"YOU WILL DO GREATER WORKS."

Homily for April 28^th, 2018: 14:6-14.

“Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,” Jesus says, “and will do even greater works than these …” How is that possible? Well, consider. During his life on earth Jesus= works were confined to just a few years, and to one very small part of the world. But these works did not end with Jesus= return to his Father in heaven. They have continued, through his Church. Starting as a sect of Judaism, the Church throughout the whole world and has continued through twenty centuries of history. We the Church=s members are charged to continue Jesus= works. He has now no hands to bless people than ours; no eyes to look upon people in love than ours; no tongue to speak words of love, encouragement, or reproof but ours; no arms to support people and their burdens than ours. The Church=s works are greater than those of her Lord because they are more extended in time and space than they could ever be during the few years that Jesus walked the dusty roads of Palestine.

And the Church=s works are great C amazing in fact C because they have never ceased despite the failures and betrayals of Church leaders and members. The betrayals began when, at Jesus= arrest, Athey all forsook him and fled@ (Mk 14:50); and when, only hours later, their leader, Peter, three times denied that he even knew the Lord. Should we be surprised when we hear of similar betrayals today?

Let me close with a story. It’s only a story, but it tells us something important.  When the Lord Jesus returned to heaven at the ascension the angels wanted to know everything he had done on earth.  So Jesus told them how he had gone about doing good, healing the sick, and teaching people about the freely given love of God.

AThat=s wonderful, Lord,@ the angels said.  ABut now that you=re no longer in earth, won=t people soon forget about what you have done and said?@

AOh no,@ Jesus explained.  AI founded a Church.  I chose twelve men to be its first bishops.  I spent three years teaching them: how to pray, how to heal people, how to free them from their burdens, how to teach others about God=s freely given love.  They are going to carry on my work.@

AThat=s all well and good, Lord,@ the angels replied.  ABut we know how fickle and unreliable these human beings are.  How do you know that they will keep on doing all those things you trained them to do?  How do you know that they will remain faithful?@

At that the Lord fell silent.  He looked down and seemed to be thinking.  Then he looked up and, with that beautiful, radiant smile of his, said very simply: AI trust them.@

"I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU."

      April 27^th, 2018: John 14:1-6.

                Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet. Then he tells them he would be leaving them. The news plunges them into grief and fear. Jesus responds by saying: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” You must trust, he was telling them, that the same God whom we worship in synagogue and temple is truly present and active in me. 

          That is a tremendous claim. The disciples whom Jesus was addressing didn’t yet know him as we know him — as the divine Son of God. To them he was a man like themselves. Realization that he was more came only after the resurrection. “I am going,” Jesus assures his friends, “to prepare a place for you. I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” Down through the centuries Christians have pondered and prayed over this promise. Here is what three of them have said.

St. Cyprian, 3^rd century Bishop of Carthage in North Africa:

“We reckon paradise to be our home. A great throng awaits us there of those dear to us, parents, brothers, sons. A packed and numerous throng longs for us, of those already free from anxiety for their own salvation, who are still concerned for our salvation. What joy they share with us when we come into their sight and embrace them! What pleasure there is there in the heavenly kingdom, with no fear of death, and what supreme happiness with the enjoyment of eternal life.” [Office of Readings for Friday of the 34^th week of the year)]

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa from 395 to 430.

“How happy will be our shout of Alleluia there, how carefree, how secure from any adversary, where there is no enemy, where no friend perishes. There praise is offered to God, and here too; but here it is by people who are anxious, there by people who are free from care; here by people who must die, there by those who will live forever. Here praise is offered in hope, there by people who enjoy the reality; here by those who are pilgrims on the way, there by those who have reached their own country.” [Office of Readings for Saturday of the 34^th week of the year)]

Pope Benedict XVI, now retired:

“Christianity does not proclaim merely a certain salvation of the soul in some imprecise place beyond, in which everything in this world that was precious and loved by us is erased, but it promises eternal life, ‘the life of the world to come’: nothing of what is precious and loved will be ruined, but will find its fulfillment in God. All the hairs of our head are numbered, Jesus said one day (cf. Matthew 10:30). The final world will also be the fulfillment of this earth, as St. Paul states: ‘Creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God’" (Romans 8:21). [Aug. 15, 2010]

          How do we reach the joys of which these three great Christians speak? Jesus tells us in the final sentence of today’s gospel: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

 

    

       

 

"WHOEVER RECEIVES ME , , , "

Homily for April 26^th, 2018: John 13:16-20.

          Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading immediately follow his washing of the apostles’ feet. Feet shod only in sandals got dirty on the dusty roads of Palestine. It was customary, therefore, for a host to provide water for arriving guests to wash their own feet. Jesus went beyond this gesture of hospitality. By washing his friends’ feet himself, he gives them an example of humble service which they must be prepared to imitate.

          How little the Twelve heeded and followed this example, we learn from Luke’s gospel, which says that at the Last Supper “a dispute arose among them about who should be regarded as greatest” (22:24). After the foot-washing, therefore, Jesus goes on to speak about what he has just done.

          “No slave is greater than his master,” Jesus says, “nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.” Down through the centuries many of Jesus’ followers have recognized this, and acted accordingly. Jesus directs his words to them when he says: “If you understand this, blessed [which means “happy”] are you if you do it.” Sadly, there also many who have acted as masters themselves, rather than as servants, conceiving of priesthood as a career, not as service. Knowing that there was one at table with him there at the Last Supper, who in his heart had already rejected his servant role, Jesus quotes a verse from Psalm 41: “The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.”

          Then, to encourage those truly resolved in their hearts to be and to remain his servants, Jesus says: “Amen, amen,” [which means “solemnly”] I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me.” Which one of us would not be thrilled to receive Jesus in person? A recent e-mail from a Philippine deacon now in Rome, soon to be ordained priest, had the words “A great grace” in the subject line. It told about his being able to greet Pope Francis personally at the end of an audience for seminarians.  

Jesus was telling his apostles that those to whom he was sending them would be no less thrilled than my Philippine friend. Jesus concludes by saying: “Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” Every encounter with Jesus is an encounter with God himself.

"THE LORD CONFIRMED THE WORD THROUGH SIGNS,"

Homily for the Feast of St. Mark, April 25^th, 2018: Mark 16: 15-20.

Our gospel starts with Jesus’ parting command to his disciples: AGo into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.@ In the measure in which we try faithfully to fulfill this command, Jesus continues today to do what he promised to do when he gave the command: to confirm the gospel message by Asigns.@ In the pre-scientific world of the first century, there were signs appropriate to that age. Mark mentions them: the power to drive out demons, to speak new languages, immunity to deadly snakes and poisons, the power to heal the sick. 

Today=s signs are different: the worldwide example and inspiration of a Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta, of Pope St. John Paul II, who soldiered on to the end despite bodily weakness, attracting at successive World Youth Days larger crowds than any rock star. The century which closed eighteen years ago brought us the sign of some twelve thousand Awitnesses for Christ@: women and men all over the world who, in the bloodiest of all centuries in recorded history, gave their lives for Jesus Christ. AThe age of the martyrs has returned,@ Pope John Paul II said as the twentieth century drew to a close. And in a great ecumenical service fifteen years ago in Rome=s Coliseum, where many martyrs shed their blood for Christ in antiquity, the Pope joined other Christian leaders in commemorating these twelve thousand witnesses to Christ.

Impressive as their witness is, and the other signs I have mentioned, perhaps the greatest of all today=s signs, which confirm the gospel message given to us by Jesus at his Acension, is simply this: that after so much failure by Christians in history, and by the Church=s leaders and members in our own day; after so many frustrations, after so many betrayals – yes, and so many scandals -- and after so many defeats in the struggle to fulfill Christ=s missionary command C nevertheless, after twenty centuries, so many, all over the world, are still trying to be faithful. 

 

"I AM THE TRUE VINE."

Homily for April 29th, 2018: Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B.  John 15:1-8.

AIM:  To show the implications, for faith and life, of Jesus= teaching about the vine and the branches.

 

Around the outside of the Temple in Jerusalem in Jesus= day was a gilded relief of a vine with clusters of grapes as big as a man. It symbolized God=s people.  He had delivered them, under Moses, from slavery in Egypt.  God had planted his people, one of the psalms said, in the land they now called their own, as a farmer plants a vine. (Cf. Psalm 80:9-16) 

With infinite patience God had tended the vine he had planted. Too often he had been disappointed. The vine failed to produce the fruit he was looking for. AHe looked for it to yield grapes,@ the prophet Isaiah said, Abut it yielded wild grapes@ (Isaiah 5:2). Yet God never stopped hoping for an abundant harvest. When it came, Isaiah said, this harvest would be a sign of the Messianic age, when God=s anointed servant would visit his people. AOn that day B The pleasant vineyard, sing about it! ... Israel shall sprout and blossom, covering all the world with fruit@ (Isaiah 27:2 & 6).

Only when we know about this rich symbolism can we appreciate the full force of Jesus= words in our gospel reading: AI am the true vine ...@ It was the night before Jesus= death. He had just celebrated the Last Supper with his twelve apostles. One of them had left the table to betray his Master. ACome then! Let us be on our way,@ Jesus had said at the meal=s conclusion. The words, AI am the true vine,@ follow at once in John=s gospel. 

Some Bible scholars suggest that Jesus spoke these words as he crossed the Temple courtyard with his eleven still faithful friends. It was Passover time, so there would have been, as always at that festival, a full moon. The golden vine around the Temple wall would have been clearly visible, glowing in the soft moonlight. It is easy to imagine Jesus pointing first to the vine and then to himself, as he said: AI am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower ...@ These words, and those which follow, make three statements: first, about Jesus himself; second, about his followers, and finally about his Father.

         1.  In calling himself the true vine, Jesus implied a contrast. God=s people, the vine he had brought out of Egypt and planted in a new land, had not been true. By their unfaithfulness they had failed to produce the harvest God was looking for. Jesus had been true. His death the next day would be Jesus= final act of faithful obedience to his Father=s will. And even now, the little band of friends accompanying Jesus were the firstfruits of the harvest God looked for when he sent his Son into the world. Jesus confirms this with his words at the end of our gospel reading: ABy this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.@ These words are a statement about B

2.               Jesus= followers. To bear fruit they must remain united with him

and seek to do his will. ARemain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.@ The person who remains united with him, Jesus says, Awill bear much fruit.@ Then he says something which astonishes us: AIf you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.@

Jesus is not saying that his followers have access to some kind of supernatural power to get whatever they want. He is saying that if we are truly united to him in heart, mind, and will, our requests will always be in harmony with what he wants. Hence the Father will always be able to grant these requests. This brings us, then, to Jesus= statement about B

3.               His Father: AMy Father is the vine grower.@ He cares for the

branches on his vine in two ways: by pruning those that bear fruit, and by cutting off and burning the unfruitful branches. Jesus= words about the unfruitful branches being thrown into a fire and burned are an implied reference to Judas, who was even then betraying the Lord. Elsewhere Jesus warns that there may be others as well B for instance in the parable of the wheat and the weeds, where Jesus says that at harvest time the weeds will be bundled up and burnt. (Cf. Matthew 13:30)

The vine grower=s treatment of the fruitful branches seems at first sight severe: AEvery one that [bears fruit] he prunes so that it bears more fruit.@ The image, easily understood by Jesus= hearers, who were familiar with vineyards and grapes, is that of a gardener pinching off the new green shoots on a vine, so that all the growth can be concentrated in the few early blooming branches which the gardener has selected to bear fruit. 

Faced in life with setbacks, injustice, or suffering B as all of us are, at some time or other B which one of us has not asked: AWhy me? What have I done to deserve this?@ Such questions are seldom answerable. Jesus= words in today=s gospel do not answer them. Instead his words challenge us to view setbacks, injustice, and suffering as opportunities to grow. 

That is how the saints have dealt with suffering. In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul speaks of being Acrushed beyond our strength, even to the point of despairing of life. We were left to feel like men condemned to death ...@ This experience taught him, Paul says, to trust not in himself, Abut in God who raises the dead@(2 Cor.1:8f).  

Where did Paul get the inner vision and strength to deal with suffering in that way and to rise above it? He got it from his heavenly Father and ours, whom Jesus in today=s gospel calls Athe vine grower.@

Jesus invites us to do the same: to submit to the vine grower=s pruning, and so to glorify him by producing abundant fruit.

"THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE."

     Homily for April 24^th, 2018: John 10:22-30.

A careful reading of the gospels shows us that Jesus was very guarded about revealing his true identity. Pressed in today’s gospel to say whether he is God’s long awaited Messiah (“the Christ” in English) he replies: “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me.” What works is Jesus referring to?  

          First on any list would be his miracles: the healings he performed, the stilling of the storm on the lake, the raising of the widow’s son at Naim and of Jesus’ friend Lazarus. Jesus also fed the hungry: the vast crowd in the wilderness, his twelve apostles at the Last Supper. After his resurrection Jesus prepared a lakeside breakfast for Peter, James, and John, tired and hungry from a night of fruitless fishing with the net coming back empty time after time until a man on shore, still unrecognized, calls out, “Cast the net on the right side” — and they feel the net heavy with fish, and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” calls out excitedly: “It is the Lord.” Jesus’ works also include his beautiful stories — the  parables — and all his teaching about the love of God, his heavenly Father: the love that will never let us go.  

        These works say nothing to you, Jesus tells his questioners, because “you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me.” What does it take to be among Jesus’ sheep? The first requirement is openness: willingness to learn, not just once, but all our lives long. People who think they know it all already, that they have nothing more to learn after their formal education is finished, cannot be among Jesus’ sheep. “My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus says. That requires listening, all our lives long. Our education is never finished as long as life lasts.

         To those who come to him not as skeptics, saying ‘show me,’ but in a spirit of openness, Jesus gives the greatest of all gifts: eternal life. “No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

         That too is the gospel. That is the Good News.

 

"I CAME SO THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE."

Homily for April 23^rd, 2018: John 10:1-10.

          “Whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep,” Jesus tells us in today’s gospel reading. “The sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.” Those who follow Jesus find that he is always close to them, yet that he remains the totally Other. They know his goodness, his kindness, his patience, his strength, his courage. They recognize Jesus Christ as the embodiment of everything good and noble and worthwhile in human life: completely sinless, selfless, pure, holy. Those who try to follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, experience him as a man set apart; yet drawing people to himself with a mysterious magnetism which centuries cannot diminish. (Why is it always quiet in the church when I speak about Jesus Christ?  Why is it quiet right now?)

          Jesus Christ is the one who understands us when no one else understands. He is the one who raises us up when we fall; whose help is effective and powerful when every other help fails. He is the Good Shepherd. He tells us in today’s gospel: “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Does that mean somewhere else, tomorrow? pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die? No! Though the abundant life which Jesus came to give us will never be complete in this world, he wants it to begin here and now.

          Perhaps someone is asking: “Can you prove that?” To that I must answer: “No, I cannot prove it. You must prove it.” You do so when you take Jesus at his word; when you listen for the shepherd’s voice, and heed his call. Once you do that, you will be able to say, in the words of the best known and most loved of all the 150 psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall lack.”

          Jesus’ words in today’s gospel are a reassurance and a promise. But they are more. They are also an invitation, and a challenge, addressed personally to you: “Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ... I came so that they might have life and have it to the full” [New American Bible]. 

          That, friends, is the gospel. That is the good news. Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it to the full!