April 2018 GOSPEL COMMENTARIES 1 April [Easter Sunday] Jn 20:1-9 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. Echoing an ancient homily, Meister Eckhart said that it was because Mary Magdalene had nothing else to lose that she dared approach the grave; the apostles had run away because, by implication, they were still trying to save themselves. She had lost everything else, he said, "and so she was afraid that if she went away from the grave she would lose the grave as well. For if she had lost the grave she would have nothing left at all." But of what use was that grave to her? Graves are about the past. But not this grave. The Resurrection did not take place on the mountain-tops, or on a bright cloud, but in the heart of the grave, the 'degree zero' of human life. It was because Mary Magdalene stayed by the grave that she became the first bearer of the news of the Resurrection; she was the first Christian preacher. At first she could not see Jesus anywhere. Why? "Because she kept looking further away than he was," said Eckhart. She kept looking for a dead body, an object; but Jesus was alive and standing beside her. We are at home with objects; they are at arm's length and we can deal with them. We make this kind of knowledge-at-arm's-length the standard of all knowledge; we equate 'objectivity' with truth. The word 'object' comes from Latin ob (against) + jacere (to throw). Besides, the word 'object' connotes 'objection' rather than faith. But the Risen Christ is nearer to us than any object could ever be. "Why are you seeking the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5). Eckhart concludes his sermon: "That we may thus seek Him and also find Him, so help us God. Amen."
2 April Mt 28:8-15 [Mary Magdalene and the other Mary] left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, Greetings! And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me. While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, You must say, His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. If this comes to the governor s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day. In a culture that did not accept as valid the testimony of women, it is remarkable that the four gospels did not hesitate to make Mary Magdalene s the first testimony of the resurrection of Jesus. The chief priests and the authorities also had a first : they were the first to give an explanation of the empty tomb. They would be followed by a cloud of theologians throughout the centuries who have tried to explain everything in the Faith. To explain is to explain away, because our explanations never do justice to reality. The word explain comes from Latin and means to flatten out. A mystery flattened out is only a theory at best. Perhaps it will be especially through the testimony of women that the mysteries will become mysteries again. Alleluia is our word in the Easter season: sung, played, repeated endlessly. It is a cry of exultation not a nervous and superficial one, but quiet, because deep. The joy of Easter is a deep joy that is not tied to any passing event but only to the resurrection of Jesus and our rising with him.
3 April Jn 20:11-18 Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary! She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabbouni! (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord ; and she told them that he had said these things to her. A frequent literary device in John s gospel is the use of gradual recognition, or misunderstanding, as a stage on the path to understanding: see for example, the conversations Jesus had with Nicodemus (ch. 3), the Samaritan woman (ch. 4), etc. In today s passage we find it once again: Mary thought at first that Jesus was the gardener. The moment of full recognition was when he spoke her name. This has a great deal of resonance throughout the Scriptures, from beginning to end. The Lord said to Moses, I am pleased with you and I know you by name (Exodus 33:17). Referring to himself, Jesus said, The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:2-3). A faith that does not go to the depth of one s personal existence is not faith but theory. Even theology is not faith: a person may know a great deal of theology but have no faith. I heard a woman say about her husband, He s very interested in religion, but he has no faith. Conversely, a person may know little about religion but have profound faith. St Thomas Aquinas said that one old lady (una vetera) may have more faith than a host of learned theologians. Matthew s account says, The women left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy (28:8). A tomb is not a place you come away from with joy: you come away in deep grief in the early days of bereavement, and later on with quiet acquiescence; hardly with joy! But with the death of Jesus there was to be no 'closure': the past was not to be closed up and sealed with nostalgia. The past had flooded into the present through the open tomb: the past is no longer past, it is timeless. This is the destruction of time. Christ yesterday and today and the same forever (Heb. 13:8).
4 April Lk 24:13-35 Two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognising him. Then he said to them, Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us? That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon! Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. Two men with heavy hearts, full of regrets and foreboding, going in the wrong direction. Jesus walks beside them and talks with them, but they are unable to recognise him. This story is an image of the life of the Church. What we have in today s reading is an example of how Christians should read the Scriptures. The Lord is with them unawares. He teases out their fears and doubts and disillusionment... He calls their attention to what they had overlooked or misunderstood. Finally they recognise him in the breaking of bread. This is a phrase that Luke repeats (verses 31 and 35), as if to make sure we notice it. Throughout, the language is eucharistic, the same that he had used a few chapters earlier in describing the Last Supper (22:19). That phrase, the breaking of bread, is used repeatedly in the Acts of the Apostles (also written by Luke) to refer to the ritual meal of the Christian community, the Eucharist (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7; 27:35). Disciples in every century have continued to recognise him in the breaking of bread. About five years later, Paul, the persecutor of Christians, was to have his transforming spiritual experience. On the road to Damascus he was thrown to the ground and he heard a voice, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting (Acts 9:4,5). Jesus, then, is still beside his followers. He is only dimly recognised and by few. You were with me, wrote St Augustine some centuries later, but I was not with you (Confessions, X, 27). But we are able to recognise him in the breaking of bread.
5 April Lk 24:35-48 The disciples told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, Have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. He stood among them. John said (20:19) that they were huddled together, with the doors locked, for fear of the Jews; then he uses the same words as Luke: Jesus stood among them. He did not have to fumble with a key, or knock loudly (which would have made them lock the door even more securely) or call out (they would not have believed). He just came and stood inside the circle of their fear. Left to ourselves we would remain imprisoned forever inside that locked door, and all efforts to bring us out would have the opposite effect. The Risen Lord comes to meet us where we are, comes without violence, without argument or explanation, comes to liberate us into joy. They had so recently deserted him, but he stood among them, and greeted them with peace. Everything in Luke s account is intended to express the reality of Jesus' presence. By eating he is demonstrating that he is not a ghost. In John's account, Jesus shows his hands and feet to show the marks of the nails, but in Luke's account there is no mention of the wounds. Showing them his hands and his feet was intended to show them his physical reality. Our physical bodies are material of the resurrection. The Russian theologian, Paul Evdokimov, wrote about the ways in which matter and nature (including human nature) are represented in some instances of modern art. We are looking, he said, at a closed and atheistic world...a world of still life and dead matter which is no longer the substance of the resurrection. But the Christian faith affirms that this mortal body of ours, because Christ shared our human nature, is destined for things beyond our power to imagine.
6 April Jn 21:1-14 Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing. They said to him, We will go with you. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, Children, you have no fish, have you? They answered him, No. He said to them, Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some. So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord! When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off. When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish that you have just caught. So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, Come and have breakfast. Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, Who are you? because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. When we are in doubt we return to what we know: the past. When we don t know where we are going, we turn back. When Jesus was dead his disciples returned to their former way of life: they tried to go back to fishing. But they caught nothing that night. Even the past could give them no reassurance; they had nowhere to go. They had no future, they thought, because Jesus was dead; and now they seemed to have no past either. Tragedy and failure drove them into the present moment. It was in that cataclysmic Now that they saw Jesus. The Good News reveals itself in the Now. The Resurrection of Jesus is God's new deed. Can I be said to have the faith if I think of it only as an old ideology battling for survival against new? What about that cataclysmic Now that those broken-down disciples had to enter before they could see the Lord? There is a way of appearing very Catholic: it is to appear very concerned with the past. How could this be the proper emphasis? Our faith is not a form of nostalgia or antiquarianism. We are already too prone to slipping away into the past when the present is too painful. If we follow the same line with our faith, we will not be witnessing to the resurrection of Christ, but only offering one another bland assurances that convince no one, not even ourselves. Unless we experience this dying to oneself, our words will offer nothing but routes of escape into a reassuring past.
7 April Mk 16:9-15 Now after Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. People didn't recognise Jesus very easily when he appeared after his resurrection. Some thought they were seeing a ghost (Luke 24:37); he showed himself under another form to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Mark 16:12); and even Mary Magdalene thought at first that he was the gardener (John 20:15). We give supreme authority to bodily sight: seeing is believing. Aristotle said that sight is our principal source of knowledge. But this kind of sight was not adequate to recognising the risen Christ. It requires a seeing from the heart and the spirit, not from the eyes. People who claim today to have seen apparitions give the impression that they have exceptional faith; but what they are doing is just going back to eyesight and suggesting that this is superior to faith. Religion is always only millimetres away from fantasy and projection; it can be naive beyond words. A woman who claimed to have had a vision of St Joseph was asked how she knew it was St Joseph. Sure, doesn't everyone know what St Joseph looks like? she replied. God is not captured by the eye, nor even by the mind. We cannot grasp what God is, said St Thomas Aquinas. We cannot grasp God neither with our eyesight nor with our minds. God cannot be possessed in the way we possess things; it is the other way around: we are possessed by God; we are grasped by God. Our faith is a bottomless ocean. How could it be otherwise? St Paul prays that the Ephesians, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge [will be] filled with the utter fulness of God (Ephesians 3:19).
8 April [2nd Sunday of Easter] Jn 20:19-31 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, 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." But ut Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. In all three Liturgical cycles this is the gospel reading for this second Sunday of Easter. 'Doubting Thomas' makes his appearances at this point every year. Is there anything to be said for doubt? Surely there is. It is a good thing to be able to doubt oneself, provided it doesn't become an addiction that cripples you. To doubt one s ideas, one s principles, one s work, even one's very eyes at times... It is a proof that your life is not on automatic pilot, that you have not finished thinking and weighing things up. Doubt is not always the opposite of faith; the real opposite of faith is a certain kind of fear. Fear makes you curl up and do nothing, or it makes you run away. Faith pushes you to take chances, to risk yourself, to pit yourself against difficulties. Thomas was a careful man, but he was not a fearful one; he was capable of fearless action: Let us go to Jerusalem and die with him, he said (John 11:16). It is not that Thomas lacked faith, it is simply that he did not want to be deluded. He wanted to "see the holes that the nails made in his hands and put my finger into the holes they made." He wanted to experience it for himself. The same John who tells this story about Thomas once wrote, "What we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have watched and touched with our hands this is our subject" (1 John 1:1). There is no blame to Thomas for wanting to experience the reality for himself. Isn't it what every disciple of Jesus has to do? Thomas was also a thinking man; he always wanted to understand and figure things out. Once when Jesus was speaking obscurely about going away and said, You know the way to where I am going, Thomas cut in and said, Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way? (John 14:4-5). It was a practical man s question, and you can see the puzzled look on his face. It was puzzlement, not doubt. He didn't doubt Jesus or lack trust in him. Well, why was he missing from the group when Jesus appeared? (today s reading). Isn't it very likely that he had gone away by himself to think? It would be entirely in character. We dishonour him when we call him doubting Thomas. We should call him
thinking Thomas. There is no area of life more subject to delusion than religion. We have to thank Thomas for his distinctive combination of carefulness and courage. Mary Magdalen was told by the Risen Lord (verses 17 and 18, just before the beginning of this reading) to "go and find the brothers." Obviously she found them here, in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. The fact that none of the disciples is mentioned by name and no number is given indicates that disciples as such are implied here, and the scene that follows is addressed to all disciples of Jesus (F.J. Moloney, The Gospel of John). All are called to go out to the whole world with the Good News. Fear had locked them in, but he sent them out: As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. He breathed on them. This is seen as an evocation of the creation story in Genesis, where God breathed into [Adam s] nostrils the breath of life (2:7). Jesus' gift of the Spirit makes us a new creation.
9 April [Annunciation] Lk 1:26-38 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you. But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. Then Mary said, Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. Then the angel departed from her. On the face of it, today s reading seems quite like the angel s visit to Zechariah announcing the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:8-20). But when you look more closely you see that they are set in clear contrast to each other. Zechariah was standing right at the centre of the nation s place of worship, and the whole assembly of the people was praying outside, but Mary was a tiny unknown figure, remote from all centres of power. Mary s demeanour is also contrasted with Zechariah s: she takes God at his word, unlike the argumentative Zechariah; she is seen as the model believer. It is a subtle contrast: she too had a question, similar to Zechariah s question, but there are many different kinds of why (or how ). Zechariah s question was literally, by what shall I know this? (kata ti;), as if asking for independent confirmation; while Mary s was simply how (pos;). Meister Eckhart said in one of his sermons that we should not ask why. At first sight this is surprising; he was an academic theologian whose business it was to ask many whys. But he was also clear about the differences. There is the why that is like locking a door ( I will admit only what I can understand ), and there is the why that is like opening a door, wanting to enter more deeply. Mary s why, I imagine, was of the second kind. Though Mary appears in a perfect light, it is clear that it is not her virtue that has earned her the great honour that is to come. The angel s greeting makes it clear. Favoured one, kecharitomene; what is coming to her is God's gift, not reward for virtue. Mary is the model of Christian discipleship. When her story is presented only as the story of her special privileges, that role is being taken from her. When we only stress her differences from us we are subtly pushing her away. There have been many aberrations of Marian piety, and we need to stay close to the authentic tradition. St Ambrose (c. 340 AD 397) gave it luminous expression in his comment on this passage. "Every soul who has believed, both conceives and generates the Word of God and recognises his works. Let the soul of Mary be in each one of you to magnify the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each one to exult in Christ."
10 April Jn 3:7-15 Jesus said, Do not be astonished that I said to you, You must be born from above. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. In Hebrew and Aramaic, the scholars tell us, the same word means spirit, breath, and wind. These are well known and yet unknown realities. Of the four elements fire, air, earth and water only earth has fixed shapes; and in the long term even these shapes are not fixed. But the most volatile of the elements is air. The world is perpetually changing, and it is difficult to get a fix on it, as they say. But do we have to get a fix on it before we can live in it? Not at all. We live quite successfully with the unfixed and the unknown. In fact there is no fixity anywhere, except as a thought in the mind. Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything (Qoheleth, 11:5). The words of Jesus in today s passage may be an echo of that verse. The wind blows where it pleases. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit. It is the same then with the Holy Spirit as with wind, spirit, breath. Alan Watts once remarked that a certain type of mind is frightened by the mutability, the elusiveness, and the mystery of life, and thinks of salvation as a state of everlasting fixity and certainty from which the disconcerting elements of spontaneity, surprise and mystery are largely removed. We call fundamentalist those people who fix their faith in some text as in concrete, casting aside every other consideration. They think that by fixing on a text they have grasped God. It is a waste of a good word; they are not fundamentalists; they are superficialists, like the Pharisees. Neither are they traditionalists: they cast tradition aside and fix on their own simplistic interpretation of a text. We have to throw open the shutters and let the Spirit enter the narrow caves in which we bury ourselves.
11 April Jn 3:16-21 Jesus said, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. It is much easier to condemn the world than to save it, much easier to say what you disapprove of than to go out and do something useful. For a couple of years I was receiving a newsletter from an extreme right-wing group of Catholics. The contents were pure poison: slander, calumny, detraction all the vicious practices whose names we learned in the penny Catechism. Their local bishop was the special object of their hate. I frequently asked them to remove my name from their mailing list, but the hateful thing kept coming. A friend told me how to deal with it: don't write Return to sender on the envelope; write Refused. The senders then have to pay the return post. I did so, and it never came again! (Even wickedness has its price: in that case, the price of a stamp.) That group is probably still condemning everyone... but not to me! It is easier to condemn than to do good. In the evening of life you will be examined in love, said John of the Cross. What you have condemned won't figure on the exam-paper at all. Those who believe in him are not condemned, John wrote except that John didn't write English! He would be astonished at some of our uses of the word belief. We speak, for example, about nominal believers. For John, such couldn't exist. Nor, I think, for earlier speakers of English. The word belief comes from an old word, lief, used by Shakespeare but now obsolete, meaning love. There cannot be real belief without love. If John were to come back he might say to us, Don t tell me what you believe ; tell me what you love.
12 April Jn 3:31-36 Jesus said, The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God s wrath. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything into his hands. There are many similar phrases in John s gospel. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he is doing (5:20). Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands (13:3). All that the Father has is mine (16:15). Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you (17:7). The Son in turn gives everything to the Father, All I have is yours, and all you have is mine (17:10). Jesus, in turn, has given us everything, I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father (15:15). The glory you have given me, I have given them (17:22). The word everything seems to be God's kind of word; and the word all. It was the fundamental command, the Schema Israel, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut 6:5). God is not interested in how much it amounts to, so long as it is everything: the widow s mite was all she had to live on (Mk 12:44). We may not have much, but we have everything! When we give everything we have, we are being drawn into the life of the Trinity.
13 April Jn 6:1-15 Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat? He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, Six months wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter s brother, said to him, There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people? Jesus said, Make the people sit down. Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. How s your Latin? Do you remember Panem de coelo praestitisti eis ( You gave them bread from heaven )? And the response, Omne delectamentum in se habentem (literally, having in itself every delight ). It beats me how this response ever came to be translated We have eaten the bread of angels. The one thing the Eucharist certainly is not is the bread of angels. It is the bread of human beings. Angels don t need bread, plain or sacramental. The sacraments are for us, creatures of body and soul, not for angels. Angels are depicted with wings; they are imagined sitting in the air. But we belong on the earth; we sit on the ground. In today s gospel passage Jesus invited the people to sit on the ground. Sitting on the ground is a symbol of poverty and powerlessness; it means we have no illusions of grandeur. We don t often sit on the ground nowadays, and almost never at Mass. But when we are at Mass we are spiritually those disciples in today s reading, sitting on the ground in humility and simplicity, sharing our poverty and (because of it) sharing the Lord's gift. Miracles seem to happen in situations of scarcity rather than plenty. Where there is plenty there is no need of miracles! Where there is plenty you don't have to struggle, you don't have to come up against realities too painfully, you just ease your way through with a cheque book. But in the story those people had almost nothing. There were only five loaves to feed thousands. John says they were barley loaves. This was the cheapest kind of bread; in fact barley was really considered animal-feed. It is only the very poor who would eat barley loaves. The miracle is that some kind of abundance came from that poverty. This is not the crude gospel of prosperity that you sometimes hear from radio and television preachers. No, John would be sickened by such an interpretation. He is not talking about business, but about the Eucharist. Whatever divides us from one another (greed, self-sufficiency, illusions of grandeur) divides us also from God and God's gift.
[By the way: today is Friday 13 th! Should you go back to bed?! Are you superstitious? Why do some people think Friday 13 th an unlucky day? The reason is this: England was once a Catholic country, and there were many customs that expressed people s devotion but appeared superstitious as time went by. One of these was the belief that Friday was a good day on which to begin a job, because Jesus died on a Friday. Another was that 13 was a good number, because of Jesus and the twelve apostles. So Friday 13th was seen as a really good day! But when the Puritans came to power, there was a reaction against all this. However, instead of saying that these days and dates were simply neutral, the opposite belief set in: that they were unlucky! Similarly, walking under ladders used to remind people of the death of Jesus on the cross. From England the belief spread to the rest of the world. So I don't think you have to go back to bed! But you can be reminded today of the death of Jesus. Don t let a real superstition destroy a supposed one.
14 April Jn 6:16-21 When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, It is I; do not be afraid. Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going. As in other cultures, water had a double meaning for the Jews of old: it was both a benign and a destructive element. God is a fountain of living water (Jer. 2:13); but on the other hand, the enemy can be like an overflowing torrent (Jer. 47:2). They especially feared the chaos of the sea, which brought remembrance of the Deluge. The associations were likely to have been of the second kind for the disciples caught in a storm at night on the Sea of Galilee. Then Jesus appeared walking on the sea. They were terrified, but he said, Don t be afraid, it is I. It Greek, the words are, I am. This recalls the divine I am of Exodus 3:14. A constant theme in the Old Testament is the power of God over the sea. It was by such power that he delivered them from the Egyptians in the Exodus. Clearly John wants this association to be present to the reader. What meaning can this strange story have for us today? This occurs: the Lord can come to us in the least likely medium. We seat ourselves on the solid ground of common sense and logic, but he is well able to do without them!
15 April [3rd Sunday of Easter] Lk 24:35-48 [The disciples] told what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost, and Jesus was at pains to assure them that he was no ghost, no projection. Ghosts don t say, "Have you anything here to eat?" If Jesus is not truly risen he is only a ghost. Ghosts are the past that didn t die properly. If Jesus did not truly die he is not truly risen. He had to die in the past so that he could be with us in the present, "the first-born from the dead." We too have to die to the past if we are to meet him where he is. "If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Romans 6:5). When we can find no security in the present we look for it in the past. "The past at least is secure," said some failed politician. But while the past may give a feeling of security, it does not give security because time is moving, not fixed. Or we look for security in the future. We are always looking for a railing to hold onto, because the ground under our feet is moving. I always feel we would prefer an unresurrected Christ. He would be fixed and immovable, altogether more stable. We could own and control him. But he is risen, he cannot be owned, he is the vehicle of the Spirit which blows where it wills. God "has restored the joy of our youth." Joy is there when we put ourselves fully into something. Small children, when they laugh, are all laughter; when they cry they are all sadness. But a little later we learn to drag ourselves along: half-way into things and no more: half in and half out, hovering like ghosts. If we walked like that we would resemble someone a hundred years old. When we walk freely we put all our weight on the forward foot; we entrust ourselves to the future and we leave the past behind. Ghosts don t do that; they don t walk, they don t do anything. We real human beings have to learn to go fully into everything we do and say and think, to die into everything. Then we will know something about resurrection.
16 April Jn 6:22-29 The crowd that had stayed on the other side of the lake saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them, Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, What must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. It easily becomes our general approach: to look to everything and everyone as a way of having our own needs met. This is to be a beggar. Of course there will be times when we will have to beg, but let s not be beggars till we have to be. We don't need to become professional beggars, with their characteristic whine and their made-up stories. If we always come to Jesus only looking for our needs to be met, we are calling ourselves his beggars, not his brothers and sisters God's beggars, not God's children. We are invited to come to Jesus to see the glory of God, and to God to do God's will. In John's gospel, miracles are not so much acts of compassion (as in the other gospels) as signs of the glory of Christ. A sign points away from itself; but people weren't interested in looking beyond, he said. This is a distinctive theme of John s gospel. John s gospel was written many years after the others, and his aim was not just to recount the deeds that Jesus did (they were already familiar from word of mouth and from the other gospels) but to try further to discern their meaning. When John recounts a miracle by Jesus he follows up with a long discourse to clarify its meaning. The feeding of the five thousand, for example, is followed in today s (and tomorrow s) reading by a discourse on the Bread of Life. The healing of the blind man goes with Jesus claim to be the Light of the World (chapter 9). The raising of Lazarus goes with his claim to be the resurrection and the life (chapter 11). The feeding of the crowd has a deeper meaning. Jesus wants to point to a deeper hunger and thirst in us than the obvious ones. "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water" (John 4:10); "My food is to do the will of him who sent me (John 4:34).
17 April Jn 6:30-35 [The crowd] said to Jesus, What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them, Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. They said, What sign are you going to give us then? But he had just given them a sign! a sign that impressed them so much that they wanted to make him king (verse 15). How are we to understand this? When you look at the original you notice that the verbs are in the present tense, not in the future as this and other translations have it. So the people do not seem to be asking for another sign, but rather for his interpretation of the sign he had just given as if to say, What is this sign you are giving us? Explain what you are doing! They themselves are comparing his sign with that of Moses, who likewise produced food in the wilderness. Some Jews saw Moses as a king, so these are suggesting that Jesus should allow them to make him king (verse 15). Jesus replied, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. This amounts almost to taking Moses action and putting it in the present: he tells them that the real provider of bread in the desert was God, and God s action is always in the present. It is this same God ( my Father ) who in the present moment is providing bread for his people. But Jesus is more than a provider of bread like Moses; he is himself the bread that the Father is providing. He speaks always in the present, investing himself totally in it. Every genuine spiritual teacher tries to follow him in this. Including this instance, Jesus uses the phrase I am seven times in John s gospel: I am the bread of life (6:35); I am the light of the world (8:12; 9:5); I am the gate (10:7, 9); I am the Good Shepherd (10:11, 14); I am the resurrection and the life (11:25); I am the way, the truth and the life (14:6); I am the true vine (15:1, 5). It has an echo of God s I am in Exodus 3:14. Jesus himself is God s present tense, God s I am.
18 April Jn 6:35-40 Jesus said to [the crowd], I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, he said. But they had come, and they were hungry! They had followed him up the mountain (John 6:3), bringing no food, and they were famished. As always in John's gospel, there is another layer of meaning. The food they had eaten was real enough, but it symbolised another kind of food that he was providing for another kind of hunger. I am the bread of life, he said. I am what satisfies the deepest needs of humanity. I am the most intimate reality in your life: as intimate to you, as sustaining, as the food in your mouth. I am the one who keeps your awareness bright like a lamp, your heart warm, your will healthy, strong and gentle. I am the one who enables you to raise your eyes, to see beauty and glory in the world, and to open the eye of your spirit till you see God... In a bookshop I saw the old penny catechism, which I hadn't seen in many years. Someone with an excess of nostalgia had it republished. It was strange to turn those pages again. The words were familiar, and somehow terrible less for what they said than for what they didn t say. In the first section, which dealt with God, God was described as Creator and Lord of all things, who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. He was well positioned to do this, since he sees our most secret thoughts and actions. There was no mention that God loved us still less that God was love. I was suddenly aware of how damaged many of us were by that catechism. There was no knowledge of God in it. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love (1 John 4:8). Mischief isn't only in what you say, it is also in what you fail to say. To fail to say, in a section specifically on God, that God is love, or that God loves us, is to show oneself to have been untouched by the New Testament. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, he said. That catechism left many starving, and it is not surprising that many starved to death spiritually. Today's gospel reading merits long meditation.