2nd Sunday of Easter Year A 2020

 2^nd. Sunday of Easter (A)

(Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47; 1^st. Peter 1:3-9; St. John’s Gospel 20:19-31

Peace be with you!

That was the ordinary Hebrew greeting, ‘Shalom’; a word to which we have become accustomed through our modern hymns.  But in today’s Gospel passage it has no merely conventional meaning: it is repeated twice, and in both cases is the first word in the clause; two details which tell us that the word ‘peace’ is being strongly emphasized.

At the Last Supper Jesus had promised His disciples (John 14:27):

Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives do I give you.  

To be able to give peace was generally considered a royal prerogative: that is what kings were for, to win, protect, and confirm peace and prosperity for the people.  But, in Jewish society chosen, taught, and formed by God over thousands of years, it was above all the divine prerogative to give peace.  Jesus as the promised Messiah --- the ‘Prince of Peace’ foretold by Isaiah --- gives His own special gift of peace as the Messianic King; moreover, He does not give it as would worldly kings, for they give a peace won through victory in war and maintained by coercion and struggle.  Here in England, when the Romans invaded so many centuries ago, they waged a bitter war against the native inhabitants, and thereby provoked a British chief to remark, ‘Where they make a desert they call it peace!’

Such was never Jesus’ way.  Quite the contrary, He – the Messianic Prince of Peace – won peace for us by sacrificing Himself; and now having risen from the dead, He gives His peace – the fruit of His self-sacrifice – to His disciples, showing them, at the same time, the wounds whereby He had won that peace.

The disciples were filled with joy,

we read, just as Jesus foretold at the Last Supper when He had said:

You are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will rejoice with a joy that no one can take from you.  (John 16:21s.)

For Jewish aspirations in those days, peace and joy were distinguishing features of the final glorious time when God would rule as King, giving harmony to human life and to the whole world.  That time was now dawning:

Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’ and showed them His hands and His side.

Mankind finds peace before God because Jesus – Son of God and Son of Man – died sinless in His human flesh by fidelity to, and love for, God His Father; and then -- by rising from the dead -- He destroyed death along with its ‘sting’, which is sin.  In Jesus and by His Spirit all men and women of good-will can now overcome sin for love of God. 

 Peace be with you!

Notice, however, that this Paschal gift of peace belongs not to individuals as such, but to the whole Christian Community, as a whole.  It was first given to the community of disciples gathered together for common prayer in the face of a common threat; it was given, that is, to the Church both militant and witnessing.  Jesus does not make His presence manifest as some prophetic prodigy for the amazement of the world, but to the assembled brethren, as divine Head of His mystical Body, His Church, and only here, at this sacred encounter, does He say, ‘Peace be with you.’  And that, incidentally, is why, when we sin and lose our peace with God we have to confess our sins to a priest; because peace is the gift of the Risen Christ to His Church, and in order to regain our individual peace -- if and when lost, broken, through our sin(s) -- we have first to be received back into full communion with the Church and come to share again in her prerogative: peace with God and man, in Jesus the Risen Christ.  

Jesus then declared:

            As the Father sent Me, so am I sending you.

Once again these words of the Risen Lord Jesus pick up a thread in His discourse at the Last Supper.  There Jesus had prayed for His own who were to remain behind in the world, saying:

Consecrate them in the truth.  Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, so I sent them into the world, and I consecrate Myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.  (John 17:17-19)

That is, before the disciples could definitively go out on mission in the name of Jesus for His Church in the world, they had to be themselves renewed and re-sourced through the truth (John 17:25s.):

Righteous Father, the world does not know You, but I know You; and these know that You have sent Me.  I made Your name known to them and will make it known 

by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, Who I will give to sanctify My disciples, forming them in My likeness through obedience and love, and holy as He -- My Spirit -- is holy, so that thus consecrated in Truth I can say to them:

“As the Father sent Me, so I send you.”

And when He had said this, He breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

In the book of Genesis we read (2:7):

The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

The word ‘breathed’ occurs again in the book of Wisdom (15:11):

            The One Who fashioned him … breathed into him a living spirit.

From these texts we understand that this moment when Jesus breathes His own Spirit into His disciples, is the moment of a new creation, endowing them with the Spirit of supernatural holiness and life, for themselves and for those they serve in the name of Jesus.

For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven;

not just ‘forgotten’ by God, but forgiven, by the restored gift of holiness and life by the Spirit, whereby the sinner is also restored to peace of mind and heart.

For those whose sins you retain however, they are retained;

There is no peace, no gift of the Holy Spirit, apart from the Body of Christ.  God does not deal with ‘loners’, He has only One beloved, His only-begotten Son, Whom He sent as Jesus, a Man-among-men, for their appreciation and love, and as Christ for their salvation; One Whom He recognizes as Head of the Body which is His One Church, the gathering together in conscious and willed community of all those who believe in Him as the only-beloved One sent by His heavenly Father for their salvation and their adoption as children of God.

Here we see the essence of the Holy Spirit’s work amongst men on earth: to make manifest, give judgment against, and abolish, sin; because He is the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of the all-holy and all-loving God and Father of us all.

Of course, it is undeniably true that He is the Spirit Who worked wonders of all kinds in and through chosen individuals throughout Old Testament history; but His greatest wonder is shown here in the gradual obliteration of sin in the world and the ultimate re-making of sinful men and women into a holy, consecrated, family of God.

Yes, in the Old Testament the Spirit won salvation for Israel on many occasions; but here under the new covenant, salvation cannot be brought about through any occasional triumph in battle, but only through the destruction of sin and the forgiveness of sinners.

Yes, in the old dispensation the Spirit foretold future events, but here in the New Testament His greatest pronouncement is the word of God which consecrates in truth.

Jesus Himself, here on earth, once sent out some of His disciples on a mission to go before Him to the towns and villages where He Himself was to visit, and we are told:

He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal every disease and every infirmity. (Matthew 10:1)

That sending had been only a trial run, so to speak.  Here, in today’s Gospel we have the real sending, the real mission, of the disciples; and here too we have the real ‘gift’, the real ‘power’ bestowed upon them by Jesus to enable them to fulfil their mission: victory over sin in themselves and authority over sin in others by virtue of themselves having been sanctified in the truth.

And yet the Apostle Thomas himself refused to accept and be sanctified by the truth proclaimed by the infant Church!  As you are aware, Our Lord, knowing Thomas through and through, had pity of his weakness and his ignorance, and allowed him the sight he wanted; but He gave him a very strong rebuke, the words of which abide for an eternal lesson to mankind:

Have you come to believe because you have seen Me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!

The beloved disciple John who tells us of this was well aware of the privilege he himself had been granted by God which enabled him to enter into the tomb and to believe; but here he tells us about the Apostle Thomas in order to show us where the greatest privilege of all is to be gained: by believing without seeing, believing, that is, on the testimony of the Church.

People of God, if we wish to be part of God’s new creation, if we long for such a purification that we might be able to enter upon a supernatural life of eternal fulfilment in awareness and appreciation of divine beauty and truth, goodness and love, we should pray that we might ourselves be sanctified in truth by the Spirit of truth; that we might know and appreciate through faith God’s message of salvation -- still proclaimed by Jesus in and through His Church -- ever more fully, and love it ever more deeply.  The only proof that we have indeed received the Holy Spirit into our hearts and are allowing Him to rule there, is the objective fact that we sincerely seek to overcome our sinfulness by the Christian discipline of letting the one, true, faith determine and form our way of life.   As Saint John says:

            This is eternal life, the keeping of God’s commandments.

And those commandments are not difficult because God’s Holy Spirit has been given to us.  Therefore, let us open wide our hearts to receive anew the Holy Spirit of Easter peace, and then go from this blessed assembly to bear joyful, personal, witness to Jesus by lives of loving, Catholic, obedience.

Easter Sunday Year A 2020

 Easter Sunday (Year A)

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

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, on this glorious day let us look at one verse in our Gospel passage which is rarely noted and which speaks volumes about our Risen Lord.

You heard how John and Peter ran to the tomb and how John glanced inside and saw that there was no corpse there:

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

Next Peter came up and, characteristically, went straight into the empty tomb and, we are told:

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

John, the author of John’s Gospel that is, tells us that John looked in at the strips of linen lying in the tomb and that is all.  He does not say that John believed then, at that moment.  It was only after he entered the tomb after Peter that he saw the face-cloth that had been around Jesus' head folded up by itself and separate from the linen, that we are told that he believed.

Notice that fact dear people: John only believed after seeing the burial face-cloth neatly rolled up, folded, and separate from the much larger cloth that had covered Jesus’ body.  Peter, on the other hand, running more slowly and arriving after the younger John, directly entered the tomb and saw, immediately, that the face-cloth was placed apart from the other cloths.

Now Peter, an older and much more humanly-experienced and emotionally-developed man than John, and the disciple the one who loved Jesus most, coming up, straightway entered the tomb and saw ... and what he saw caused him thoughts so intensely personal that he did not open his mouth to chat with, indeed not even to comment to, his younger companion, fellow-disciple though he was; no, he just slowly left the tomb and walked away quietly, lost in deep, absorbing, thought -- in some likeness to Mary’s own behaviour – treasuring in his heart what his eyes had just seen: Why had his Lord so carefully folded the face-cloth which had been placed around His head to preserve His human dignity -- though that of a corpse -- and prevent His jaw from sagging in death?  Why had Jesus so lovingly rolled up what He had just so decisively and carefully removed from around His head?

Jesus had, at His trial, told Pilate (John 19:27):

For this was I born, for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.

and now He was risen from the dead His mouth had to be most obviously free in order to symbolise His enduring proclamation of that truth through the Church, His Church, that will carry on His work -- in His Name and by His authority -- to the end of time!  How gently He folded that cloth which His mother (who else??), with the help of Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome -- had put round His head with such love and reverence. Never again would He be silenced, and His lovingly detaching and folding the face-cloth from His head and mouth was His first symbolic-statement on rising from the dead: His faithful disciples throughout the ages would continue to proclaim HIS truth, under the guidance and protection of HIS Spirit,  to all mankind, in and through His Church!  

Do we need, People of God, the author of John’s Gospel to tell us that Peter also had believed along with John??

Just recently we read the Gospel passage about Jesus’ miraculously bringing Lazarus back from the dead and from the tomb:

Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."  (John 11:43-44)

There you see, Lazarus did indeed come out at Jesus’ command but with:

His hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

He was not able to free himself; Jesus had to authoritatively tell those around:

Take off the grave clothes and let him go.

As you can see there was a big difference between Lazarus’ being raised from the dead and Jesus’ resurrection.  When Jesus Himself rose to life, He simply left the linen cloths behind, though giving special and most meaningful attention to the face-cloth so lovingly placed in position to retain His human dignity, but now yielding place to serve His proclamation of saving truth for the whole world.

Recall now how Jesus appeared to His disciples for the first time:

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" (John 20:19)

Those strips of linen binding His hands and feet in the tomb, in common with the solid, locked doors of the upper room in Jerusalem, could neither restrain nor obstruct the risen Lord of Life because the Risen Lord was glorious.  Lazarus had been called back to ordinary, human, earthly life; Jesus, however, had risen to a new LIFE, not of this creation, but rather of that heavenly Kingdom which He had said was close at hand.

Why then did He not just leave the stones covering the entrance to the tomb?  He could have done that, but just think, who would have known then that the body was no longer in the tomb?  Had He done that and then appeared to His disciples, they would indeed, and for good reason, have thought they were seeing a ghost!

We should now turn our attention to the Resurrection no longer from the point of view of Jesus the Son of Man but from that of Jesus the Son of God, and glimpse something of the supreme Christian mystery: the most Holy Trinity.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: three divine Persons, one God.  How are we to think of our Risen Lord in that respect?   God the Father, to be Father, must have a Son.  God the Father eternally begets His beloved Son Who is like Him in all things save that the Father begets and the Son is the only-Begotten.  The Father from all eternity loves and most intimately knows the Son He begets, and the Holy Spirit is that power of begetting, that power of infinite knowledge and love, uniting Father and Son.  That is why the Holy Spirit is called Gift, for in and through Him the Father and the Son give themselves to each other in total love.

Therefore, you will understand that when God determined that the Son should become man, the Son sent by the Father was conceived of the Holy Spirit; and that is why when the Son -- after His Passion and Death -- was raised to new and eternal life, we read in the Scriptures that both the Father and the Spirit raised Him.

We hear Paul preaching the Gospel to the Jews at Perga saying:

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus rose from the dead because He was glorified by the eternal Spirit of glory, love, and power, Who is One with the Father and the Son, the eternal Bond in the one living God.  The human flesh of Jesus had been brought to perfect Sonship through His Passion and Death as the letter to the Hebrews (5:8-9) tells us:

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

Jesus, learned that obedience as Man for our sake, for our example and consolation, and His human flesh now glorified in the Spirit, is the channel through which we can in full confidence and hope receive the divine Spirit into our poor, sinful, lives.  In the power of the Spirit, the Bond of love and power uniting Father and Son, the humanity of Jesus Itself becomes a bond, uniting us sinners -- as adopted children in Jesus -- with the All Holy God.  Jesus comes to us now, and offers us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist so that, by receiving His glorious flesh and blood we -- who are of His flesh and blood -- might receive, and hopefully be filled with, His most Holy Spirit, so that Spirit of holiness --  abiding in Mother Church and now given to us -- might begin to form us in the likeness of our beloved Lord and Saviour as children of God, by recalling to Mother Church all that Jesus taught us, and leading her into all truth and grace, so that we, in her and as her faithful children, might be formed into true adopted Children of the heavenly Father.

Dear People of God, glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit in holy mother Church for ever and ever; and may these Easter joys fill and delight your minds and hearts through the faith -- the Catholic and Christian faith -- which has been bestowed on us, which we have received and now embrace with most loving and grateful hearts.  Amen.

. 

Maundy Thursday 2020

 Maundy Thursday

                 (Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1^st. Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15)  
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The disciples, even though their time with Jesus was coming to its end, were still far from perfect in their following of Jesus and, apparently -- according to St. Luke -- they had just been quarrelling about who was the greatest among them.  It would seem that for the Supper Judas Iscariot had taken the highest position to the left of Our Lord around the table, while John who, as we know, leant back on the breast of Jesus to ask Him a personal question, would have been reclining on Our Lord’s right.  Peter meanwhile, having taken to heart Jesus’ words chiding them for their lack of humility had, typically, responded whole-heartedly and taken the lowest place, opposite John.  In that way Peter was able to speak directly to John telling him to ask Jesus whom He had in mind when He said that one of them was to betray Him.  This arrangement also explains how Judas could ask Jesus “Lord, not me surely” and Jesus could answer him affirmatively without any of the other disciples hearing His words. 

In the Gospel reading we have heard how Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, exemplifying the humility He wanted them to learn.  He would seem to have begun with Peter seated in the lowest place.  Peter’s loving impetuosity would not allow him to see Jesus humbled before him:

"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

Why was this washing of the disciple’s feet so important?  Obviously, it was of symbolic importance: “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” were Jesus’ stern words.  He then went on to explain:

A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.

“And you are clean” Jesus had said, but still the feet had to be washed, or else Peter would have no share with Jesus.

How had the disciples, apart from Judas Iscariot, been made clean?  We are told, by Jesus Himself (John 15:3):

You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Clean already in mind and heart by the receiving and believing the truth of Jesus.  That faith, however, had to be translated into works:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me... If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.  This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.  (John 15:1-8)

We can perhaps recognize a reference to Judas in the branch that is thrown away and which then withers before being thrown into the fire.  On the other hand, those who remained true to Jesus, who treasured and believed the words He had spoken to them, would now have to let those words bring forth fruit in their lives.  That is why their feet had to be washed, even though they were clean in mind and heart.

We can think of the words of a modern hymn: “Walk with me, oh my Lord, through the darkest night and brightest day, be at my side o Lord, hold my hand and guide me on my way.”  There we describe the course of our lives, the way we respond to all of life’s circumstances, the aims we set for ourselves, as a walking with the Lord.  So it is with the disciples whose feet Jesus must wash if they are to have a share with Him in the Kingdom of God which is now beginning and will ultimately triumph.  What they have received from Him is meant to make them the light of the world and the salt of the earth; their light must shine because it has to enlighten the whole of God’s house:

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

In this movingly memorable scene Jesus gives His disciples -- that includes you and me -- strong teaching to match His strong words to Peter: teaching which not only tells us but also warns us that to have heart and mind washed clean in Christ is not enough if the feet are not daily consecrated by sincere endeavours to walk further along His way and in His service.  That is not all, however, for by so humbly and lovingly washing their feet Jesus indelibly prints on their minds the manner in which they must serve Him: wherever they walk and in all that they do they must seek always to give humble service to each other and to their neighbour.  This attitude will first of all establish unity among the disciples, above all among these future apostles.  No more arguing about who might be the greatest, they must all be willing to humbly serve each other; and then serve with each other the greater good of the flock of Jesus which He has chosen them to lead (Ephesians 4:3):

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Never again would these chosen ones who had seen their Lord and Master humble Himself by washing their feet, allow personal pride to break their apostolic witness to Jesus; on this St. Paul most insistent in his teaching for the churches he established:

There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called -- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

We are called, People of God, to be apostles of Christ in our degree.  The teaching and the example so lovingly given by the Lord are for all of us.  Let us aspire more and more to walk along the paths of the Lord in the power of His Spirit: let us not try to kid ourselves into thinking that nice thoughts about Jesus and the Church are enough.  We have to bring forth fruit for the Father’s glory by seriously try to serve Jesus by doing His work with His attitude: finding strength from our unity in the faith of Mother Church and cherishing the joy of true charity in our parish and personal life.

Palm Sunday Year A 2020

 Sermon 172: Palm Sunday (Year A)

(Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

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In Matthew's account of the Passion of Our Lord we heard the High Priest say to Jesus:

I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.  

The supreme representative of Judaism in that way expressed both his animosity towards Jesus and his contempt for Him, using the very same words with which Peter had earlier expressed his own deepest faith and heartfelt love for Jesus:

Jesus said to (His disciples), "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)

Those words, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God", are the embryonic source of all that the Scriptures, the Church's proclamation, and the faith and wisdom of the saints and doctors of succeeding ages, can tell us about Jesus; and they were echoed once again in the simple confession of the pagan Roman soldiers who had witnessed the crucifixion and death of Jesus:

Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"  (Matthew 27:54)

Let us, therefore, look more carefully into those words of faith, "Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God".

St. Paul leads us along the way:

Although He existed in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus, setting aside the glory that was His as Son of God, lived most of His years in humble obscurity before entering upon His public ministry.  There He quickly encountered such mounting opposition and deepening enmity, that ultimately, He was led to embrace the disgrace, torment and emptiness, of the Cross out of love for His Father and for us.  In the course of His short life He thus experienced all the sufferings foretold by the prophet Isaiah for the One who was to come, the Suffering Servant of the Lord:

I gave My back to those who strike Me, and My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.  For the Lord GOD helps Me, therefore, I am not disgraced; therefore, I have set My face like flint.  And I know that I will not be ashamed, He who vindicates Me is near.

There is, however, yet more for us to appreciate about Jesus' sacrificial love, more even than what was apparently involved in dying on the Cross; because the Gospel tells us of the last few audible words spoken by Jesus in His agony, words which introduce us into the secret drama of His sublime love and crucial prayer.

The agony was terrible, His strength was well-nigh gone; therefore, the spoken words were few, but the prayer continued to the very end of His life in the depths of His Personal communion with His heavenly Father:

            MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

By summoning up His last dregs of energy in order to utter those few audible words He wanted us to know not only the words of His final prayer but also to appreciate aright the attitude of His soul going into death.   Taking upon Himself the ultimate burden of our sins, Jesus willed to experience  what was totally alien and absolutely abhorrent to His personal Self and very being, He chose to embrace for us the ultimate human agony resulting from sin: the human feeling of being abandoned by God; and for that ultimate humiliation of Himself for us men He also prepared His ultimate healing by choosing a prayer taken from Scripture, it was Psalm 22.

After those few audible, opening, words, the psalm, as I said, is continued in Jesus' heart and mind as He was hanging in silence on the Cross before His Father: a heartfelt prayer, recounting and embracing the sufferings He was enduring, then going on to express His prayer for deliverance, before finally exploding into praise of God and prayer for His brethren in the great assembly:

I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.   My praise shall be of You in the great assembly. Let the humble eat and be satisfied; let those who seek the LORD praise Him.  May your hearts live forever!  All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before Him.  For the kingdom is the LORD's, and He rules over the nations.  All who sleep in the earth will bow low before Him; all who have gone down into the dust will kneel in homage; and I shall live for Him. A posterity shall serve Him. Future generations will be told about the Lord and proclaim His deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that He has done this.

So, Jesus on the Cross prayed that, beyond His imminent death on that instrument of torture and shame, He might be able to humbly serve His disciples yet further, even to the end of time.  It was not His will to rest totally in that glory which was His with the Father before time began, and which would be His again in His Resurrection and Ascension.  He willed also to continue His self-oblation, self-emptying, and self-giving, in and through His Church: His word in her proclamation; His Blessing in her ministry; His food, indeed His very own Body and Blood, by the hands of her Apostles and priests chosen and ordained to offer His most Personal act of love and self-sacrifice for her nourishment and fulfilment: Jesus to the end of time humbling Himself in her and for  her in order to win and lead His earthly brethren back to the Father of all Glory! 

Dear People of God, all you who are called to be true disciples of Jesus, never forget that even in the utmost depths of apparent abandonment prayer is still possible for you, Jesus says; even at the very threshold of feared retribution, your prayer can still be acceptable to the God Whose love is pledged and unending.

Jesus continued His saving work even on the Cross, even t-h-r-o-u-g-h His agony, even into the peace of His total abandonment to, and complete trust in, His Father; and the letter to the Hebrews tells us that He was heard in this His prayer:

In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.  Although He was Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered; and having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him. (5:7-9)

And so, to this very day, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, is present to His Church in His Word and in His Eucharist, be it for honour, or neglect, for love or despising; and He continues to work in us and in our world, by His Spirit, through you and me, and through countless others like us.  And even though our inadequacy, our weakness, and at times our sinfulness, continue to humble Him; nevertheless -- and this is His supreme desire -- His love will never fail to invite, to support, and to inspire us.

Let us therefore pray that we may sincerely and whole heartedly revere Him at Mass, both in His Word and in His Eucharistic Sacrifice and Presence;  and let us beg  that we may thereby be so freed from sin as to allow the Spirit He gives us to work  ever more fully in us and through us, for the greater glory of His and our Father, and for the salvation of all men and women of good will in our suffering world.

           

5th. Sunday of Lent Year A 2020

 5^th. 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 how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  However, despite the fact that Lazarus’ sisters -- Martha and Mary -- had sent a note telling Him of their brother's sickness, Jesus had, nevertheless, remained where He was for two days, with the result that He only arrived at the sisters’ home some four days after Lazarus’ body had been put in the tomb, when it was, of course, expected to be already smelling of corruption.  Jesus had 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 extremely important because Martha and Mary, dear friends of Jesus, had been caused much suffering and grief.  Let us find out something of that reason.

The Son of God had become Man only after the Jewish people had been guided and prepared over two thousand years to hope, long, and pray, for the coming of the Messiah.  And having become Son of Man, Jesus was now having to prepare His disciples for His own death: He needed to deepen their hope that, though He should die to this earth, they would still be able to appreciate and, as it were, ‘contact’ Him beyond the grave in the glory of His heavenly Father.  It was absolutely essential that they should have such ‘beyond-death-hope’ in Him, because, just as Israel of old -- alone of all mankind -- 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 present and abiding help before His ultimate return in glory as Lord of all creation and Judge of mankind; for, without such hope, the ultimate Gift of God – the most Holy Spirit -- could not be given.  If their faith in Jesus were to flower into divine charity, it had to be accompanied by an enduring hope preparing them to fittingly receive and embrace the coming of the Holy Spirit; therefore, Jesus behaved as we have heard in order to instil and root this hope-beyond-death into their hearts and minds.  This apparent human neglect on the part of Jesus was, therefore, an essential element in His preparation of the disciples for their mission to proclaim His Good News 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 did not simply state that He had power over life and death as the miracle of bringing Lazarus back to life would soon show.  A right appreciation of the nature of that power was necessary for the sisters who, as I have just said, had suffered so much from Jesus’ absence in their time of need; but – above all -- a right and indeed most profound appreciation of Jesus’ exercise of power had to be unforgettably implanted in the minds and hearts of  His future apostles.  That is why He declared so emphatically to Martha:

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

Let us now just stop our progress and consider the fact that Jesus deliberately allowed Lazarus to die and his sisters to suffer without comfort from Himself.  Surely this can tell us something about the question that inevitably troubles many Christians: why is suffering -- apparently at times both meaningless and purposeless – still to be found in the lives of good Christian people?

Jesus’ own death was close at hand; had He not prepared His disciples to hope beyond death His subsequent Resurrection would not have been rightly understood, and His most Holy Spirit could not have been poured into such closed hearts and uncomprehending minds, with the result that His Gospel might never have been proclaimed as the Good News for all mankind.  However, 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, extends 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.  (Matthew 28:20)

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

            I am the resurrection and the life.

Jesus said that because, those who would henceforth believe in Him, those in whom His Spirit could thereby make His home, would never die the death of fallen mankind, for Jesus, dwelling in them through His Spirit, is eternally the resurrection and the life.

He then went on to say to Martha:

            Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

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

I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in Me, even if he dies, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in Me will 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 delightful, something exciting and promising, 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 -- like inveterate gamblers who never lose hope of a big win and can frequently be found still risking their money, for example, despite the fact that, with death close at hand, no win could afford them either comfort or security; like those who, delighting in the flesh never give up hoping for further pleasure no matter how old and ugly they may have become: they still seek to remember past pleasures again and again, even though the memory of such things is being gradually smothered by the increasing pains of an approaching, and sinful, 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 being made more authentic and more fulfilled as human beings by their faith in Jesus:

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

Yes, People of God -- we servants of the Lord -- are called to learn from the Gospel and to root our lives in Christian hope, hope in Him Whose promises are unfailing and Whose power is eternal.  No matter what the situation may be, People of God, hope in the Lord, for He is able and willing, to help and to save us no matter what our difficulties might be; and if Jesus should 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 may seem to delay -- as indeed was the case for Martha and Mary --  His apparent absence is for our greater good: He is wanting to form us more and more in His own likeness for the Father, so that we  too, in Him and with Him, might overcome not only the world and its blandishments, but also Satan himself, together with His principalities and powers, who vaunt themselves over fallen mankind with the threat of death.  For, the death of a true believer in Jesus, one in whom the Spirit of God has made His home, is not like the anxious, painful, leaving-behind-death of a sinner; rather it is filled with a hope which Jesus Himself expressed on hearing of Lazarus' passing away:

            This death is for the glory of God.

Jesus shared our death, and by embracing it for love of His Father He destroyed the dark shroud of abandonment, sorrow, and despondency which had come to envelope the world.  His rising to life again 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 wherein 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.

However, we can only possess the Spirit if we allow 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:

Whoever believes in Me, even if he dies, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?

then, we too 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.  Here on earth we cannot practice charity without confessing faith and cherishing hope: because it is faith that determines Whom we love supremely and into Whose likeness we are to be formed, while it is hope that enables us to persevere and grow into loving God and our neighbour with authentic Charity

I am the resurrection and the life: by faith we acknowledge and confess those two words of Jesus, 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 accordance with the light of that enduring confession of faith and the confidence of that unshakeable hope.

4th Sunday of Lent Year A 2020

 4^th. Sunday of Lent (A)
(1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41)

As Jesus passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.

Now, there was nothing so unusual about a blind beggar in Jesus’ time, why should He have specially noticed this one?  The disciples had apparently been talking among themselves about the man; and it would seem that at least one of them knew him, because they were discussing the fact that the man had been born blind and they were expressing opinions as to why that was.  Not being able to reach a satisfactory conclusion they turned to Jesus and said:

Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus was always alert for and responsive to the least indication that His Father was at work, and at His disciples’ question He immediately ‘resonated’, sensing that His Father was behind both the blind man’s presence and the disciples’ animated discussion among themselves and their questioning of Him.  And so, He answered them directly:

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but it is so that the works of God might be revealed in him.

Very shortly Jesus will be told about the sickness of Lazarus, ‘Lord the one You love is sick’ and again, His answer will be more or less the same as ‘today’s’ answer to the disciples’ question regarding the man born blind:

            This sickness will not lead to death, but is for the glory of God.  (John 11:4)

Notice the answer in both cases, People of God: Jesus tells his disciples “This man’s blindness, Lazarus’ sickness, has been brought to My attention today in order that I should, through them, make known the will and the work of My Father.”

Night is coming when no one can work.  While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.

Oh, how responsive was our Blessed Lord to His Father’s working!  Oh, how we Christians and Catholics should live more, ever more, with Our Lord ‘on the alert’ for God’s, for our Father’s, goodness and solicitude ever watching over us by His Spirit to further our salvation in and with His most-beloved and only-begotten Son!! 

Jesus, looking at the man born blind, spat on the dusty ground and made a paste.  What a strange, what a striking, thing to do!  It was bound to draw attention, not only that of His disciples watching Him but of the Jewish leaders who would soon hear about what Jesus was now publicly about to do: something of the utmost significance to the Jewish leaders so very familiar with their Scriptures’ description of God originally creating man:

The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

Now, Jesus, the Word of God through Whom all things were made, being about to renew a man’s life, symbolically foreshadows the creation of a new People of God from those till now regarded as being born spiritually blind:

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.  

Having utilized dust of the earth to coat the eyes of the man born blind, only the bringing of those eyes to life was needed for the symbolic re-creation; and in order to do that, Jesus performed another symbolic action, like that of Elisha the prophet sending Naaman, the Syrian army commander, to go and wash in the  Jordan:

"Go," He told (the blind man), "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So, the man went and washed, and came back seeing!

At the last Supper Jesus would say to His Apostles:

            You are clean because of the word I have spoken to you. (John 15:3)

Here, the blind man having heard and obeyed the words Jesus spoke to him, on having washed himself was able to see again! Moreover, on seeing aright he found himself morally and spiritually able and willing to believe in, suffer for, and confess Jesus as his Saviour.  All this symbolized a new People of God to come who, washed in the waters of baptism and confessing their faith in Jesus, would thereby receive the Gift of God -- the Holy Spirit -- the breath of divine Life, as Jesus said:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)

The Pharisees, of course, heard of what Jesus had done, as indeed Jesus intended they should, because He wanted them -- celebrated because of their supposed ‘spiritual awareness’ -- to learn from an occurrence where not only the man and the miracle, but also the time and the place, were of His Father’s own choosing:

It was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

The Lord of the Sabbath was at hand to bring about the fulfilment of the Sabbath.

Their interpretation of the Law held the majority of these Pharisees firmly bound to fixed and unbending legal trivialities:

Some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them.

The majority, blind in their opposition to Jesus, after much arguing and discussion rejected the man whom Jesus had healed:

They said to him again, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?"  He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing."  They answered and said to him, "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?" And they cast him out.

Being thrown out of the synagogue involved social ostracization which was why the man’s parents feared being involved in their son’s relationship with Jesus, as St. Paul himself would experience:

I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.  (Philippians 3:8)

This alienation from their son was as Jesus Himself envisaged:

If anyone comes to Me and (is not prepared to) hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  (Luke 14:26)

The man whose eyes had been dead and were now living, had subsequently been rejected by the Jewish leaders because of Jesus, and so Jesus sought him out in his isolation.  The actions Jesus had performed on the man had, as I said, prefigured God’s creation of a new People of God, and now the man himself was ready to have his whole being -- not just his eyes -- made truly alive; and so, we read:

Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?"  He answered and said, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"  And Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you." Then he said, "Lord, I believe!" And he worshiped Him.  And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."

People of God, wonder at the sublime wisdom of our God; admire Jesus the perfect and beloved Son, so eager and ready to follow and fulfil His Father’s will: Jesus our Lord and Saviour Who has sought out each one of us and joined us to Himself by giving the light of faith to our eyes that could so easily have been blinded by the glittering allurements of the world, and by infusing loving hope into our souls previously obscured, darkened, or perhaps even weighed down by sin! 

But I would have you also recognize the warning, with which our reading from St. Paul closes:

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them; for it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.

We know of such shameful deeds long going on all around us – and now are bringing down upon us God’s dreadful punishment -- and we know that we must take care to have no part in them; however, we should realize that such avoidance of sin in no way exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, which is the minimum required by Jesus of His disciples.  Israel and Judah had been sent to exile in the past because the people, as a whole, had ‘given up’ on the God of their fathers … doing what came naturally, following the example of the surrounding nations.  Today, the same is happening in Mother Church with so many nominal Catholics slackening the reins of their obedience and commitment, and doing what unbelievers do, while trying to persuade themselves that ‘it doesn’t matter, God doesn’t seem to see’.  On their return from exile to the Promised Land certain of those erstwhile deportees had resolved to serve God and His covenant more faithfully: people such as the Pharisees and Scribes were very devout and deeply committed.  However, over time their very religiosity became a stumbling block: they came to love themselves more than God and trusted in their own observances instead of hoping in His mercy and goodness.   And today we have, in the Church, modern versions of such failings: from scholars, not Scribes, from enthusiasts not Pharisees; but all showing – in their lack of humility before God and the Church – the same failings as their forerunners.

People of God in the present situation of Mother Church in our world today each of us needs first of all to be convinced that in the eyes of God, we matter, each of us individually … and that awareness should give us, along with confidence in Him, also a renewed sense of personal responsibility for the welfare and good esteem of Mother Church.  This is what St. Paul had in mind when he told his Ephesian community:

Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, (let) Christ give you light.   See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.   Do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is; for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of the light, (as true children of Mother Church.)