Second Sunday of Easter Year C 2013

 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 with flesh and bones and with blood cursing through His veins; glorified indeed -- had He had not just entered the room although the doors were closed? -- but 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 in all its various and relevant aspects, I myself could probably explain it.  For the present I will just have to suspend judgement.’  That was not the attitude of Thomas: straightway he leapt from fact to faith when, 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 truth about Jesus and proclaim, My Lord and my God.

There is more to it, however, than simply 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.’

Up till then the Eleven, had been a group of individuals, united indeed by their love of Jesus, but still a more or less ordinary group capable of breaking up and each going their own way as 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.   After that moment those ten apostles in the room with Jesus were no longer ten individuals, friends, all interested in and concerned about Jesus’ end, they had been formed into an enduring unity of unique significance and universal consequence for mankind’s salvation: the CHURCH.  When Thomas originally, and despite what the other Apostles and Mary said, refused to believe until he himself had seen and touched the wounds of Jesus, he knew little or nothing about the Church ... he only knew a group of certain individual friends 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 still better, we have the witness of that Church established by Jesus; and, in her, we are become members of His very own Body empowered and ennobled by His Holy Spirit Who has washed away the sins that would prevent us from truly recognizing, and overcome the frailties that would impede us from fully loving and serving, Jesus. 

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.

Poor Thomas!  On being told of the first apparition of Jesus to the assembled disciples in the gospel he was only an individual human being ... we, on the other hand, are so blessed: being members of the Church, having her witness to the truth and the abiding presence of Jesus her Head, with her sacraments channelling for us and accomodating to us the power of His Spirit.  At that moment, Thomas’ refusal was blunt and absolute – a true 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, an occasion when his touching of Jesus’ wounds prompted and Jesus’ words encouraged him to a total personal commitment of faith towards the Risen Lord he had long loved.

For faith is -- as the Compendium of our Catechism teaches -- the 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 the intellect of a human person who, prompted and encouraged by God, freely 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’ should so manifestly provoke and lead us to such great appreciation of and joy in the Church and the Faith as is ours today!!

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 and betrayed 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 so rapidly that no one can know what time may bring.  One former Christian acquaintance of mine, thus afflicted, could not say, when asked about 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 past, personal, options.  There is no love in-and-through life, just adventitious adaptations to whatever might seem the best available personal option.

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 is so much truth and beauty brought to our attention today – 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, hopes and aspirations! – so much for which time and space cannot supply, but for which sincere gratitude to the God of our Faith, and thanks to Thomas and the apostolic proclamation of our Mother Church, must provide our present comfort and consolation, our abiding hope and longing,  our inspiration and delight in Jesus.  

           

Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Day 2013

The Resurrection of Our Lord (C)

(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, a picture that is both admirable and reassuring.

Let us look at the Gospel first which says much – relatively speaking – about the Apostles Peter and John, and about the appearance, the condition, of the tomb with its remaining contents, along with a passing mention of Mary Magdalen and the previously opened (by whom?) entrance to the tomb.  Of Jesus Himself, however, there is nothing at all apart from the statement that His Body was not to be found in the tomb.  In fact, all that we are told about what might have happened to Jesus is to be deduced from the closing passage:

They did not yet understand the Scripture that He had to rise from the dead.

Now none of that is very surprising 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 or satisfaction of human curiosity.  Let us therefore turn our attention to what we are told, directly, about the Apostles Peter and John (as we presume) and indirectly about holy Mother Church, her Scriptures, and her proclamation of Jesus.

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

They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial 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 ‘other disciple’ (John) being younger than Peter was quicker to the tomb into which he glanced; but, out of respect for Peter, he did not enter until Peter himself had arrived and gone first -- as head of the nascent Church – into the tomb of the Lord and Master Who had purposely chosen him for that role.  John then entered after Peter.

That 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 also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.

Some have picked up, carpingly, on the fact that John is reported to have both ‘seen and believed’, whereas of Peter it is only said that ‘he saw’.  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 while 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, in any way detracts from Peter or disturbs the faithful who remember that John was still a young man who could lean on Jesus’ breast at the Supper, someone whom the Temple guards or Roman soldiers would not in any way have regarded as a possible threat, whereas Peter was well known to have a sword which he had already, not long ago, used in an attempt to defend Jesus.  As a result, the fully adult and manifestly strong and capable Peter was under far greater threat at the trial and thereafter than John. 

When Simon Peter arrived, 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.

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

There, I believe, we have further evidence of the difference between Peter and John, between the humanly, fully mature, man, and the gentle youth John.  John ... the great mystic among the Apostles, and the future author of the supremely spiritual Gospel ... was ‘youthfully’ (not, however, wrongly) impressed by the atmosphere of the tomb and what he saw there: the cloth that had been used -- out of respect for the deceased -- to prevent the bottom jaw from sagging, was carefully rolled up in it’s own place  separate from the other cloths; and it is not outlandish to guess that a young person like John, one with mystic inclinations, might see and appreciate much in that separately-positioned cloth, much that would impress him and stir him to deeply consider and further contemplate the ‘never-to-be-silenced’ aspect of Jesus’ Good News.

Peter, on the other hand, as head of the Church, and already graced for that supremely responsible role, carefully weighed up what he found in the tomb and what he did not find there.  He then went away and recalled 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 went over all these considerations together with what he had seen in the empty tomb, he prayed and prayed -- ever so much – in order to appreciate how all these might fit together into the one whole, and essential, truth about Jesus.

 

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

(Cornelius said) All of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say. (Acts 10:33)

Peter then went on to give his summary of the Good News about Jesus in these few and precise words:

He went about doing good and healing those oppressed by the devil; they put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree; THIS MAN GOD RAISED ON THE THIRD DAY; God granted that He be visible to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with Him after HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD; He commissioned us to preach and testify that He is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead; to Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness through His name.

There, People of God, you can see and appreciate the wonder of Jesus pictured and officially proclaimed by Mother Church through Peter: 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 most sublime expression to divine goodness, love, wisdom, and mercy for the whole of sinful mankind through all the ages.

John, the mystic, the contemplative, learnt and revealed most beautiful and intimate truths of the relationship of sublime love between Jesus and His Father; truths in which one can immerse oneself: not to proudly investigate and criticise, imitate, or grasp for oneself, but, most humbly and gratefully to admire, and hopefully -- of God’s great goodness and gift – thereby to absorb something of the Spirit.

But for the whole picture, in all its majestic embrace of mankind’s needs and possibilities under the Providence of God’s infinite wisdom, goodness and truth ... look to Peter and the proclamation of Mother Church, passed down to us and interpreted, today, by Paul the most providential link between the wisdom of the Old and the revelation of the New Testaments and our own guide -- as Doctor of the Nations -- to the Church’s doctrinal fullness of truth, and the inspired and inspiring channel of her heavenly spirituality:

Brothers and sisters, if then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with Him in glory.

    

             

                       

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Maundy Thursday 2013

Maundy Thursday

In Jewish circles this is a most holy and a most joyful night: it is a night of family feasting in grateful remembrance of God’s wondrous blessings.  It is a family night because the Passover feast was, from the times of Moses, not a Temple feast celebrated according to minute details of public ritual, but a family gathering in the privacy of the home, a celebration with family and friends.

On returning home for this celebration, and after prayer, the head of the family-gathering had to consider himself a prince: decorating his table with the best food and the most acceptable wines: it was his duty to prepare sumptuously according to the measure of his possibilities.   We are told in the Gospels that Jesus reclined at table with His disciples for what we call the Last Supper.  This was prescribed for faithful Jews; they would have been seated for an ordinary meal, but for this special Passover meal they had to eat reclining, stretched out on their left side with head towards the food; it was a symbol of the liberty they were enjoying and celebrating, the liberty God had won for His Chosen People by the wonders He had worked in Egypt and throughout their desert wanderings, whereby He had delivered them from slavery and brought them to freedom in their own land.  They had, indeed, much to be grateful for, and this was the night on which they gave whole-hearted expression to that gratitude in accordance with the Lord’s command.  Each successive generation of faithful Israelites was taught to consider that they themselves had been brought out of Egypt and saved from slavery by the Lord their God; they were not celebrating something that happened in the past to their fathers only; no, they had to realize that they themselves were among those that had been saved.  The sages, the wise men, of Israel, when speaking of this night’s celebration, tell us that when it is celebrated with such dispositions, the God of Israel, the Holy One Himself, leaves His normal, familiar, entourage of angels and of the righteous in the Garden of Eden, and comes this night, to watch with delight the children of Israel here on earth rejoicing in the deliverance He won for them, gratefully singing His praises and loyally observing His commandments.

This was an occasion to which Jesus had really been looking forward, for it would serve as a launching-pad -- so to speak -- for the ultimate deliverance and freedom of God’s People that Jesus was about to win and hand over to His Apostles’ care:

And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. (Luke 22:15)

Thus the Last Supper was no sad occasion for saying “Good-by”, nor should our memorial of it be overshadowed by impending loss and grief.  How on earth could Our Lord have eagerly desired to eat such a sorrowful leave-taking meal with His disciples?  This was, on the contrary, something to be eagerly desired, something towards which His whole life’s work had been leading, something that would express the fulfilment of all His previous efforts and presently-consuming desires for His Father, His disciples, and for us.  This was to be a celebration based on the grateful remembrance of God’s historic goodness indeed, but much more, one looking forward to something memorable beyond measure, for they were now prefiguring and indeed actually setting in motion the ultimate fulfilment of the mission Jesus had been given by His Father, for which Israel had been prepared over many centuries, and for which the nations had been waiting ages long; a fulfilment the disciples had been chosen to serve with their lives, and one that would – drawing them through Calvary to the Resurrection and Gift of the Holy Spirit -- totally transform them into most loving and devoted Apostles of the Risen Lord and  selfless servants of His Church on earth:

I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

This meal was both the symbol of, and the ultimate preparation for, that heavenly banquet that will celebrate by consummating the salvation brought by Jesus: freedom from sin, and membership -- as adopted children and members of Christ -- in the family of God, where all call Him “Father” and share in His eternal blessedness, according to the words:

          Happy are those who are called to His Supper.

That was the blessing the Son had come to bring to a humanity which had long been in darkness, alienated from true happiness and life: a humanity created by God and for God, but deceived by Satan and enchained by sin; a humanity which stirred such compassion in the Father that He sent His only Son to share in and to save the weakness of human flesh by dying sinless and rising again; and in the power of His Resurrection pouring out His Holy Spirit upon those who would believe in His name, the Spirit who would form those disciples in the likeness of their Lord for the glory of the Father.

It was now so near to fulfilment; this was, therefore, no time for sad reminiscences of the past but for ardent aspirations to what was to come: Jesus was indeed to suffer and to die but that was for a divine purpose which would be surely achieved through His human suffering and death and subsequent glorious Resurrection on the third day.

Let us now just look at that suffering and death, which was so close at hand but which, Jesus refused to allow to deter Him:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

It might have seemed that Jesus’ life was to be taken from Him by the superior power of death after having been betrayed by human treachery and condemned by human hatred.  Had that been the case, then indeed, Jesus’ death would have been the supreme tragedy and the Last Supper an occasion for agonizing farewells and deep-felt loss.  That was not what Jesus wanted and was not what Jesus was going to allow, because at this Supper He most deliberately offered His coming crucifixion and death to His Father, resolving to accept it and embrace it out of obedient love and in total commitment.  Neither would His suffering and death be a result of the tragic betrayal that Judas’ action would seem to signify; because that Passion and Death was being dedicated and offered by Jesus now to wipe away the sins and betrayals of men and women of all times.  The whole tenor of tomorrow’s crucifixion was being pre-determined now, at this very meal, by Jesus.  He would die out of obedient and loving zeal for His Father, out of redeeming love for the whole human race, and in accordance with and fulfilment of the wisdom, the beauty, the goodness of divine Providence

At the Passover Meal the Jews celebrated God’s wonders which saved the nation from physical slavery in Egypt; how much more should we, the new People of God, celebrate the wonder of God’s love for us manifested in the gift of His Son to us and for us?  How  much more should we rejoice in the love which Jesus had and has for us; that love which led Him to endure the Cross and to scorn its shame so that He might enable us to have access and attain, in Him, to our heavenly home:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Tonight Jesus rejoices that by dying He is going to destroy death and turn betrayal into faithful love; He rejoices that soon He will meet up, once again, with His disciples in the great joy of a heavenly banquet shared among friends; friends to whom, in the meantime, He is about to bequeath this final liturgy of love with its divine Food along with His confident and consoling request:

Do this in memory of Me.