Second Sunday of Easter, Year
B: John 20:19-31.
AIM: To help the
hearers experience and cultivate Christian joy.
AThe disciples rejoiced when they saw
the Lord.@ What about us? If someone who knew
nothing about Christianity were to drop in at Mass on Sunday morning in a
typical Catholic parish, would the visitor be struck by our joy? If not,
why not?
One reason is the emphasis in Catholic
teaching on the obligation of attending Sunday Mass. People who come
simply to fulfill an obligation are hardly likely to experience much joy. For
such people attending Sunday Mass is like paying insurance premiums: something
done with little joy, perhaps even with a certain amount of resentment, simply
because it is too dangerous to be without it, and you never know when you might
need it.
That=s no reason to drop the obligation.
We need obligations. Obligations are the bridges which take us over the valleys
in life, when zeal and enthusiasm slacken. But things done solely out of
obligation bring little joy. How much joy would there be in a marriage, for
instance, in which the spouses thought only of their mutual obligations? in
which they never did anything out of love, just to make each other
happy?
In reality, Sunday Mass is so much
more than an obligation. It is meant to be a celebration. Today=s gospel reading tells us how Jesus
celebrated the first two Sundays after his resurrection, with his closest
friends. AOn the evening of that first day of
the week,@ the day of the resurrection, seeing
Jesus was the last thing his demoralized and frightened friends were
expecting. After the tragedy of Calvary just
two days before, had come the discovery that the Lord=s body was no longer in its final
resting place. Terrified of what fresh disaster might await them, the disciples
had locked the door of the room where they met.
How filled with joy Jesus must have
been at being able to surprise those friends of his! Even the locked door was
no barrier to him now. Jesus had not been brought back to his old life. That
ended on Calvary . He had been raised to a new
and higher life. He was no longer subject to the old restrictions of time and
space. The gospel tells us that Jesus
returned Aa week later@ in the same room. Again it was the Afirst day of the week@ C Sunday.
Jesus greets his frightened friends
with the conventional Jewish greeting: AShalom C peace be with you.@ The peace he gives is far more,
however, than mere absence of care and worry. Before his crucifixion Jesus had
told them: APeace is my parting gift to you, my
own peace, such as the world cannot give@ (John 14:27). The world cannot give this gift because the
peace Jesus gives comes from outside this world, from God. It is available to
those C and only to those C who enter into a relationship of
loving trust with Jesus Christ. (See Lk 19:42; Eph. 2:14 & 17)
All the Lord=s gifts, however, are given under one
strict condition: that what we freely receive, we freely share with others.
Immediately, therefore, Jesus tells his friends: AAs the Father has sent me, so I send
you.@ And to enable them to fulfill this sending, he gives another gift: his
Holy Spirit. Breathing on them, as God
breathed on the first man Adam in creation (Gen. 2:7), Jesus imparts the Holy
Spirit; and with the Spirit the power to forgive sins. This power lives on in
the Church today in the sacrament of
penance or reconciliation.
That scene in the locked room on the
first Easter evening is repeated every time we, the friends of Jesus, gather to
fulfill his command the night before he died to Ado this in my memory@ with the bread and wine. Jesus comes
to us, as he came to his frightened friends in Jerusalem
If there is no joy in your heart, or
too little, then let me give you the remedy.
Learn to count your blessings. Cultivate the habit of thanksgiving. Let
no day go by without thanking your heavenly Father for all his goodness to you.
Show me a joyful person, and I=ll show you someone who thanks God daily, even hourly, for
the Lord=s overwhelming goodness.
One of the Lord=s greatest gifts to me was inspiring
me to start doing that very early in life. As a schoolboy I used to go into
church on my birthday C I began, I think, at age thirteen C and kneeling or sitting before the
tabernacle, I would write down in a notebook all the reasons I had to thank
God. It was always a long list. It wasn=t hard. It was easy. And it filled my
heart with joy.
I don=t keep those lists any more. But the
prayers of thanksgiving continue. A few
years back I read an article by the late Chicago
APriests who like being priests are
among the happiest men in the world.@ Priests have no monopoly on that happiness, and on that joy. It comes to all those who cultivate the habit
of thanksgiving.
On the first Easter evening those
friends of Jesus in the locked room were filled with joy at seeing the Lord
again, and hearing his familiar voice. We who cannot see the risen Lord, or
hear his voice, save with the eyes and ears of faith, can share their joy. For
us Jesus has a gift, and a blessing, not given to those first friends of
his. It is contained in the closing words of today=s gospel. Jesus is speaking those
same words to us in this church, right now:
ABlessed [and the world means Ahappy@ and Ajoyful@] are those who have not seen and
have believed.@
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