Fourth Sunday of Eastertide (A)

(Acts 2:14, 36-41; 1^st. Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10)

There was something to be specially noticed with regard to our second reading today, People of God.  At the beginning of the first letter of St. Peter we read:

To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. (NIV)

Those places form part of what we now know as modern Turkey, and touched also upon those mountain areas where the Kurds of today are trying to find a home and a national identity for themselves; and, of course, those Christians to whom Peter was writing were only very recent converts.  Here then Peter was seeking to encourage, strengthen, and to guide the nascent universal Church in the ways of Christ, and I want you to take note how he sets about it:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.   For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.

Such was the way the early Church was built up: Christians were taught and encouraged to face up to the difficulties of their personal situation for the good of the Church and with their eyes firmly fixed on the historic person of Christ Who suffered and died to redeem us from the sin which is in the world and of the world.  In such teaching Peter was being absolutely faithful to Jesus Who said to His disciples:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (Jn.15:19)

This message, still valid centuries later, does not make pleasant hearing in our modern, Western, consumer society, where there are many whose main practical endeavour is to enjoy life in this passing world in a way leaving them with nothing better than a theoretical dedication to anything higher or better, let alone eternal.  These theoretical Christians are, most certainly, not real disciples of Jesus because they are chiefly concerned about being acceptable to those around them; they cannot seriously accept what Jesus says about the world hating them, because they want, first and foremost, to enjoy with their friends what the world has to offer; overcoming the sin of the world together with Jesus is not an attractive proposition.

Perhaps, I can put it another way:  these pseudo-disciples of Jesus accept and appreciate only part of Jesus' life and teaching: they accept the teaching that He died for them and they like to think that He conquered death by rising from the dead.  But there, in fact, they stop.   For His Resurrection in glory means little to them because they cannot appreciate that Jesus’ risen life is the exercise of a heavenly life situated, for the time, on earth, but essentially expressive of and orientated to, heavenly values and realities; and this is because their absorption with the joys and activities, present-day responsibilities and attractive prospects of earthly life is so strong in their mind and heart that heavenly life has no real significance.

And yet, after rising from the dead in glory Jesus did not live an ordinary, normally human, life again here on earth.  He did, indeed, show Himself to the disciples several times on earth, but on all those occasions He appeared  as One Who had ascended, that is, Who was now living at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.  He had risen in order to ascend, because the life in which He rose, the life He offers to share with us, was, is, heavenly life, eternal and glorious.

You are His own special people that you may proclaim the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Those who imagine they can live as good Christians while aiming no higher than earthly happiness are totally unaware of, and indeed at odds with, their Christian baptism:  a bit like those fireworks we call "damp squibs": made to be rockets, they do indeed burn when their match is applied, but they hardly ever lift off into the air, and if they should begin to rise they go up only a fretful few yards before spluttering and plummeting down to ground again, with no further possibility of fulfilling their promise.

Those whom Peter addresses, on the other hand, are Jesus' true disciples, men and women under no illusions that the world can fully satisfy them or that, despite having crucified their Lord, it might in some way come to love them:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Moreover, they also know and wholeheartedly accept that, thanks to Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, they are no longer helpless before the sin of the world.  They rejoice in the conviction that now they can overcome the world in and with Jesus, Who conquered sin and death by rising in the glory of the Holy Spirit, and Who now offers to all who believe in Him and in His saving proclamation of God’s Fatherly love, a share in the personal presence and sustaining power of His own Most Holy Spirit. 

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Therefore, you can see how much the early Christians and the early Church differed from many, probably the majority, of Catholics and Christians today.  It is commonly thought today  that the way to bring people to the Faith is by chatting comfortably around dinner tables; that the faith of young people and of converts can be strengthened by making worship more interesting and less demanding, drawing them into social activities and inviting them to parties.  Of course, these activities can have some helpful part to play at the beginning of Christian life, but they have little or no role in the strengthening of Christ’s faithful to face the trials and difficulties their faith will encounter in the course of real life, when things turn out differently to their expectations and when trials, misunderstandings, and even hostility or persecutions, come, perhaps undeservedly, their way.

Peter was very realistic in his address to the new converts of Asia Minor, and he not only warned them of the difficulties they would have to face, but even said it was their vocation, their calling, not only to suffer in that way but also to triumph over their trials in the strength of Christ:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.   For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

Speaking in this way Peter was preparing and strengthening them, as he does us, for whatever might arise.   As sincere believers in, and disciples of, Jesus, we are conscious of the sin that is not only around us in the world, but also in us ourselves, and we have come to find Jesus where He promised to abide with us, that is, in the Church, come wanting to be healed by Him and to learn from Him.    We know that our healing will be a life-long process, for the Holy Spirit of Jesus must open up our most secret selves so that, penetrating to the core of our being, He might form us in all truth and sincerity in the likeness of Jesus.  God tempers His power to our frailty, and so the Holy Spirit working in us can only change us gradually; moreover, the Spirit, having begun to work His wonders in us, has then to encourage us to commit ourselves to  following His influence and guidance with confidence, trust, courage, and that too is difficult and takes much time, because, naturally, we want to know where we are going and look to encounter signs every now and then that reassure us we are on the right way; we want to walk with others and find comfort and appreciation among our fellows, and so, all too often, we cannot hear or understand, neither will we follow, when the Spirit of Jesus would lead us along a way that is not level, well sign-posted, or well-trodden, by others.  We do indeed love to think of ourselves as unique, but most are usually both slow and reluctant to accept the consequences of such a gift if it entails loneliness or responsibility.

Today therefore, let our Easter rejoicing be both real and truly profitable, let it renew our faith and strengthen our hearts as we listen carefully and trustfully to Jesus' words:

Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.   (John 10:7-10)

Jesus is indeed the Way, the firstborn from the dead; He is the Truth which alone can satisfy and fulfil our deepest longings; He is Life itself unblemished and eternal.  Apart from Him we are, and we can do, nothing; however, with Him and in Him, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Father will raise us up to fullness of life by our sharing with Jesus in divine blessedness. 

Through faith in Jesus, the gate and the door, we have entered into the flock of God, and Jesus like a good shepherd leads His flock to nourishing pasture.  Having conquered the sin of the world, and having been raised -- still in our likeness -- to new and eternal life in the Spirit of Glory, Jesus is able to fulfil what He promised:

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.   My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.  I and My Father are one. (John 10:29-30)

However, we must not interpret life-nourishing "pasture" where Jesus leads His flock in the sense of worldly "green pastures": a pleasing and pleasurable experience of life.  For Jesus' flock, ‘pasture’ means life lived under the guiding and sustaining grace of God, an experience meant to transform us and enable us, resolutely and joyfully, to look forward to a share in the glory, the joy, and the peace of heaven, which transcend anything this world can imagine, let alone offer.

Eastertide is a time of supreme joy for all Christians, but let us learn from Peter who, inspired by the Spirit of Jesus, spoke words of truth that pierce the fog of worldly deceits and our own self-indulgent fancies:

(Peter) testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation."

Therefore our rejoicing today should be for the fact that in the Risen Lord we can now overcome our own sinfulness and the corruption and deceit of the world around us, thanks to His bequest of the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us and offers us strength and light to follow Jesus perseveringly along the way that leads unfailingly and directly to our heavenly and eternal home.

Second Sunday of Easter (A)

(Acts 2:42-47; 1^st. Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31)

My dear brothers and sister in Christ, we are brought together on this day to celebrate the glory of Christ and the goodness of God, and also to rejoice in Mother Church for the hope which her proclamation of the Gospel and bestowal of the Spirit opens up for us.

At the Last Supper Jesus offered His imminent crucifixion and death on our behalf to His Father, saying:

Father, as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world; and for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.  I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.  (Jn. 17:18-20)

You will notice that Jesus was about to sanctify Himself, that is, offer Himself totally to the Father in obedient, sacrificial, love, in order that His disciples -- the Apostles being sent to continue His own mission – might also be sanctified in truth, so that their preaching and living of Jesus’ ‘Good News’ might be acceptable to the Father and might enable those who would subsequently hear and embrace their proclamation to come together into His Church -- chosen from all nations, gathered over all ages -- there to live securely and fruitfully, being gradually guided in the gospel of Jesus by the transfiguring power of His Spirit for the salvation willed by the Father for mankind.

Now, in our Gospel today, we see the beginning of the fulfilment of that prayer:

The 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." When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.  So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."  And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit”.

Here Jesus breathed upon the disciples, the Apostles, as a whole, not individually.  Later on, in the presence of many other disciples and of the Jews, the Holy Spirit would appear as tongues of flame over the head of each one of them, consecrating them for their individual tasks; but here, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them as the original Apostolic College of Mother Church, that she, through them, might take His Gospel to the furthest ends of the earth for the salvation of mankind, as Jesus said In His prayer at the Last Supper:

(Father) now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.  I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.  (John 17:13-17)

People of God, recognize the beauty and the glory of Mother Church; consider, rejoice, and put all your trust in God Who, through the truth of her proclamation and the spiritual power of her sacraments, will bring about our ultimate salvation and glorification in Jesus, to which end Mother Church has indeed been specially endowed with the fullness of Jesus’ Spirit of Truth and Holiness as we hear in St. John’s Gospel (Jn.16:13-15):

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.  All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. 

Moreover, Mother Church has not only been thus wonderfully endowed, she is also sublimely protected by God:

I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one (Jn. 17:15);

as Jesus had earlier promised to Peter:

the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her. (Mt. 16:18)

However, although -- thanks to Jesus’ prayer and His gift of the Holy Spirit -- the devil can never deceive Mother Church into falsifying the Gospel of Jesus, nevertheless, the same devil is always, and ever more ferociously and cunningly, warring against her and her children, as was foretold from the beginning (Gen. 3:14-15):

The LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.   And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel."

The serpent will always be trying to “strike at the heel of the Lord”, that is, to lead individuals into sin, and -- be those involved laity, religious, priests, bishops, or even popes -- about that we should never be scandalized, because it has been foretold and we have been forewarned.  We should, however, pray for those who are thus used by the devil in his attempts against our Lord and His Church; for, although Individuals always can, and sadly sometimes will, fail, the Church as a whole can never fail in her truthful proclamation of the Gospel; for in this, her God-given task, she is – as we have learned -- divinely guided and protected.  That is why today, as we celebrate the Easter glory of Jesus, we also delight in her, in whom and through whom He continues His saving work in our world today.

Finally, we note those other words of Jesus in our Gospel passage:

He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

And here we recognise that Mother Church is not only endowed and protected but that she has also been empowered to fight against the devil, as was also foretold from the beginning:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He (the woman’s Seed) shall bruise your head.

Jesus bruised the serpent’s head by destroying the tyrannical hold sin and death had exercised over mankind; and, in the power of His victory, Mother Church too continues His work through her priests and prelates authoritatively and publically forgiving sin in the world:

If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.

But in addition to such public conflict with sin in the confessional or internal forum, there is also a much wider attack and more bitter fighting being engaged in by all those faithful disciples of Jesus and true children of Mother Church who have not only been freed from the devil’s power and protected from his snares, not only blessed with the fullness of truth in Mother Church, but also realize themselves to have been called and empowered to fight – by their faith and their witness -- against the sin which still remains in us and in the world around us.

Thus, at every level of her being -- prelates, priests and religious; men, women and children; – Mother Church strives to extend her Lord and Saviour’s Kingdom of love and truth throughout all time, over all the world.

My dear people, at this time especially, we should be supremely grateful to God for the gift of the Faith which is ours; and as today we admire Our Lord’s faithfulness unto death on the mission received from His Father, and as we rejoice in His constant love for us and tender solicitude for our well-being, we should pray that, as His disciples, we too -- in Him -- may remain faithful to death in the Faith and fight the good fight for a share in His Resurrection and eternal glory.

How best can we do this?  According to the Scriptures the best way to respond to God’s great goodness to us in Jesus is to praise Him, to thank Him, to obey Him.  

When it is really so easy to respond faithfully to the Father’s call that first led us to Jesus, why do too many imagine that Christian living is a wearisome, unrewarding (at least here on earth)  struggle?  The answer is simple: such people look too little at God’s goodness and mercy (with examples of which the Scriptures are replete) and too much at themselves and their worldly anxieties and desires.  Let us hear again St. Peter writing to encourage those magnificent early Christians who first faced the power of pagan Rome confident in the name of Jesus:

Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, He gave us new birth into a living hope, the hope of an inheritance reserved in heaven for you, which nothing can destroy or spoil or wither.  Because you put your faith in God, you are under the protection of His power, until the salvation now in readiness is revealed at the end of time.  This is cause for great joy, even though for a little while you may have had to suffer trials of many kinds.  Even gold passes through the assayer’s fire, and much more precious than perishable gold is faith which stands the test.  These trials come so that your faith may prove itself worthy of all praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.  You have not seen Him, yet you love Him; and trusting in Him now without seeing Him you are filled with a glorious joy too great for words, while you are reaping the harvest of your faith, that is, salvation for your souls.

May we too walk in their footsteps, with the joy of hope and gratitude to God in our hearts and His praises with our thanksgiving on our lips.    

Easter Sunday (A)

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

On this Easter morning we are gathered to rejoice in the Lord for the glory and beauty of His triumph over sin and death and for the wondrous salvation He has thereby won for us.

If we look back to our origins we can learn there something of the true significance of what, at first glance, would appear to have been the utter degradation and revolting ugliness of Our Lord sufferings and death on Calvary.

God had been wonderfully good to us at our creation: making, forming, us in His own image and likeness, to rule over all that He had made in a way that would give glory to His holy Name and provide for all our needs.   There was, therefore, a close bond of friendship between God and our forebears, Adam and Eve, and God used to walk in the Garden He had prepared for Adam and Eve and hold converse with them:

The Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day called out to the man …

There had been only one restriction to Adam’s total freedom in the garden, and that had been established when God had told him:

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

Notice, People of God, that prohibition was made by God because such fruit would be harmful to Adam … eat of it and you shall surely die … and Adam recognized God’s goodness without difficulty for we learn how God subsequently, having lovingly taken notice of Adam’s situation, decided:

It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him … and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man.   Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman.”

Thus there was indeed joy and closeness between Adam and Eve and God before the Serpent poisoned Eve’s mind by insinuating that God’s command not to eat of the tree of knowledge had been made not out of love for them but out of His own oppressive wilfulness.

Ultimately the true nature of the bond between Adam and God was determined by the issue of obedience, for Adam chose to follow Eve into disobedience to God’s command… and that, People of God, is why Jesus declared so very frequently that He had come among men not to do His own will but the will of Him Who had sent Him:

            My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. (Jn. 4:34)

             I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me.

I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (5:30; 6:38)

Jesus made many more such assertions so that we might surely recognize the root of our human sinfulness.

From the very beginning, there has been no true love for God in man where there was no obedience.  On the other hand, the obedience we show to God should never be cold or automatic, for that would be a betrayal of its true nature … it is essentially a supremely authentic expression of human love for God.

Now, bearing in mind what we have learnt about our origins, let us look for the glory and the beauty of Our Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection brought about on Jerusalem’s mount of ignominy, which was called Calvary.

We were told in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles that:

            They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree.

How wonderfully beautiful!!   The beautiful fruit of God’s good tree in Eden which -- with the Serpent’s deception of sensuous Eve and Adam’s subsequent weak compliance -- had become a stone of stumbling, was totally transformed by Jesus’ obedient self-sacrifice into the death-destroying, life-enhancing, fruit of divine bounty which is offered to us in the Eucharist.

What delight in His Father, what love for us, enabled Jesus to hold His head high throughout those atrocious torments on the Cross?  Of that we are told  in the Psalter from the very beginning:

Blessed is the man (whose) delight is in the law (the command) of the Lord … He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. (Ps. 1:2-3)

·        Later (Ps. 110:5,7) we read:

The Lord is at your right hand (yes, Father, for Jesus is doing what pleases You, suffering for Your glory and our forgiveness) ….…. He will drink from the brook (whose waters signify Your Holy Spirit) by the way; therefore (like the tree planted by streams of water) He shall lift up His head.   

How wonderful!!

            They put such a man to death by hanging Him upon a tree ..

where He was destined – by His Father’s gift -- to become the fruit of salvation, the fruit of Calvary to be received with faith and humble gratitude, not grasped with pride like that of Eden :

Take this, all of you, and eat it, this is My Body which will be given up for you.

           

When the serpent deceived Eve he had promised her that:

When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

And, because he had already secretly poisoned her with pride Eve did not realize that only the goodness of God could sustain the challenge and overcome the threat of evil … and thus being deceived in her folly she became a fitting tool to implicate complacent Adam in her fall.

Our blessed Lord and Saviour, on the other hand, opens our eyes to the full truth of our situation when He offers us the strength of His grace with the call to repent and the warning that only those who humbly believe in Him and in His Father’s goodness are able to receive with profit the full fruit of His sacrifice which is His Holy Spirit.

People of God, today we should rejoice!   Rejoice in God’s infinitely beautiful wisdom that extends throughout all ages and shapes all our destinies; rejoice in His omnipotent and universal might that manifests itself in a love willing to suffer in order to conquer; rejoice in the goodness of Him Who knows no evil and suffers no evil, and Who, in His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Love, and our Saviour and by His Most Holy Spirit, our Light and Life, our Joy and Peace, is so uniquely able to transform all our evils to His greater glory and our eternal salvation.

(Easter 2011)

Fifth 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 that, although Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, had sent Jesus a note telling Him of their brother's serious illness, nevertheless, Jesus had remained where He was for two days, with the result that He only arrived at their home some four days after Lazarus’ body had already been put in the tomb and was then expected to be smelling of corruption.  Jesus had, therefore, 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 an extremely important one, able to balance, so to speak,  both the loss of Lazarus and the grief of Martha and Mary.  Let us therefore try to understand something of the issues Jesus had to face and resolve.

The Jewish people had been prepared over two thousand years to hope, long, and pray, for the coming of their Messiah, and Jesus – the Eternal Word of God born of the Virgin Mary in answer to, and fulfilment of, those prayers -- was having to prepare His disciples for His own forthcoming death. He needed to deepen their hope so that, though He were to die and be physically removed from their presence, nevertheless, they would still be aware of His spiritual closeness to them, able to appreciate His enduring oneness with them from beyond the grave in the glory of His heavenly Father.  It was absolutely essential that they should have such hope in Him beyond death, because, just as Israel of old 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 ever-present help in the building up of God’s Kingdom among men in preparation for His ultimate and glorious return as Lord of all creation and Judge of mankind. If their faith in Jesus were to flower into divine charity, it had to be sustained and nourished by such an imperishable hope preparing them to fittingly receive and embrace the coming of the Holy Spirit; and for that end Jesus behaved as we have heard, in order to instil and root this hope-over-and-beyond-death into the hearts and minds of His disciples.  This work of Jesus -- His apparently gross neglect of dear friends – was, therefore, an essential part of His preparation of His disciples, and indeed Lazarus, Martha, and Mary themselves, for their future proclamation of the Good News of Jesus to the Jewish people and 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 does not simply say that He has power over life and death as the miracle of bringing Lazarus back to life would show.  That power, as I have just said, needed to be shared with and implanted in His future apostles, and therefore He declared:

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

The fact that Jesus deliberately allowed Lazarus to die and his sisters to suffer without comfort from Himself, even though it was His intention to bring Lazarus back to life again when the time was right, must surely tell us something about the question that inevitably troubles many Christians: why is suffering – apparently, at times, both meaningless and purposeless – still so prominent in the lives of good Christian people?

Jesus’ own death was close at hand; had He not prepared His disciples to hope beyond death, they could not have understood His subsequent Resurrection; His Holy Spirit could not, therefore, have been sent into such closed hearts and uncomprehending minds; nor would His Gospel ever have been proclaimed as the Good News for all mankind. 

In fact, though, 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, endures 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.  (Matt 28:20)

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

            I am the resurrection and the life.

Jesus said this because, henceforth, those who would believe in Him, those in whom His Spirit could thereby make His home, as St. Paul said, would never die the death of fallen mankind, because Jesus, dwelling in them through His Spirit, is eternally, both in Himself and for them, the resurrection and the life.  Therefore He went on to say to Martha:

            Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die;

because His eternal, resurrection, life would always be open and responsive to their prayers.

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

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?

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 new, something fresh, something untried, 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  can frequently be found still cherishing their addiction despite the fact that -- with death coming ever closer -- it can afford them neither comfort nor security, still petulantly trying to cling to a power and authority they are far too frail to exercise any longer.   Likewise, those who delight in the flesh never give up hoping for further pleasure no matter how old and ugly they may have become: they still cling to pleasures even though the memory of such things is being gradually smothered by the ever-increasing pains of an approaching, sinful, and culpable 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 continually being made more authentic and more fulfilled as human beings by their faith in Jesus:

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

Yes, People of God, we servants of the Lord, are called to learn from today’s Gospel to root our lives in Christian hope, hope in Him Whose promises are unfailing and eternal.  No matter what the situation may be, hope in the Lord, for He is able and willing to help and to save no matter what our difficulties might be; and if Jesus does 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 seems to delay, as indeed was the case for Martha and Mary on the death of their brother Lazarus, even His apparent absence is for our greater good: He is forming us more and more in His own likeness, so that we  too might -- in Him and with Him – overcome, not only the world and its blandishments, but also Satan together with all His principalities and powers who vaunt themselves over fallen mankind with the threat of death; and so that we too might be able to rejoice ever more fully in His heavenly glory.  For, the death of a true believer in Jesus in whom the Spirit of God has made His home, is not like the anxious, painful, parting, death of the sinner; rather it is filled with hope and joyous expectation which Jesus Himself expressed on hearing of Lazarus' passing away:

            This sleep is not to end in death, but (will be) for the glory of God.

Jesus shared our death, and by His dying He destroyed the dark shroud of suffering and sorrow which enveloped it.  In His rising He 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 whereby 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.

And we can only possess the Spirit if we allow Him to possess us, by allowing 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:

He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe these things? …

then, we 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.  But here on earth we cannot practice charity without confessing faith and cherishing hope, because it is faith that determines Who we love, and it is hope that enables us to persevere and grow in loving with Charity.

            I am the resurrection and the life:

by faith we confess the divinity of Jesus contained in those two words, “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 response to and accordance with the light of that enduring confession and the confidence of that unshakeable hope.

First Sunday of Lent (A)

(Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12, 17-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

In our first reading, the Serpent, speaking to the woman in the Garden of Eden, directly contradicted God’s warning against eating fruit from the forbidden tree:

You will not die.  For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

However, when speaking with Jesus in our Gospel passage, Satan considered it wiser not to openly contradict the words spoken by the Father at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan (Matthew 3:17ss.):

 This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Was He indeed God’s Son?   Satan was hesitant, certainly not out of respect for this possible Son of God, but out of a desire to proceed correctly and prove successful.  Therefore, instead, of directly contradicting what the Father had said, as he had done when speaking with that foolish woman Eve in the beginning, he tried subterfuge and cunning; he endeavoured to communicate something of his own doubt, to insinuate some little seed of distrust, into the mind of this quite ordinary-looking man:

            If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

Jesus’ period of testing in the desert had gone on for a full forty days and nights, and the devil apparently thought that a few carefully chosen words of his at the end of it, when Jesus was human-enough to be showing exhaustion, might cause Him to wonder whether His visionary experience at His baptism by John in the Jordan had been as real as He had first thought.  Satan hoped that Jesus -- having been very much alone for forty days and nights and now feeling very weak from starvation -- might be unable, at this moment, to deal with a nagging suspicion at the back of His mind   It would have, let us say, amused, pleased, Satan hugely if Jesus were to try to secretly satisfy His own slight doubt – a fatal fruit of Satan’s sowing – while at the same time proclaiming Satan to be totally wrong in having himself imagined and expressed such doubt! 

            If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

However, Jesus had no gnawing suspicion of His Father to assuage, nothing to prove to Himself, and He – most certainly -- had no intention whatsoever of giving Satan the satisfaction of receiving an answer to his question: throughout His ministry He would refuse to allow evil spirits to testify concerning Him, and He had no inclination to prove His personal identity to their master now.  And if Satan thought that an opportunity to secretly satisfy His natural hunger might influence Him, Jesus made it supremely clear where He found His true nourishment:

He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' "

Jesus, the Son of God, sent, as Messiah, to save God's People from their servitude to sin, was being tempted as the early Israelites had been when they were crossing the desert towards the Promised Land under the guidance of Yahweh their God and the leadership of Moses their prophet.   On that journey, Israel of old -- sinful children of their sinful mother Eve -- had behaved as she did: feeling the pangs of hunger, they would not trust God and complained bitterly to Moses  that God was planning to kill them in the desert, openly expressing a longing to return to the slavery of Egypt for the food that was plentiful there.  Later on Moses reminded them of their behaviour saying:

Remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.  So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger.   (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)

Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. (Deuteronomy 9:7)

Jesus had shown Himself to be in no way subject to that over-riding solicitude for self which is characteristic of fallen humanity: suffering and trial could not induce Him either to suspect His Father or abuse His gifts.

Therefore, Satan turned his attention from Jesus’ human make-up to His supposedly divine mission, homing in, so speak, on Jesus’ desire to be recognized and accepted as Israel’s Redeemer and Saviour.

Satan had noted Jesus’ reference to the Scriptures and so, continuing his attempt to find out just Who Jesus might be, he took Him to the Holy City, Jerusalem, set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said: ‘Here, on this pinnacle of the world-famous Jewish temple is just the spot to prove yourself and win your people.   Here, you can do something that would resound throughout Israel and be fully in accordance with the Scriptures you quote so lovingly; it would be something whereby the whole Jewish nation could easily recognize that the Lord has chosen and appointed you, therefore:

If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'

Jesus, again unmoved, replied:

            It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'

Thwarted for a second time, Satan showed persistence for he was beginning not only to despise, but also to fear and, indeed, to truly hate this Jesus of Nazareth.  Who was He?  What the hell (a suitable word for Satan!) was He up to?

Today, we, who have as St. Paul says ‘the mind of Christ’, know that Jesus had not come for His own human aggrandisement or satisfaction, nor had He entered upon His divine mission for the well-being of Israel alone: He had been sent by His Father, to save the whole of mankind.  Although Satan knew neither Jesus nor His mission fully, nevertheless, his temptations were diabolically cunning shots in the dark: he seems to have disdainfully thought that any human-being could be tempted successfully, provided that the stakes were high enough.  Therefore he made one further and final attempt to derail Jesus’ mission:

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.

At that moment Satan -- in the fullness of his maniacal pride and ambition --overreached himself, and Jesus, no longer tolerating his presence, responded by a manifestation of His own authority:

Away with you, Satan!

before adding the words of Scripture:

For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'

‘Away with you, Satan!’   Words cannot express the loathing, revulsion, and holy anger of Jesus’ reply … but we can recall that years later, at the very end of His mission (Matt 16:23), He relived once again, and once again rejected with startling vehemence, this desert experience, on the occasion when Peter tried to persuade Him to follow an easier path than that of the Cross:

He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offence to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."            

In these temptations of Jesus in the desert we recall, as I have mentioned, Israel’s trials in the desert of Sinai on the way to the Promised Land, in particular the occasion when Moses told the Israelites:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.  You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him. (Deut. 6:10-14)

Now Jesus sums up, and fulfils, in Himself the history and calling of Israel, the Chosen People; but He also prepares for the future world-wide People of God, the Church that would be His Body and Bride, the Church whose Head and Saviour He would be, and therefore these temptations of Jesus in the desert are for both our instruction and our confirmation as His disciples.

In the first two of these temptations of Jesus Satan starts off with the words, ‘I you are the Son of God’ endeavouring to stir up suspicion of God’s love and providence.  How many Christians, today, succumb to this temptation!  They fall away from God because they begin to doubt that He is with them, they are not sure He is hearing them, they are unaware of His helping, guiding, hand in their lives.  “I don’t feel anything; He makes no sign.  If only I could be conscious of His presence, if He would only answer I would be satisfied.”  In some such way they begin to demand a sign from God to convince themselves of His Providence over them: some turn away from the true Faith and seek refuge in religious sects which provide them with all sorts of pseudo-divine signs; others try to stir up signs for themselves by rashly setting aside faith and reasonable behaviour and pushing themselves to become neurotically excited and disturbed.  You will see some of these in popular churches doing all sorts of strange antics or excessive practices.  Many more, however, complaining that God is silent in their lives, fall away from the Faith, and, as it were returning to Egypt’s slavery, turn aside to enjoy the pagan life-style of the surrounding peoples, trying to forget their worries and cares, and even their conscience, in a maelstrom of worldly endeavours, comforts, and distractions.  Let us learn from Jesus, People of God, starving after 40 days and nights in the desert: He would in no way make demands of God, nor would He divert His divine calling or abuse His divine gifts in order to get earthly satisfactions for Himself; above all He would never love Himself so much as to entertain suspicion of His Father:

The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.  (John 8:29)

Finally, in the third temptation, notice that Satan does not begin with the words, ‘If you are the Son of God’ because this time at issue is the supreme sin of human, devilish, pride.  Here we have the situation of those who do indeed set out to do the work of God but allow themselves to be tempted to accept just a little help (that is, initially, just a little help) from the devil: they carry on, apparently seeking to do God's purposes indeed, but for reasons other than God alone.  Often enough they allow themselves to become discouraged under difficulties or fearful in the face of opposition; then they resort to making just a few slight compromises and  some minimal accommodations acceptable to popular tastes, all done with the aim of recording success where previously there had only been apparent failure.  Thenceforth, all the high aims and loving purposes avowedly pursued are increasingly subject to their desire for results, good results, successful results, above all, acceptable results.  The ultimate end for such victims of the devil's deceits is that, far from serving God’s plans and the true good of their fellows they serve, they end up promoting, first and foremost, their own hypocrisy; and, far from worshipping God as they started out, they end up worshipping the devil in his very best clothes!  They worship him who will give them humanly appreciable and acceptable success in the work they do apparently for God; they worship him who will enable them to taste the general approval and personal self-satisfaction that comes from wearing easily recognizable tokens of pseudo-holiness!   They both despise and fear the humility, the waiting, the trusting, the hoping, the praying, involved in worshipping God alone. 

The variety of humanity’s life experience and the vagaries of its response to such experience are multiform; and though sometimes, and indeed far too often, they show all too clearly its fallen condition, nevertheless our evangelist would have us never forget that the basic, God-given and God-orientated, aspirations and  possibilities of our human nature are sublime, for when Jesus had successfully overcome His trial on our behalf:

            The devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

 

9^th Sunday, year (A)

(Deuteronomy 11:18, 26-28, 32; Romans 3:21-25, 28; Matthew 7:21-27)

What is involved in being a disciple of Jesus?  What rules govern a disciple’s behaviour?  Are there certain actions, certain conventions which, belonging to such discipleship, are characteristic of Christians?

In our society today there are not only many politicians but also many ordinary people who feel themselves obliged to use language that is politically correct – as distinct from what is sincere and true – and to show forth convictions that are publicly acceptable – whatever their moral integrity -- and who, in such ways, find themselves regularly performing before other people rather than living before God.  Such persons, if they like to call themselves Catholics and Christians, seek to do both what is acceptable to people in the surrounding society and what is good before God; and consequently, they find themselves torn between the demands of modern society and the requirements of Jesus’ teaching.  Ideally in fact, they would like to have a written law somewhat similar to the Jewish Law of old: a code which -- though remaining literally prescriptive -- could always be authoritatively interpreted and adapted in ways that would claim to keep it relevant in, applicable to, and sufficient for, succeeding ages.  There can be no denying that it must have been very comforting for the Pharisees to obey their own interpretation of ancient, lapidary, commands, such as we heard Moses give in the first reading:

You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul;   and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

However, the great danger with such religious observances is that the prescribed commandments and practices, being written down in black and white, so to speak, and handed down from generation to generation, instead of being recognized as ways to express love of God, as Moses expressly wanted, can become themselves the aim of one's life, displacing God Himself so naturally that His absence is hardly noticed:

If you are careful to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you to do then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. (Deuteronomy 11:22-23)

Now Jesus did, indeed, give us commands because He approved the Ten Commandments of the Old Law, but He summed them up in the one great command:

YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF. (Luke 10:27)

You might say, ‘but that commandment is found in the Old Testament, the Jews knew all about that’, and you would be correct.  However, Jesus took up that commandment of personal love and gave it immeasurably greater prominence, not only in His teaching but even more so in His own Personal attitude and prayer, where communion with, love for, and trust in, His Father transcended all else.

Nor was that all.   For the Jews, the Law was a treasured, concrete, reality, originally given by God to Moses written on tablets of stone, then subsequently protected, preserved, and transmitted as the Torah, written down with loving precision on their Sacred Scrolls, where it was studied ever more diligently and observed ever more minutely … it was before their eyes, in their hands, subject to their appreciation and application.  In fact, the Torah was THEIRS.

God Himself, however, was always of another world: His written-down will was well known, but not His Person, nor His presence.  In such circumstances, Jesus could easily have been regarded as nothing more than a truly remarkable man for Whom God was somewhat more real than He was to other men of His time, and as such He might well have been acceptable to, and even welcomed by, the majority of practicing Jews.   Jesus however destroyed that possibility by destroying the ‘abstractness’ of God, for He not only called Him His ‘dear Father’ so insistently and openly, but above all He taught His disciples that:

            The Father and I are One. (John 10:30)

Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me. (John 14:9-11)

In this Good News of the New Testament, there is the commandment of love as found in the Old dispensation, but it is no longer directed via a written Law to a distant God – unseen, and indeed unseeable, even for Moses -- but rather to One made totally Personal and present; a love offered to the heavenly Father through the human figure of Jesus in Whom the very Person of the Father manifests Himself and makes Himself present to us.  The Jewish way to God was, and is, through observance of the Law’s prescriptions; for the Christian -- Jesus, Son of man and one of us, Son of God, beloved and only-begotten -- is personally, the Way, the Truth and the Life for all who believe in Him and through Him.   Thus love for God can never be supplanted by or transmuted into a fixation on legal observances; the observance of a  written law cannot be the supreme way for, can never bring about, the ultimate fulfilment of our Christian experience of life.  For the Christian life is, from the first instant of our rebirth through faith, a personal response to the Father’s individual call; a personal love for Jesus the only-begotten Son of the Father and Saviour of all mankind; an expectant awareness of and obedience to the Spirit of Jesus, Who -- as the Father’s Promise and Jesus’ Gift -- is leading us to our fulfilment as disciples of Jesus sharing in His glory with all the saints in the eternal kingdom of the Father.

Communion in and with Jesus, by the Spirit, for the Father is the originating purpose and desired fulfilment of all the hopes, prayers, and endeavours, of the true disciple of Jesus and adopted child of the Father.

Of old, the righteousness of God was manifested in the Law He gave to Israel:

What great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? (Deut. 4:8)

In the fullness of time, however, that same righteousness of God came to be fully and finally manifested in all its amplitude and majesty by the Son of God Himself taking human flesh of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Spirit of God; as St. Paul told us in the second reading:

Now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law, … the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.

And we Christians, being made righteous by receiving -- through faith and baptism -- a share in the fullness of God's righteousness manifested in Christ Jesus, are called to fulfil only one commandment, that of love, for, as St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans:

            Love is the fulfilment of the Law.

And this commandment concerns not something to be done, so much as Someone to be sought, the Father; Someone to be lovingly obeyed, Jesus our Saviour; Someone to be joyfully heard and followed, the Holy Spirit.  We should always personally seek the Person, the Face, of the Father, for it is the Father Who originally calls each and every one of us and awaits our response: He calls us to recognise and embrace Jesus His Son, our Saviour and our Brother, so that Jesus Himself might be our constant companion along the way; to trust and obey His promised Gift of the Spirit -- the bond of eternal love uniting the Father and the Son – Who will lead us to where Jesus has taken our human flesh into the very presence of the Father.  For those thus called by the Father and guided by the Spirit to share in the glory of their Lord and Saviour St. Paul says:

Against such there is no law.  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.  (Galatians 5:23-25)

In Jesus, by the Spirit, therefore, we are always seeking the Father, to know His will, to give Him thanks and praise, as Jesus said in our Gospel reading:

Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

On earth we are always pilgrims: always loving yet always longing; always looking upward and pressing forward, yet never having arrived, though knowing the time will surely come.

On the other hand, those who rely on their own performance of a law with specific commands and duties to be fulfilled, look back ever more and more as they grow older, wanting to justify their inevitably increasing weakness by relying upon what they proudly imagine themselves to have already done.  Our Lord gave us an example of such self-deception:

Many will say to Me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

People of God, perseverance in searching to know and love not only the will but the very Person of the Father, trusting hopefully in Jesus as we confidently watch and listen for His guiding Spirit,  that is the true hallmark of God's people, as St. Paul himself confessed:

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you (Philippians 3:12-15).