SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (16^th April 2012)

GOSPEL: JOHN 20:19-31

From a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio.

QUESTIONS RAISED BY THIS GOSPEL PASSAGE

1. Am I inclined to think that Jesus makes himself present to people who have heroic characteristics or great sanctity? Does it ever occur to me that the place where Jesus wishes to erupt most of all might be in my deepest interior, the place where my actions arise?

2. Can genuinely good actions arise from a person who is fundamentally preoccupied with his own self-preservation and self-advancement? If Christ touches us within and conquers the fears that dominate much of our behaviour, then how can this transform the meaning and nature of our actions?

3. Why is it so important for the risen Lord to show us his wounds? What do the wounds tell us about the nature of Jesus?

4. Do I believe in the resurrection on an intellectual level only, or have I allowed the wounds of the risen Christ to touch me personally?

The Risen Lord erupts in places that are filled with fear and unbelief

This week the Gospel describes the apparition of Jesus to his disciples after the resurrection. One of the many things that can be underlined in this text is the condition that the disciples were in at that moment: hiding behind closed doors, filled with fear. The risen Lord does not appear to people who are in a secure state of mind. He appears to people who are in need of the resurrection. In this case, the disciples are terrified because of their association with Jesus who has been crucified. Later on, Jesus will appear to Thomas, a man who is not in a fit condition to believe. It is important to be aware of this fact. The appearance of the risen Lord in our lives is not something that comes about as a consequence of something that we believe, or as a result of some deed that we accomplish. The resurrection is the action of God, an eruption of the Lord Jesus within us. The new life that is brought by the resurrection - the life of the one who is greater than death and unbelief - cannot be reduced to human accomplishments or characteristics. We do not have within us a route or programme that we can follow that will lead us to the resurrection. Resurrection is the work of God and the gift of God. It requires that we open ourselves to him and be visited by him. The eruption of Jesus into our fears is the experience of resurrection.

The only one who can save me from my fears is the one who can show me the wounds he has suffered for love of me

The human person tends to believe that he is open to truth, capable of relating to others in a wholesome way, and acting reasonably. In reality, he is barricaded inside the terror of losing himself, his own vulnerabilities and his fear of being rejected. The Lord Jesus is the only one who can break through these barriers because he is the only one who has bought us with his own blood. He is the only one who can show us his glorious wounds, the wounds that constitute the very form of his being, the being of the one who has loved us. These wounds are at the centre of this Gospel passage, from the moment that Jesus shows them to his disciples until the time that Jesus requests Thomas to feel them directly. Let us not forget that these are mortal wounds! Who can save me from my fears? Who can drag me out of a mentality that is preoccupied with saving my own life? Who can make me capable of loving to the end? The one who has loved me to the end. The one who can show me the wounds that he has suffered for me. And when he shows them to me, he does not reprove me, but salutes me, visits me, saying “Peace be with you!” Let us allow ourselves to be visited this Sunday by the risen Christ who places himself before us in an unconditional way, without reproval, giving me a new mission and a new pattern of behaviour As the Father has sent him, so he sends us. What binds us to the risen Lord? We are bound to him when we allow him to love us in the closed chambers inside us and therefore allow him to open us up. It is from this action of Jesus within us that our new actions take their beginning.

Once we have been visited by the risen Lord, then our actions take on a completely different nature

Sometimes we try to point out to people whose lives have gone astray that they ought to change in certain ways. But this is not how Jesus deals with us. He visits us first. He loves us first. He enters into the region of our fears and warms us from within. It is pointless thinking that someone will be able to live a new life if there has not been radical change in the interior of the person where their actions begin. The good news of the unconditional love of Jesus for us must enter into this closed chamber deep in our interiors. We must experience this love that allowed itself to be massacred for us. If we do not, then our actions might well appear to be righteous, but they will be based upon fear. Actions that seem good are often done ultimately out of self-interest, or to make ourselves feel good and just. The actions that arise from someone who has been visited by life itself are completely different in nature. The life of the resurrection is the life that has conquered death and emptiness and that has no contradictions within it. Once this life has entered into the deepest part of our being, then we can start to perform new acts, and to bestow onto others the pardon that God has given to us. We can remit sins; we can believe even when we cannot see; we can say, like Thomas, that we have placed our hands in the Lord’s side, that we have touched the risen Christ who has loved us. Once someone has been loved on this level, then his life changes. His way of being, thinking, and experiencing the world becomes different.

We need to touch the wounds of the risen Lord, not just believe in resurrection on an intellectual level

We must regret the fact that often we have made a pretence of having had this experience. We approach the issue of the resurrection only on an intellectual level, thinking that an understanding of what Jesus has done is sufficient. But it is not. We must allow ourselves to be loved. We must allow our deepest fears to be touched. Until this happens, all of our sentiments about the resurrection are mere chatter. Until we are visited on the inside by the risen Lord, until we have allowed ourselves to experience his scandalous love, then we remain only babblers about the resurrection, and not resurrected ourselves. We remain people who believe in something out of an intellectual conviction and not out of experience. This Sunday’s Gospel cries aloud our need to touch the wounds of Christ and to allow him to enter into our fears.