3rd Sunday of Easter Year B, 2024

 

(Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19; 1 John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48)

The two disciples whom Jesus had overtaken walking towards Emmaus, although their hearts had been burning within them as He opened the Scriptures to them, only finally recognized Him at the breaking of bread during a meal which they had invited Him to share with them.  On their receiving the bread He had blessed, He suddenly disappeared, whereupon they set off back to Jerusalem at once to inform the apostles that very hour.

Those same disciples, having reported their experience to the eleven apostles, and now joined by some others, were all gathered together secretly in that upper room for fear of the Jews, when Jesus appeared again and His first words (2 in Greek, 2 in Mother Church’s Latin version, 3 in our English version) were:

            Peace  to  you !

Those few words express the whole purpose of the Son of God becoming man for us!

However,  they still disbelieved for joy and were marvelling,

Jesus therefore set about proving to them the reality of His presence:

See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

And then He topped that by asking for a snack!!

"Have you anything here to eat?"  They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them.

The reality of His presence being thus settled, Jesus then got down to the main purpose of His presence with them.   First of all, He was not with them as He had been previously:

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.

In other words He was saying, “It is indeed I who am here with you now, but things are not exactly as  they were when I spoke those words to you a few days ago.”  Jesus had then been with them as any man is with his fellows; however, things had now changed – as the disciples well knew -- and Jesus was no longer present to them in that worldly way.

Let us now listen carefully to Him telling them just how different His new presence with them was, and learn just how He would make Himself present to all His future disciples.

First, He took great care to explain His presence in the O.T. Scriptures:

“Everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."  Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

That was  the first part of Jesus’ purpose for coming: to open His disciples’ minds to understand the Scriptures!!

That presence of Jesus in the Scriptures might be called His first mode of presence to His Church after His Resurrection, because it begins with the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms, as Jesus Himself said, ‘Moses wrote about Me’, and that presence will culminate in the soon-to-appear New Testament Scriptures about the historic Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, and the perennial Good News He proclaimed for our salvation.

Nevertheless, the supreme mode of Jesus’ real, Personal, presence for His future Church was made absolutely clear by the report brought by those two disciples who had been talking with the Risen Jesus on their way to Emmaus.  Their hearts and minds had been burning with joy and wonder as He explained the Scriptures, but it was not until the celebration of the Eucharist that they recognized Him:

            They told the Apostles how Jesus was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

That Eucharistic manner of Jesus’ risen-presence -- formally, and most solemnly, instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper with His Apostles -- now confirmed the veracity of the two Emmaus disciples’ report to the fearful Church in Jerusalem.

However, our Gospel reading today confirms the reality of yet another, a third, mode of His presence with-and-for His future Church:  the presence He had foretold with the following words recorded for us by St. Matthew (18:20):

Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them.  

Dear People of God, we can find Jesus, experience His presence, in varying ways: He is always present for us, for our understanding,  in the Old and New Testament Scriptures; He is also spiritually present for those assembled together to hear, learn from, and promote His Gospel; and supremely, He is sacramentally present in His Eucharistic- sacrifice-and-feast for those of faith, and Personally present for those who sacrifice themselves with Him at the Eucharist by their lives of devotion and commitment.

As Peter explained to those who had witnessed his cure of the lame man:

 And His (Jesu’s) Name -- by faith in His name -- has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given this man perfect health, in the presence of  you all.  (Acts 3:16)

Living by ‘faith in His name’ is the supremely authentic way of responding with personal  love to Jesus’ gracious presence in our individual lives, showing itself with a commitment of obedient and public witness to His word, as St. John told us in our second reading:

We know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.

Dear Friends in Christ, by signalling the various modes of His presence to-and-for His believers Jesus was preparing His Church for her great world-wide mission to proclaim:

            Repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name to all the nations.

The early Christians were still very closely bound up with their Jewish brethren in the synagogue; indeed, many still worshipped with them in the Temple and in the synagogue.

However, in our Gospel reading Jesus is preparing His Church for the future and it is essential that her proclamation be recognized as independent of her Jewish origins: those origins are never to be denied but they are not, henceforth, to be racially restrictive or spiritually definitive (Luke 24:47):

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all  nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.

2nd Sunday of Easter Year B, 2024

 

(Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35; 1^st. Letter of John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31)

Jesus said to Thomas, "Have you believed because you have seen Me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.

What precisely was John’s thinking in that passage from today’s Gospel reading?

Having just reported Jesus as saying: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed;’ he then himself added: ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book’.

It would seem that John is saying that he didn’t think it necessary to tell us ‘many other signs’  accomplished by Jesus in the presence His disciples because of Jesus’ words of solemn admonition to Thomas:

            Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,

But, if that is the case, why then, did Jesus perform so many signs?

John appears to be confessing that he, Thomas, and the other original disciples of Jesus, had been too weak in faith during Our Lord’s public ministry, and especially at His apprehension and crucifixion by the religious authorities, because they did not then have that key to a right understanding of the fulness of God’s revelation – Our Blessed Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension -- which is now ours through faith in Mother Church’s proclamation of Jesus.

In his first letter John again emphasizes  the supreme importance of resurrection-faith :

Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world … our faith. (1 John 5:4)

There he re-iterates his Gospel teaching, by saying that whoever is one of those praised by Jesus for believing without ‘seeing’, such a one has overcome the world; and his victory over the world is proved by the fact that he is spiritually alive and strong-in-Jesus without any requirement of worldly evidence.   Indeed, need for worldly corroboration could only signal a weakness in the spiritual life of a true Christian.

Now, why does John so emphatically praise such a faithful response to Jesus’ gospel?  In order to teach all of us just how sublime  is  our Catholic faith!  Because, ultimately, it is God -- the Father Himself -- Who introduces us to such faith, as John alone tells us in his Gospel (6:43-45):

Jesus answered the Jews, "Do not grumble among yourselves.  No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.  And I will raise him up on the last day.  It is written in the prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.

Worldly evidence cannot establish the spiritual realities of our Christian faith, it can only confirm faith’s basic rationality -- for example, we have greater historical testimony for Jesus than for Julius Caesar -- but the faithful, loving, embrace of Jesus’ Gospel can only come as a response to God’s inspiring grace enlightening our mind, moving our heart, guiding and confirming our will.

John is not against us using our natural intelligence to  grow in understanding of the Gospel of Jesus; on the contrary, he expressly tells us that is why he wrote his Gospel:

These (signs) are written that you may believe (that they may help you believe) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

For St. John, the supreme function of the Gospel message is to provoke, awaken and promote our awareness of, our contact with and our response to, God Himself; and that contact, that response, though based essentially on the Gospel message, is not to be limited to or constrained by the written words of the Gospel.   The truth about Jesus, and indeed about God, is broader, wider, goes deeper and higher, is more intimately personal than the inspired but human words of the Gospels; that is why we Catholics accept the Tradition of the Church and acknowledge development in the doctrine of Faith; all, however, on the basis of, and never in contradiction to, the original, Apostolic Gospel proclamation.  And that is also why the Catholic Church has always recognized, revered and delighted in, her authentic saints as shining beacons and inspiring examples of that possibility, open to all her faithful children, of wondrous personal communion with God,  beginning here on earth and leading to its fulfilment through vision, as children of God in Jesus, in our heavenly home.

And so. dear  People of God, we have come to the essential characteristic of our Christian Faith.  It is not simply a faith to be learned, it is not a faith just to be obeyed; it is a faith to be learned, experienced, loved, and lived: not only in the sense of obeying its commands and fighting for its rights, but, above all, as a communion with the Father, in His Incarnate  Son our Lord and Saviour, by God’s great Gift, His most Holy Spirit.   Mother Church today is still called to prepare herself to be inspired by God, not indeed to write or proclaim a new revelation, but to understand yet more fully and appreciate still more deeply the revelation originally and finally given to her by God.

Mother Church is a mystical Church, where truth, rationally elucidated, and emotional awareness born of God’s beauty-perceived, though most gratefully appreciated are also necessarily subjected to the supreme authority of the Apostolic Proclamation, especially the transcendent words of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

All this is contained in those words of our Creed which say: ‘we believe in one, holy, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC Church’.   Those words do not simply state that we believe the Catholic Church to have been founded by Jesus Christ, established on His Apostles, to be guided and preserved by His Spirit; they also mean that it is only in the Catholic Church -- only in her atmosphere, so to speak -- that we are able to breath fully as Christians, fully endowed and empowered to believe aright the fullness of truth  about God and His will for the salvation of mankind.

Whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.   And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.

            The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth.

Oh, you believing Catholics, rejoice in, and be grateful for, the treasure you have been given!  John, the Apostle whom Jesus loved particularly, regards us today, as -- in some measure -- better placed in relation to Jesus than he, John, was in the days of the Lord’s public ministry!!   Because your faith has been given to you at the instigation of the heavenly Father Himself Who has P/personally called you and introduced you to Jesus.  And that faith is being continually nourished and purified -- even to this very day, at this very hour – by the Holy Spirit of Truth and Love, in the womb of Mother Church.

Dear friends in Christ, you who are remnants -- faithful remnants -- of what was Western Christianity, you who are possibly being persecuted and killed, mocked and defamed, in the midst of a society become pagan; you who today are hearing strange things even in Mother Church herself, words and teachings that would try to conform her to modern society, you who remember those words of the Lord  (Matthew. 10:28):  

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna;

To all of you I say, let us all rejoice wholeheartedly in the Lord, for He is risen today, One of us, risen for the glory of the Father and for the salvation of all believers.

Easter Sunday, 2024

 

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

Today’s readings give directly, the Good News of Jesus’ glorious resurrection from the dead; and indirectly, a picture of the Church and her Scriptures that is both admirable and reassuring.

Let us look at the Gospel reading first, which tells us about the Apostles Peter and John, and the appearance of the tomb with its contents, along with a passing mention of Mary Magdalen and the previously opened (by whom??) entrance to the tomb.   However, all that we are told about what might have happened to Jesus is to be deduced from the following few words:

            As yet, they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.

None of that is very surprising, People of God, to us who believe; because we know and appreciate that the Resurrection was a supernatural and transcendentally holy occurrence to serve God’s glory and mankind’s salvation, not an intriguingly mysterious event staged for the titillation of human curiosity.  Let us therefore turn our attention to what we are told directly about the Apostles Peter and (presumably) John, and indirectly about holy Mother Church, her Scriptures, and her proclamation of Jesus.

On hearing from Mary Magdalene about the empty tomb, Peter and the other disciple went to see for themselves:

Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there;  and the cloth that had covered His head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

The order of precedence is important because some have tried to use the following words of the Gospel account to the detriment of Peter:

Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.

They have carpingly picked up on the fact that John is there reported to have seen ‘and believed’, whereas Peter is only said to have seen.  This enhancing of John at Peter’s expense is shown in other ways by those who would say that John showed the greater courage at Jesus’ trial, by going into the High Priest’s house, whereas Peter remained fearfully outside.  And, of course, John – alone of the Apostles – stood by Jesus’ cross on Calvary with Mary.

None of this special pleading, however, detracts from Peter or disturbs the faithful who are well aware that John was a very young man who could lean on Jesus’ chest at the Supper, someone whom the Temple guards or Roman soldiers would not have regarded as a possible threat; Peter, on the other hand, was known to be strong Galilean fisherman who had a sword which he had already used in an attempt to protect Jesus.  As a result, the fully adult and manifestly strong ‘man-of-business’  was under far greater threat at the trial and thereafter, than John.  

There is, I believe, further thought to be given to the difference between Peter and John, between the fully mature man and the gentle youth, John.

Simon Peter came, and went into the tomb.  He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.  Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.

John – who would become the great mystic among the Apostles and author of the supremely spiritual Gospel – was youthfully impressed by the atmosphere of the tomb and what he saw there, especially the cloth -- that had been used out of respect for the deceased to prevent the bottom jaw of Jesus from sagging – which was carefully rolled up in its own place, separate from the other cloths.  Had he, John, ever seen one of those before?  It is not outlandish to guess that, as a youngster with mystic inclinations, John might have seen and appreciated much in that ‘removed and separately-positioned cloth’ which would later stir him to deeply consider the ‘never-to-be-silenced’ aspect of Jesus’ Gospel preaching in his own unique writings

Peter however, who -- as leader of the Apostles -- was also being  graced for that supremely responsible future role to be his, as head of the Church,  carefully weighed up what he found in the tomb.  He then went away, undoubtedly recalling what Jesus had said and done since he had known Him, and what the Jewish Scriptures had foretold about the coming Messiah.   Again and again he would have gone over all these considerations together with what he had seen in the empty tomb, praying so, so much, that he might appreciate how such insights would come together into the one whole, and essential, Apostolic truth about Jesus.

Thanks to our first reading today we have the result of Peter’s thinking and praying,  for there he proclaims the Good News, about Jesus, at the ‘command of God’ and in the name of the Church:

(Cornelius said) We are all here, in the presence of God, to hear all that you (Peter) have been commanded by the Lord. 

Peter then gave his summary of the Good News about Jesus:

He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.  And we are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree. But God raised Him on the third day and caused Him to appear, not to all the people, but to us, who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us   to preach to the people and testify that He is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness of sins through His name.

There, People of God, you can appreciate the wonder of Jesus pictured and proclaimed by Mother Church through Peter, under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit: with the Resurrection of Jesus as the centre-piece --the absolutely essential centre-piece indeed -- but nevertheless, a piece that fits into, and binds together, an even more wonderful and coherent mosaic of divine truth: giving us a sublime presentation of God’s goodness, love, wisdom, and mercy for the whole of sinful mankind through all ages.

John, the contemplative, understood and revealed most beautiful and intimate truths of the relationship of love between Jesus and His Father, truths in which one can immerse ones-self – not to proudly investigate, but – to most humbly and gratefully admire, and hopefully imbibe some of the heavenly honey contained there. For the whole picture, however, in all its majestic embrace of God’s goodness and mankind’s needs and possibilities, look to Peter and the proclamation of Mother Church, passed down to us and interpreted for us today by St. Paul, the most providential link between the wisdom of the Old, and the revelation of the New, Testaments, and our own, special,  guide — as Doctor of the Nations – to a right understanding of the fulness of the Church’s doctrinal truth and heavenly spirituality:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ Is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Good Friday, 2024

 

(Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1 – 19: 42)

Our first reading today began with the words:

            Behold, my servant shall act wisely.

And we are here today to learn from Jesus’ supreme wisdom, how to face up to the end of our days with love and commitment, for, as we were told in the second reading:

In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able save Him from death.

Our faith teaches us that the only wise way to lead one’s life, is, indeed, to “offer up prayers and petitions” with Jesus.  Today, however, lots of people want to just slip out of life easily and comfortably with assisted dying, drugs, or the oblivion of ignorance:

            The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." (Ps. 14:1)

We know, however, because the book of Proverbs assures us (14:16) that:

a fool is reckless and careless;

one who easily and quickly turns to evil ways and actions, actions that are but an outer manifestation of the inner folly of his thinking “There is no God”.  How could it be otherwise, because Scripture (cf. Job 1:8) assures us that only a truly wise person fears the LORD and shuns evil?

Such then is our philosophy of life as disciples of Jesus: to live wisely by seeking what is good, shunning what is evil, and offering up prayers and petitions to God.

However, it does sound somewhat strange when we recall the words of the second reading where it said:

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.

How was He heard?? 

Jesus cried out in His troubles and He was not, it would appear at first glance, heard, because the cup, the chalice, of suffering was not taken away from Him.  Far from it: He was given the most atrocious cup of suffering to drink; that cup loathed and feared above all by even the cruel Romans who were aware and very appreciative of the world’s stock of tortures: Jesus’ cup was the cup, the chalice, the torment, of crucifixion.

But Jesus was wise and He did not let appearances or fear persuade Him that His Father had turned away from Him.  No!  He trusted all the more.  And this is what we have to learn, this is the elixir, the touchstone, of life: God’s wisdom is beyond our scrutiny, but God’s wisdom is infinite love, and is infinitely beautiful.

The Father was leading Jesus along ways He could not fathom, ways that threatened pain and promised darkness to His human eyes, but which were -- in the infinite wisdom of His Father’s plan -- ways of infinite love and unimaginable beauty.  Jesus trusted His Father, and in that He was, as the prophet foretold, infinitely wise.

Now that is indeed a difficult life question for many who merely glance at Christianity and then turn aside; but very that same question leads us who are disciples to the very fount of wisdom, as we were advised in the first reading:

            See (look carefully at, learn from) my servant acting wisely;

because if you learn aright from Him, you too, will, with Him and in Him:

Be raised, lifted up and highly exalted.

We, dear People of God, must learn this lesson from today’s liturgy: no matter how threatening the clouds of difficulty and trial may be in your life, if you are trying to walk according to God’s commandments, then His love will be infallibly enfolding and embracing you.  If you trust God, if you imitate Jesus who trusted His Father totally:

            Father, not my will but yours be done.  Into your hands I commit My spirit

(Luke 23:46) then, it will be the Father’s embrace that leads you on to what He has planned for you, something more beautiful than you could ever imagine:

It is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9)