April 28^th 2019.  Divine Mercy Sunday

GOSPEL  John 20: 19-31

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL 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 Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Too often the figure of Thomas is considered to be the classic model of doubt or unbelief. But this would be a superficial reading of the Gospel passage! In fact, Thomas expresses one of the highest professions of faith contained in the New Testament, “My Lord and my God”. Moreover, Thomas does not show greater unbelief than the rest of the disciples. They were all slow to believe when Mary Magdalene testified to the resurrection. What Thomas really demonstrates is something different than simple doubt or unbelief. The real reason that he does not believe at the same time as his brothers is because he was absent from the fraternal gathering when Jesus appeared. Eight days later - which is the Jewish way of sating “one week later” - he is present at the gathering and he too has an experience of the risen Lord. Our faith is not an individualistic thing! We come to have faith as a member of a community of brothers and sisters. And the goal of our faith is to enter into communion with our brothers and sisters! Thomas believes when he encounters Jesus along with the other disciples. This prepares them for the future time when they will no longer see Jesus in the flesh, but they will help others to see him by their testimonies - “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”.

Do we consider Thomas to be a classic figure of doubt and unbelief? That would be a superficial reading of the passage!

The risen Jesus appears to the disciples and gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit, giving them the power to forgive sins, the true principle of new life. But Thomas is not present. A superficial reading of the passage can transform this disciple into a negative figure, as if he were the classic example of unbelief. However, his profession of faith - "My Lord and my God!" - is actually the highest profession of the whole New Testament. Moreover, Thomas’ expression of doubt earlier is by no means unusal among the disciples: his brothers were also very slow to believe Mary Magdalene whe she announced to them that the Lord had risen. In fact, when Jesus appeared to them the first time “he showed them his hands and his side. And the disciples rejoiced to see the Lord. " In a certain sense, when Thomas says: "If I don't see the mark of the nails in his hands ... and I don't put my hand in his side, I will not believe", he is saying: "If I don't have the same experience that you had, why should I believe? You yourselves did not believe before!"

What is the real problem with Thomas? His lack of faith? Or his lack of communion with his brothers?

But in what was Thomas really lacking? Why didn't he also have the experience the others had? He was called Didymus, which in Greek means “twin”. A twin is never a single; whatever he does or wherever he goes, he is a brother! And the curious thing about this passage is that this brother from birth, on the most important day of the fraternity to which he belongs, on the day of the Resurrection of their Lord, is not with the others! He is on his own. He has not been true to the fraternal gathering. What do you need to do to find the risen Christ? Eight days later, Jesus returns among the disciples and this time Thomas is there. These eight days, according to the Hebrew way of calculating the passage of time, constitute an exact week. In order for Thomas to pass from unbelief to faith, he must return to being Didymus; what he really lacked was being with his brothers. When he is with them, then he will see the Lord as they have seen him. He will get ready, like them, for the time when they will continue to believe without seeing him. When that time comes, they will make him seen to others, even though they do not see him themselves. But to arrive at this point they must remain together and be faithful to the Sunday liturgy.

The faith is not an individualstic act. We meet the Lord through fraternal communion, and the GOAL of the faith is to enter into fraternal communion.

Christian faith is not a private, individual fact. No one meets the risen Lord except through fraternal communion. Even the conversion of St Paul, which begins with a personal experience of Christ on the road to Damascus, is completed through fraternal communion with the others. If the Resurrection does not lead us to ecclesial communion, then it is not the Resurrection of the Lord but an individualistic perfectionism, or the product of our imagination. The Resurrection is fundamentally a fraternal, ecclesial experience. The original opening words of the Greek form of the Creed is: "We believe ...". The Father we invoke is not "mine" but "ours". Faith is received in the Church, not purely in individual hearts. Believing is something we do together with others. The source - and at the same time the goal of faith - is communion with our brothers and sisters.

 April 21^st 2019.  Easter Sunday

GOSPEL   John 20: 1-9

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL   John 20:1-9

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The passage from the Gospel for Sunday’s Mass doesn’t mention an apparition of Jesus. Instead we have an empty tomb and the search for a missing body. Wouldn’t it have been better if we had read of an appearance of the risen Lord? But the passage is important for us because it shows us the very moment in which the bewilderment of the disciples turns into faith in the risen Lord. We see how the comprehension of what they had not previously understood finally dawns on them. The fact is that none of us "understands" the way God chooses for us, his solution to things. God does not save us in the way that we expect him to. Christian life is based on the power of a God who resolves our questions, not with mathematical logic, but according to an Easter strategy. This is the sort of strategy that opens a way through the Red Sea and makes a teenage boy defeat the giant Goliath. The Lord does not resolve the question of dying by avoiding death, but by passing through the middle. Someone once said that God does not save us from the night, but saves us in the night. Jesus does not protect us from problems, but transforms problems into meeting places with him. Problems, difficulties and tombs become wombs that generate new life and transform us into new creatures. This is what Easter of the Lord does.

The Gospel reading doesn’t mention an apparition of the Lord but only an empty tomb. Why?

The text of the Gospel for the day Mass on Easter Sunday is an eventful, restless and frustrating story, like the story of a search that ends in failure. We might be inclined to think that it would be more rewarding to read an account of an apparition of the risen Jesus - something which also happens immediately afterwards in John's own text - but the liturgy holds up for us instead the story of how Mary Magdalene finds the entrance to the tomb open and runs to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple. She assumes that the body has been stolen - a further offense to the Lord.  The two apostles run to see the empty tomb. John is faster and bends down to see, but remains on the threshold, waiting until Simon Peter other arrives. In the life of the disciples of Christ, nothing is ever done alone. Everything important is done together with someone else. You can be as sharp and brilliant as you want, but if you try to do things alone you are not a Church; you are yet another individualist. Our faith has substance only in fraternal communion, otherwise it is a form of deception.

The disciples discover that the Lord’s plan of salvation is not how we expect it to be

Then Simon Peter enters, and sees some sheets laid in one place and the shroud in another. The beloved disciple enters second, for it is fitting that Peter, the first of the apostles, should precede him.  John had stood earlier at the foot of the cross, but now, finally, he believes.  It is only now that the missing intuition sinks in: "They had not yet understood the Scripture, that is, that he had to rise from the dead". It is only here that the realization of what they had not previously understood finally arrives. No one "understands" the way God chooses for us, his solution to things. This text is imbued with the surprise that has dawned upon the disciples: God does not save us in the way that we expect him to. Christian life is based on the power of God who resolves our questions and our anxieties, not with mathematical logic, but according to an Easter strategy. This is the sort of strategy that opens a way through the sea, sends a breeze in the middle of the fire, makes a teenage David win against the giant Goliath. The Lord does not resolve the question of dying by avoiding death, but by passing through the middle. Someone once said that God does not save us from the night, but saves us in the night.

Jesus does not protect us from problems, but transforms problems into meeting places with him. Problems, difficulties, tombs become wombs that generate new life and transform us into new creatures.

And that is why we proclaim this text on Easter Sunday.  It shows us the bewilderment of the disciples in the face of the unexpected, and we need to open ourselves to this. For the Lord Jesus does not protect us from problems, but transforms problems into meeting places with Him. Tombs become starting points. Christ goes to heaven by way of the tomb. And the sheets remain there, useless, like the robes that the catechumen takes off before entering the waters of Baptism: they are old things that are no longer needed. With Christ we do not simply survive; we are resurrected. The life of those who follow the Lord is not an existence that seeks to avoid problems. Rather, every tribulation, every cross, every tomb can become a womb that generates new life. From these problems we emerge as new creatures that live life according to heaven. We finally leave the old man aside, like that folded shroud left in the tomb.

April 14^th 2019.  Palm Sunday

GOSPEL Luke 22:14 – 23:56

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL Luke 22:14 – 23:56

A link to the Gospel can be found here

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In his account of the Passion, Luke records three saying of Jesus from the cross that are not recorded elsewhere. The first is to ask his Father to forgive us for we do not know what we are doing. How arrogant we are! How often we think we know what we are doing, when in fact we are doing grave wrong, but have no idea of its gravity. The good thief alone recognizes his guilt and discovers how to pray: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom!” Jesus then utters his second phrase, “This day you will be with me in paradise”. How great is God’s mercy! The first person to enter paradise with the Lord is a thief! The third phrase is said as Jesus dies: “Father into your hands I commend my Spirit”. At this very moment the veil of the temple is torn in two. Behind the veil in the temple, the high priest alone was permitted to say the unpronounceable name of God. The tearing of the veil at the very moment of Jesus’s last words shows us that the Lord intends these words to be a revelation of the name of God, and we discover that his name is “Father”. This tortured and dying man - rather than sinking into the anguish of his horrific situation - surrenders and abandons himself to his Father. And his surrender will not be in vain. The Father will raise that flesh, revealing that the way out of anguish is not strength, is not intelligence, is not possessions, but consists in a relationship between Son and Father that endures through abandonment in the worst of moments.  In the end what does the Lord Jesus do on the cross? Whilst we are stripping him of life, he is bestowing gifts. He forgives us our sins, he grants us to be with him in Paradise, he entrusts his Spirit to the Father.

In his Gospel, Luke records three saying of Jesus that are not recorded elsewhere. The first is to ask his Father to forgive us for we do not know what we are doing. How arrogant we are! How often we think we know what we are doing, when in fact we are doing grave wrong but have no idea of its gravity

On Palm Sunday the Passion of the Lord is proclaimed. This year we listen to the account from Luke. Among the many particularities of his text, we can note the three sentences that Jesus pronounces from the cross that we find only in this Gospel. "When they arrived at the place called Skull, they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. Jesus said: ‘Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing’". In the original Greek, the phrase, "Jesus said . . .", is in the imperfect tense, which gives it a verbal aspect of repetition. As they crucified Jesus, he continued to say those words; as they put the nails in his wrists and feet, he continued to repeat, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. What did he mean? A trivial reading could go as follows: "They don't know who I am; they don't know who they're crucifying." But a more profound reading acknowledges that we tend, in general, to think we know everything, while in reality we rarely know what we are doing. Our unconscious arrogance leads us again and again to believe that we have understood everything. We need forgiveness, we who are blinded by our certainties. Above all, we are blind to the patience that God has for us.

The thief alone sees his error and becomes the first to be with Jesus in paradise

The only one present in the entire scene who admits to being in error is the crucified thief beside him, who discovers the way of prayer on the cross: "Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom". And he receives the most beautiful of answers: "Truly I say to you: today you will be with me in paradise". Here we find what paradise is: being together with him. This is the first man in history that we can be certain was saved, by explicit declaration of Jesus himself. A thief! He knew how to begin from sin to ask for mercy; he knew how to talk with Jesus. One could say that he finally robbed the right thing from the right person! How great is God's mercy!

Behind the veil in the temple, the high priest alone could say the unpronounceable name of God. As Jesus dies, the veil of the temple is torn, and the name of God is revealed – his name is “Father”

And then comes the last word, as soon as the veil of the temple is torn: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit". Behind that veil, in the temple, the high priest could say the unpronounceable name of the God of Israel. With the tearing of the veil, that secret is revealed, and what was hidden became visible. It is revealed in the crucified one who continues to trust even in this most tragic moment, because the name of that God is "Father". This tortured and dying man - rather than sinking into the anguish of his absurd situation - surrenders and abandons himself to his Father. And his surrender will not be in vain. The Father will raise that flesh, revealing that the way out of anguish is not strength, is not intelligence, is not possessions, but consists in a relationship between Son and Father that is realized in abandonment in the worst of moments.

In the end what does the Lord Jesus do on the cross? Whilst we are stripping him of life, he is bestowing gifts. He forgives, he grants us Paradise, he gives his spirit to the Father.

April 7th 2019.  Fifth Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL John 8:1-11

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL John 8:1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,
and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them.
Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman
who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.
They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?” They said this to test him,
so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
But when they continued asking him,
he straightened up and said to them,
“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders.
So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the Gospel, a woman is publicly accused of adultery. Her accusers are many. But, by the end of the story, only she has been freed from her guilt, while all of her accusers still bear the guilt of their own sins! They could not stone her because Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone”, and so they walk away, still in their sin. But the real shock of this text is Jesus instruction, “Go and sin no more”. How can we stop sinning? Sin is separation from God and disordered union with things and persons. At the background of all sin is a basic mistrust in the goodness of God. We turn away from God and turn inwards on ourselves in individualistic, self-directed actions. How can we stop doing this? The Gospel shows us how. All the accusers leave and the woman is alone with Jesus. It is an intimate and loving relationship with God that is the only authentic substitute for the disordered behaviour that is sin. Only when this relationship becomes the foundation of our lives does it become possible for us not to sin. If ethical codes and moral prescriptions were sufficient to stop us from sinning, then Jesus would not have needed to become incarnate. But Jesus became incarnate and assumed the isolated condition of man, willingly enduring the complete separation from God on the cross. By so doing, he introduced into the world the alternative to sin, which is a relationship of intimacy and love with God. When Jesus says, "Do not sin anymore", he is not saying, "Here is a list of things that cannot be done and adultery is one of these". Rather, Jesus is opening a way of life different from sin, which is simply intimacy with Him. The life of sin for this woman ends after she remains alone with Christ. She no longer needs to look for intimacy elsewhere

How can we not sin anymore? How can authentic love begin in us?

This week’s Gospel tells the story of the woman caught in flagrant adultery. One of the striking aspects of this text is that the woman - accused in front of everyone at the beginning - is the only one acquitted of guilt in the end, while the accusers - who could not stone her because none of them is "without sin” - go away still carrying their sins! The final phrase of Jesus should be noted: “Go and from now on do not sin anymore”. How can anyone be asked not to sin anymore? Who could guarantee such a thing? Why did Jesus think he could ask this? Let us consider the nature of sin for a moment. Sin is separation from God and disordered union with persons and objects. In the background of all sinful actions, whether we know it or not, there is a lack of trust in God, even if one is not thinking about God at that moment. The substance of sin is self-directed, individualistic activity, which denies our bonds with others or exploits them for our own selfish ends. It is the turning inward on oneself and the perversion of all kinds of relationships, including our relationship with God. If this is what constitutes sin, then how can the woman avoid it in the future? This is how: we are told that his accusers turn away and she remains alone with Jesus; she has an exclusive encounter with Jesus; it is this intimacy with him that will replace her previous adultery. The one-to-one relationship with Jesus becomes the foundation of a new life, a life filled with something else: an intimate relationship with the one who releases her from condemnation. When the solitude of the human being is dissolved by the love of God, then it becomes possible not to sin.

Ethical-moral prescriptions are not sufficient

Many attempts to overcome vice are based on ethical and moral prescriptions. We recognize that the act we are doing is sinful and we try various techniques for quitting. But often the results are ridiculous. If ethical codes, moral values ​​or norms had the capacity in themselves to change us, then it would not have been necessary for Christ to become incarnate! There would have been no need for someone to take upon himself the condemnation of humanity. But Jesus became incarnate and assumed the isolated condition of man, willingly enduring the complete separation from God on the cross. By so doing, he introduced into the world the alternative to sin, which is a relationship of intimacy and love with God. When Jesus says, "Do not sin anymore", he is not affirming, "Adhere to the moral law and do not violate it", or, "Here is a list of things that cannot be done and adultery is one of these". Jesus is opening a way of life different from sin, which is simply intimacy with Him. The life of sin for this woman ends after she remains alone with Christ. She no longer needs to look for intimacy elsewhere. For her, the time wasted looking for false love is over. Intimacy with God has been established and authentic love has begun. She will never lose him again because his mercy is eternal.