Third Sunday of Easter Year C 2019

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, busily fishing all night without success, and then catching sight of the Risen Lord walking on the shore line and guiding them to make a remarkable catch of fish.  Thereupon, He 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 Jesus was urging them to:

            Bring some of the fish you have just caught.

You will recall that, at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus had promised His Apostles that He would make them into fishers of men: here, they are being taught the very nature and dignity of that mission and ministry to which He was calling them.

They were to be co-operators with Jesus, as shown by the great catch of fish they -- at His prompting -- had just caught and brought ashore to join the fish Jesus already had cooking for them.  Subsequently, they would indeed bring large numbers of men to Jesus to receive the salvation that only He can give … as signified by the fact that only He had brought bread, not merely in remembrance of the manna given by God to sustain Israel in her desert wanderings, but the true bread from heaven that Jesus’ own Father would give, the only real bread of eternal salvation.   Indeed, their future Apostolic ministry would not only make them chosen co-operators in the world-wide work of Jesus, but such oneness with their Lord would also be for their own supremely personal fulfilment and joy while serving as the crowning testimony to and authorization of their unique witness to Him in His nascent Church:

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

In view of what was about to happen here on the shore of Galilee, Jesus had food ready: He had prepared a meal He willed to share with the Apostles to show them that, as His specially chosen disciples -- chosen to co-operate with Him and share His mission -- they would need to share in His strength, and indeed, ultimately, to share in His Spirit in order to able to fulfil the mission He was entrusting to them.

Let us, therefore, have a closer look at how those Apostles actually carried out the mission given them by Jesus; let us see them furthering -- in the power of His Spirit -- His Church towards its world-wide fulfilment.

Notice first of all, People of God, that the Apostolic proclamation was not a 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 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 for Jesus, done this in and through, Jesus? 

To give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

God exalted Jesus ‘to give repentance to Israel’, and then, after such repentance has been acknowledge and 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; then, by highlighting the forgiveness of sins, to once again take up the paean of praise for the fact that in Jesus we are no longer subject to the power of sin,  we are now FREE to henceforth live, love, and work with Jesus, by His Spirit, for the glory His and our Father and for the salvation and better-being of our and His brethren here on earth; in all things we are called to fight with Him, by His Spirit, against the devil and our 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 for Jesus and what He wants to do for all who will believe in Him: believe the Gospel,  confess your sins, embrace the new life of baptism, and open -- Oh yes open! -- your mind and heart to the Holy Spirit Whom God is offering to 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 other 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 corroding their own lives, society, and indeed the world around us, and until they conceive a fear of the consequences of and punishment awaiting, sin, then they are, and will remain, deaf both to the saving truth proclaimed by Mother Church and the call of Jesus 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.”

                                                               

Second Sunday of Easter Year C 2019

 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, and with blood coursing through His veins.  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.  A scientist seeing what Thomas saw might simply say, ‘There is something here I cannot understand, but science will be able to explain it later.  Indeed, if I could scientifically study this over a period of time I myself could probably explain it.  For the present, however, I will just have to suspend judgement.’  That was not the attitude of Thomas: straightway he leapt from fact to faith: after touching the wounds ... fact ... 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 distinctive and exclusive mission:

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

after which He 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, those ten apostles in the room with Jesus were no longer ten individuals devoted to the memory of Jesus as they had experienced Him previously; now they had been re-formed into a unity looking towards a common future and common endeavour for Jesus, an enduring unity of unique significance and universal consequence for mankind’s salvation: the CHURCH.

When Thomas originally refused to believe -- despite what his fellow Apostles and Mary  Magdalen had said -- until he himself also had seen the form, heard the voice, and indeed touched the very wounds of Jesus, he knew nothing about any Church ... he only knew a familiar group of friends and disciples of Jesus, each with their own hopes and fears, sorrows and longings, each with their very personal and at times quite obvious limitations and failings.  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 something much better, we have the witness of that universal Church established by Jesus; and, in her we are become members of His very own Body, personally empowered and ennobled by His most Holy Spirit, Who has washed away the sins that would prevent us from recognizing the truth about Jesus and overcoming the faults and failings that would impede us from humbly loving and faithfully serving Him.

The Church, God’s Chosen People, is, as I have said, the Body of Christ, 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 as sent by the heavenly Father and by the gift of His most Holy Spirit.  Her sacraments give us the food of life, while the word of Jesus -- alive in her -- is for a light to the nations and the glory of all God’s children.

Thomas, on being told of the first apparition of Jesus to the assembled disciples was only

an individual human being ... we, on the other hand, are much more blessed: being

members of the Church and having her witness to the truth, we are aware of and are able

to appreciate the abiding presence of Jesus her Head in our midst, with her sacraments

channelling for us and accomodating to us, His Own Personal presence and the abiding

power of His Spirit.  At that moment, Thomas’ refusal -- truly his confession of need –

was blunt and absolute, a veritable expression of his personal character; nevertheless,

when subsequently on his own, he had the time and opportunity to think things over, he

must have become deeply conscious of the separation between himself and his hitherto

mutually committed friends and companions, and how he must have longed to be able to

share their new found peace and strength drawn from this so-called Risen Lord Whom he

himself could not, as yet, fully embrace.  This longing 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 ... an opportunity for which Thomas had been humbly seeking

in his heart and mind.  This ‘opportunity’ became the most decisive moment of his whole

life: when 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

long loved.

For faith is -- as the Compendium of our Catechism teaches -- a supernatural virtue which is necessary for salvation; it is, indeed, a free gift of God accessible to all who humbly seek it.  The act of faith is a truly human act, an act of profound human understanding, by a person who -- prompted and encouraged by God’s grace -- joyously assents to divine truth revealed by God and proclaimed by Mother Church.  Faith is certain and works through charity.  It is, even now, a foretaste of the joys of heaven; and how this very occasion of today’s celebration evokes such joy for us, because one called, at times, ‘doubting Thomas’ could so manifestly provoke and lead us to such great appreciation of and joy in the Catholic and Apostolic Faith as is ours today!!  Pope Saint Gregory the Great was undoubtedly the one most famously and most deeply grateful to God for Thomas’ doubts which – as he said -- have won for us such blessings of joy and peace in our appreciation of the true Faith.

Yes, 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 Christian 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 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 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 so much 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, and I have not even mentioned the wonderful promptings of God spoken of in the Catechism, promptings that speak directly to individual hearts and minds, that relate to individual and secret needs and aspirations!  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.

Easter Sunday 2019

 Easter Sunday (2019)

(Acts of the Apostles 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 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 speaks volumes about our Risen Lord.  You heard that both John and Peter ran to the tomb; John, being the younger, arrived first and:

Stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in.

Peter, coming next, characteristically went straight into the empty tomb where:

He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around (Jesus’) head not lying with the linen cloths but folded together in a place by itself.

Now, just recently, St. John told us about Jesus miraculously bringing Lazarus back from the dead and out of the tomb:

Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!"  And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.   (11:43-44)

There, Lazarus came out of the tomb at Jesus’ command, but he appeared:

bound hand and foot with grave-clothes and his face wrapped with a cloth.

The fact that he was still bound in his grave clothes signified that he was not totally free from death; he would needs face death again.  For the present time, however, Jesus said to those around:

Loose him, and let him go.

As you can see there was a big difference between Lazarus’ being raised and Jesus’ Resurrection, for when Jesus rose He left the linen cloths behind:

Simon Peter saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.

Jesus rose totally from the bonds of death, never again would He be subject to them.  Lazarus, on the other hand, had come out of the tomb “bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth”. 

Let us consider further the linen cloths left behind in Jesus’ otherwise empty tomb, and, in order to help us, let us recall how Jesus later appeared to His disciples for the first time:

(That) 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." (John 20:19)

The doors were locked, and they remained locked, just as if no one had entered.  However, Jesus had been able to enter the room, because closed -- even locked -- doors presented no obstacle to His Risen Body.  It was like that with the burial cloths and the kerchief: though Jesus had risen, the burial clothes remained as whole as they had been when wrapping His body, save that now they enclosed, wrapped nothing; the head-cloth, however, the kerchief which had been round His head, was now neatly folded and separate from the body cloths.

The message of the grave-clothes, as with that of the closed and locked door in the upper room, was that the Risen Lord was now glorified.   Lazarus had been called back to ordinary earthly life; Jesus had risen to a new and glorious life not destructive of this creation – witness the burial cloths that had wrapped His body -- but partaking of, sharing in, that heavenly Kingdom which He had proclaimed to be close at hand.

And if we now pay yet closer attention to the kerchief we find that it might have its own particular message for us.  The kerchief, which was generally used to cover, protect, one’s head and also for carrying money, was used in funerals to wrap the head in such a way that the jaw bone was prevented from falling open, thus preserving the dignity of the dead person.  The special mention of the kerchief being separately placed and neatly folded can be understood and appreciated as a preservation of Jesus’ Messianic dignity, a sign that Jesus’ proclamation of the Good News of salvation was eternally valid and would never be silenced: the fruit of His labour and the fullness of His teaching needing only to be wisely matured and faithfully handed down through the ages by the Church He had established on the rock-witness of Peter and the testimony of His chosen Apostles under the guidance of His own final and supreme Gift, His most Holy Spirit.

It is now time, therefore, to turn our attention to the supreme Christian mystery, that of 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 this?

God the Father, to be Father, must have a Child -- His Son, the Bible says.  God the eternal Father, therefore, eternally begets His only beloved Son, Who is like Him and equal to Him in all respects, save that the Father is the Person Who begets whereas the Son is the Person begotten.  Thus, the Father and His only-begotten Son are eternally One in the power of that begetting -- that uniting power of their mutual Love -- which is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is called God’s Gift, for in and through Him the Father and the Son give themselves to each other in total knowledge, understanding, appreciation, and love; and that is why, when God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- determined that the Son should become man in the Incarnation, He was sent -- as Son -- by the Father and conceived as a human being in the Virgin’s womb by the Holy Spirit.  Moreover, when His earthly life had run its course, we are told in the letter to the Hebrews, of the Holy Spirit uniting the Son to His Father in Jesus’ very act of dying:

Christ, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, (to) cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God! (9:14)

Therefore, when the Son, after His Passion and Death, was raised to new and eternally glorious life, the Scriptures tell us that both the Father and the Spirit raised Him.  We read Paul preaching the Gospel to the Jews at Perga (Acts 13:32-33):

We declare to you glad tidings -- that promise which was made to the fathers.  God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.'   

Yet when writing his letter to the Romans (1:1-4) the same Paul also says:

Jesus Christ our Lord … was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

St. Peter likewise mentions the Spirit:

Christ also suffered once for sins … being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. (1 Peter 3:18)

Through His Passion and Death, as the letter to the Hebrews tells us, Jesus had been brought to perfect Sonship in His humanity:

Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. (5:8-9)

And now, the Risen Jesus, having being raised by the Father and glorified in His human flesh by the Spirit -- perfect man and perfect God -- has become the perfect channel through Whom we are able to receive the divine Spirit into our poor, sinful, lives.  For Jesus, Son of the Father and Giver of God’s Gift, comes to us now in the Eucharist so that we, who are of earthly flesh and blood might, by receiving His glorious Flesh and Blood, be able to share in His Holy Spirit; whereupon, that Spirit of holiness -- the bond of love and power uniting Father and Son -- begins to form us, in the likeness of Jesus for the Father.

As of old, the Ark of the Covenant had tabernacled God’s Law for His chosen People, so, when He Who had been long-promised came, it was Mary who housed and nourished Jesus in her womb.  Today Mother Church is the treasure-house where Jesus is ever-present to His people by His Word and in the Holy Eucharist, and it is Mother Church who, by the Gift of His Spirit and according to the model set for her by Mary, now

treasures and ponders in her heart

all that Jesus taught and did (Luke 2:19, 51).  All who live by faith in Mother Church’s proclamation of Jesus receive, through her, the Gift of His Spirit, so that they might be formed into a true likeness of Our Lord and Saviour, and as adopted sons and daughters of the heavenly Father.

People of God, wonderful things have been done for us this Easter: through oneness with Jesus our Saviour and by the power of His most Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Strength, we -- in all our daily endeavours to walk along the way of Jesus -- are offered union with the Father as St. Paul said:

You (have been) raised with Christ, (so) seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.  Your (real) life is hidden with Christ in God, (and) when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Let us therefore strengthen our faith, as, with deepened understanding in our minds and renewed joy in our hearts, we proclaim our own Easter hymn of praise and thanksgiving, saying: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, in holy mother Church for ever and ever.  Amen.

Good Friday 2019

 Good Friday 2019.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today we are called to consider an absolutely essential aspect of our Catholic -- which means universal -- Christian faith.  We should not, and indeed cannot, identify Christian values with those currently prevalent in our Western part of the world, because our present, secularized, Western culture is most seriously wrong, for example, in the exaggerated emphasis and value it puts on living long to experience and enjoy all that life has to offer.  Because of this fixation on satisfying our human capacity for pleasure and fulfilment Western society has come to regard death as the end of everything that is desirable, and consequently views death, with all its concomitant forms of suffering, as something to be avoided above all else.  It is time, therefore, for modern, secular, self-satisfied and non-believing, Westerners to learn from the attitude of other great cultures, in this case of Japan and Islam – yes, even from some former world-war and some present world-turmoil opponents – who believed and believe that  death can be regarded as a possible gateway to future glory, and who can, therefore, gladly embrace death for what they consider to be a worthwhile cause.

Now, although we Catholics and Christians could never accept the idea of political convictions being a worthy cause for deliberate self destruction, and while the manner in which certain  former adversaries deliberately chose to kill themselves and die along with  their opponents alarmed and amazed us; and although the notion of heavenly glory so frequently imagined by simple ISIS enthusiasts and proclaimed by manipulative leaders, is both degrading and earthly, nevertheless, the willingness of members of those two great cultures – Japan and Islam -- to sacrifice themselves for what they – rightly or wrongly -- saw or see as an ideal or belief, is something both truly human and worthy of admiration.

We Catholics can never resort to self-inflicted death, to self-destruction, as a direct means to express our hatred or promote our cause, because death cannot be of our free and deliberate choosing;  nevertheless, as Christians, we are called to become so freed from the fear of death, to be inspired with such love for what is divinely beautiful and true, that we can wholeheartedly embrace death when it is encountered for witnessing to Christ and expressing love for God or neighbour.  Today, however, our secularized Western societies are smothering Christians aspirations and dragging down believers into fearing death above all, something to be feared and avoided or at least delayed, at whatever cost; while saving life – except of course the lives of aborted infants – justifies almost anything.

Today, we Catholics and Christians need very much to remember that we celebrate GOOD FRIDAY, the day when Jesus, our Redeemer, Lord and Saviour, embraced death for love of His Father and sinful mankind.

Yes, People of God, today we Catholics celebrate Jesus’ death; and we must never allow ourselves to be led astray into mourning Jesus’ death.  We embrace, rejoice in, Jesus’ death, Jesus’ way of dying, Jesus’ use of death, for us; we lament, we mourn, we weep, for mankind’s (including individuals like you and me) killing of, hatred for, self-centred disregard of, Jesus, His truth and His love.  Jesus’ death we love and celebrate; it is our -- and mankind’s -- killing of Him and His that we both loath and mourn.

Our modern society in this much-changed country once known as Great Britain has come to admire mourning: many people today seem to think it good to say they cannot forget; forget what?  Of course, they cannot forget nor could anyone ever ask them to forget their loved ones whose memory deserves to be cherished.  However, what they should learn to forget, to put behind them, is their loss, which too many mourn, year after year after year!  In that mourning there can indeed be sincere heart-break; but also, there is far too much self-love; and such mourning is not for our Christian remembrance and celebration of Good Friday, for it does not proclaim any good.

Today, I say, we Catholics and Christians are called to celebrate Jesus’ dying, Jesus’ embrace of death, for us.  As for mourning, we mourn most certainly our own sinfulness, so like, indeed so one-with, that of those who actually killed Jesus two-thousand years ago; BUT our mourning compels us to tackle our sinfulness; we can hope and must aspire to overcome our sinfulness and thereby transfigure our mourning, by God’s grace.

Looking now, on this Good Friday, at the crucified Jesus, we recognize that, for Him, death was not the end but rather the climax of His life; it was not the loss of all that He had loved, but rather the sublime moment when He was at last able to give supreme expression to the love which had filled His life.  Jesus said, “It is finished”: that is, first of all, He was aware and content that He had completed the task His Father had given Him when sending Him into this world.  What was it that was finished?  Not simply the work of our redemption, because the full fruit of that has still to be gathered in over the ages by His disciples working in the power of His Spirit in the Church and in the world.  What then was already fully and finally finished as Jesus breathed His last?

It was Jesus’ constant and ever-more-consuming desire to give Himself entirely to the Father in His earthly life; to give true and full expression -- as much as the limits of His human body would allow Him -- to the consuming love He had for His Father (Luke 12:50):

            I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 

Our Good Friday Jesus was finally able to say, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit” with ineffable peace and joy, before He then deliberately breathing His last.  Life did not just slip listlessly out of His grasp: He wholeheartedly gave over His life in total trust to His Father.  This final and total gift of Himself to the Father was, in that way, the fullest expression He had ever been able to give of the love that filled Him.

For us Catholics and Christians therefore, death may even be supremely desirable, and can and should, most certainly, be hopefully reverenced and humbly embraced, because it offers us also a supreme opportunity to express our love for the Father, our trust in Jesus, our hope in the Spirit.