The life giving force of the Resurrection can only be grasped by those whose hearts are open

Posted on April 4th 2010 in Weekly messages

It is difficult now, as it was for the women and the apostles who ran to the tomb on that first Easter Sunday morning, to grasp the extra-ordinary quality of the Resurrection. Difficult for them and for us, although not for the same reasons. Two thousand years later the Resurrection can be shrunk to the inevitable outcome to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. It is what the Church celebrates on Easter Sunday and every Sunday. Indeed, the Liturgy of the Word during the Easter Vigil gives the impression that the whole of salvation history is a seamless whole.

Little made sense that first Easter morning. The women who, according to St Luke, remembered the words spoken by Jesus about the necessity of His death and rising from the dead, did not make the connection that would lead to an outpouring of faith. They like St Peter remained only amazed. The account of the first Easter morning in St John’s Gospel follows much the same pattern. Mary of Magdala believed someone else has moved the stone and had taken the body away.  All were unprepared for the Resurrection. The evidence of the cloths inside the tomb being neatly folded failed to arouse their imagination. What was true for them on that first morning, an inability to grasp both the reality and meaning of the Resurrection, has become for our generation a world weariness that doubts the possibility of the Resurrection and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The life giving power of the Resurrection looks lost in the violence and alienation of the world, because the personal dimension has been replaced by that of an impersonal force. 

The beloved disciple of Jesus demonstrates the way each of us, all these years later, can grasp the power of His Resurrection, and allow the Holy Spirit to dwell within our hearts. When this disciple entered the tomb, ‘he saw and he believed’, because of his love for Jesus. His mind and heart were opened to what Jesus, as the Christ and the Son of God, could be possible of achieving. He let the facts of the situation interpret the Scriptures, rather than the other way around. The fact of the Resurrection confirmed and completed Jesus’ personal commitment to love to the end, demonstrated in the foot washing (Mass of the Last Supper), and His intention to glorify the Father through His Passion and Death (Good Friday). The key to understanding all three key liturgical elements of the Triduum is the depth and quality of Jesus’ love. This was not through the blind force of necessity but freely given. Just as freely given love cannot be imposed, the Resurrection can only be grasped, as a life giving force, by those whose hearts are open and not by those weighed down by cynicism about the world and the human condition. The inspired insight of St John was to connect the Foot Washing, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as one continuous action of glorification which started at the level of lowliest service, and finished by incorporating the believer into the same movement through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The ability to discover the power of the Resurrection, the triumph over sin and death, becomes possible only by returning to a life of service as exemplified by the metaphorical ‘washing of the feet’ that is consciously undertaken by the believer and the Church as a whole. This life of service needs purification lest it becomes modelled in our own image, and hence the teaching of the Church and the life of prayer are necessary elements for genuine service. These three elements which mark our Lenten journey now gain solidity and permanence through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the active power of the Resurrection.

The First week (1:19-51) The fourth day, further disciples are gathered (1:43-51)

Posted on March 28th 2010 in St. John's Gospel

The sequence of four days will ultimately make sense with the miracle at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus will change the water into wine. This will take place three days later when, on the seventh day and, as a conscious reminder of the seventh day of creation, all was completed and God rested. Before then Jesus must collect His nascent ‘Church’, the body of disciples. These early days of the First Week show a gradual deepening of faith, from believing Jesus to be the Messiah to the Son of God. At the same time, the transfer of disciples from John the Baptist to Jesus takes place, as John’s work of witness has now been completed.

On this fourth day, Jesus calls Philip who acts as a conduit to Nathanael. Every call is the initiative of Jesus, though Philip expresses this encounter as finding the Messiah. This shows the double-sided nature of faith, of divine initiative and human searching. The conversation between the two of them reveals that Jesus is the true conduit to God. He compares Himself to the Ladder that Jacob saw in his dream and who the following morning says. ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’ (Gen 28:17). Jesus is the house of God, and the gate of heaven, and both these images will be used later in the Gospel to describe His mission and the kingdom of heaven. The disciples’ faith is still weak and remains within the expectations of the Old Testament. This faith does not match the statements of faith found in the Prologue. Even so they will see greater things, ultimately the exaltation of Jesus upon the Cross and receive the Holy Spirit. Until then their faith remains partial, and so throughout the Gospel Jesus always takes the initiative with regard to faith.

The three days before the miracle at Cana on the seventh day is the time Jesus will spend travelling from Galilee to Cana.

St Luke’s account of the Passion reveals the true qualities needed for Christian leadership

Posted on March 28th 2010 in Weekly messages

This year the Church reads the Passion narrative according to St Luke on Palm Sunday. All four Passion accounts are similar but each Evangelist gives a unique perspective on the narrative. St Luke’s account gives extra emphasis to encouraging the Twelve, particularly Peter, at the Last Supper; he includes the conversation with the two thieves on the Cross, and Jesus’ lament for the women of Jerusalem. All three aspects may shed some light on the current crisis affecting the Church over the issue of child abuse by members of the clergy, and the subsequent cover-up by those in authority which is now touching the Papacy.

The first of these insights, of Jesus’ encouragement to His apostles, is shared by St Matthew and St Mark, but only St Luke records the conversation between Jesus and the Apostles after the Last Supper. Jesus tells them that He is praying for them, and that they will not succumb to temptation despite Satan’s wiles. This divine oversight to the ministry of every Christian, and particularly every member of the clergy, should foster the courage necessary to speak and live the truth of faith, and not to be frightened from undertaking the right course of action, however unpopular or unfashionable it might be at that moment. This divine oversight is never an excuse to hide behind convention, internal bureaucratic procedures or personal convenience. These abnegations of personal responsibility do not sit well with Christ’s command to serve and His assurance of His active presence in our lives. They are a worse stain on the Church than civil society since the Church emphasises the intimate connection between the service to the truth and the virtue of humility.

This connection may be seen in second insight of St Luke, the conversation between Jesus and the two thieves. One demands to be saved by Jesus, while the other recognises the innocence of Jesus in comparison to himself. The so-called ‘Good Thief’ is essentially an honest man with regard to himself, though in matters of lifestyle was not. His truthfulness is matched by humility in virtue of his conduct. This allows him, and by implication ourselves, to seek forgiveness through having the ability to vocalise this request.

The third contribution concerns the role of the women of Jerusalem who accompany Jesus on His way of the Cross. They represent all those who recognise the plight of the victim. They, like the Good Thief, grasped the innocence of Jesus. They saw that He was the victim of religious and political injustice, and though they could not affect the outcome walked alongside Him in an act of solidarity. This solidarity would become the cornerstone to the witness of the Resurrection and the reality of the Empty Tomb. Had those women not cared or recognised the innocence of Jesus, they would not have acted in that way, nor would they have been commended by Jesus. His resting place would not have been witnessed by so many. Their return to the same place, after observing the Sabbath, would have been open to serious doubt.

This last quality of identifying with the voice of the victim seems in such short supply in contemporary society, both within and without the Church. This voice is rarely treated with respect. For many years the voices of those abused were hushed up, brushed to one side, and too often the perpetrators moved elsewhere within the Church. Today the voices of the victims of rape, forced abortion, war, and violence meet a similar fate. Perhaps the horror is too much to contemplate, and it makes life easier to push these voices to the margins of our conscience. This should not be the path of the Church either institutionally or individually, because like the voice of Christ, the victim will be heard by someone at some point, and those who failed to listen the first time will be identified for the people that they are, failed witnesses to justice and truth.