Bread Broken, Wine Shared
In June we celebrate three important solemnities – Pentecost; Holy Trinity; and the Body and Blood of Christ. These solemnities held on three consecutive Sundays form a kind of triptych drawing our attention to those central mysteries of our faith. The first solemnity helps us see the Holy Spirit at work in the Church; the second focusses on the Triune God whose Source is the Father; and the third highlights the Son’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. These solemnities are all so rich in meaning that if we only stop to understand their significance, our faith can easily take on a deeper reality.
Today’s Solemnity, which used to be called Corpus Christi (Latin for ‘the Body of Christ’), is now known as the Body and Blood of Christ, more in keeping with the Eucharistic theology. Really speaking, the solemnity falls on a Thursday after that of the Holy Trinity; but, in India, both solemnities have been moved to the Sunday following, to enable a more worthy celebration. Similarly, the shadow of the Cross falling on the liturgy left little scope to celebrate the institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday. Hence, way back in the 13th century, the Church found it appropriate to bathe the solemnity in the paschal joy.
It is common knowledge that the fateful Thursday that marked Jesus’ final Passover comprised a meal to mark the Jewish thanksgiving to God for delivering the people from slavery in Egypt. That meal, now known as the Last Supper, instantly assumed a new meaning when Jesus proclaimed a new commandment of Love; instituted the Priesthood; and established the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. Thus, over and above the thanksgiving, the Eucharist involves our participation in Jesus’ eternal Priesthood and a re-enactment of His Sacrifice on Calvary.
The multifarious connotations of the Eucharist are reflected in the day’s readings. In the First Reading (Gen 14: 18-20), we meet a mysterious figure, Melchizedek, king of Salem (presumed to be Jerusalem) and priest of God Most High, on his way to bless Abraham who was returning from a just war. In his thanksgiving to God, Melchizedek offers bread and wine, a common food and drink for the Jews. Christian tradition sees Melchizedek as prefiguring Jesus, who is Priest, Prophet and King; and his offering, in the mould of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
The Second Reading (1 Cor 11: 23-26) refers to the Eucharist instituted by our Lord. St Paul’s writing of circa A. D. 55 predates the Gospels and is the oldest testimony relating to the Last Supper. Jesus breaks the bread, symbolising His Body, and raises the Cup, symbolising His Blood. He does this for us in love beyond compare and bids us to repeat it as a memorial. So, there is an ineffable union with Jesus Who is present at every Eucharistic celebration.
Finally, St Luke’s Gospel (9: 11-17) talks about the remarkable meal that fed five thousand who had gathered to listen to Jesus. This is evocative of two passages from the Old Testament: the feeding of the Israelites in the desert and of Elisha’s feeding a hundred people with twenty loaves. They herald the Eucharist as food and medicine for the body and soul.
A deeper reality underlies the Holy Eucharist: the miracle of Transubstantiation. When the priest consecrates the bread and wine, ‘there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1376) The species do not change in appearance but turn into the very essence, reality and matter of the Lord’s Body and Blood. It is the Lord’s Real Presence – dwelt on by the encyclical Mysterium fidei.
The Eucharist is indeed a ‘mystery of faith’. St Thomas of Aquinas states that this ‘Sacrament of sacraments’ (CCC 1330) ‘cannot be apprehended by the senses but only by faith. Before him, St Cyril of Alexandria advised: ‘Do not doubt that this is true; instead accept the words of the Saviour in faith; for since He is truth, He cannot tell a lie.’ (cf. CCC, 18) To those who seem unconvinced, the ‘Eucharistic Miracles’ are most likely to provide satisfactory proofs (cf. Eucharistic Miracles and Eucharistic Phenomena in the Lives of Saints, by Joan Carroll Cruz)
As we take a leap of faith and humbly surrender ourselves, the Lord of the Eucharist will reveal Himself to us sooner rather than later. The Eucharist, so rich in symbolism, will bring meaning to our lives. And as we gradually enter into full communion with Him and open ourselves to His Mystery, God will protect the sacred mystery of our lives. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI in his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, ‘It is through the working of the Spirit that Christ himself continues to be present and active in his Church, starting with her vital centre which is the Eucharist.’ That's a wonderful lesson from June’s Mystery triptych!
Discovery of God
On Pentecost Sunday, we gladly encountered the Holy Spirit. Now it is only natural that the Most Holy Trinity should be in full view. This is the Solemnity we celebrate today.
It may come as a surprise to many that it is not the Incarnation, nor even the Resurrection, but the Holy Trinity that is Christianity’s central mystery, from which flow all the other mysteries of our faith. It is a mystery that has existed since the beginning of times but has unfolded only gradually.
For instance, the Old Testament has references to the Three Persons but stops short of stating a Trinitarian doctrine. In the New Testament, Jesus pointed to His Father who loves us and desires our salvation; He presented Himself, the Son, as the Way, the Truth and the Life; and, before His departure from the world, He announced that the Holy Spirit would reside in our souls as a Guest. Yet, a doctrine of the Triune God was far from clear and remains to date just that: a mystery, a belief beyond our ability to understand unless God bares it to us.
None can deny, however, that the Trinity has been progressively revealed to humankind down the ages. It was not disclosed all at once, not only because of the finiteness of human minds, but because God patiently waits for us to exercise our freedom and come forward to learn about the intimate life of God. It is never an imposition; it is rather an invitation to establish personal ties with the three divine Persons.
That is what happened after Jesus. The early Christians felt it necessary to decode the Risen Lord’s instruction to make disciples of all nations, baptising them ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. They also pondered St Paul’s blessing – ‘The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all’ – now recited in the introductory rites of the Holy Mass. By and by, Biblical references to Father, Son and Spirit were put together as a cohesive doctrine.
In spite of all that welcome research, the Holy Trinity remains the most difficult theme of our faith. Today’s readings bear it out: they give only a glimpse, not a precise understanding of the mystery. In the First Reading (Prov 8:22-31), we hear Wisdom rather than God the Father speak. Anyway, God – who has defined Himself as ‘I am who I am’ – is Himself Wisdom, and is it not more graceful to be introduced by another than to introduce oneself? So, it is age-old Wisdom presenting the Eternal Father to us. Most importantly, we learn how He is not a distant God but One who delights in communicating with humankind.
In the Second Reading (Rom 5:1-5), St Paul talks of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who gives us peace that no other can give. He also refers to the Father in whose glory we can hope to share by the merits of His Son’s Death. However, this supreme sacrifice has not eliminated human suffering from the face of the earth. The Apostle of the Gentiles urges us, therefore, to rejoice, for indeed, suffering produces endurance, character, and finally the hope of receiving a priceless grace: total communion with God.
In the Gospel (Jn 16:12-15), Jesus introduces to us the Holy Spirit, to whom He has entrusted the continuation of His mission till the end of times. The Son of God says, ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now’; He leaves it to the Spirit of Truth to make things clear to those who yearn for the truth. And, whereas many things may forever remain a mystery, it behoves us to keep exploring that which has been revealed. At any rate, we who are created in the image and likeness of God have an infused knowledge and intuitively commune with the divine Family of Three.
What is the significance of today’s Solemnity? It reinforces our understanding of the Trinity. Our baptismal entry into this divine community deepens every time we gather around the Eucharistic Table. Today’s Liturgy is set to make us passionate about discovering our God. Our God is not a solitary Being lost in the dark and infinite space but a communitarian God of life and love, a model for the human family.
No minds however great and no words however eloquent will adequately express this most complex of all Christian concepts and doctrines. The most popular story illustrating this fact is taken from thirteenth century Italian Dominican Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea. Accordingly, St Augustine was walking by the shore, meditating on the problem of how God could be three Persons all at once, when he notices a little child scooping water from the sea into a small hole he had dug in the sand. When asked what he was doing, the child answered: ‘I’m emptying the sea into this hole.’ ‘What! The sea is too large for the hole,’ retorted Augustine. And pat came the child’s reply: ‘Indeed. But it is easier for me to empty the sea into this hole than it is for you to grasp the mystery of the Holy Trinity.’
At the time, St Augustine was working on De Trinitate which, quite suggestively, he was unable to complete to his heart’s content. But even though his treatise on the inscrutable mystery remained unfinished he did not give up his discovery of our many-splendored G od. Shouldn’t we take a leaf out of his book?
Ecstatic and fiery at Pentecost
After the Ascent came the Descent. Jesus ascended to the Father on the fortieth day after Easter; ten days later He sent forth His Spirit upon the Apostles, Mary, and other followers of Jesus, about 120 of them who had huddled up at the Cenacle in Jerusalem, for fear of the Jews. They had been continually praying for nine days since the Ascension. (Note that this marvellous event led to the idea of a novena as days of prayer leading up to a feast; and, in particular, the Novena to the Holy Spirit in the run-up to the Pentecost).
How delightful it must have been! That morning, God had timed the descent of the Holy Spirit to coincide with Shavuoth (Acts 2:1–31), which traditionally heralded the wheat harvest. In time, Shavuoth came to mean the seven weeks since the Passover; it was finally replaced by ‘Pentecost’ (from the Greek word pentēkostē, “50th”), which comprises the dramatic arrival of the Holy Spirit, as noted in the First Reading (Acts 2: 1-11). A sound from Heaven, like the rush of a mighty wind, filled all the house. Interestingly, spirit means both ‘breath’ and ‘wind’ in the Hebrew culture!
Even more striking were the tongues ‘as of fire’ that came to rest on each one of those Galilean disciples. Thus ‘ignited’, they began to speak in foreign lingoes, to the bewilderment of the motley crowd from every nation under the sun, who had gathered there on the occasion of the Jewish festival. That is the miracle of Pentecost, which indicates that God wishes to be followed and praised by people from every land and clime – unlike Jewish converts of old who had to promptly renounce their native language and culture.
The Second Reading (Cor 12: 3-7, 12-13) speaks of how the disciples built the Church. As St Paul says, ‘To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good... For by one Spirit we were all baptised into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.’ That is to say, Christians contribute their time and talent for the benefit of the community.
In the day’s Gospel (Jn 20: 19-23), the Holy Spirit gives the apostles gifts and fruits necessary to fulfil the great commission of going out, preaching the Good News of Salvation and being the light to all nations. The power to forgive sins is the greatest gift to the Church, which is never free from sinners.
The Church thus built is the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’, mystical because, in Fulton Sheen’s words, ‘this Body is not physical like a man, nor moral like a bridge club, but heavenly and spiritual because of the Spirit which made it one.’ That it is ‘Christ’s prolonged Self’ can be proved from the Voice from Heaven that said, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘When the Body of Christ was persecuted, it was Christ the Invisible Head Who arose to speak and to protest,’ writes Sheen in his Life of Christ.
Can there be any doubt that the Church born at Pentecost is the Church we belong to? She enjoys four distinctive marks of life: unity; catholicity; holiness; and apostolicity. The Church is animated by one Spirit; she absorbs and redeems humanity without distinction of race or colour; she is holy as a whole, even if her individual members are diseased; she is apostolic, because she took roots in Christ and her ministry derived from the apostles by a continuous succession.
The deeper significance of Pentecost is that Jesus, who once ‘emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men’, thereby received His fullness and was glorified. He now lives, teaches, governs and sanctifies us, better than He did in Judea and Galilee – for, as Son of God seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, He can reach out to the whole world better than He could when He walked the earth as Son of Man.
Pentecost was an important event in the history of the primitive church and continues to be so in our own times too. After Peter had preached his first homily to the Jews and others, showing how Joel had prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit, about 3,000 people, cut to the heart by the Crucifixion and enthused by the Resurrection of Our Lord, asked for baptism. Within a few decades important congregations were established in major cities of the Roman Empire. It is not difficult to understand how, centuries ago, our own ancestors, attracted by the Mystical Body, the Bride of Christ, converted to the Christian faith.
The stronger our adherence to the Church, the quicker will be the spread of Christianity in our day and age. Can we imagine ourselves being born outside the Church? No. Let us therefore honour the glorious birthday of the official Church. It is a gentle movement of hearts that still brings together people formerly separated by languages, cultures, races and nations, and will culminate in the Second Coming of Christ. Let’s commit ourselves to putting our lamps on a high stand such that it shines upon all that are in the house. Reaching out to people from the seven corners of the globe is a continual challenge. Let’s be ablaze with love of God and neighbour, and pray, ‘Send us, O Lord, your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth!’
The Promise of Ascension
A solemnity and holy day of obligation like the Ascension rightly arouses the curiosity of every believer. The ascent of Jesus Christ body and soul into Heaven, from Mount Olivet, near Jerusalem, on the fortieth day after Easter, was no mean occurrence. Obviously, the why and how of it are hugely more intriguing than the what and where, and eminently worthy of inquiry.
The life of Jesus was a string of sacred mysteries. The Incarnation was the first and the Ascension, the last of them all. The latter was immediately preceded by and intimately related to the Resurrection. It marked the ultimate exaltation and glorification of Jesus by the Father in Heaven, who, (humanly speaking) seating Him at His right hand, made Him the centre of the world history and controller of all earthly and celestial dominions.
How did the Ascension of Jesus occur? Jesus led his disciples to the Mount, and soon after He had addressed them, raised His hands and blessed them, ‘he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight.’ How did the disciples react? They did him homage, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and stayed in the temple praising God. While Jesus’ A
scension was similar to that of Elijah, Jewish tradition also points to the ascension of Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah.
However, who can deny that in our day and age the Ascension seems truly fantastic and begs an explanation! How are we to understand something that defies the laws of gravity? Well, for starters, it was a happening that the eleven disciples witnessed and the Evangelists have recorded. Besides, it is not any more difficult to accept the mystery of the Ascension than that of the Resurrection. After all, it is God who has made the natural laws; He can also tweak them to assert His supremacy and get around His children to acknowledge it.
But that is by no means the only reason why God deemed it fit to realise the Ascension. After Jesus had credibly upheld His claim of rebuilding the ‘Temple’ in three days, He lived amidst His disciples for forty days (important Biblical figure, denoting a new, enlivening period) giving ample proof that the Son of God was alive. However, that he was asked by the disciples, very prosaically indeed, if He had returned to restore the kingdom to Israel was ample proof that the disciples had not understood the Lord’s mission on earth!
Hence, Jesus undertook to re-educate the disciples about the kingdom of God. Would He succeed in doing in forty days what He had failed to accomplish through his three-year ministry? It may be noted that the quarantena only meant an orientation on how to continue the evangelising mission. Jesus gave out laws; prepared the structure for His Mystical Body, the Church; and announced the coming of the Holy Spirit to help His disciples carry out His ongoing mission.
But then, why have the Holy Spirit to do something that, in time, Jesus Himself would have accomplished? That is to say, why did He not extend His tenure on earth? For one, that was not why Jesus had come down to earth -- He had not come to stay, so it was proper that He should return to the Father. Secondly, as Son of Man, he would be subject to the natural laws that governed human life, including aging and death. Finally, and most importantly, by returning to Heaven, Jesus could better guide the Church and His faithful people the world over, through the action of the Holy Spirit. Hence, to grasp and understand the importance of the return of Jesus back to Heaven, Paul prays that the “eyes of our heart be enlightened”.
In short, the Ascension marks both the end of Jesus' earthly tenure and the beginning of His deep involvement with His people on earth. He who had come down with trappings of poverty entered into the world of glory and is closer to us than ever before. What is more, His exaltation and glorification are a promise that we too will be exalted and glorified after we have united ourselves to Jesus’ suffering and shown readiness to be part of God’s plan of Salvation.
Note that the Solemnity of the Ascension falls on Thursday, but it is celebrated on the Sunday closest to that day. The First Reading (Acts 1: 1-11) and the Second Reading (Eph 1: 17-23 or Heb 9: 24-28, 10: 19-23) with psalm and acclamation are common for Years A, B and C. The Gospel for this year (Year C) is Lk 24: 46-53.
Strengthened by the Holy Spirit
With the Ascension and Pentecost round the corner, the role of the Holy Spirit has come into sharp focus. Today’s Gospel (Jn 14; 23-29) reminds us that Jesus at the Last Supper had assured His disciples that they would not be orphaned; He would remain for ever in their midst through the Holy Spirit: ‘The Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.’
It is reassuring to have such a Paraclete – Advocate, Helper, Comforter, Intercessor; it is equally heartening that Jesus promises a close relationship with whoever loves Him and keeps His Word. But what does it mean to love Jesus? It means doing the will of His Father. And what is His Father’s will? It comprises all that He has decreed in love and is now found in Church teaching and sacred Tradition.
Amor vincit omnia: love conquers everything. Love is indeed a harbinger of peace – which is priceless when it comes from Jesus! It is a peace ‘not as the world gives’, and so, irreplaceable. The Lord’s peace is not an insurance policy that promises 'peace of mind'; it is rather a state of being that comes about from knowing who we are, why we are here and what is our final destination. It is a peace that comes from having the right priorities: putting God above all people and all things. It is a peace that comes from making God the centre of our lives. One of my favourite hymns says it all: ‘No one can give to me that peace which my Risen Lord, my Risen King, can give.’
It is clear from the First Reading (Acts 15: 1-2, 22-29) that the first Christians depended on the Holy Spirit for guidance, and they practised love and peace. Of course, it was never a smooth ride: despite the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the community witnessed infighting. But what is marvellous is that they resolved their conflicts in love and peace; through consultation, dialogue, consensus.
Consider that thorny issue of whether or not pagans had to go through the rituals of Judaism (e.g. circumcision for male converts) before they embraced Christianity. Paul and Barnabas consulted the Apostles and elders back in Jerusalem. After they had found a feasible solution, at what came to be called the first council of Jerusalem, they were quick to reach out to their brethren in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: they did not impose circumcision upon the catechumens of both Jewish and pagan origin, but they encouraged them, with due reason, to abstain from what was sacrificed to idols; from blood and what was strangled; and from unchastity.
It is obvious that the Apostles and the elders exercised great pastoral care. Later, this model of social, emotional and spiritual support became integral to evangelisation of prospective converts and neo-converts the world over (including Goa, way back in the sixteenth century). The Holy Spirit became an instrument of the Lord’s peace: where there was hatred, he sowed love; where there was injury, pardon; where there was doubt, faith; where there was despair, hope; where there was darkness, light; where there was sadness, joy. After all, peace, love and joy are among the many fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Finally, from the Second Reading (Rev 21: 10-14, 22-23) we understand that with Emmanuel (God with us) and the fruits of the Holy Spirit we come close to Heaven, which is the new and eternal Jerusalem. The angel showed St John a holy city perched on a high mountain. There was no temple in the city: ‘its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb’. There was no more sun and moon: the glory of God was its light, the Lamb its lamp. This is where we all belong; our citizenship lies in Heaven. What a privilege!
Who can deny that our Christian identity is a privilege? But, at the same time, privilege entails responsibility – noblesse oblige! Thus, we are called to be temples of the Holy Spirit, the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We are called to pray for peace in our personal lives and in the world. As a spiritual exercise, it would also be a good idea to identify places that are in need of liberation from the scourge of sin and evil; and when we exchange a sign of peace at Mass, dearly wish that the peace of Jesus be always present in our hearts and minds. To crown it all, let us make the eternal city the goal of our earthly pilgrimage, with the Holy Spirit as our Guide.
Doing everything in love
Why would a Francis Xavier or a Joseph Vaz travel as far as they did, renouncing every comfort and honour? Despite the distance of time, their life journey, or even that of a missionary in contemporary India, is so evocative of the efforts put in by the early church leaders. At that time, there were no appropriate church buildings, trained clergymen, schools, parishes, or even literature. The New Testament had still not been put together, so, the apostles had to draw lessons from the Jewish books, discover in them a sign of Christ, and teach accordingly. The untiring apostles would be on their beat, nurturing the communities that they had set up in love.
In the First Reading (Acts 14: 20-26), Paul and Barnabas travelled far and wide, strategized, and most importantly, persevered. They kept in touch with the neo-converts, either by meeting or writing to them; they prayed intensely and planned carefully; they appointed leaders (the future church hierarchy), exchanged views, and exhorted everyone to keep the faith even in the face of trials and tribulations. This Sunday marks their return journey from the last mission station (Derbe). Francis Xavier did likewise in Goa, in South India and in the Far East; Joseph Vaz in Goa, Kanara and Sri Lanka; and even today every missionary treads a tough path in the service of our Lord and Saviour.
Unlike the past, today we are blessed with print and digital technology, especially our cell phones and social media; we have speedy transport systems, vast bodies of knowledge, human and material resources. But, come to think of it, how well do we make use of them to spread our faith? How well do we spend our time, physically and virtually, feeding our souls with spiritual food? It is high time we tamed such technology lest we should be overpowered by it; it is high time we became a beacon of hope to the other, fulfilling Our Lord's mandate.
Meanwhile, it is very sad that some of us have become slaves to a brave, new world of our own making. We have moved away from our Creator and seem lost in our petty creations. The world that God has presented us with stands physically degraded and morally defiled. In these circumstances, we have no option but to wait for a new earth. As the Second Reading (Rev 21: 1-5) says, by and by, the heavenly Jerusalem will come down and God will dwell in our midst (Emmanuel); and, marvel of marvels, suffering and death shall be no more. God’s children will delight in Him for the tone that He sets is called Love.
When will St John’s beautiful vision come true? This will happen only after the Judgement and the final victory over the forces of evil thought to reside in the sea (Rev 20: 11-15)! Then will come a new heaven and a new earth – a new spiritual and material universe. In a way, they have been realised in the Risen Body of Christ. Even if by its power the Resurrection has not totally eliminated evil, it has no doubt changed the world for the better, thanks to the Lord's commandment of Love. His is an old commandment made new: 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself' has been tweaked to 'Love your neighbour as I have loved you'. That makes all the difference!
Finally, Christ’s Second Coming will be the golden key to our understanding of the mystery of Salvation. We have to bide our time. We cannot go where the Master has gone, do what He has done, endure what He has endured; but we can try and love one another as He has loved us, and by our love show others we are Christians. This is not a boast meant to exclude but a magnet meant to attract them to the fold. It is a interior movement of the mind and heart, marked by prayer and fasting, blessing and self-entrusting to God. Needless to say, there will be heartaches, failures, but there will also be consolations and successes. To serve God, we must be ready, to borrow a stanza from ‘Sound of Music’, to ‘climb every mountain, search high and low, follow every byway, every path we know…’
After all, that is our vocation and our mission. How fondly we remember our catechism book, which said, ‘Why has God made me?’; and then that delightful response in unison: ‘God has made us to know Him, love Him, serve Him, and be happy with Him for ever’! We are indeed a privileged lot – so, let’s proclaim the Good News from the rooftops. Let’s not hide the light under a bushel – let’s put it on a lampstand, that all may see. Let’s make known His mighty deeds and the glorious splendour of His reign, just as the first Christians did – freely, frankly, fearlessly, and in love!
Let the whole world know
It warms the cockles of our hearts to watch two great giants in the marvellous project of evangelisation: Peter and Paul. While Peter speaks to the Jews in particular, Paul reaches out to the Gentiles. Luke devotes to them the greater part of the ‘Acts of the Apostles’, a book carved out from his Gospel. From there is taken the first reading of all the Sundays of Easter until Pentecost Sunday. The book's second half (chapters 13-28) covers three missionary journeys that Paul undertook, between A.D. 46-48, to Asia Minor (major part of modern-day Turkey), to Greece, and finally to Rome, which was the heart of the gentile world.
The Jews, entitled to travel throughout the Roman Empire, would seek and speak to other Jews in any important city they visited. For instance, in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas, a prominent early, Jerusalem Christian of Cypriot Jewish extract, visited the Jewish community at their sabbath gatherings in the synagogue. Out of deference to him as a visitor, they asked Paul to be the commentator of the day. Paul seized the opportunity to highlight a series of facts that not only give Jewish history its meaning but also clearly point to Christ. Paul showed that God’s promises to Israel were fulfilled in the Resurrection.
What Paul spoke on the following Sabbath forms the crux of today’s reading (Acts 13: 14. 43-52). This time, Paul did not address the Jews alone but all the God-fearing, including non-Jews. This approach achieved three things: it proved that Paul was no racist; it brought hope to the gentiles; and it precluded the Jews from feeling superior to others, in the belief that only they were worthy of hearing God’s word and being called His children.
From the people’s response it is evident that they were thirsting to hear the Good News. The following sabbath they brought along other pagans. Although such progress aroused jealousy, revilement and persecution from the Jews, the inspired duo did not cower down. Behold their parting shot: ‘It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us.’ And then, Paul and Barnabas shook off the dust from their feet and went out to the uttermost parts of the earth.
For his part, John, on account of his faith, was deported to Patmos, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, around the year A.D. 95. The youngest of the Lord’s apostles, he died thereabouts in his mid-nineties. The place is now famous as the location where the Evangelist received the visions that we read about in the Book of Revelation. Here he addresses Christians suffering for the faith, in imitation of Christ.
Seeing how the Jews as a whole did not accept Jesus, the apostles’ effort might have seemed a complete failure. John, however, has an optimistic vision. The ‘four angels’ he refers to earlier in the chapter refers to the elect, or say, the Jews who followed Jesus as well as those who did not believe in Him, through no fault of their own, but who were saved through His Death and Resurrection. ‘A great multitude which no man could number, from every nation from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ thus points to the incredible success of the salvation of humanity.
Are the ones who will be saved always those ‘who have come out of the great tribulation’, that is, martyrdom? Obviously, not all will die as martyrs, but Christians should have continually before their eyes those who have died for the faith. By God's grace, those who serve Him night and day will hunger and thirst no more; He who sits upon the heavenly throne will shelter them and wipe away every tear from their eyes. That is to say, the Lamb of God will double as their Shepherd and guide them to springs of living water.
This is precisely the theme of the day's Gospel (Jn 10: 27-30). Jesus the Son of God is the ‘Good Shepherd’ who promises his sheep eternal life. His flock is not synonymous with the Jewish nation or any other; it is those who believe in Him that comprise His flock. He invites people from different nations or civilisations; they will recognise His voice and believe in His Word. This being the focus of the fourth Sunday of Easter, aptly called ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’, all three lectionary cycles draw from the same chapter of John.
Thus, the readings of today dwell on the messianic role of Jesus: He is the Lamb of God; He is the Good Shepherd; He is the Bread and Water of Life; He is our Saviour. Those who believe in Him and follow Him will be saved. This is a message that we are duty-bound to spread with passion and conviction, letting the world know that Jesus is Lord of the Universe and our most precious Saviour.
Called to give witness to Christ
We can see the wonders that the Lord has made; we can see the Holy Spirit at work. In the first reading (Acts 5: 27-32, 40-41) the Apostles are a transfigured lot, full of courage and enthusiasm. Questioned a second time by the high priest, they give a spirited and gutsy witness about the Risen Lord. Peter, clad with the authority imparted by the Master, proclaims His Death and Resurrection. Equally important, to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, Peter makes known that Jesus Christ is in their midst, in flesh and blood, as the Lord and Saviour of the world.
It is truly heartening to know that Jerusalem was filled with the Apostles’ teaching: today, we are called to do the same around us, in the cities and villages we live in. The Apostles steadfastly brought the Good News to their people, Israel: who could deny the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord? In a bid to disown their part in the brutal killing of Jesus, the authorities sheepishly urged the preachers not to speak in His Name, and they let them go. For their part, the Apostles were ever-ready to ‘suffer dishonour’ – a death like His – for His sake.
What did the Apostles go ahead and preach, they who until yesterday seemed shaky, weak and tired? In one word, they simply gave witness to their faith. What is reported in verses 29-32 is a summary of the apostolic preaching, pointing to its most essential elements, a rough-and-ready reckoner for us. This should be the posture of every committed Christian: to continue in Peter’s footsteps, proclaiming Jesus in good times and in bad; to obey God rather any human authority. Indeed, all of this makes up the life of the Church and what we are called to be and do as Christians!
Not only was the earthly Jerusalem filled with echoes of Jesus’ Holy Name; from the second reading (Rev 5: 11-14) it is clear that there was rejoicing in the New and Eternal Jerusalem as well. St John heard the voice of angels singing, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!’ And every creature in heaven and on earth, under the earth and in the sea repeated the praises, saying, ‘Amen!’ Which means that, upon His Resurrection, the whole of creation joyfully veered towards Him who is the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the centre of all creation.
Is Jesus the centre of our lives? Are we geared up to repeat the sounding joy? Given that the imprint of God’s law is in our hearts, as St Paul says, we should be continually praising Him in word and deed. Our hearts should be restless until they rest in Him. Here, I remember what my dear Avó (grandmother) used to say: ‘When we see God face to face one day, it is only Him and none else that we shall contemplate.’ Let’s look forward to that day when we will be at least palely worthy of such a privilege!
Holy privileges come our way as we journey on our earthly pilgrimage. In the Gospel (Jo 21: 1-19), after preparing the disciples, by means of the miraculous catch, which was carried out under Peter’s leadership and in his boat, Jesus indicates that Peter will be the Shepherd of His only flock from the moment Jesus departs and until His Second Coming. Peter would shoulder the responsibility of the first Church; he who was a mere fisherman was called to be a fisher of men.
That Jesus showed up on the beach, unannounced, while some of the disciples were about to going fishing, simply means that an encounter with the Lord can happen anytime, anywhere, anyhow. He met them on the lonely shore in the light of dawn; where will He meet us? Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him; what about us? Do we love Him and Him alone, or is He just one among many? And then, when He says, ‘Follow me,’ will we readily do so? We may not be called to lead, but are we ready to follow? The life of the Church and our own salvation hinges on our response.
The Resurrection and our Faith
Thanks to Easter, Sunday came to replace the Sabbath as the Day of the Lord. We now gather very especially on this day, to witness the mystical renewal of the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary and to participate in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. By doing so, we do not merely fulfil an obligation but a personal need for ever-closer union with God.
We might expect Jerusalem to have been a city transformed after the momentous event of the Resurrection; we might imagine news of the Resurrection to have spread like wild fire to make it known that Jesus is God. But none of that happened. The city and the world were wrapped up in themselves, as though nothing had happened. How fortunate that you and I can cherish our Easter meeting with the Lord!
It is delightful that Easter does not last just a day but forever, although liturgically, it is a fifty-day period until Pentecost (seventh Sunday after Easter). In the run-up to this Sunday, there is a deluge of post-Resurrection stories that will hold us in awe and give our faith a boost. Through the week we heard narratives – from the Acts of the Apostles and the four Evangelists – and we have three more today.
In the first reading (Acts 5:12-16), the Apostles begin to feel the power of the Risen Lord. After they had been afraid and not knowing what to do, Jesus empowered them to preach the Good News and to forgive sins. So, they began to teach with authority and heal with compassion. They were like clones of the Master, his hands and feet, working wonders in His Holy Name. Yet it was not by their miracles alone that believers were added to the Lord; it was by the Holy Spirit’s action on minds and hearts that the numbers steadily rose.
After the Resurrection, the Apostles came to be held in high honour, yet theirs was not a runaway victory. Sometimes, they faced persecution and even ran into doctrinal tangles. But as the second reading (Rev 1:9-11A, 12-13, 17-19) makes it clear, God was in control, as He always is. The Divine Master had promised that He would be with the Apostles every step of their way and His work would prevail over any persecution. Here we see St John, who was exiled for the faith in the tiny rocky island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, warmly comforted and gently prodded by Jesus’ words that defy paraphrasing: ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Now write what you see, what is and what is to take place hereafter.’
What utterances of deep reassurance, of wisdom, of truth, expressing the ultimate reality! Here is the water of life – if we drink of it, we will thirst no more. Here is the bread of life – if we eat of it, we will never be hungry. Yet, how many from among the learned and worldly-wise today would believe in Him who is the Author of Life, the Master Physician, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Light of the World, the Prince of Peace, the Son of the Living God, the Way, the Truth and the Life?
In the Gospel passage (Jn 20:19-31), we meet Thomas who has meanwhile gone down in history as the ‘Doubting Thomas’. He had been sceptical of his companions’ account, not of the Resurrection per se. Without taking amiss his interim refusal to believe, Jesus let Thomas feel His crucifixion wounds. That the disciple stopped short of touching Him and instantly believed, saying, ‘My Lord and my God’, does credit to the future Apostle of India. Of course, Jesus rounded it off with a ‘beatitude’: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’, commending those who approach divine claims with eyes of faith.
Thanks to this unforgettable story (which only St John and the not the synoptic Gospels mention, and is read on the Second Sunday of Easter regardless of the year cycle), we get to understand the true nature of the Resurrection and of the faith we must cultivate: First, that Jesus rose physically and not by means of some virtual reality technique! Second, that seeking a proof does not work against but rather confirms a person’s faith. Thirdly, that doubt can indeed be part of our faith journey and even lead to great turnarounds – an experience so human that Thomas’ words are acknowledged after the Agnus Dei in the Holy Mass.
In conclusion, the readings of today invite us to look into our own faith experiences; to not be afraid to proclaim the Gospel; and to humbly turn our gaze to Christ and experience His love and mercy, particularly on the Feast of Divine Mercy that is celebrated today. A very Happy Feast to you all!
From Palms to The Passion
It is interesting to note the Liturgy of the Word on Palm Sunday, also referred to as Passion Sunday. While the first two readings and the psalm – Is 50: 4-7; Ps 21: 8-9, 17, 18a, 19-20, 23-24; Phil 2: 6-11 – remain the same for cycles A, B and C, the Gospel changes from year to year, highlighting the three Synoptics: St Matthew (26: 14-27, 66), St Mark (14: 1-15, 47), and St Luke (22: 14-23, 56), respectively. They give an account of the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the unfair Trial, the Way to Calvary, and the Crucifixion and Death.
Thus, St John is the only evangelist who does not figure on Palm Sunday. The Beloved Disciple – who offers a selective and somewhat different perspective on the Divine Master, more theological and mystical – is very especially reserved for Maundy Thursday (Jn 13: 1-15) and Good Friday (Jn 18: 1-19, 42), besides two weekday readings. While the Gospel of Thursday focusses on the Last Supper, that of Friday is a Passion narrative that begins with Gethsemane and ends with our Lord’s Death on the Cross.
That much for the readings. Now, as regards the designation of the sixth Sunday of Lent: it is officially called ‘Palm Sunday’, recalling the day when Jesus arrived to a hero’s welcome for the Passover in Jerusalem. No wonder, Chesterton’s ‘Donkey’ was ecstatic: ‘There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet,’ he said. But what finally determined the choice of a beast ‘with a monstrous head and sickening cry’, ‘the tattered outlaw of the earth’?
Jesus had walked up to Jerusalem in the past. Although the Synoptics speak of just one Passover, St John states that He celebrated three Passover Feasts in the city of David. Yet, this time he chose to use a donkey, to enter in peace, as a king traditionally did, into a city that was his very own – unlike a conquering king that arrived on a warhorse. Jesus borrowed a colt, which was soon thereafter returned to its owner, realising many Old Testament allusions, the most important being 'Behold, O Jerusalem of Zion, the King comes onto you meek and lowly riding upon a donkey.' (Zech 9: 9)
But what were the crowds so excited about that they should thus cheer Jesus? Pope Benedict XVI, in his book Jesus of Nazareth, states that ‘Jesus had set out with the Twelve, but they were gradually joined by an ever-increasing crowd of pilgrims.’ On the way, the blind Bartimaeus who was cured clinched it; he became a fellow pilgrim on the way to Jerusalem. The miracle filled the people with hope that Jesus might indeed be the new David for whom they were waiting.
Jesus was not going to re-establish the Davidic kingdom – far from it! He had always said that his kingdom is not of this world. Yet, the disciples’ act of enthusiastically seating Jesus on that beast of burden was ‘a gesture of enthronement in the tradition of the Davidic kingship’; the pilgrims who, infected by that enthusiasm, joined in spreading out their garments and waving out palms, mirrored a tradition of Israelite kingship; and their exultant cries, though reported differently by the evangelists, all point to the Old Testament. Still, those players were blissfully unaware that they were fulfilling the Scripture.
The most important part of Scripture was, however, played out was by Jesus Himself. He who had come to celebrate the ‘Passover of the Jews’, as the Synoptic evangelists call it, was in truth observing ‘the Passover of His death and Resurrection’, as St John the Evangelist puts it, for this is what the Saviour said to His disciples: ‘I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.’ (Lk 22:15-16). Jesus fulfilled the Passover by becoming the Sacrificial Lamb.
Our Saviour’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem quickly led to His sorrowful Passion on Calvary. That is how ‘Palm Sunday’ becomes synonymous with ‘Passion Sunday’ in the Liturgy of the Word.