March 28th 2021.  Palm Sunday

PROCESSIONAL GOSPEL   Mk 11:1-10

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

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

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PROCESSIONAL GOSPEL   Mk 11:1-10

When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem,

to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, 

he sent two of his disciples and said to them, 

"Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, 

you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone should say to you, 'Why are you doing this?' reply,

'The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.'"

So they went off  and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, 

and they untied it.

Some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"

They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, 

and they permitted them to do it.

So they brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks over it.

And he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, 

and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:

"Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!

Hosanna in the highest!"

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

SUMMARY . . . On Palm Sunday of Year B we read the Passion of Our Lord from Mark’s Gospel and so begins Holy Week, which finds its maximum expression in the Easter Triduum. From a literary point of view, all four Gospels are really a long introduction to the account of the Passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord. The liturgy of Holy Week normally envisages the dynamic participation of the faithful. The procession on Palm Sunday should begin outside the Church and move through the streets of the neighbourhood. This year, our movements will be very much restricted on account of the pandemic. However, we can still participate bodily by shaking the palm branches at the appropriate times, kneeling during the account of the death of Jesus, kissing the cross, fasting on Good Friday and having a festive vigil on Saturday night. In order to celebrate these events fully, it is important that we enter into these bodily gestures. Why? Because the salvation that the Lord offers us is not an intellectual thing! If we try to approach the events of Holy Week in an intellectual way, it will slip through our grasp and will have no effect upon us. Christ loved us by undertaking the Passion with his body, not with an abstract discourse. He gave us bread and wine as true sacramental signs of his body and blood. Prostrate in Gethsemane, he offered himself to the Father with his entire body. He was beaten, spat upon, crowned with thorns and nailed to a cross. With his body, he passed through the events of Easter and arrived at the resurrection and the Father. The salvation of Christ is not assimilated by reading a book or attending a conference. It is assimilated in the sacraments which trigger the working of grace in our lives. Tertullian said that the flesh is the hinge of salvation. If we wish this Holy Week to be meaningful then we must participate in its liturgies with our bodies. Sometimes it is good when the Lord strips us of what we have so that we can appreciate the things that matter. Easter must become tattooed and engraved on our bodies, for it is in our bodies that we have been loved by Christ. And with our bodies we can give glory to Christ by loving in return. This Holy Week is an appeal to enter into the fullness of life. We love with acts, not simply with sentiments. A sentiment which does not transform itself into acts is simply a transient state of soul. The Lord loved us with his entire body and his love is concrete.

The passion and death of Jesus is at the heart of the Gospel. This is not a passage to be read on an intellectual level. It must be lived, and for that reason we are asked to enter into the liturgy with our bodies

Palm Sunday is dedicated to the proclamation of the Passion. Literally speaking, the Gospels are long preparations for the narration of Our Lord's Passover, at which point the rhythm and intensity of the story clearly change. This proclamation is the heart of the Gospel, and it must always be remembered that passion and death are only a part of a single story, which, without the resurrection, is incomplete. There are essential elements in these texts that go beyond their vocal proclamation. In fact, vocal proclamation is not sufficient: one must "celebrate" this story; it is not enough to just read it or listen to it. It is not something to be comprehended solely with the mind, but something which must be lived. In fact, on Palm Sunday we are entering Holy Week, and it is an opening that has a lively and engaging liturgy. The event starts with a joyful procession and involves the use of palms. We are asked to kneel down when the story arrives at the point of Jesus' death, and we are asked to shake the palms during the Sanctus. The other liturgies of this week will introduce further gestures: the washing of the feet, the veneration of the cross on a day of fasting, and finally a festive night vigil. In short, it is a week when the whole body is invited to be involved, as always, in the liturgy. Because the salvation that Our Lord brings us is not just a different way of looking at things. With his body and through his body Christ saves us; and he saves our whole body, not just our intellect. It is in his true body that, passing through the events of Easter, he arrives at the Father.

Christ saved us with his body. He was anointed, gave us the bread and wine as sacramental signs of his body and blood, was beaten, spat upon, was crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross. With his body he loved us, and we are asked to respond with our bodies during these liturgies: through our fasting, our prayers, our physical and wholehearted participation in the liturgy.

He will receive perfume on his head, because the name “Christ” means "anointed with perfumed oil"; in the bread and wine he will give us the sacramental sign of his body and blood; prostrate in Gethsemane, he will invoke the heavenly Father with the intimate word of a child ("Abba"), while he hands himself over to the most terrible of fates; he will be betrayed with a kiss, they will lay their hands on him; and he will receive spits, blows and slaps; on his head will be placed a crown of thorns, and his hands and feet will be nailed to the cross. These are the essential features of the Passion as summarized in the Gospel of Mark. In his real body he will rise again, because in his real body he has been killed. The salvation he has wrought for us cannot be assimilated in a book or by attending a conference, but with the sacraments, with these liturgical acts that seal and trigger the works of grace in our lives. Tertullian, in the third century, said: Caro salutis est cardo, which means "the flesh is the cornerstone of salvation". If we approach Holy Week seeking to understand it intellectually, it will slip out of our hands and have no effect. In order for it to influence our existence, we must allow it to be written on our bodies, through liturgy, by acts of fasting, in genuine prayer, taking advantage of the opportunities that Providence gives us to be in communion with others and do deeds of mercy. Easter is something that must be tattooed, engraved on the body. We have been loved with the body. With the body we love.

March 21st 2021.  Fifth Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL   John 12:20-33

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 12:20-33

Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast

came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,

and asked him, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus."

Philip went and told Andrew;

then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

Jesus answered them,

"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,

it remains just a grain of wheat;

but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

Whoever loves his life loses it,

and whoever hates his life in this world

will preserve it for eternal life.

Whoever serves me must follow me,

and where I am, there also will my servant be.

The Father will honour whoever serves me.

"I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?

'Father, save me from this hour'?

But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.

Father, glorify your name."

Then a voice came from heaven,

"I have glorified it and will glorify it again."

The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;

but others said, "An angel has spoken to him."

Jesus answered and said,

"This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.

Now is the time of judgment on this world;

now the ruler of this world will be driven out.

And when I am lifted up from the earth,

I will draw everyone to myself."

He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

SHORTER HOMILY . . . On this fifth Sunday of Lent, we read from the long discourses of John’s Gospel which precede the Last Supper. Some Greeks ask to see Jesus. This theme of seeing or beholding Jesus is a favourite one of St John the Evangelist! In the Prologue of his Gospel, we read that “the Word became flesh and we have seen his glory”. The first letter of John speaks of what our eyes have seen and our hands have touched. At the foot of the cross, John, the beloved disciple, testifies solemnly that he himself has seen the blood and water coming from the side of Christ. Later in the same Gospel, St Thomas, in order to enter into the fullness of faith, places his finger in the wound of Christ and experiences it directly. In all of these cases, it is a personal experience of Christ that transforms everything. This direct beholding of God was lost to humanity after the Fall. After the sin in the garden of Eden, Adam hides himself. When God calls out, “Adam, where are you?” it is the anguished cry of a father who has lost his son. The Old Testament is really the story of a humanity who is seeking to rediscover the face of God again. The second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the intimacy between the Father and the Son. What is it to see the face of God? Is it something intellectually satisfying or aesthetically pleasing? No, it is to see a Son who trusts in the Father, and a Father who does not abandon his Son. In the Gospel, Jesus knows that he is about to be crucified on account of sin. Our existence is a constant effort to run from our destiny, to escape death, to deny our vulnerability. Just think of the anguish this pandemic is causing! At the heart of every act, we are struggling with our mortality and fear of death. This often leads to depression and anguish, the sensation of having no way out. How does Jesus respond when he finds himself confronted by death? He entrusts himself into the hands of the Father, confident that he will not be abandoned. This is the source of the glory of Christ! These Greeks want to see Christ. What is it to see Christ? To see a Son who trusts in his Father. If we try to affront the darkest things of life with our own resources, we will fail continually. But if we see in the darkest situation in front of us an occasion to walk behind Christ, then the situation is transformed. Death and suffering are the places where we entrust ourselves to the Father, confident that he is always with us and for us. In these places, the Father is waiting for us so that his name might be glorified in us.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

Jeremiah speaks of a new Covenant when the law will be written in our hearts. But how can we get to the point of observing God’s ways from our hearts, out of love and not out of obligation?

In this fifth Sunday of Lent, we hear the beautiful prophecy from the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah concerning the new covenant, the covenant that will finally put into the heart of man the wisdom of God: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts”. How can a law be written in our hearts? When we speak of law, we are usually referring to a code that is observed physically and externally in a certain way. But there is a big difference between observing a norm because I am constrained to do so, and observing something that I cherish in my heart. It is the difference between legalistically observing a norm of behaviour and following that same pattern of behaviour out of love, because one has understood the norm to its depths. But how do we get to the stage of observing the norms because they are beautiful, because they have become part of us?

The Gospel, at first sight, seems to have a different theme. Jesus speaks of falling to the ground and dying in order to produce new life. And this is essentially the same point that we find in Jeremiah. In order to have the life of the new covenant in our hearts, we must die to our old ways

The Gospel seems to have another theme altogether, but if we reflect on the Gospel in its profundity, then we discover otherwise. The story of the Gospel has arrived at the point where even the Greek visitors to Jerusalem are asking about Jesus. Everyone is talking about him and wants to see him. Jerusalem is the place of the cult with great numbers of visitors, and many people wish to know if Jesus is the Messiah. Word comes to Jesus that some Greeks wish to see him, but his response is very strange. He says that the time has come for him to be glorified. “Truly I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.” What is all of this about? Why is Jesus talking about death, about losing oneself? Unless a seed goes into a state of decomposition, it cannot become the plant. Jesus must die in order to manifest his glory. He must be annihilated in order to show that he is everything. “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” In order to arrive at the new wisdom, in order to have love in our hearts so that we no longer do things solely out of obligation, in order to have new life, the old life must die. It is pointless to think that the new covenant, the beauty of the new relationship with God, can coexist with the way we were originally. We only recognize the power of God when we renounce our own power. When do we experience the power of God? When we cease trying to rely on our own resources. “Dying” in this sense does not mean dying biologically but serving and following the Lord Jesus.

The Greeks thought that Jesus was a spectacle to be casually observed, but we cannot truly encounter God unless we empty ourselves.

We are honoured by the Father when we give Him His rightful value. The word “honour” in Hebrew means to attribute to something its rightful value. It is only when we abandon our own lives into the hands of God that we, to the depths of our being, allow Him to give His life for us.  It is only then, like the seed, when we allow ourselves to be by broken down and destroyed, when we are taken to the point of nothingness, that we can become completely His. The Lord Jesus empties Himself completely because in us there is always something lacking. Easter and the time of resurrection are coming soon, so this is the time to open ourselves to this moment of transition. We must allow this phase of annihilation, of annulment, to happen. In order for Jesus to arrive at the glory of the resurrection, He had to pass the oblivion of the tomb. Jesus had the omnipotence of God within Him but it was left aside at the time of the crucifixion and death. The hands that were capable of healing were nailed to the wood. The feet that walked new paths were rendered immobile. The heart that was capable of such love was torn apart. He gave himself completely. How can a man truly love a woman without giving himself completely? How can a woman be a genuine spouse to her husband without giving everything and holding nothing back for herself? And how can God be our true God if we do not give Him our lives? The Greeks in the Gospel treated the Lord as a spectacle to be seen, but in reality one cannot encounter God unless one empties himself before God. This is not an act of the will or an exertion of the muscles, but an act of abandonment. What we really need to do is allow ourselves to be taken, allow ourselves to be saved, allow ourselves to be transfigured. We need to give Jesus everything and not resist Him any longer. We need to open the door, give Him the password, follow Him until He is truly our Lord. This is the road to Easter and new life.

March 14th 2021.  Fourth Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL   John 3:14-21

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

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

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GOSPEL   John 3:14-21

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

“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.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his only 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 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.

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

SHORTER HOMILY . . . On the fourth Sunday of Lent we hear one of the most profound texts of the New Testament: “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 first reading, curiously, is not about this event in the desert but recounts another key moment: we hear how the shocking infidelity of Israel leads to the Babylonian exile, but the Lord brings the people back home through the action of Cyrus, King of Persia. Why was this event chosen for the first reading on Sunday? Because humanity needs to allow itself to be redeemed, ransomed and brought back from the exile of sin. In the story of the serpents in the desert, the people of Israel were disobedient to God and were grumbling. This led to them finding themselves among serpents. The cure for the snake bite was to look the bronze serpent in the face. Jesus does the same for us with the cross! Looking at Christ crucified, we see our sinfulness, our egoism, our idolatry. When we behold Jesus on the cross, we behold our own sins, accepted and forgiven by God. In the Christian life, we can digest meditations, conferences and spiritual techniques in industrial quantities. But what really counts is to have a real experience of the forgiveness of my personal sins by God. Humanity loves hiding in the shadows. Ever since the time of Adam we have constructed hideous garments to cover the state of our souls. Light is painful to those who are used to the shadows. Saul was pursuing his own way and considered himself to be righteous. The light of Christ actually blinded him, even though that light was his salvation. It is important for each one of us to come into that light and to see the state of our souls, our need to be ransomed by Christ. None of us should think he does not need to be ransomed in this way. We all have much to be ashamed of. There is only one thing we need to do about our sinfulness and that is to illuminate it with the light of God, who so loved the world as to give what was most precious to him, his only begotten Son. He became sin for our sake and took all our evil upon himself. We can go on defending our own image, our own presentability, and never allow ourselves to be touched in our deepest and most hidden selves by grace. In this time of Lent and on this Sunday of Joy, there is no joy greater than the forgiveness of God! Let us not fear the light, let us experience the forgiveness of God, not intellectually, but concretely in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a sacrament that returns us to our baptismal state, restoring us to our status as children of God. This Sunday we have the joy of forgiveness to celebrate and welcome.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

SUMMARY: The first reading tells of the exile to Babylon. This event is absolutely central to understanding the Old Testament. The people and priests are guilty of infidelity after infidelity until the anger of God reaches its limit and the people are carried off into exile. Why did the exile happen? For a variety of political and military reasons? No! Scripture is very clear: the exile happened because the people disparaged the benevolence and love of God for them. We too think that we have dozens of different problems, but in reality we have only one: our failure to believe and accept God’s love for us. This is what causes our “exile”, our unhappiness, our brokenness. Our preoccupation with our own self-realization leads us to ignore the love and compassion of God for us. The Gospel this Sunday proclaims the unconditional love of God for each of us: “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son so that whoever believes in him would not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world so that the world might be condemned, but so that it might be saved through him”. The key to every spiritual challenge we face is our acceptance of God’s loving salvation unveiled for us by the face of Jesus.

The exile is of great significance in the Old Testament. It is the key to reading many of the Messianic texts and to understanding the structure of the entire Hebrew Bible.

In this fourth Sunday of Lent we hear the marvellous dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in the third chapter of the Gospel of John. The Gospel is prepared by the first reading from the second book of Chronicles. It is worth noting that this is the last book in the Hebrew Bible, so we are reading some of the last words in the Old Testament as far as the people of Israel were concerned. The reading describes the beginning and end of the terrible event of the exile. It is not possible to understand the structure of the Old Testament, the promises concerning the Messiah and the mentality underpinning the texts unless we take into account the significance of the exile. In the history of Israel there are many moments of darkness and light, tribulation and exultation, but the exile is a paradigm which has a particular significance.

The exile happened because the people did not accept the loving compassion of their God. After seventy years in exile they matured and their hearts returned to the Lord.

The description in the first reading is very densely summarised. The people and the priests of Israel were guilty of infidelity upon infidelity, committing the same abominations as others peoples and contaminating the Temple. The Lord in his compassion sent messenger after messenger to warn the people, but these were rejected until the anger of the Lord against his people reached its limit. As a consequence, the enemies of Israel demolished the walls of Jerusalem and entered the Temple. The people were put to the sword or carried off to slavery in Babylon. We could say that the ones who were sent into exile were those who disparaged prophecy, those who did not appreciate the special loving care of God towards his people. And then the text ends with these words: “In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah,  the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing: ‘Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him!’” There is a people who went into exile and, by the generous providence of God, there is a people who returned from exile. What is it that caused the people to be sent into exile? Their disparagement of the love of God for them. What permits them to return from exile? The loving care of God. Only now the people are able to take this love seriously. During the seventy years of exile, the people mature a lot and learn many lessons. Scripture has many testimonies to the benefits that accrued as a result of this period of correction.

The real problem of humanity is its rejection of the love of God. This is what causes our “exile” and belief in God’s love helps us to return!

The Gospel too proclaims that there is a way back, a way of light, a way to reach salvation. This salvation impinges on the central problem of humanity. Was the event of the exile in Babylon the result of economic, political or military factors? No. Scripture tells us that it was a result of the rejection of the benevolence of God. As the Gospel says, “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son so that whoever believes in him would not die but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world so that the world might be condemned, but so that it might be saved through him”. Belief in the love of God, belief that God desires to save us, belief in his benevolence: this is what permits us to return from exile! What is the real tragedy of man? This or that pain, disaster or setback? No! The real tragedy is that we do not believe that God loves us dearly. Our love of anger, our attachment to complaining, our tendency to wallow in negative attitudes instead of welcoming the tender love of the Lord for us. It is vital that we believe that God is saving us in every single event of our lives! He does not forget us. He is love and treats us as his dearest children . In Jesus Christ, God has made his face known. The key to every spiritual challenge we encounter is to believe in the love of God and his goodness.

This Sunday, the unconditional love of God for you and me is proclaimed!

We tend to think that we have dozens of problems, but the only thing that ultimately determines our happiness is whether we open ourselves to receive his tenderness. God can only offer us his love. If he forces it upon us then it is not love. The love of the Lord is offered as a gift, but like any gift we can take it or leave it. How many books have been given to us as gifts that we have not even opened! And it is the same with the love of God. We do not accept this gift because we are too preoccupied by our own affairs. This Sunday the unconditional, generous offer of salvation is proclaimed. Jesus shows us the face of God. He unveils the fact that none of us should feel left out of salvation. All can be saved because all are loved! We all have the capacity to say no. It is a really vital matter that we welcome this beautiful invitation. In Sunday’s Gospel, God presents himself as someone who implores us, saying: “Welcome me. Believe me. Allow yourself to be loved by me”.

March 7th 2021.  Third Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL   John 2:13-25

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 2:13-25

Since the Passover of the Jews was near,

Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,

as well as the money changers seated there.

He made a whip out of cords

and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,

and spilled the coins of the money changers

and overturned their tables,

and to those who sold doves he said,

"Take these out of here,

and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."

His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,

Zeal for your house will consume me.

At this the Jews answered and said to him,

"What sign can you show us for doing this?"

Jesus answered and said to them,

"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."

The Jews said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,

and you will raise it up in three days?"

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,

his disciples remembered that he had said this,

and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,

many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.

But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all,

and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.

He himself understood it well.

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

SHORTER HOMILY . . . In the Gospel, Jesus chases the sellers out of the Temple area and says, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace”. The theme of purification is central to John’s Gospel. It is a very Paschal theme, since it regards preparation for true liberation from the state of slavery or sin. We need the Lord to liberate us from the many “sellers” that we have in our hearts! What is very important here is the theme of the memory of the disciples, which is mentioned at two different points in the passage. Jesus connects the act of purifying the Temple with the business of the purification of the hearts of people. And the purification of our hearts requires that our memories be purified by the reception of God’s word. Memory is essential to the person. If our memories are changed then our character is changed. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit will bring to their memories all the things that Jesus has told them. The Holy Spirit purifies us by acting on the sick areas of our memory and cleansing them. Inside our minds, we have a little weighing scales which is constantly calculating what we think we are owed, what we have received, what we have given. But when a person begins to become conscious of the unconditional love and grace that God has been bestowing on us all our lives, only then does his heart cease to be a place of business and becomes instead a place of love! This Lent, it is essential that we confront those dark areas in our memories. We need to stop calculating those things that we believe have been denied us or taken from us, these secondary things that distract us from the history of love that God has been pouring out on us. We need Jesus to purify our hearts by changing the way we interpret our past. In the light of the resurrection, the disciples see things differently. We too must interpret our lives in the context of the salvation and mercy of God. Let us allow our memories to be illuminated by the zeal of the Lord for our hearts! All of our pasts are stories of the patience, mercy and tenderness of the Lord towards us, if we could only see it clearly! When our memory is illuminated by the pardon and mercy of God, then we become people of peace and love; we become a Temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirt is diffused on those who surround us.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

Is there one commandment which goes beyond all the others?

On this third Sunday of Lent, Year B, we hear the dramatic Gospel recounting the purification of the Temple by Jesus. It is interesting that John has this event at the beginning of his Gospel, whilst the other Gospels place this scene in the last week of Jesus’ life close to the completion of his mission. But John describes this very serious event immediately after the account of the wedding feast at Cana. The first reading has the proclamation of the Ten Commandments. An interesting question to ask ourselves is: “What verse or phrase encapsulates the entire Gospel?” Of course, it is not possible to find a single phrase of this sort, but nevertheless it can be a helpful way to deepen our understanding of the Gospel. A similar question is: “Is there a commandment that helps us enter more deeply into the other nine commandments?”  The last two commandments (which are ordered differently in the classic account from Exodus than the numbering normally used by the Christian churches) demand that we not desire the wife or property of our neighbour. They can be collapsed into a single commandment that requires that we not desire what belongs to others. Could this be the most important commandment? How could such an assertion be justified? There is a celebrated rabbinic commentary that discusses this very issue. A disciple puts a question to his rabbi: “Why does the blessed Isaiah tell us not to desire the house, livestock or slave of our neighbour? He had already instructed us not to steal. Moreover, why did he tell us not to desire the wife of our neighbour when he had already told us not to commit adultery? Perhaps the holy and blessed Isaiah has given us commandments that are superfluous?” The rabbi responds: “By means of the other commandments the blessed Isaiah has shown us the transgressions that we are to avoid, but in this final commandment he tells us the origin of all the other commandments: desire, that which is in the heart”.

Jesus wishes to purify my heart, since it is the origin of everything that I do

In the last line of the Gospel for Sunday, we are told: “But Jesus would not trust himself to  them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” In other passage from the Gospel we hear that it is not that which enters the mouth that contaminates man, but that which proceeds from the heart. Where does our tragedy have its source? Our robberies, our adulteries, our homicides? All of these things are simply the result of what we have in our hearts. It is by our desires that we are crucified. Jesus’ purification of the Temple is a forerunner to another kind of purification, the purification of our hearts. And if we do not experience this purification, then everything that we do is a waste of time. Until our hearts are rid of that which produces our destruction, we will never be happy.

We must enter into our baptism, be purified by Jesus, so that our hearts are changed and begin to have the desires of the Holy Spirit. These desires will regenerate our lives and reorient our being

Often our lives are miserable not because they are miserable in themselves, but because we want them to be different than they are. How often we are dissatisfied, angry and frustrated only because our lives do not correspond to our own expectations. What is it that crucifies man? His expectations. Not reality, but what he expects from reality. Jesus discovers that the Temple has been exploited for gain and advantage, and the Lord must perform his task of the reconstruction of things, the reconstruction of this Temple which is humanity. Our experience of baptism, if assumed by us, if welcomed by us, becomes the basis of a radical re-foundation of our being. Beginning from our hearts, our baptism engenders in us different desires, as described in Galatians 5. These desires of the Spirit involve a reorientation of our being. We might try to change ourselves from the outside; we might seek to be faithful by applying ourselves with more determination; by not looking at what is not ours, not doing the things prohibited by the Law; but it is the heart that is the origin of all these things! It is the heart that is sick and is the origin of all our suffering, the heart that is the source of these desires that do not come from the Holy Spirit!

We need Jesus to drive these merchants of material things from our heart. We try to allow these material fixations to cohabit our hearts along with our religious sentiments. But such a condition will lead us nowhere. We need Jesus to purify us, which involves a dying on our part. Only Jesus can liberate us so that our hearts are filled with the desires of the Spirit

Jesus needs to give a hiding to some of the merchants, the sellers who focus on material gain, that dwell in our hearts. This Lent let us receive from the Lord Jesus the gift of being purified by him. Jesus knows what is in our hearts and is capable of giving us new desires. Through his word he can bring to fruition a new orientation in our hearts. If this does not happen, then we will end up going nowhere. And the problem is that we are inclined to allow these merchants to cohabit alongside the Temple. The work Jesus wishes to do is chase these merchants away from the Temple. We try to allow worldliness and Godliness to stay together side by side. Our egocentric desires, directed to our own self-realization, sitting side by side with the true God? No, this is not possible! Purification requires a dying on our part, a destruction. Let us allow ourselves to be “destroyed” by the Lord and challenged by his word. Let us permit Jesus to enter our hearts with the cord, correct us and tell us what we need to hear, fertilize the Good News within us. This Sunday the liturgy speaks powerfully to our hearts. Our hearts must be liberated by the only one who knows how to renew them, the only one who can transform them from hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.