The Third Sunday of Easter, May 1, 2022

John 21, 1–19

At that time, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore, only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.  

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.” 

I posted a reflection on John 21, 1-14 on the Friday in the octave of Easter, April 23, 2022, so I will mainly keep this reflection on the last part of this Gospel reading.  

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  By addressing Peter in this way, the Lord indicates the formality with which he is speaking to him.  The Lord asks him if he loves him more than the other Apostles do.  Peter’s reply, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you”, is more literally translated from the Greek, “Yes, Lord, you have known that I love you.”  The tense of the verb translated here as “known” is in the perfect, not the present, as in the lectionary.  That is, Lord, you have known all along that I love you.  We should understand this as in reference to Peter’s three denials at the time of the Lord’s Passion.  Peter is saying that he knows that the Lord knew of his love even despite the denials, for Peter had acted out of weakness, not out of malice.  Peter may not have heard the last part of the Lord’s question: “more than these” because he does not really answer this.  This may have been caused by his preoccupation with the first part of the Lord’s question.  Following the denials, over which he grieved deeply, he must have wanted, above all things, to assure Jesus of his love.

“Feed my lambs.”  This command of the Lord brings to mind how he had commanded his Apostles to feed the crowds on two occasions from baskets of a few fish and loaves of bread.  Here, the Lord says “lambs”, that is, those whose faith is still new and weak.  

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  It is not clear if St. John abbreviates the original question, or if the Lord does, so that it is easier for Peter to answer.  Peter gives the same reply as to the first question.  “Tend my sheep.”  The word translated as “tend” also means “to shepherd”.  This command brings to mind how the Lord Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep” (John 10, 11).  The Lord here calls Peter to share in his life in a particular way, as the shepherd designated by the Shepherd.  Notably, he does this with no other Apostle.  Then Jesus Lord asks again, “Do you love me?”, stripping the question to its  elements.  It is as though the Lord were pressing him for an answer Peter should know but cannot seem able to give.  Peter, upset with the Lord asking him this question again, answered, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  But in fact, Peter does not answer the question.  The answer is not, “You know that I love you.”  The answer is, “Yes, Lord, I love you.”  Peter fails to say whether he loves the Lord more than the other Apostles and then fails to answer to simpler questions of whether he loves him.  The Lord knows well that at this point in time, Peter can go no further.  His love is not perfect, but it is sufficient for now.  The Lord replies, “Feed my sheep.”  Peter’s faith is strong, but his love must still grow.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  The Lord sets this out for Peter ahead of time, allowing him to know that he will suffer and die for his sake.  But the Lord also confirms that his need to grow perfect in love will continue even to the time he is arrested, teaching him that he must grow perfect in it to attain the highest happiness in heaven.  It is profession of our faith in Jesus that will result in our persecution, but it is our love for Jesus Christ that will enable us to suffer and die for him: “Follow me.”  Let us follow the love of our lives.

 Saturday in the Second Week of Easter, April 29, 2022

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.

St. Matthew, in his Gospel, supplies many details to St. John’s summary.  According to Matthew, Jesus “obliged his disciples to go up into the boat, and to go before him over the water” (Matthew 14, 22), whereas John shows the Apostles going in their boat of their own accord.  Matthew also tells us that Jesus spent the night on prayer, whereas John simply tells us that the Lord went up the mountain to avoid the crowd which wanted to make him king.  John says that “the sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing”, and Matthew comments that “the boat in the midst of the sea was tossed with the waves: for the wind was contrary” (Matthew 14, 24).  And while John tells us that the Apostles saw Jesus walking on the sea, Matthew gives us the story of Peter trying to walk on the water and the Lord rescuing him when he sinks into it.  John evidently omits this event because he is leading the reader to the great discourse the Lord gives on the Bread of Life.  But by reading both accounts we are able to gain a fuller picture of what happened at that time.  We can also tie in the lack of faith shown by Peter when he sank into the sea with his profession of faith at the end of the discourse on the Bread of Life, when many of his former disciples walked away from him, as reported by John: “Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known that you are the Christ, the Son of God” (John 6, 68-70).  Thus, while a large number of former disciples lost their faith, hearing this teaching of Jesus, Peter’s faith increased.

“They saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid.”  We might ask why the Lord chose to walk on the sea as he did.  He could have transported himself to Capernaum without walking, either walking on the water or the earth, if the point was getting there.  The answer seems to be that he desired his Apostles to see him doing this, to show them an aspect of his power of which they had been unaware.  We should recall that the Apostles still nourished within their bosoms the idea that Jesus was going to lead the armies of Israel against the Romans.  He was a terrestrial Messiah.  Here, before telling the crowds that they must eat his Body and drink his Blood to have eternal life, he shows his power as the Son of God.  He also shows by this display of divine power that what he is about to teach comes from God.

“It is I. Do not be afraid.”  The Lord will speak these words to the Apostles when he appears to them after rising from the dead.  This has the effect of further validating the “hard words” of his teaching regarding the need to consume his Body and Blood, and to obey all his commandments.  We can understand these words as the Lord addressing them to us whenever we find ourselves in distress, as the Apostles heard them in the rough seas.  He is closer to us in our troubles than we think.  We can say to him: Lord, as long as you are in control, whatever happens, no matter how bad it may be, I trust you to keep me safe.

“They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.”  This is where the story of Peter walking on the water would have been of John had decided to include it.  The Apostles wanted him to go into the boat with him because his presence among them would make them feel safer, but the Lord caused the boat to suddenly reach its destination, so they could disembark and have the hard ground under their feet again.  He answers their prayer, but in a way they did not anticipate.  The Lord directs us us to cross the sea of life in our boat, our mortality, and despite the dangers we encounter, he is right alongside us, and answers our earnest prayers to get us safely to the eternal 

 Friday in the Second Week of Easter, April 29, 2022

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 events in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass took place some time after Jesus had healed the lame man by the pool in Jerusalem, recounted in the previous chapter of St. John’s Gospel.  According to the reasoning of the Venerable Bede, John the Baptist was beheaded at about this time, and the Lord would be crucified a year later, at the time of the next Passover.  We can see the Lord’s feeding of the five thousand, then, as the beginning of the final stage of his life and ministry on earth.  The feeding takes place near Bethsaida, the native town of Peter, Andrew, and Philip.  It was located on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, near the Golan Heights.  The town relied on fishing for its economy.  Otherwise, the land around it was good for grazing but not for much else.  It was wild country with rocky hills and grassy plains.  The Lord seems to have gone up there at this time not so much to preach to the crowds as to spend time teaching his disciples.  The crowds, however, came after him, even to this difficult to access country.  They were lured on by “the signs he was performing on the sick”.  Presumably they wanted to see more of these signs.  But they also were drawn to the Lord himself, for they follow him even into the rough country, away from the towns where the sick lay.

Seeing the crowd arriving from his vantage point on the mountain, the Lord asked Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”  The Lord is not asking this question because he wanted suggestions.  He asks it as a teacher proposing a problem to a student, to give the student a chance to work out an answer.  Philip thinks, turning the problem over in his mind, but can form no solution.  He does, however, frame the problem in practical terms: “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  That is, apart from the fact that this amount of food could not be purchased in a small town like Bethsaida, they did not have sufficient funds to buy it anyway.  Andrew notices a boy coming along with the crowd.  He is carrying a basket.  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  Andrew senses that the Lord is going to reveal the answer to his own question, but cannot imagine what he will do. 

“ ‘Have the people recline.’  Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.”  John provides the detail about the abundance of wild grass as though to show the Lord’s concern that the people should recline at this place rather than at another on the hard stone of the hillside.  Now, we note that the Lord does all this in answering the question he had posed to Philip, not explaining it to the Apostles in words but showing it in actions.  “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.”  The crowd could not have seen how few the loaves and fish were but they saw the Lord offer a prayer of thanksgiving to the Father for them.  John writes as though the Lord distributed the loaves and fish himself, but as we learn from St. Matthew’s account of this event, “He blessed, and broke, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes” (Matthew 14, 19).  That is, he fed the crowd through his Apostles.  This gave them a hand in solving the problem their Teacher had set before them in the person of Philip.  The answer they could have drawn from this was that God will bless an act done out of charity so that its effect super-abounds.  Thus, there remain left over “twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.”  God never provides merely sufficient graces or rewards, but always more than what is strictly necessary.  God is an exuberant giver.  The Lord shows that the grace “left over” from the blessing does not simply vanish without accomplishing some good.  It is part of God’s providence that it would provide a benefit for someone who perhaps does not know how to ask for it: “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.”  The fragments could go to the poor of the town who would go hungry that night without them.

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”  For us reading today, these words make it appear that the people recognized Jesus as the Savior of the world, but the people meant that Jesus was the Messiah concerning whom the Pharisees taught, who would overthrow Roman rule.  They came up with this on their own, not bothering to ask the Lord himself what this sign meant.  “Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.”  We see the great love Jesus had for these people, that before he fed them he knew how they would react, and yet he fed them anyway.  He eagerly looked for ways to serve the people who flocked to him, and even seemed to pursue those who did not so that he might render them some good.  He continues to do this for us, pouring blessings upon us even when we are unaware of it.

 Thursday in the Second Week of Easter, April 28, 2022

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 words of this Gospel reading are a part of a teaching either of John the Baptist or of John the Apostle.  They seem to continue The Apostle’s prelude to his Gospel, as found in John 1, 1–14.

The one who comes “from above” comes from heaven.  The Greek word translated as above all means “is superior” to all”, not to be confused with “higher” than all.  This is the Son of God, the Word made flesh.  Even jointing himself to human nature, “being made in the likeness of men, and in form found as a man” (Philippians 2, 7), he is superior to all.  “The one who is of the earth is earthly”, that is, from the earth — out of the earth, made of its clay.  This kind of person does not seek to rise above the earth but to remain mired in it.  “And speaks of earthly things.”  When the Lord speaks of earthly things, he does so in order to teach heavenly realities, but when a man without faith speaks of earthly things, that is all he means because he has no experience of anything higher.  The Lord “testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.”  He has proven that he knows of heavenly realities through the works he has done, for as Nicodemus has admitted, “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).  Yet, “no one accepts his testimony.”  This suggests a willfulness, a determination not to accept his testimony no matter what he says.  Most people, the Lord is saying, “loved darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil” (John 3, 19).  

“Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy.”  First he says that “no one accepts his testimony, and then he says “whoever does accept his testimony”, indicating that those who do accept his testimony are few.  The one who accepts Jesus is that rare human who yearns to be above earthly things and to understand the language of heavenly things. “For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God.”  The One whom God has designated as sent by him — “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3, 17) — speaks of heaven and God just as naturally as another person might speak of his work.

“He does not ration his gift of the Spirit.”  The Greek connects the phrase “For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God” to this phrase with “for”, as though providing an elaboration, while the first phrase, translated as a complete sentence, does not contain a “for”.  Thus, from the Greek text: “The one whom God sent speaks the words of God for he does not ration his gift of the Spirit.”  The one whom God sent is his Son, and he speaks the words the Father gives him to speak.  The Holy Sprit, “descending as a dove, and coming upon him” at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, assists  the human nature the Son has assumed in speaking the Father’s words.  We learn from this that the Persons of the Holy Trinity, distinct as they are, act in concert, each with his own role, as it were.  The Son will later, with the Father, bestow this same Holy Spirit upon the Apostles: “He breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (John 20, 22).  

“The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him.”  As the Lord will say later, “All things whatsoever the Father has are mine” (John 16, 15.  That is to say, life.  From all eternity the Father begot the Son and so the Son may be said to have life because of the Father, and this life is the divine life, to which no perfection is lacking.  The Father gives this to his Son because he loved him from all eternity.

“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.”  To believe in the Son as the Son of God means to make the intellectual assent to this truth as well as to practice this truth in the world through the doing of good works.  In this way, a person begins to have eternal life even here, while those who rejects faith in the Son in order to devote themselves to their pleasures are “dead even while still living” (1 Timothy 5, 6).  

Carefully reading these words of the Gospel which the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Evangelist helps us as we gaze at the Host at Mass and as we receive it in Holy Communion to know the greatness and the sublime majesty of the one upon whom we are looking and consuming.

 Wednesday in the Second Week of Easter, April 27, 2022

John 3, 16-21

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

It is not clear from the Greek text whether the verses used in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass were said by the Lord Jesus or were comments made by St. John.  It seems more plausible to conclude that John wrote them in order to explain the answers he quotes the Lord as giving to Nicodemus, who has come to interview him by night.  One reason for this is the way the Son of God is spoken of.  Jesus did indeed speak of the Son of Man in the third person, but not in the extended way we see here.  Another reason is that it reads like a continuation of the beautiful and sweeping prologue John had written to his Gospel.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  We should compare what is said here, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” with “He was in the world: and the world was made by him: and the world knew him not” (John 1, 10).  This world that God loved did not “know” him or his Son, that is, did not recognize, acknowledge, or love him in return.  And yet, the Almighty Father sent his Son to be “in the world” so that it might learn from him how much he who created it, loved it.  And that was not all the Son did for the world.  The Father gave up his Son, his only-begotten, to the Death inflicted by the world so that it might be saved by him.  We ought to marvel at how God makes himself pathetic and contemptible so that we might be saved.  He who has no need of us, even if we were perfect saints, acts as though we do him the favor when we believe in him, so that he saves us from eternal death.  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  Reasonably, we should think that of God was going to send his Son into the world at all, it would be to judge and punish it, for we have all sinned and do not deserve pardon.  But the Son has come not to judge but to save.  When he comes again to gather those who have believed in him into heaven, he will “judge” the wicked by leaving them to be claimed by hell, which would be our default destiny too were it not for his mercy and our response to it: “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned.”  

“This is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”  “Light” here means both “truth” and the Lord Jesus himself, who proclaims that he is “the Light of the world” (John 8, 12).  People “preferred darkness to light”, which is the reverse of how it should be, since darkness means danger, crime, and ignorance.  People go against their own best interests, even against their own nature, in preferring darkness. “Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.”  The light would expose their wickedness to other people, and to their own consciences.  

“But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”  Those who live the truth of the faith do not practice private piety but perform works of charity which are seen as proof of their faith.  The one who professes to believe but does not perform good works loses what little faith he has over time.  If we live the truth of Christ, we will draw nearer to him each day and our hearts will grow full with him.  At the end of the world, the good we have gone will be revealed to the world.

 Tuesday in the Second Week of Easter, April 26, 2022

John 3, 7-15

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “You must be born from above.  The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

The Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, begins with the Pharisee approaching him “at night”, evidently wishing to speak to him privately and perhaps secretly, lest the other Pharisees suspect him of harboring sympathy for Jesus.  The account John presents us comes across as a bit choppy: John includes the most essential words that he recalls.  We see in his recollection his fascination with the way Jesus uses ordinary words to mean extraordinary things.  “Wind” or “Spirit” (the same word in Greek), and “birth” are prominent in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.

Jesus is answering the question Nicodemus posed concerning how a person can be “born again”.  The Lord explained to him that “unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3, 5).   Today’s Gospel reading picks up after that.  The Lord insists: “You must be born from above.”  The Greek word translated here as “from above” can also mean “again”.  The question that Nicodemus raises concerns how a man must be born again, so translating this verse as “You must be born from above” does not make good sense here.  It is true that we must be “born from above”, but that is not the topic under discussion.  “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  We can trace the effect back to the cause, but the cause is always greater than its effect.  This is particularly true with regards to spiritual realities.  We can see from history how the Church began with eleven badly frightened, grieving, hiding, men into a structure spread throughout the world and containing a billion souls at the present time.  This is the effect: the cause is the Holy Spirit, whose power in the Church we trace back to the first Pentecost. “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  Those who are “born of the Spirit” are given graces which, though invisible, greatly influence a person’s life and make him capable of attaining great holiness through faith and good — even heroic — works.

“How can this happen?”  Would that the other Pharisees had come to the Lord seeking to learn from him!  Instead they rejected him almost out of hand, perhaps prejudiced against teachers from Galilee.  We can imitate Nicodemus when we do not understand a Church teaching and instead of expecting the teaching to change to suit us, we seek to understand it so that we might follow it.  “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?”  The Lord’s words sound harsh, but his purpose is to remind Nicodemus that the Pharisees had appointed themselves as Israel’s teachers.  They consider themselves the legitimate interpreters of the Law and the Prophets, but they had no basis for doing so.  The Lord continues in this vein, saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.”  Jesus testifies of what he has seen and heard from the Father.  His claim is validated by his great works, as Nicodemus said at the beginning of their conversation: “We know that thou art come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him” (John 3, 2).  The Lord says, “You people”, that is, the Pharisees.  “If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”  “You” here is in the plural: the Lord is not now speaking to Nicodemus but to his fellow Pharisees who do not believe in him.  Indeed, the Lord often uses “earthly” things to explain “heavenly” things, as he does here, and as he does, for instance, when he speaks of his Body as a temple (cf. John 2, 19-21).

“No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”  The Lord here refers to his union with the Father.  While his Body and human nature is firmly fixed on earth during his lifetime and his divinity is united to it, it also remains in union with the Father in heaven.  The Lord’s next teaching seems separate from that regarding his unity with the Father, but it is connected to it through the idea of “lifting” or “going up”: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  The Son of Man, equal in glory and majesty with the Father,  wills that he be raised up ignominiously on a Cross for the salvation of those who believe in him.

Nicodemus, whose devotion to the Lord is seen in his care of his Body after his Death, is accorded a feast day by the Church on August 31.

 Monday in the Second Week of Easter, April 25, 2022

The Feast of St. Mark

Mark 16:15-20

Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”  Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

It is said that St. Mark was the son of a woman named Mary, who owned a large house in Jerusalem.  He was evidently named “John” at his birth, and as was customary, had a Graeco-Roman name as well, “Mark”, anglicized from “Marcus”.  He had a cousin named Barnabas, who either was born on the island of Cyprus or spent a good part of his life there.  Mark’s mother’s house served as an important base for the Lord Jesus and his Apostles.  It was there that the Last Supper was eaten, and this was the house to which the Apostles fled at the time of the crucifixion.  Jesus appeared there on the days of his Resurrection and subsequently.  At this house the Apostles and a large number of other disciples (presumably including Mark and his mother) were meeting when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost.  It is speculated that Mark wrote of himself in his own Gospel as the young man in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. Mark 14, 51-52).  He and Barnabas were early companions and fellow missionaries of St. Paul.  At some point, though, Mark felt compelled to leave Paul and departed.  He may have returned to Jerusalem on family business or simply because he was exhausted from the incessant work.  He later became an assistant to St. Peter, who calls him his “son” in 1 Peter 5, 13, a letter written from Rome.  We learn from the Fathers that Mark acted as Peter’s interpreter and secretary, hinting that Peter’s Greek or Latin may have needed a little help as he preached to the Romans.  According to St. Clement of Alexandria, writing before the year 200, “And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter’s hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark.  And they say that Peter, when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done, was pleased with the zeal of the man, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches.”  According to Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, Mark left Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, which would date his Gospel, written in Rome, to the 40’s.  He made his way to Alexandria, Egypt, where he introduced the Faith.  The Coptic Christians in that city regard him as their founder.  The original rite of the Mass, called the “Liturgy of St. Mark” and going back to his time if not to him, was celebrated in the Greek language.  As the use of Greek faded over time, it was succeeded by a Coptic translation called the “Liturgy of St. Cyril”, established under Cyril of Alexandria in the fourth century.  The time, place, and manner of St. Mark’s death remains uncertain. An ancient tradition depicts him as being dragged to death through the streets of Alexandria.  His relics are kept in St. Mark’s in Venice.

 The Second Sunday of Easter, April 24, 2022

John 20, 19–31

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”  Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

The reputation of St. Thomas has come down to us as “the doubter”, as in “a doubting Thomas”.  Yet he behaved rightly in his caution, given the circumstances.  He returned from his absence possibly the next day or a few days after the appearance of Jesus to the other Apostles.  We do not know the reason for his absence.  It is possible that he had fled back to Galilee but then thought about what he should do and rejoined the others in the house in Jerusalem, to be met with this tale of the Lord having risen from the dead.  Certainly, the Apostles would have been overwhelmed by emotion by the sight of the Lord Jesus after knowing him to have been viciously killed.  Their elation must have seemed like hysteria to the careful Thomas.  But he would not be moved by hysteria.  The fact that he said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”, tells us that he does want to belief, but that he wants to believe rightly.  He remains with the Apostles through the next week, hoping to see Jesus as they had.  By then, he had heard the testimony of the women who saw him near the tomb and also that of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus.  He must have become steadily more eager to see the Lord, hoping that he would return again to the Apostles.  When the Lord Jesus did come back, on the Sunday after Easter, Thomas was overjoyed and cried out, “My Lord and my God!”, going beyond the faith of the others.  Thomas would become one of the greatest of the early missionaries, too, rivaling even St. Paul.  Eventually he made his way into India where he preached the Gospel and established the Church.  The descendants of these Indian Christians astonished the Portuguese explorers when they found them in the course of their voyages to that far-off land.

 Saturday  Within the Octave of Easter, April 23, 2022

Mark 16:9–15

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

“When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.”  Scholars call Mark 16, 1-8 “the shorter ending”, as distinct from Mark 16, 9-20, which they call “the longer ending”.  The two earliest full texts of the Gospel of Mark, found in the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus (both dating from 315-350 A,D.) contain only the shorter ending, but manuscripts nearly contemporary with these contain both the “shorter” and the “longer” endings.  The shorter ending, which is in all the early manuscripts, ends with the women fleeing from the tomb where an angel had told them to announce the Resurrection to the Apostles.  The last words of this ending strike us as odd: “And they said nothing to any man: for they were afraid” (Mark 16, 8).  This cannot be all that Mark wrote because if it were, the Apostles would not know the Lord had risen.  This would constitute an incredible anticlimax to a narrative that had been building up expectations for this very moment: the victory of Christ over sin and death.  It seems that this ending is cut off in the middle of the sentence that should read something like this: “And they said nothing to any man until they came to the place where the Apostles were staying, for they were afraid.”  Then should follow a description of the appearances of the Lord Jesus.  The fact that the Gospel originally ended in this way, with verse 8, indicates either that Mark was interrupted in his writing and was not able to resume it, or that the complete ending was lost very early, before many copies could be made of his text.  Mark would have written on papyrus which would have been rolled into a scroll.  It is very possible that a few inches of the tail end of the original scroll were torn during transit or under other circumstances.  In any event, a later hand penned the “longer ending”, a summary of the Lord’s appearances, in order to provide a more fitting conclusion.  While not the work of Mark, the Catholic Church guarantees that it too was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

“She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.”  These “companions” were the Apostles.  While we know that they feared for their lives, we do not hear from the other Evangelists that they were “mourning and weeping” over the Death of the Lord.  We see in the Gospels how they often misunderstood him, but they did deeply love him.  His Death and their failure to protect him affected them very deeply.  We can easily imagine the grief of St. Peter who had denied knowing him to inconsequential persons.  When the cock crowed, as the Lord had foretold, Peter went off and wept bitterly.  “When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.”  This is a generality, for Peter and John, who had gone to the tomb, did believe.  “After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.”  This highly condenses the story of the appearance of the Lord at Emmaus, found in Luke.  “They did not believe” is again a generality.

“But later, as the Eleven were at table, Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart.”  That the Apostles “were at table”, eating, when the Lord appeared to them fits in with what we read in John’s Gospel, where the Lord asks for something to eat to prove that he is indeed alive.  Remarkably, one would think, the Lord commanded the, after rebuking them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”  But who could be a better witness than one who had not believed and had to be won over by very hard evidence?  The chief preachers of the Gospel in the first days of the Church had not believed, and had in fact abandoned Jesus and denied him.  These are the Apostles and St. Paul, who openly fought against belief in his Resurrection.

 Friday in the octave of Easter, April 23, 2022

John 21:1–14

Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore, only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.

This appearance of the Lord Jesus took place at least a week after his Resurrection.  The Apostles, or, at least, the majority of them, have returned to Galilee.  Peter says to them that he is going fishing.  He could have told them this in the early evening so that, if they wanted, they could join him.  They must have been staying at the time in Peter’s house since he evidently has a boat ready for his purpose, presumably his old boat.  Five Apostles of the seven are named.  Andrew must have been one of the unnamed ones, and the other might have been Philip, since his friend Nathanael is there.  Of the rest, James the son of Alphaeus could have remained in Jerusalem for the benefit of the Lord’s adherents there (he later became the first bishop of the Christians of that city).  The Apostle John, the author of this Gospel, does not name himself and only refers to himself here when he mentions “the sons of Zebedee”.  St. Luke, the Greek Christian, also refers to the Sea of Galilee as the “Sea of Tiberias”.  He does so because it is a name his Greek readers would have recognized, and not “the Sea of Galilee”.  The sea would have taken on the name “Tiberias” after the founding of that city on its western coast in 20 A.D.  John, native to the locality, calls it the “Sea of Tiberias” perhaps for the sake of his original audience, either the Christians of Judea or of Asia Minor.

“When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.”  The Apostles may not have recognized him from a distance.  They may have continued to stick together with Peter as they had because they reasoned that if the Lord appeared again, he would certainly do so to Peter, and they wanted to see him again too.  “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” The Lord addresses them as “children”, which may be due to the fact that he was older than they.  In Greek, the word for “children” can also mean “slaves”, and so there may also be the sense of the Lord addressing his servants.  “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.”  This order brings to mind Luke 5, 1-11, where Peter and Andrew are in their boat and have caught nothing all night.  Following the Lord’s insistence, they cast their nets once again into the sea and caught so many fish that their net nearly tore and James and John brought their boat alongside in order to render assistance.  The realization of what had happened caused Peter to fall to his knees and beg the Lord to leave him, for he was a sinful man.  “When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea.”  and now on this occasion, perhaps the similarity of the two catches strikes Peter and he knows who this is, even without John’s cry.  It is odd that John includes the details of Peter being “lightly clad” (which is, literally from the Greek: “He girded up his outer garment for he was wearing only his undergarment”) and jumping into the sea, for they not only seem to add nothing to the general understanding, but appear confusing as well.  Why does John feel it is important for us to know that Peter put his clothes on when he saw the Lord, or jump into the sea?  John does not explain, but leaves it to us to see how excited Peter was to see the Lord.

“When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread.”  The Lord is clearly expecting them and has already prepared some fish and bread for them.  They will need more for a filling breakfast, and so he calls on them to bring some of the fish he had given them to catch.  John remembers the exact number of fish they caught that morning: 153.  He seems to have counted them.  This is no rough estimate.  Various attempts have been made to explain the significance of the number, but none has really caught on with scholars.  As someone in my seminary class once said, “Maybe it just means that they caught 153 fish.”  Jesus does not cook all these fish for them, only “some” of them.  The Apostles could sell the rest at the market.  We see here once again how the Lord never gives just enough, but always gives super-abundantly.  Heaven will be far beyond what we can imagine now.

“They realized it was the Lord.”  Either because they saw him close up or because the Lord resumed his normal appearance.  “Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish.”  The Lord provides the fish, he cooks it for them, and now he feeds them.  He allows them to participate through catching the fish he gave them and by receiving it from them, but it is the Lord who initiates the action and causes its success.  Likewise, in our lives, he sends us opportunities of various kinds; he allows us the free will to choose to pursue them; he grants the success; and he rewards us, in effect, for what he himself has done for us.  “This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.”  We continue to note John’s exactitude.  He provides the details that help us trust his eye witness testimony.  We can also show ourselves as trustworthy witnesses to the life of Christ and to his teachings by regularly studying the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Church.  Clear knowledge, thinking, and speaking is very convincing, especially these days when so many folks only repeat buzz words or hire spokesmen to obfuscate the truth and dilute responsibility.

 Thursday in the Octave of Easter, April 21, 2022

Luke 24:35–48

The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way, and how they had come to recognize him 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 stood in their midst.”  Since the Lord was appearing to the Apostles after the two disciples had returned to Jerusalem, when it was already dark, this must have occurred fairly late at night.  Previously, the Lord had appeared very naturally, as someone mistaken as a gardener and as a fellow traveler.  Here he comes among the Apostles very suddenly.  Because of this, they think right away that he is a ghost.  They had thought this of him before, when he was walking on the water towards them.  “Peace be with you.”  In Hebrew, Shalom, the customary greeting.  We notice that when the Lord appears after his Resurrection, it is without flashes of light or sounds of trumpets.  Even his sudden appearance here happens without fuss.  He does not go in for self-indulgence as we often do.  “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?”  He wants his Apostles to think about how they would answer these questions, but he does not need to hear their answers.  They had seen him raise the dead.  Why should his Resurrection surprise them?  “Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”  He offers the Apostles to touch him because of their little faith.  He had told Mary Magdalene not to touch him because her faith was already great.  She did not need to touch him to know that it was him.  Her faith was ready for greater things.  For the first time, he appears in such a way that his wounds were visible.  We ought to think about what the Apostles saw.  In paintings and illustrations, the Lord’s wounds look fairly sanitary, but in real life they must have struck the Apostles with horror.  The holes in his hands and feet from the nails would have  been jagged and elongated from the weight of his Body hanging from the nails.  The scourging would have left ghastly marks and welts all over his Body.  On this occasion, the Lord spares them the terrible sight of the would in his side.  Yet, he does not limp, does not stoop, is not in pain. He presents himself as one who is victorious over sin and death.  

“Have you anything here to eat?”  His asking for food and then eating it tells the Apostles that he is neither a ghost nor someone who was crucified and then buried alive and escaped, half-dead.  On the Cross, in his thirst, he had asked for something to drink.  Now, he asks his Apostles for something to eat not because he wants or needs it, but because they need to see him consume it, for the sake of their faith.  “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.”  Having assured them that he was truly risen, he proceeds to explain how the Scriptures pointed not to a political and military Messiah, but to one who would come to save the world by his suffering and dying.  He corrects the misinterpretation that they had been fed by the self-serving Pharisees.

He sums up his “opening” of the Scriptures to them by saying, “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.”  As he had preached, so must his message be preached.  People must be told of the love of God and urged to repent so that they might enter heaven.  He looks them in the eye and says, “You are witnesses of these things.”  We tend to use the word “witness” quite loosely, but originally it had only a juridical meaning.  A witness had knowledge of some event or crime (usually) and therefore had a duty in a court to tell what he knew.  If a slave was a witness, he or she could be examined, that is to say, tortured, to furnish details or to confirm what he or she had already testified to.  The Lord, in identifying the Apostles as “witnesses” informs them that they have not merely the opportunity to tell people what they had seen and heard, but the duty to do so.  St. Paul, speaking of his preaching, says, “The love of Christ compels us, because we are convinced that if one died for all, then all were dead.  And Christ died for all: (2 Corinthians 5, 14).

The love of Christ compels us too to bear witness to what we have seen and heard.

 Wednesday in the Octave of Easter, April 20, 2022

Luke 24:13–35

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his Body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

The Gospel readings this week continue to tell us of what occurred on “that very day, the first day of the week”, Easter Sunday, as the days within the octave of Easter are all a continuation of that day.

“Two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus.”  With the conclusion of the Sabbath, these men were free to walk the distance to this town.  Luke does not provide their reason for going there, although they may have lived in that place and had spent the Passover in Jerusalem.  They “were conversing about all the things that had occurred.”  Jesus caught up to them on the road, appearing to them in way that precluded their recognizing him.  This brings to mind how he had appeared to Mary Magdalene in a form that allowed her to believe that he was the gardener of the cemetery.  His purpose in doing this with Mary was to avoid shocking her.  Here, the Lord reveals himself only after some time has passed, and only indirectly, so as to draw out the faith of these disciples.  “What are you discussing as you walk along?”  He begins their instruction with a question which compels them to sum up what they had believed about him.  “They stopped, looking downcast.”  The Greek word means “they were gloomy” or “had sad expressions”.  They were disconsolate.  “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”  Jesus retains his Galilean accent and so they surmise that he is a visitor.  And, they suppose, as a Galilean, certainly he should know of the fate of his countryman.  “We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel.”  The Greek actually says, “We were expecting that he was about to liberate Israel.”  That is, the nation of Israel from the Roman occupation.  Understanding that they were not speaking of a spiritual redemption but a national liberation  is necessary for a clear idea of what happens next.  

“They came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive.”  They are baffled by the report of the women and then of the Apostles.  They did not understand when the Lord had spoken to them, before the Passion, of his rising from the dead.  It did not fit in with their expectations of what he was supposed to do.  “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  More literally, “Oh, how thoughtless and slow of heart to believe!”  He does not so much accuse them of foolishness — lack of seriousness — as of maintaining their own opinions in the face of what he had told them in so many words.  It is as though a person who believed the earth is flat walked into a classroom and listened to a lecture thoroughly explaining that the earth is round, and how we can know this, and walking out of the classroom thinking that the lecturer had agreed with his theory.

“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  The Lord proposes to them an entirely different Messiah from the one the Pharisees had taught to them, one who triumphed not over the kingdoms of this world, but over something immensely greater: sin and death.  Led by the hand through the Scriptures, especially the Psalms and the Prophet Isaiah, their eyes were opened as to who the Messiah really was and what he was really to accomplish.

“Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”  This is a prayer we can all make throughout our lives, and one which the Church prays, for we know the world is coming to its end.  “While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.”  Jesus and the two disciples have reached the village and they are evidently in the house belonging to one of them.  Contrary to custom, Jesus, the guest, is the one who says the blessing, breaks the bread, and gives it to them.  Does his manner of doing this recall for them how he had done this when he fed the five thousand in the wilderness, after which he called himself the Bread of Life?  Or did the way he did those remind them Pfizer how the Apostles told them that the Lord had done this at the Last Supper, saying, “This is my Body, which will be given up for you”?  At any rate, “with that their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”  And then he disappeared, a manifestation of his divine power which left them hungering for more: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” And then they hurried back to the Apostles in Jerusalem, despite the darkness of the night around them.

 Tuesday Within the Octave of Easter, April 19, 2022

John 20, 11–18

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he had told her.

St. John does not tell us explicitly that Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb of the Lord after she delivered her news of the stone being rolled back from it, but we see here that she has.  This is critical for us to understand as we piece together from the four Gospels the series of events immediately following the Lord’s Resurrection.  

“Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.”  At this point, Mary believes that not only has she lost her Lord, but now even his dead Body has been taken from her.  He had given her back her life when he had expelled the seven demons from her and she had followed him ever since.  She had watched him and listened to his words and found life in them.  Her love for him was deep and personal.  While others might have loved him for what they thought he could do for them, she loved him for himself.  She was one of the very, very few who followed him after he had healed them, and of these, the only one who had stood at the Cross.  The Evangelists do not identify her as someone’s sister or daughter or wife, simply from her town of origin.  For her, Jesus Christ was everything.

“And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.”  John gives us such vivid detail here.  We can almost hear Mary telling John of this later on.  The verse is also confirmed by what we know of ancient Jewish burial practices.  Inside the tomb was a bench, carved out of the stone of the cave.  A body would be laid upon this for anointing and wrapping before its being placed in a recessed stone shelf.  The fact that the Lord’s Body had been laid there and then left reminds us of the haste with which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had to work so that they were done before sundown marked the beginning of the Sabbath.  It also shows that they intended for the Lord’s Body to be properly anointed and wrapped after the Sabbath was over.  Mary saw two angels, according to John.  Matthew writes of only one, but we can understand him as indicating by this only the angel who spoke while omitting that more than one angel was present.  This is fitting to his style of writing.  The angels sit “one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been” to show that the place he he had lain was rendered sacred and also to emphasize that the Body was no longer there.  John does not describe the angels but does tell us that they were clothed in white, the color of purity.

“Woman, why are you weeping?”  The voice of the angel is calm and his question is direct and succinct.  “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”  They took him when they arrested him, when they hauled him up before Pilate, when they drove him out on the streets of Jerusalem, carrying his Cross, and when they lifted him up on the Cross.  Now even his Body is gone.  There are times too in our lives when we are so distraught that our troubles seem to take away our Lord from us.  “When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.”  Now, she is sitting within the tomb complex but outside the tomb itself.  Jesus would have stood outside the complex, but not very far away.  “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”  The Lord repeats the angel’s question and adds one of his own.  It is a bit of a strange question for a stranger to ask of a woman at a tomb.  Presumably she would not be looking for anyone but was mourning her dead.  He is drawing her attention to himself in this way.  His is not an idle or polite question but an offer to help her search.  

“She thought it was the gardener.”  That she though he was the gardener of the place shows that this area is a proper cemetery with a caretaker and not simply a wild place outside the city.  The tomb was owned by Joseph of Arimathea for the use of his family, though it had not yet been used.  This may speak to the relative youth of Joseph.  Mary’s thinking that the Lord was the gardener also tells us something of his appearance.  He seems not to have appeared to her in such a way that his terrible wounds were evident.  We may wonder though that she does not recognize him, but it speaks to the depths of her grief that she could not.  “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”  Her words might sound odd to us.  But Mary knew that this was not the tomb owned by the Lord’s family, which would have been outside Nazareth, and, not knowing that Joseph of Arimathea owned it, she supposed that the gardener of the cemetery had removed the Body of the Lord from it.  She offers to take the Body herself, though she has nowhere herself to put it.  

“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni,’ which means Teacher.”  He spoke to her with such tenderness and love, gazing deep into her eyes and heart.  He only spoke her name, but at once she knew who this had to be, no matter how impossible it seemed.  It is very seldom for us to read in the New Testament of anyone addressing another by name.  Jesus is addressed as “Lord” or “Teacher”, but never by his name.  The rarity of this being done heightens for us the sense of how significant it was that the Lord calls Mary Magdalene by her name at the time of his Resurrection.  So shall he call each of us by name at the time of our Resurrection,.

“Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”  The Greek text says something like, “Do not touch [yourself] to me”, not “hold”.  St. John Chrysostom comments that the Lord tells Mary this so that she might know that his Risen Body must be treated with greater deference, as though it had become more holy.  Later, he will slow Thomas to touch his wounds, though John does not tell us that Thomas actually does so, but this is in order to increase faith.  Mary did not require such an increase, since her faith brought her to the tomb while Thomas’s lack of faith caused him to be absent when the Lord first appeared to the other Apostles.

“I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”  The Lord makes clear that he has not risen from the dead in order to resume his life on earth, but goes back to the Father in order to intercede for us.  “My Go and your God”.  The Son also makes clear that his relationship with the Father is very different from theirs: he is the only-begotten Son, while they are adopted sons.

“Mary went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and then reported what he had told her.”  John does not say that the Lord disappeared from her after speaking to her.  Mary departs from the One whom she loves with all her heart in order to obey his command.  She tells the Apostles, “I have seen the Lord.”  That is, with her own eyes.  We see the Lord with the eyes of faith, and we tell others, with words and deeds, what he has told us.