The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, May 1, 2021

Colossians 3:14-15, 17, 23-24

Brothers and sisters: Over all these things put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one Body. And be thankful. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ.

In 1955, Pope Pius XII appointed the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker to be celebrated on the First of May, a day on which annual communist-inspired worker demonstrations had taken place since the late nineteenth century.  The Pope’s purpose was to celebrate the good of human labor by showing how it relates to the mysteries of God’s creation and of our salvation.  As John Paul II wrote in his apostolic letter, “Guardian of the Redeemer”: “Human work, and especially manual labor, receive special prominence in the Gospel. Along with the humanity of the Son of God, work too has been taken up in the mystery of the Incarnation, and has also been redeemed in a special way. At the workbench where he plied his trade together with Jesus, Joseph brought human work closer to the mystery of the Redemption.”  By imitating Jesus, who followed in the work of his foster-father, we do this as well.

In his letters to the Gentile Christians, as in his Letter to the Colossians, St. Paul teaches a new way of looking at life.  This is hard work because while the Jews spent their lives in carrying out their Law, the Gentiles had nothing like this and spent their lives searching for pleasure, when they were not striving merely to survive.  Here we find Paul urging the believers among the Colossians: “Over all these things put on love”, that is, to guide one’s words and actions with the love of neighbor for the sake of the love of God.  The motivation for life’s activities, then, is love, not pleasure, ambition, or any other worldly thing.  With love of God firmly in place, Paul tells them that they can “let the peace of Christ control your hearts.”  The desire for worldly goods will always leave us unsatisfied.  Their pursuit is like continually drinking salt water in order to quench our thirst.  This peace, in turn, allows us to “be thankful” since we can see clearly the true good that we have.

“Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  The Lord Jesus is the source of the love we have and we return it to him by doing all things in his name: for him, and by the power of his grace.  And, “whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for men.”  We do all for the Lord, but not in servile fear or out of dire necessity, but as an expression of our love for him.  We can express our love for him Even the most unpleasant job.  Father Walter Ciszek, condemned to the Siberian labor camps of the Soviet Union, encouraged his fellow prisoners to do the best work that they could because in this way they could glorify God.  In doing this, Paul tells us, “you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance.”  If we work for the world, we will receive only the crumbly, rotting things the world has to give, but if we work for the Lord, we receive eternal life in heaven.  It is not too much, then, for Paul to urge, “Be slaves of the Lord Christ.” 

St. Joseph, patron of workers, pray for us!

 Friday in the Fourth Week of Easter, April 30, 2021

John 14:1-6

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.” Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass is taken from the Lord’s words at the Last Supper in St. John’s Gospel.  Immediately before the words of this reading, he has foretold the denials of Peter, and the Apostles are greatly disturbed.  The Lord tells them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”  A better translation might be, Do not let your hearts be agitated: believe in God and believe in me.  As St. John will elaborate in his First Letter, written years after the Resurrection, “Fear is not in love: but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with sin. And he that fears is not perfected in love” (1 John 4, 18).  The Apostles are to fix their hearts on the Lord and not to keep looking back at themselves, which those do who remain attached to this world to one degree or another.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”  The Lord also offers them the consolation of their heavenly destiny, which he will go from this world “to prepare” for them.  This has the sound of a father who leaves the family in their old dwelling in order to get their new dwelling ready for them to move into.  In the context, it could mean setting up the tent they would live in, or making repairs to a house in a town.  The Greek word translated here as “going” properly means “to make a journey” or “to travel”.  This implies all the work necessary in making the journey. Much more is involved than simply “going”.  Traveling meant toil.  The Lord speaks of “preparing” or “making ready” the rooms or lodgings in his Father’s house for them.  This is a way of saying that he will return to heaven to make them, the Apostles, ready for eternal life.  The eternal halls of the heavenly courts have always stood ready for us, but not until the time of grace with the coming of the Lord have we been prepared for them.  From heaven he and the Father will send the Holy Spirit upon them, and there, ever before the Father, he would intercede for the salvation of the world: “He is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7, 25).  

The Lord Jesus tells them: “Where I am going you know the way.”  He reveals to them that they, in fact, do know the way to his destination.  There was then a pause as the Apostles considered this.  Then Thomas burst out with, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”  Thomas speaks three times in the Gospel of John.  When the Lord announces to his disciples that he will return to Judea, where he was recently nearly killed, in order to go to the death bed of Lazarus, Thomas said to the other Apostles, “Let us go with him that we may die with him” (John 11, 16).  And then when the Lord appears to him after he has risen from the dead, he told him to put his fingers into the wounds in his hands.  Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20, 28).  Here, we see Thomas determined to follow Jesus, and he does not want to be separated from him.  The outburst of Thomas is like that of a child seeing his beloved father leaving for some unknown destination and no time given for his return.  But the Lord comforts him: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  The Lord himself is the road to the Father.  The Lord Jesus is himself our life.  Through faith, Thomas and the other Apostles would be closer to the Lord than they ever were before he ascended into heaven.

There is no place or time or situation in our lives where we will not find the Lord already there with his arms open for us who believe in him.

 Thursday in the Fourth .week of Easter, April 29, 2021

John 13:16-20

When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me. From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

The Gospel reading assigned for today’s Mass is rather badly cut out from the story of the Lord’s washing of the feet of the Apostles.  In order to understand what we are given here, we must know the verses which precede it: “Then after he had washed their feet and taken his garments, being set down again, he said to them: ‘Know you what I have done to you? 

You call me Master and Lord. And you say well: for so I am. If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.’ ” (John 13, 12-15).  Then follows, “Amen, amen, I say to you, etc.”  Thus, it becomes clear that the Lord is saying that if he, the Master, washes the feet of his servants, how much more his servants ought to wash each other’s.  The Lord teaches us about his own humility, the humility we ought to have, and the reason we ought to engage humbly with one another: we are all servants of the same Lord.  In addition, he teaches us the purpose of authority: it is not for self-indulgent displays of power but for the purpose of service to others.  The one with authority is able to bring about the conditions necessary for service to others, either by obtaining the proper goods for this or eliminating any hinderance for it.  The right uses of authority, then, appear very restricted.  Whenever we see the Lord exercising authority in the Gospels, we see it used in these ways.  He never uses his authority to amuse himself or to exact revenge.  

His use of authority also teaches us that ostentation ought to be avoided.  When the Lord casts out demons, he does not make a big show of it.  He does not throw himself about or dance around, or wave his arms.  He does nothing that would attract attention to himself.  Similarly, when he heals a person, he simply tells them to stand and walk, or something of the kind.  He does not utter magical, unintelligible words, or go into a frenzy.  A person looking on from a distance would not notice anything supernatural happening at all.  In fact, the only time the Lord raises his voice in a situation like this is when he raises Lazarus from the dead, and he does this so that Lazarus might hear him in his tomb.  His authority extends to knowing the future, but he foretells future events for the Apostles only in order to serve them: “From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.”  That is, he does so in order to provide them with consolation by reminding them that he is God.

In our present world, those who possess authority or who pretend to possess it customarily abuse it for their own gain or pleasure.  They may do this without thinking much about it since this is so common among the powerful.  The One who follows the Lord Jesus must think carefully about its use should it come to him, keeping in mind at all times that we are fellow servants.

I had lunch today with a man whom I first knew as homeless and who has become stable after many years of hardship and struggle.  Through it all he has maintained his faith.  He told me about how amazed his peers were earlier in the day when he thanked someone for some small service.  The idea of gratitude was very foreign to them, he observed to me, but thanking someone is “Christianity in action.”  He talked about how nowadays people are shocked when someone gives an honest answer: Why would anyone do that?  Mostly, we construct our answers to questions in such a way as to keep us out of trouble or obtain for us some gain.  Gratitude and honesty to one another are services that we should never think twice about providing.

 Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Easter, April 28, 2021

John 12:44-50

Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them, I do not condemn him, for I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word that I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day, because I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So what I say, I say as the Father told me.”

“Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me.”  The Lord Jesus elaborates on his previous declaration that “the Father and I are one.”  This unity is so complete, he is saying, that belief in him, the Son, is the same as belief in the Father.  But since all must believe in the Father, and the Jew never questioned the existence of God, then all must believe in the Son as well.  As a result, worship and adoration and obedience are as much owed to the Son as to the Father.  Only one who could raise the dead could say something like this.  But this must be the response to the one who could raise the dead — for he must be God.

“I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.”  He casts the light of grace about him, enabling people not only to see him raising the dead and giving sight to the blind and expelling demons, but enabling them to believe what they see as well as to believe in the one who performs these deeds.  The grace is of such power that only those who refuse and reject it do not see and do not believe: for they cannot see and cannot believe without it.  The Lord acknowledges this: “Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word that I spoke.”  People reject God not because of some failing of God’s, but because of their own self-inflicted failing.  We try to help them by giving good example, by living lives of gratitude despite adversity, and by praying for them, most important of all.

“I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak.”  The Lord’s words to us are contained in the Gospels.  The Gospels are not mere historical records but are vessels of the living Word of God which he continuously speaks to us.  The words contained in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass are meant by Almighty God for us to hear now and to ponder now as though he had come down bodily to speak them to us.  And he does this through his Body the Church.  

“The Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak.”  So let us say and speak the Father’s words, joined to his Son through our baptism, through our words and works.

Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Easter, April 27, 2021

John 10:22-30

The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. 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.”

“The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter.”  St. John is referring to the feast we know as Hanukkah, a name which comes from the Hebrew word for “to dedicate”.  This feast celebrates the victory of the forces of Judas Maccabaeus over the Greeks for the control of Jerusalem, and the subsequent rededication of the Temple in 164 BC.  At this time of year a chill would have driven out the warmth of the Fall and the rain would have come more frequently.  “Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon.”  As usual, John carefully notes the details of the scene, revealing to us that he is giving an eyewitness account.  The “portico” of Solomon was actually a series of columns on the outer edge of the Temple grounds.  It is here that “the Jews gathered around him” and demanded to know, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  The time and place for this questioning are significant: the feast celebrating the success of the rebellion against foreign occupiers, and at the Temple which was rededicated then.  There could be no more apt setting for Jesus to declare himself the Messiah and to rouse the people to arms, so thought the Jews.  Their impatience with him shows in their demand, too: “How long are you going to keep us in suspense?”

The Lord responds, “I told you and you do not believe.”  He has made clear to them who he is: the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Son of Man.  The people do not believe what he tells them.  His words do not make sense to them.  No one has appeared in Israel with so much power.  As Nicodemus admitted to him, “You are come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which you do, unless God be with him” (John 3, 2).  And yet he does not build an army and preach rebellion, which is what they were waiting for, and the only purpose that they could conceive the Messiah to have.  Jesus insists that he is a different kind of Savior — a true Savior — and that the miracles he performs should tell them this: “The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me.”  He heals, he casts out demons, he raises the dead.  All these are signs pointing to the spiritual redemption he came to bring.  “But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.”  That is, they are not truly committed to him; rather, they are committed to their own fantasy about who the messiah should be.  At the heart of their belief lay a terrible materialism that strangled any faith in God that they might have, and blinded them to their sins.  It is the same materialism that causes our society to look for its salvation in purely political and scientific (or pseudo- scientific) ways.  “If only we change the system,” we think.  “If only we find a cure.”  But all of our real problems are spiritual ones and have only a spiritual solution: conversion to Jesus Christ.  Those who wrap themselves in materialism cannot become the sheep of Christ: such a thing makes no sense to them.  It is, literally, unthinkable.  But to those who belong to the Lord, no other possibility for salvation exists.  It is Jesus or chaos, whether personal or societal.

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”  Jesus speaks here of his kingdom, which is not of this world.  His sheep may be physically taken from his presence and even locked in deep underground prisons, which is where the Communist Chinese lock the Christians they catch, but they cannot take them from the hand of the Lord.  

“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.”  The Lord here teaches the truth of the Holy Trinity, the existence of Almighty God: the three Persons are distinct: “My Father who has given them to me”; and the unity of the Persons: “The Father and I are one.”  This goes far beyond the original demand made him by the Jews, and yet they could have accepted his statement on the basis of, say, the united intentions of the Father and Jesus: The Father and I share the same intention as to saving Israel.  But they do not, because they do not hear him aright with their material way of thinking.

Even the most religious of us is tainted to some degree by the materialism all around us.  Through prayer, vigilance, charitable acts, and the reading of the Gospels we can overcome this, with God’s help, and so be sheep worthy of so great a Shepherd.

 

 Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter, April 26, 2021

John 10:1-10

Jesus said:“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them. So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” 

“Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them.”  It is no wonder that the people had a hard time understanding the Lord’s meaning.  In a world of lies, propaganda, opaque myths, and duplicity, he was speaking to them simply, in easily understood terms.  Nothing complex blurred the teaching he presented.  No attempt was made on their money.  When the Lord announced, “I am the Good Shepherd”, he meant precisely that.  He does not, however, declare that they, his audience, were his sheep.  The Lord Jesus does not say, I am your Shepherd, you are my sheep.  The fact that he did not appeal to them to be his sheep, his followers, perhaps baffled them as well.  What sort of Messiah was this who did not recruit for his army?  He left it entirely up to them if they would be his sheep.

 “The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”  Now, the Shepherd here is driving his sheep out of the enclosure where they had spent the night.  This is as the Lord driving us out of this world of darkness, calling us by name, into a world of light, pasture, and fresh water.  How does he know our names? Because he gives them to us and calls us by them time after time until we recognize them.  The Lord names us at our baptism through the mouth of the priest.  “But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”  Even if a stranger should learn our name and call it, we would not recognize the caller and ignore him.  Through long experience and grace, we know that the voice of the stranger is one that leads to darkness and death.  It would not even occur to the faithful, catechized Catholic to join the religion of a stranger.

“I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”. The Lord Jesus is not only the Gatekeeper; he is also the Gate, the one through whom we have salvation.  He is our Teacher and our Savior, too.  He ratified this, saying, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  The Lord’s abundance: the wine at the Wedding of Cana; the multiplication of the bread and fish; the catch of fish directed by the Lord after the Resurrection, so heavy that it tore the nets.  What does this “abundant life” actually look like?  If we follow him faithfully, he will lead us into it.

 The Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 25, 2021

John 10:11–18

Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.”

One afternoon during my career at the restaurant, a group of waitresses and I were eating during the break between the lunch and dinner rushes, and the topic of the recent nearby robberies came up.  The restaurant next to ours was robbed the night before and we traded information about it.  We decided that there was not a red cent in our restaurant we were willing to put ourselves at risk for.  If bad guys came in at closing time, we would hold the door for them as they wheeled out the office safe.  It was not that we did not like the restaurant where we worked, or the management, or the company that owned it; we just liked living better.

It is easy to sympathize with the shepherd of whom the Lord Jesus speaks who works for pay and runs off when he sees a wolf coming.  Unless he is a very good shot with his sling, he could be killed along with a number of the sheep.  The person owning the sheep would be very distressed at the loss of his sheep, but he could always hire a new shepherd and he could gather up his remaining animals.  In the event of an emergency, there was no incentive for the shepherd to stay and try to defend the sheep.  

So who is this “good shepherd”, and why would he lay down his life for his sheep?  The Greek word translated as “good” has the meaning of “virtuous”, “noble”, and “moral”, with the implication of “inspiring” through the display of these qualities.  The “good” shepherd, then, sees the good as his duty,and is not motivated by profit.  He sees himself as representing the sheep owner and his interests, and puts this above his own interests, or identifies this as his own interests.  The “good shepherd” sells out for his sheep, holding nothing back.  He makes a continual offering of himself for his sheep.  

“I am the good shepherd.”  The Son of God tells us in these words exactly who he is and what he means to do.  Our salvation is his purpose.  He, the infinite God, does this for his erring, wandering, difficult creatures.  We could never have believed this if it had not been revealed to us.  It simply goes beyond all reason.

It would seem madness for a God or  a human being to act this way and to have this mind, but we see this “throwing away of one’s life” in the crucifix and also in the lives of men and women religious and of priests.  As closely as they can they model their lives of sacrifice after that of the Good Shepherd.  To do this they give up everything that could hold them back, including family and spouses.  They are worthy of our prayers, for they do this for us, to intercede for us.  And we pray for one another as well so that we might be good sheep of this wondrous Shepherd and that he might call our names and lead us into  eternal pastures.

 Friday in the Third Week of Easter, April 24, 2021

John 6:60-69

Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  The Greek word translated as “hard” can also mean “violent”, “harsh”, and “stern”.  It is the basis for our word “sclerosis”.  They are saying that the Lord’s teaching about his Body and Blood is much more than “difficult”.  It seems to go against nature.  Therefore, “Who can accept it?”  The word translated here as “accept” has as its first meaning “to hear”, and a secondary meaning of “to obey”.  It is much stronger even than to “believe”, since believing may not involve a cost, but obeying always will.  All the same, the crowd had been prepared to hear and also to obey by the tremendous miracle of the loaves and fishes.  

“Does this shock you?”  The word translated here as “shock” is the basis for our word “scandal” and properly means “to stumble”.  Jesus is asking the people, Does this cause you to stumble?, or, Are you stumbling?  That is, Is your faith faltering?  He then makes a further revelation: “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”  This comes across as a promise, as a reward for their faith.  If they believe in his teaching about his Body and Blood, they will merit to see him ascending into heaven.  For some, whose faith was already weak, this may have sounded like a warning: If you cannot believe my teaching about my Body and Blood, how can you believe in my Resurrection and Ascension?  He then offers them aid in their effort to believe: “It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.”  That is, you cannot believe this on your own, but the Holy Spirit will help you.  Protestants who reject the Lord’s teaching cite this verse in support of their belief that the Lord was speaking symbolically of his Body and Blood, as though it said, The words I have spoken are symbolic and life.  But what the Lord actually says only strengthens the argument that he was speaking quite literally of his Flesh and Blood.

“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  Without grace, we cannot go to the Lord.  We cannot know who he is or understand his teachings, or obey his commandments.  There is no faith unless through a specific grant of it to us by God.  And there are those who have been granted grace who then reject it: “Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.”

“As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him.”  As a result of their refusal to even ask for help to believe, as the father of the possessed boy did: “I do believe!  Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9, 24), they left the Lord.  They went back to their former — sinful — lives.  They had been so close to eternal life.  Enough of the crowd departed that the Lord turned to his Apostles and challenged them: “Do you also wish to leave?”  Perhaps there was a pause as the Twelve gathered their thoughts.  This had not been an easy teaching for them, either.  Then Peter spoke up, and he spoke for all of them: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”  Peter reveals here and on subsequent occasions the extent to which these men had sold out for Jesus.  There was nothing really to go back to.  Jesus was the one they had waited for, looked for, hoped for.  There was no one else, no place else for them to go.  This did not make the teaching they had heard any easier for them, but they wanted to understand, they wanted to believe and to obey.  They were in love with Jesus, and understanding would follow with time and persistence.

Friday in the Third Week of Easter, April 23, 2021

John 6:52-59

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass carries on from the readings of the last few days.  The Lord is speaking to the crowd in Capernaum about himself as the Bread of Life, and the necessity of eating this Bread for eternal life.

“The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?’ ”  While this is a perfectly legitimate question, the Jews go about answering it only by asking it of themselves.  This is a way of avoiding the answer that the Lord would give them.  Here, we see the terrible predicament of fallen man: unable to help himself to rise above his state, he turns to his fellow, who, in the same situation, cannot provide any but illusory aid.  This is shown graphically in the attempt to build the Tower of Babel: unable to look beyond the physical world, people attempt to attain a spiritual heaven through physical means.  Only God can help us, and yet we ignore him or fear to ask him or our pride forbids us to ask him.

The Lord watches them and listens to them struggle with each other as he also watches the struggle going on in their hearts.  He would help, but he is not asked.  After a time, he speaks again very loudly so that the crowd might hear him above their bickering.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you.”  Notice what he says here: “Unless you eat . . . you do not have.”  He does not say, You will not have.  He speaks in the present tense.  While he makes it clear that eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood will lead them to eternal life, there is no life within them in the present without this.  He is speaking of grace.  Grace makes us truly alive, especially in regards to the soul.  The person who has received grace is a very different kind of person from one who has not.  This person can think, understand, and act and live in ways an ungraced person cannot.  

“For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink.”  The Lord insists on what he has already taught them, but he still does not answer their question because they have not asked him.  These words, then, are for those whose faith is already strong enough that they will accept them as true even though they do not fully understand what they mean.  They do this on the basis of their own experience of the Lord’s works.  Now, when the Lord says that his Flesh is “true food” and his Blood is “true drink”, he is not saying, My Flesh is truly food, and my Blood truly drink.  The latter statement simply means that his Flesh is edible and his Blood drinkable.  In fact, what he is saying is that his Flesh is the Food, that is, the model  or form for any other kind of food.  An apple, say, shares in some of the properties of the Lord’s Flesh: it is edible, it provides a certain nourishment, it leads to a certain level of health, and so on.  To the extent that it shares in the properties of the True Food of the Flesh of the Lord, we can call it food.  But it is not True Food because it only provides temporary benefits to the human body.  The True Food of the Fresh of Jesus Christ provides eternal benefits to both the human body and soul.  Nourished with this Bread from heaven, the human body becomes capable of rising on the last day, and of becoming spiritualized — capable of heaven.  In creating things that could be used as food by humans, God used the Flesh and Blood he knew his Son would possess as his model.  Everything that we eat and drink is in some way like this divine reality.  Just as the Father is the Father and all other fatherhood is based upon him, and all those who are fathers are to a certain degree like him, so the Flesh and Blood of the Lord is the Food and Drink, and all other foods and drinks are merely like them to some degree.

“Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him.”  We consume him so that we might be consumed by him.  We receive him so that we might be received by him.  “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  All life, human and divine, originates from the Father.  By consuming the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, we become like him and so we receive a share in the divine life the Father gives his Son.  “Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this Bread will live forever.”  Now, in speaking in this way, the Lord minimizes the death that all in this world must undergo.  For the one who has eaten his Flesh and drunk his Blood, the death of the body is merely a means to an end, that end being eternal life in the ecstatic bliss of heaven.  The knowledge of this is what provides strength of will to those suffering martyrdom, it is what fuels the zeal of the missionary, what fires the love of priests and religious, and what makes life in a fracturing world within a bitter and despairing society possible for all who believe.

 Thursday in the Third Week of Easter, April 22, 2021

John 6:44-51

Jesus said to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: “They shall all be taught by God.”  Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”

It is hard to imagine the Lord speaking these words quickly.  They require so much thought to understand and such willpower to believe that he must have paused between the statements he was making.  This is indicated by the change in approach, rewording, and repetition he employs in delivering his basic message.  This occasion marks a milestone in the history of the human race.  No body of people had ever been asked to believe what the Lord was here asking these folks to believe.  The results would be mixed.  Those with weak faith left him, and those whose faith was already strong were made stronger in it.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.”  This sentence sets the stage for what comes next: “It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ ”  It seems that the Lord is quoting Isaiah 54,13: “All your children shall be taught by the Lord: and great shall be the peace of your children.”  The “they” in the verse would be the children of Israel, the Jews. The implication is that God would teach his people directly and not through any human intermediaries.  That would be fulfilled at this time, outside of Capernaum.  The Son of God delivers the teachings of the Father.  “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”  This teaching brings to mind the words of the Father at the time of the Transfiguration, which was still to come at that point: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him” (Matthew 17, 5).  In this case, the Father speaks himself.  Parenthetically, the Lord confirms, “Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.”  Jesus, who has made his claim that he is “from the Father” now claims to have “seen” the Father, which word both in Greek and in Hebrew could also have been understood as “known”.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me has eternal life.”  We have to picture this scene for ourselves in order to begin to grasp the nearly impossible thing the Lord is saying here.  Putting aside the recent miracle of the loaves and fishes, which many members of the crowd may not have fully been aware of, and the Lord’s walking on the sea, which they could only have surmised since they did not see it, what they saw was a man of ordinary height, perhaps thin from his fasting, with the hardened muscles of a working man.  His clothes would have hung on him with a certain raggedness.  His face would have shown his intelligence and his eyes would have blazed with his zeal. His posture would have displayed his assuredness.  For all that, he was one who ate and drank with them, one whose voice betrayed his Galilean origins.  He may have acted and spoken powerfully, but he also looked every inch a mortal man.  He was not even of the priestly class and was rejected by the authorities in Jerusalem.  How could this man say this?  Or, to quote his own Nazarene brethren, “Where does this man get all this?” (Matthew 13, 56).  

Jesus reiterates: “I am the bread of life.”  No prophet — no human — had ever spoken like this.  Since John does the tell us that the crowd interrupted him, we have to suppose that they were simply staggered and were waiting for him to unwrap this mystery that he had set before them.  “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.”  He says “your ancestors”, not “our”, distinguishing his divine heritage from their purely human lineage.  Now, their ancestors had the privilege of eating the manna sent by God from heaven to feed them in the wilderness.  Even so, they died.  The man from Nazareth now dares to say that those who eat the Bread of which he was speaking would not die, and he seems to indicate that he is somehow that very Bread.  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”  Some murmuring must have commenced by this time.  People would have asked each other what he meant.  Others would have shaken their heads in an effort to clear them so they could make sense of what he was saying.  “And the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”  The verb here translated as “give” can also mean “offer”: The bread that I will offer is my Flesh for the redemption of the world.  With that, the Jews assembled before him began to respond in volume.  

The Masses which are offered so hastily and which are attended so casually, often accompanied by the blandest music, hide rather than reveal the stunning wonder of the Holy Eucharist.  It is almost as though it is too great to think about and so we look away at that which makes no demands on us, which leaves us alone.  But the Bread will only save us if we eat of it.  And we can only eat it if we believe in it: only if we can approach it and say, Amen.

 Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter, April 21, 2021

John 6:35-40

Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord continues to teach the people whom he had fed with the loaves and the fishes.  He says to them, “But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe.”  This sentence is better translated, “But I told you that you have seen me [my miracles] and you do not believe.”  According to St. John Chrysostom, the phrase “But I told you” refers back to chapter 5, where the Lord argued with a crowd in Jerusalem who would not believe in him though they had seen his miracles of healing.  If this is the case, some of that crowd may have followed the Lord into Galilee, been fed by him, and then followed him to Capernaum.  Or, the Lord is speaking in a general way to the Jews of their reluctance to believe in him.  “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”  In the next line, the Lord speaks of those who do believe.  He is saying, then, that it is not his fault if people do not believe in him: it is the fault of those who have seen the miracles and refuse to believe.  Those who do believe are responding to the grace provided by the Father while those who do not respond do not believe.  “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”  Jesus thus links the obedience of those who respond to the Father’s grace with his own obedience to do his will.

“And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.”  We see the care of the Holy Trinity in the destiny of the believer.  The Father provides grace, and so “gives” the one who responds to it to the Son.  The Son carefully guards the one committed to him lest he be lost.  The Son does this by teaching him his commandments and offering his own sacrificial life as a model as well as the source of further grace.  The believer who then observes these commandments and lives according to the Son will be raised by the Son “on the last day”.  The believer will not be left on his own to face a fading present and an uncertain future.  “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”  The Lord speaks again about the need to “see” the Son.  This seems to contradict what he says to Thomas later in this Gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed” (20, 29).  Here, the verb translated as “sees” actually means “knows” — to see spiritually.  So, “everyone who knows the Son and believes in him”: those who accepted the grace to know that Jesus is the Son of God.  Knowing the Son leads to belief in him, which leads to eternal life.  “I shall raise him on the last day.”  That is, the body of the believer will be raised to rejoin its soul so that the full person of the believer may enjoy eternal life.  Our bodies are not disposable trash upon death, but are also meant for an eternal destiny, and should therefore be cared for and even honored.  The early Christians revered the tortured and slain bodies of the martyrs as their “trophies”.

 Tuesday in the Third Week of Easter, April 20, 2021

John 6:30-35

The crowd said to Jesus: “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father 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.” So they said to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?”  Many, perhaps most, of the people in the crowd had been fed by the Lord Jesus in the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  Jesus himself acknowledged this when he admonished the crowd that they had come to him not because they had seen signs but because he had fed them.  Indeed, the people asking for a sign here, still did not understand that the miraculous feeding with the loaves and fishes had been such a sign.  We see their thick-headedness when they even say, “What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert.”  It is as though they wanted him to bring down visibly bread from heaven, on their cue.  They do not care for any wondrous sign he may choose to give them; they want to tell him what wondrous sign he should perform.  They treat the Lord as a traveling magician.  Jesus is patient with them.  First, he corrects their odd notion that Moses had brought down the manna by his own power: “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven.”  He then uses earthly bread to teach them about grace, redemption, and eternal life: “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”  That is, my Father — the Father of the Son of Man — gave the manna to the Hebrews, and, though it came down from heaven, it acted as a sign for a far greater reality: “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  That is to say, there is the bread which he gave through Moses, which filled people on a daily basis, and the Bread of God, which satisfies forever.  “Sir, give us this bread always.”  This reminds us of how the Samaritan woman at the well said to the Lord, upon hearing him speak of the saving Water of grace, “Sir, give me this water always” (John 4, 15).  The people, just as the woman, are not thinking of spiritual things, however.  To this, the Lord replies, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

This revelation would have taken the crowd aback.  They were asking for material bread that they would eat and never be hungry again, just as the woman at the well only wanted water that would obviate the need for her to go to the well three times a day.  The people ask for bread, and the Lord offers himself.  More than that, the Lord makes it clear that the Father is offering him to them.  Now the people would have quieted and looked at Jesus, standing before them in the field outside Capernaum and wondered at what he could possibly mean in saying that he was “bread”, or, “the bread of life”.  The phrase itself is interesting because all bread nourishes for life.  Why the emphasis here?  The Lord was telling them that he was the Bread of eternal life.  And yet they had eyes only for the physical, the material, and they would not alter their way of thinking to understand him.

The Lord speaks to us in terms we can understand, using the things of our everyday world in order to teach us about the things of the spirit, the things of heaven.  We must learn, through grace, to look at the world with spiritual eyes so that in recognizing his signs, we may come to the Lord’s reality.

 Monday in the Third Week of Easter, April 19, 2021

John 6:22-29

[After Jesus had fed the five thousand men, his disciples saw him walking on the sea.] The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples had left. Other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread when the Lord gave thanks. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

The Lord could have stayed in the place where he had fed the crowd in order to teach them that he was the Bread of Life.  Instead, he chose to walk across the sea to the Apostles, who were rowing their boat, returning to Capernaum.  The people whom he had fed knew that the Lord often retired to that town and so “they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum.”  The Lord lured them on, as it were, with the idea that he would feed them again — and he would, but with his heavenly doctrine and not with earthly bread and fish.

“Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  St. Paul seems to contradict this saying when he writes, “Let him not eat who does not work” (2 Thessalonians 3, 10).  In fact, the Lord uses hyperbole to make his point, and is not encouraging indolence.  In this way he shows the vital necessity of working for “the food that endures for eternal life”.  It is almost to say, If you do not work for the imperishable food, why bother working for food that does perish?  The Lord has already spoken to his Apostles about this food: “My food is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work” (John 4, 34).  He rewords this for the crowd: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  That is, This is the work God gives you.  And who is the one in whom to believe?  “The Son of Man.”  In setting side by side the feeding with the perishable food and that which is imperishable, Jesus identifies himself as this “Son of Man”.  And who is the “Son of Man”?  “Lo, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of Days: and they [the angels] presented him before him. And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7, 13-14).

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”  The people in the crowd ask a very good question to ask the Son of Man.  Later, when the Lord teaches them their need to eat his Body and drink his Blood, they will recoil and we will see that their faith in him was weak.  His teaching was too much for many of them, even though they had experienced a miracle that supported both his teaching and his identity as the Son of Man.  It was as if they were saying to the Lord, We will believe in you as long as you do not ask too much of us.  This attitude brings to mind the demons who readily acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, but begged him to leave them alone.

In the same way as bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus at Holy Mass, he will change us from the children of wrath into saints, and from the keepers of pigs into beloved children warmly welcomed into their Father’s house, with rings put onto our fingers and a robe put onto our backs.  Unlike the bread and wine, we possess free will, and it is in fully and without reservation allowing God to do his work on us, that we are truly transformed and made fit for heaven.

The Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2021

Luke 24:35–48

The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread. While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. 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 and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

“He showed them his hands and his feet.”  We may easily miss these few, simple words, and yet they sum up the entire Gospel, the very life of the Lord Jesus, and the purpose of the Son of God in coming to earth.  These words compliment those of the Prophet Zechariah and quoted by St. John: “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.”  The Lord presents his mortal wounds to his Apostles both to convince them that it is indeed he himself, and that he was alive, and also to allow them to see his love for them.  In doing this, he offers them the opportunity to speak the words of faith which Thomas would profess a week later, in his awe: “My Lord and my God!”  It is in gazing at his wounds that we know ourselves to be loved with an infinite, enveloping love by our God.  We do this today when we pray with our hearts before a crucifix, when we receive him in Holy Communion, when we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Penance.  

These are also the signs of contradiction old Simeon told the Blessed Virgin about when she brought her Infant to the Temple for the first time.  Rather than the One who received them coming upon us in wrath and for vengeance on account of them, the Lord shows them to us, saying, “Peace be with you!”  Instead of destroying a life, they give us life.  And far from repulsing people, they draw all those of goodwill to him.  One day we will feel the wounds of his hands upon us when he embraces us upon our entrance into heaven.

 

 Saturday in the Second Week of Easter, April 17, 2021

John 6:16-21

When it was evening, the disciples of Jesus went down to the sea, embarked in a boat, and went across the sea to Capernaum. It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid. But he said to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.” They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.

“When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid.”  Confronted with mystery in the darkness of night, we mortals customarily react with fear.  In our experience, mystery, especially at night when we are more vulnerable, does not turn out well for us.  Sin does that to us, and the expectation of evil.  Partly this comes from our fallen human nature, and partly it is learned, as well.  The Son of God comes to us in mystery, as in his Incarnation, when he walked visibly among us; as in the Blessed Sacrament, when he wraps himself in the appearance of bread so that we might consume him — or, rather, that we might consume him so as to be consumed by him.  He comes to us in the darkness of our ignorance, of our hurt, and of our fear, and he says to us, Peace be with you, and in doing so, he imparts to us grace that gives us peace.  In effect, he calls to us out of his mystery: “It is I. Do not be afraid.”  Let us learn to expect him — “keeping alert”, as he often counseled his disciples — so that we may embrace him when he comes.

 Friday in the Second Week of Easter, April 16, 2021

John 6:1-15

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

The feeding of the five thousand poignantly reveals to us the superabundance of God’s love and care for us, and it so impressed the Evangelists that all four of them provide an account of it.  

The feeding itself looms so large in these accounts that we often miss what preceded it.  Here, St. John tells us very specifically that the Lord Jesus first approached his Apostle Philip: “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”  Now, the Lord asks him this upon seeing the crowd “coming to him”.  Philip does not protest and ask the Lord why he was asking him; nor does he ask why they should buy bread for the people at all; nor does he criticize the question.  He simply puts forward the quite rational observation that, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  He makes the observation with the obvious intent of working to a logical conclusion.  John states that “[Jesus] said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.”  The Lord wanted the Apostles to think this problem through.  But it was a problem only because the Lord made it so, for he chose to present the coming of the people to him as of guests coming to a banquet, meaning that he, the Master of the Banquet, had the responsibility for feeding them.  Now, Philip had seen the Lord provide wine at the Wedding at Cana and he might have proposed that the Lord do something along those lines.  At this point in time, though, Philip and the other Apostles were still looking at the situation with earthly eyes, not heavenly ones.  They still had much growing to do.

Andrew points the way out, though unwittingly: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  The Lord proceeds to use what-there-is to make an overabundance of food for the people to eat.  He need not have done that.  He could have caused food to float down from heaven, much like the old manna of which he will speak in the coming verses.  Or, he could have made food to appear, ready to eat, in an adjacent field.  The fact that he took the food that was available and increased it signifies how he works in those who believe in him.  Philip, for instance, believed in the Lord enough to try and answer his question without throwing up his hands and saying that he was asking the impossible.  The Lord employed Philip, just so, in the settling of the crowd and the feeding of the people.  The Lord made him a participant in the miracle.  He played the part of one of the servers at the Wedding at Cana.  The bread and the fish multiplied in his hands just as the water had become wine under the hands of the servants at the wedding.  Philip, then, was quite aware of the insufficiency of what he had and so could not doubt that the Lord was working through him to feed these people.  

The Lord works in the same way in accomplishing his will in us and in answering our prayers.  He answers our prayers in his time and in his way so as to draw us nearer to him, to refine our faith, as it were.  He makes us excruciatingly aware of our insufficiency to help ourselves or others, and then provides his help so that we know that it could only be his help.  He teaches us not to rely on ourselves and on our false estimates of what we are capable of accomplishing, and to rely on him.  This is particularly true of our salvation.  On our own we can no more reach heaven and eternal happiness than we can stretch a few fish and loaves to feed five thousand people.  The Lord will make this possible if we rely on him.  First, we must look our insufficiency squarely and then turn humbly to our God.

 Thursday in the Second Week of Easter, April 15, 2021

John 3:31-36

The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy. For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.

The Lord Jesus continues speaking to Nicodemus and this gives us the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.  The Lord has been speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom no one can see directly, but who can be seen in the acts of faith performed by those who believe.  The Lord has also spoken of the chasm that exists between the heavenly and the earthly, and he continues on this theme here.

“The one who comes from above is above all.”  This might be translated better as, The one who comes from above is superior to all.  We Christians can understand this as the Son of God who comes into the world transcends all things.  The Son is not simply a greater thing; he is a substantially different thing, and in this way he is “superior” to all others.  He is divine: without beginning, without end, “the Alpha and the Omega”.  As he himself says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22, 13).   Compared with the eternal Fire of God, humans are not even the sparks of the fire: those are the angels.  We are the bits of ash on the hearth floor.

“The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard.”  This is a phrase that sounds like it was first uttered in Hebrew, and, indeed, the Lord often argued with the Pharisees in Hebrew, not in Greek or Aramaic.  Thus, from the Hebrew we might translate this as, The adam is of the adamah and speaks of the things of adamah.  Adam, the man, and adamah, the earth. The human knows only earthly things because it is all he can know.  The one from heaven transcends the one from earth and so testifies to what the one from earth cannot imagine.  “But no one accepts his testimony.”  That is, unaided, no one of the earth has the ability to understand and to accept his testimony.  And yet, there are those who do, not through corroborating knowledge of what the one from heaven says, but through faith in the words of the one from heaven.  We may not be able to comprehend heaven, the angels, and grace, much less the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but we can believe in the one who tells us of these things, and we do this through the aid of the grace he gives us.  In accepting the word of the Messenger, we believe in the One who sent him, and that he is trustworthy.  “For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God.”  We believe what the Messenger says of himself because of the works he performs by the power of the one who sent him.  “He does not ration his gift of the Spirit.”  The grace which enables us to believe is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and to the human who wants to believe and is prepared to believe, abundant grace will be given.  We recall how the Lord Jesus fed the five thousand, so that there was enough food left over to feed a town.  God is not sparing with his gifts; it is we who are sparing in our reception of them.  

“The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him.”  These words sound so prosaic in our human ears.  The heavenly reality they hint at cannot enter our minds.  If it is true, as St. Paul said, that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard: neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2, 9), then how much less we can conceive of the love of the Father for his Son.  The Father, in his love, gives everything to the Son — “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, honor and power and strength” unto eternity (Revelation 7, 12).  The Son will share these with those who believe in him: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”  This belief is not merely acceptance of a body of knowledge but signifies a relationship.  We do not simply believe the Son, but believe in the Son.  We give ourselves to him, body, soul, and mind.  “Whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.”  The wrath of God “remained” upon us all through original sin, which is only taken away by baptism, the remission of sin won for us by the Blood of the Lord which was poured out for us.  That is, we recognize God’s choice of us to be his friends, though we have sinned against him both in our First Parents and personally, and we become his sons and daughters through the cleansing water of baptism, which confers a new birth upon us.  

In considering the ways in which God transcends us, we marvel at how we become his sons and daughter by adoption, and heirs of heaven.  All this occurs by the Life, Death, and Resurrection of his Son.