Easter Week 3 Thursday

Readings: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 66; John 6:44-51

The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are two parts of the same work, interrupted in our Bibles by the Gospel of John. So in fact, in this great two part work, the account of Stephen's death comes just eight chapters after the account of Jesus' death. We have seen how the trial and execution of Stephen mirror in so many ways the experience of Jesus. Similarly just eight chapters after the account of Jesus' appearance to the disciples on the road to Emmaus comes the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch whom he ends up baptising.

Similarly there are striking similarities between the events recorded in Luke 24 and those recounted in Acts 8. The protagonists are on the road away from Jerusalem. In each case we find a person or persons musing about God's dealings with the world. In each case we find a person or persons puzzled, to say the least, by the 'suffering servant'. He and they are wondering who this figure might be, what God could possibly be doing through him, The two disciples on the road to Emmaus thought he would be the one to redeem Israel. The Ethiopian is completely at a loss.

In each case the traveller or travellers are joined by a stranger who, beginning from a text, 'explains' the suffering of the Christ for them. In Luke 24 and Acts 8 we have a liturgy of the word leading to the celebration of a sacrament. In the gospel it is the breaking of bread, the moment in which the two disciples recognise Jesus, just as he is taken from them. In Acts it is the baptism of the Ethiopian - 'what is to prevent me being baptised?' (which has the ring of a question from an early Christian liturgy). The two sacraments are the ways in which those who have come to believe may participate in the paschal mystery of Christ, identify with it and make it their own. Baptism is the sacrament in which faith in that mystery is first bestowed, just as it conforms the baptised person to Christ in his dying and rising from the dead. And just as Jesus disappears in the moment in which he is recognised so Philip disappears after the baptism and the Ethiopian sees him no more.

Applying all this to our own experience we can say at least this much: that our liturgies and sacramental celebrations are similarly structured. There is a liturgy of the word followed by a celebration of the sacrament. We too need the riches of the scriptures to be opened up for us just as we need our hearts, minds and eyes to be opened to the presence of Christ with us. Just as for these first believers, the suffering of the Christ remains at the heart of things: 'was it not written that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory?' Had he not said (today's gospel reading) that the bread he would give would be his flesh, for the life of the world?

We continue to need help, whatever the direction in which we are travelling, whatever our perplexity or puzzlement. We have not yet entered fully into the mystery of the cross which remains a stumbling block and a folly. But whatever road we are on, whatever questioning we have, however far we might be from the destination, the Spirit seeks us out. He will find ways to assure us of the presence of Christ, help us to understand the mystery of His love, lead us to a deeper experience of the mysteries we celebrate in our liturgies and which we seek to live out in our lives.

Easter Week 3 Wednesday

Readings: Acts 8:1b-8; Psalm 66; John 6:35-40

Not for the last time we hear of external events that, in spite of themselves and even contrary to their explicit purpose, favour the spread of the gospel. Whether it is persecution, as here, or resistance and indifference, arguments among the preachers themselves, or the need to recover from a bruising encounter - there are many extraneous things that result in great leaps forward in the preaching of the gospel. Scattering because of the persecution that breaks out in Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Stephen, a persecution whose most energetic promoter is Saul, the Christian preachers go to different parts of the Holy Land and so fulfil the second part of the prediction Jesus made at the beginning of Acts: 'you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth' (1:8)

Part of the original preaching of the apostles is that even the decisions and actions of the enemies of Jesus were used by God to achieve the purpose which had always been within God's intention. He sent the Son into the world because he loved it so much, so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but might have eternal life. The Son is to lose nothing of what has been entrusted to him but is to raise it on the last day. These divine purposes are achieved through the events of the passion and death of Jesus, which seemed to bring an end to his mission and were designed by human agents to do precisely that, but which in fact were the means God used to bring that mission to its fulfillment.

So parts of John 6, such as the section we hear today, can seem to be not only about the Eucharist but about the whole event of the birth and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is as it should be because the Eucharist contains the entire mystery of the Incarnation. The Eucharist is, as the Second Vatican Council puts it, 'the source and summit of the Christian life', that from which everything flows and that to which everything flows. An earlier writer, commenting on John 6, puts it this way:

'Even if it were true that this chapter [John 6] does not refer to the Eucharist but to the whole work of Christ whose Incarnation feeds the souls of men, it nevertheless shows the place of the Eucharist in Christianity just as strongly as if its referenece were more directly Eucharistic. For the language of 'bread' and 'eating' and of 'blood' and 'drinking' is the Christian's Eucharistic language, and to express the Incarnation in the language of the Eucharist betokens the importance of the rite just as emphatically as to express the Eucharist in terms of the Incarnation' (A.M. Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church, New York 1936, p.106).

In his commentary on John 6 Thomas Aquinas says similar things. As he puts it more succinctly in his antiphon for the feast of Corpus Christi, in the Eucharist we receive the whole mystery of Christ, we renew the memory of his passion, our souls are filled with grace, and we receive a pledge of eternal glory. In other words the entire work of the Incarnation is contained in the Eucharist - the Word becoming flesh to reveal the Father to us, the Son sent from the Father to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away, the Risen Lord recognised in the breaking of the bread. All of this is contained in the Eucharist, to human eyes a simple and routine ritual of readings, prayers and actions, but for those who believe the sacred banquet in which we feast on Jesus, our bread of life and our living bread.

Easter Week 3 Tuesday

Readings: Acts 7:51-8:1a ; Psalm 31; John 6:30-35

The people look for a sign and we are not superior to them: we too would like to be given signs that would confirm God's presence and action for us. But the readings today do give us a number of signs. Stephen is one sign, particularly his courage in speaking up to the authorities and in dying for the faith. We see it again and again in the readings from Acts of the Apostles: the transformation in the apostles and disciples after Pentecost is remarkable, striking, thought-provoking.

Stephen is also a sign in the way his passion, trial and execution so closely follow those of Jesus. Like Jesus he speaks of the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven and this provokes outrage. Like Jesus he prays for those who execute him: 'do not hold this sin against them'. Like Jesus he commends his spirit now into the hands of Jesus whom he sees standing, as his advocate, at the right hand of God.

An even more remarkable sign is in the making since we are here introduced to a man called Saul. We know that he will later be Paul and that one of the most extraordinary transformations of heart and mind will come about in him. That human beings would change so significantly, not only that they would change at all but that they would change in such striking ways: is this not one of the most compelling signs we are given as we read about the life of the first Christian communities?

Of course the greatest of signs is Jesus himself, and it is their communion with him which makes it possible for the others to change in the ways they do. He is the bread given by the Father. This refers to his teaching but also, as he will explain, to his very person. He is himself the bread of life and the living bread, given to nourish the life of God's people. All the other signs we see in the Christian community - the example of holy people, the works of charity, the courage of martyrs, the teaching of preachers, and so on - have their source in this great sign which is Jesus.

He gives himself to us in the Eucharist. It is a simple and remarkable sign, the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup. But in this way Jesus gives himself to people in all times and places, as their food and drink, to share his own life with them. This is the Sign of signs, the source of whatever power and grace we encounter in any of the other signs.

It is from this communion with Jesus that the saints draw their strength and inspiration, here they find nourishment and grace. Let it be so also for us sinners, that we may look always to this great sign and participate in it, receiving Christ, living from his life, allowing the transforming Spirit to turn us into the signs God wants us to be in the world.

Easter Week 3 Monday

Readings: Acts 6:8-15; Psalm 119; John 6:22-29

You can listen here to a homily for today

Easter Week 3 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19;Psalm; 1 John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48

Recently I heard an Easter hymn in another language which said something like ‘soldier, tell us what you saw, in the darkness of the night, as He rose’. We do not have such an eye-witness account, however. In any case, if there were such a testimony it would mean that a reality of the new creation could be seen with eyes that belong to the first creation. The fact that there is not such a testimony is an invitation to think about how the Risen Lord could be ‘seen’. What kind of eyes are needed? What would such an experience be like? And what would be the consequences for the seer?

Although we have no report from the soldiers guarding the tomb, we do however have much evidence to support our faith in Jesus risen from the dead, a collection of different kinds of experience and different kinds of testimony. When we put it all together the most reasonable conclusion is the one at which the apostles and disciples arrived: Jesus is alive, He is risen from the dead, and His kingdom is underway.

What is the evidence? Firstly we have an empty tomb. It proves nothing just by itself since there could be various explanations of it. But at least it makes us suspect a plot of some kind, whether human or divine.

In the second place we have encounters with the Risen Lord and now the question raised by the empty tomb begins to be answered. We see that there is both continuity and discontinuity between Jesus alive and carrying out his mission in the first creation, and Jesus alive and carrying on his mission in the new creation. The disciples do and do not recognize Him. They need help, reminders, confirmation, that it really is the One who was crucified who is now with them again. ‘Look at my hands and my feet’, Jesus says, ‘and give me something to eat’. ‘It is I myself’ and 'I am not a ghost'. They need to be pacified, their confusion lifted and their doubt resolved, if they are to make the transition from seeing to believing. In this the wounds of Jesus play a crucial role, those marks in his body which confirm that it is really He.

In the third place we have the Bible, the scriptures which, Jesus says, already contain all the information needed if we are to understand and believe what has happened. As he had opened the scriptures for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, so he does now for the rest of them, showing how all that has happened is foretold in the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. This is a way of referring to the scriptures in their entirety. He is saying that we have a guidebook to the Resurrection if we learn to read the scriptures in the light of that new reality. This reading has two aspects. It opens the mind so that we understand more than we did before, we see more in familiar texts and we now see what many of the prophecies meant. But it is also a way of reading that enflames the heart – ‘did not our hearts burn within us’, the Emmaus disciples say, ‘as he opened the scriptures for us’.

It is not just about truth then, it is always also about love. If we enter the scriptures keeping an eye out for the Risen Lord we not only grow in knowledge, we grow in love. It has to be so because the new creation, the world of the resurrection, is about mutual knowing and loving, it is about new relationships, it is about a new kind of communion between human beings and God, and among human beings themselves, a new way of being together.

And this is the fourth kind of testimony that supports our faith in the resurrection. We have the empty tomb, we have encounters with Jesus risen from the dead, we have a new way of reading the scriptures first taught by Jesus to his disciples, and we have the community of believers itself which becomes a ‘proof’, evidence, testimony, a witness that generates and supports faith.

We know we know Him, Saint John says in today’s second reading, if we are keeping his word and living according to his commandment of love. The kind of truth established by the resurrection is not just a new kind of physics, or a new kind of biology, interesting as those questions are. It is a transformation of relationships because it means conversion, it means pardon for sins, it means expiation and reconciliation, it means healing and new life. Human ignorance, which each day kills the Author of Life, the sinfulness in us that would turn the whole world into a tomb, this is undone and its consequences overruled by the actions of God. In fact, says Peter in his sermon recorded in the first reading, God even uses our ignorance and its consequences in fulfilling His own purposes for the world and its salvation.

If we open our minds and hearts to the evidence and testimony that are given then we can come to only one conclusion: He is truly risen and everything is changed. This cannot be simply a notional or intellectual conclusion. It must be a real conclusion that involves faith and generates a great hope. It is a conclusion that opens our hearts as well as our minds. It is a conclusion that requires conversion and recognition, not just of a relationship with Jesus and the Father in the Spirit, but also of a relationship to creation and particularly to other human beings in the same Spirit. It presupposes not only faith and hope but charity as well, the Love Jesus brought into the world. He is truly risen, we are in a new world, alleluia!

Easter Week 2 Saturday

Readings: Acts 6:1-7; Psalm 33; John 6:16-21

The Church, the community of disciples, begins to take shape in the days and weeks after the Resurrection of Jesus. Some things had already been established while Jesus was still with them and more are added as the Body builds itself up in love - the college of apostles and their authority, a leading role for Peter, prayer together, sharing all things in common, the breaking of bread, the teaching of the apostles, the sacrament of baptism, the call to faith and repentance, confidence in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, sent by Jesus from the Father, guarantees the continuing presence of Jesus with them ('do not fear, it is I', 'I am with you always') guiding the Church as it takes its first steps in the world.

Not everything is spiritual and pure in the life of this new community. Already there are complaints as one section of the group feels it is being discriminated against in favour of another. This new religion is very much about bodies, here the body that is the community with the stresses and strains that test the structure and coherence of any group of human beings. Is everybody being treated fairly? Are possessions and power being shared appropriately? The instruments with which the apostles respond to the fresh challenge are prayer and a calling down of the Holy Spirit, discernment and the election of men of wisdom and faith, anointing and the laying on of hands.

It is clear that the apostles, bold in their preaching, also had confidence in the continuing presence of the Spirit of Jesus to assist them as they faced the challenges arising from within and from without. Those challenges were soon to become much more serious, as they faced expulsion from the synagogues and persecution even to death. This is their real 'walking on water' as they step out into a world that proves to be at times interested in what they have to say and at other times indifferent, hostile and even violent in response to their preaching.

The event recorded in today's gospel reading could be a Resurrection encounter: the strange phrase 'Jesus had not yet come to them' invites us to think along those lines. Being on the sea, having Jesus come to them over the waves, the fear it engenders, hearing him say 'It is I, do not be afraid' - the atmosphere is that which characterises Resurrection encounters also.

The most important point is clear and is found in each of the readings today - no matter what the Holy Spirit is with the Church and the word of God will continue to spread; no matter what Jesus is with those who believe in him and will bring them quickly to their destination. It encourages us to pray all the more confidently the verse of today's psalm, 'Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you'.

Easter Week 2 Friday

Readings: Acts 5:34-42; Psalm 27; John 6:1-15

We begin reading chapter 6 of Saint John's gospel, which recounts the sign of the miraculous feeding, Jesus walking on the water, the crowds following him to the other side, and the great discourse on the bread of life which serves as an interpretation of the sign. Many of the resurrection encounters have strong Eucharistic overtones, most explicitly the one at Emmaus where the disciples recognised him in the breaking of the bread. In the life of the Church, where the Risen Lord continues to be present with his people, it is particularly in the Eucharist that we are with Him and He is with us.

So Jesus feeds a large crowd with five loaves and two fish. Seeing that they were going to come and carry him off to make him their king, Jesus withdrew to the mountain alone.The fear is that they wanted to imprison him as their king, imprison him in the understanding and exercise of kingship which their traditions had taught them to expect. He is the Messiah, they say, the Prophet like Moses. It is true that he is to be priest, prophet, and king but on his terms, on the terms set by the Father, and not on their terms, the terms that would imprison him within their own understanding and expectations.

Jesus escapes because his hour had not yet come. There is more work to be done before the hour comes. Most of that work is pedagogical, he needs to teach the people, telling them more about the sense in which he is a king. In the hour of his passion he is literally taken by force and he is crucified, ironically, as their king. We heard all this again on Good Friday, the debate with Pontius Pilate about the kingship of Jesus: 'are you the king of the Jews?' 'my kingdom is not of this world.' 'so you are a king then?' 'It is you who say it.' 'Jesus the Nazarean, the King of the Jews.'

In the midst of that dialogue about his kingship two sentences jump out, 'defining moments' in a drama of many defining moments. 'We have no king but Caesar', say the Jewish authorities, in the heat of the trial against Jesus. They are effectively renouncing their faith in the Lord, the God of Israel, who had been their only King from ages past.

Ironically also Jesus is crucified as their King, a charge that is meant to mock him but which actually states the truth to which he had come to bear witness. The Jewish leaders are not amused: 'You should have written 'This man says 'I am the king of the Jews''. And another sentence jumps out: 'What I have written, I have written'. So Jesus is held up before all the world and forever as King of the Jews, the promised Messiah, who is also the prophet long expected and the priest who offers the one and only acceptable sacrifice of love and obedience.

We need to be warned again and again about the danger of idolatry, even as we claim to be followers of Christ. It is very likely that in wanting Jesus to be our king we will imprison him, get him in place as a symbol of interests of our own. Under pressure, and in the heat of daily struggles, we may find ourselves realising that our king in actual fact, and contrary to what we profess with our lips, is one or other of the 'Caesars' we are tempted to worship - some pleasure, power or arrangement which is the real god of our lives.

We must seek to live in the kingdom of truth: this is the currency and wealth of the kingdom of Jesus. He came to bear witness to the truth and in the first part of the discourse to follow he speaks of the wisdom and understanding with which, as our 'bread of life', he nourishes us. Gamaliel, famously, takes the enlightened and liberal position: if it is from God, this movement will continue, if it is from men, it will fizzle out by itself. The apostles, and the Church, continue to speak in the name of the Lord Jesus and their witness shows that this movement is indeed from God. We have no king but Jesus, as the Jewish leaders and Pontius Pilate, in spite of themselves, helped us to realise.