans to the isle of Patmos because he continued to preach the name of Jesus -- also spoke and wrote of Jesus’ gift of life through forgiveness of sins:

These are the ones who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb Who is in the centre of the throne (and) will lead them to springs of life-giving water.

Jesus Himself had, of course, begun His Gospel proclamation along the path prepared for Him by John the Baptist, after whose arrest we are told that (Mark 1: 14-15):

Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God, “This is the time of fulfilment. The Kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

Jesus met great opposition to His teaching on eternal life, due, in part, to the fact that He claimed the ability to raise – by His offer of Life – not only some already in the tomb, but also others, physically alive as proud but subservient leaders of a stubborn people, but who did not know they were already spiritually dead.

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.  I have told you and you do not believe Me.  The works I do in My Father’s name – (and) I have shown you many (such) good works -- testify to Me, but you do not believe.  My sheep hear My voice; I know them and they follow Me.  I give them eternal life.  (John 10:24-28)

Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.  For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also, He gave to His Son the possession of life in Himself.    (John 5:25-26)

           I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

Jesus expected of His hearers and questioners both a fundamental sincerity of purpose, wanting to truly know what God was actually promising, and also an understanding of good-will trying to hear and correctly understand those promises:

The works that the Father gave Me to accomplish, these works that I perform, testify on My behalf that the Father has sent Me.   (John 5:25s., 36.)

My teaching is not My own but is from the One who sent Me.   Whoever chooses to do His will shall know whether My teaching is from God or whether I speak on My own.  (John 7:17)

And Jesus had every right to demand such expectations, because He had come, and had been sent by His heavenly Father, in order that He might sinlessly share our earthly life and destroy our personal sin by the most bloody and painful sacrifice of Himself in His earthly body and bestow on us the GIFT of His most Holy Spirit.

As Christians and Catholics, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we knew with absolute certitude that eternal life and blessedness were to be definitively given to us, individually!  How truly wonderful!!

No one, however, no matter how holy, has such certitude.  That is the Church’s teaching: no one is sure of avoiding sin let alone gaining heaven, outside a special, personal, revelation and promise from God.

Of course, we tend to think that we would do better and be better, if we had the peace, strength, and joy of such certitude.  But God doesn’t think on those lines.  He offers us a salvation won at the cost of His own beloved Son’s earthly suffering and death; therefore, He wills that we learn how to accept appropriately such a blessing.  He does this because He wants us to live by His mercy as His truly adopted children, able to hold up their heads as authentic members in Jesus, vitally alive in His heavenly family.  He wants us to risk our human all for Him, by a humble willingness to repent of past sins and by a courageously hopeful commitment of ourselves in a leap of faith that responds both to His, the Father’s, leap of mercy and compassion when sending His Son for our salvation, and to the Son’s obedient leap of faith in the One Who sent Him willingly from heaven to earth for love of those He was thus sent to lead from earth to heaven.

People of God, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, what are our present-day attitudes to that Gospel duo of saving grace and eternal life?  I know, what they should be for all of us: repent and rejoice in the Lord, yes, rejoice in the Lord

We hear today many who speak authoritatively not about about the evangelization of sinners, which is our business, as about the forgiveness of sinners which is ultimately God’s business; and there are so very many who speak in such a way as to imply or at least suggest that, really, there are no sinners, only people who are medically sick in one way or another (faulty genes, mental or emotional disorders, pressures of life, lack of necessary education or living resources etc.), together with a present-day insensitivity of medical science which, they confidently insinuate, is as yet regrettably unable to correctly identify other quite natural afflictions still mistakenly thought of as a basis for sinful actions.

I remember once reading in a Catholic paper: ‘The Church needs to understand families and individuals in all their complexity’.  And then I think of Jesus, after being called upon for His opinion concerning Moses’ command of stoning, speaking with the woman taken in adultery: ‘Woman, has anyone condemned you?  Neither do I.  Go, and sin no more.’

There, Jesus simply stated the reality of sin, condemned it, and warned the woman against any further sin.  He then bade her go away and listen to God’s grace whispering to her in her heart.  There was no complexity there for Jesus, only transparent simplicity: the reality of sin, the need to recognize the death threat it brought with it, and to gratefully repent and improve.

Did Jesus ever have a heart-to-heart talk with Judas Iscariot in all his complexity; or did He not again as always, trust His Father’s love and acknowledge His Father’s wisdom and power to knock on the door of Judas’ heart for any possible opening?

Today there are far too many words of men crowding out the word of God, and Jesus’ word ‘repent’’ is not normally one of them!  Is that because ‘repent’ is religiously incorrect today, or is it not rather that ‘repent’ is religiously inconceivable today?

Explanations are given which make ever broader, push ever further apart, the boundaries traditionally known and acknowledged to have been set by God.  Public punishments were, at times in the past, sadly and wrongfully meted out (children referred to as ‘bastards’, gays publicly ridiculed and criminally punished etc.), especially when the political power was regarded, and relied upon, as the civil arm of the Church.  Today, however, getting rid of such past evils (we can speak of ‘sin and evils’ when apparently accusing or implicating the Church but not when speaking of types of modern behaviour or of modern social laws and structures!) puts us in most serious danger of ‘losing the baby with the bathwater’.

Jesus repeatedly and most explicitly spoke of the supreme need to recognize and repent of personal sin; none being good, but God alone.  Such personal sin results, of course, from personal and willed acts, often external actions which the Church has the right and the duty to label -- for the guidance and protection of her people -- as sinful actions, but which God alone can definitively and eternally judge as sinful acts by the individuals concerned.

When we turn to the Scriptures, we do not find any of the slate-washing of sin so popular with the modern opinion-givers and makers:

The rest of the human race who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, to give up the worship of demons and idols made from gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk.  Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic portions, their fornication, or their thefts.  (Revelation 9:20-21)

Where, in popular human estimation and for the sake of pride or pleasure, sin cannot be accepted as a reality; and when such a disturbing idea as ‘sinful’ is only to be mentioned with words of ridicule or countered by excuses; when emotions are allowed to justify human actions to such an extent that they by-pass or even deny the existence of any ruling human will and therefore of any real responsibility; then everything goes: there is no longer, for such people, any truth; only opinions; and ultimately, the only opinions worth holding are those which turn out to be popular opinions.

Dear People of God, hold fast to a saving awareness of the reality of sin, thanks to which we can aspire to a divine life which is promised and indeed already being made recognizable and irresistibly attractive for all called to believe in the goodness, beauty, and truth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.   Repent, learn to live, and find true delight in loving aright the beautiful creation around us, and the one God, and most-loving Father, of us all.

 

 

 

 

3rd Sunday of Eastertide Year C 2022

 

3^rd Sunday of Eastertide (C)

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

 

 

 

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

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

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

and He urged them to:

            Bring some of the fish you have just caught.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

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

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

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

No matter what violence was threatened or used against them:

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

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

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

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

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

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

  And why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                                 (2022)

2nd Sunday of Easter Year C 2022

 

2^nd. Sunday of Easter (C)

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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