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Commentary on Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44 Read Sunday of Week 1 of Advent (Year A) »

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Commentary on Revelation 14:1-5

In a passage immediately preceding today’s and not included in our liturgical readings (Rev 13:1-18), the followers of the Beast, an agent of Satan, were said to be branded on the right hand or the forehead with his name and number, just as slaves were branded with their owner’s sign or the way we brand cattle and sheep today. This was a sign of ownership. The Beast is also identified with the enigmatic number 666, said to be the sum of the numeric value given to the Hebrew letters making up the name Nero Caesar. (Because it is a document written during time of persecution, many references in Revelation are expressed in a code which would only be understood by those within the persecuted community.)

In today’s reading, the followers of the Beast (and branded with his name and number) are now contrasted with the followers of the Lamb marked with his name and the name of the Father. And just as there was a ‘remnant’ of Israel that returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, here we have the ‘remnant’ of the New Israel, the faithful Christians who have survived persecution and who will begin the restoration of God’s kingdom once its enemies have been destroyed.

John has a vision of Mount Zion. Originally, Mount Zion referred to the fortress of the pre-Israelite city of Jerusalem before it was taken over by David and made his capital. In time, the term became synonymous with Jerusalem itself and, in Revelation, it refers to the “heavenly Jerusalem”, the place where God lives for ever with his people. At the end of Revelation, it comes down to the “new earth”.

Here John sees the Lamb with 144,000 faithful followers, all of whom have the name of the Lamb and of the Father on their foreheads, again as a sign of ownership. The number 144,000 is a multiple of the perfect and complete number 12. These are the ones who have not compromised their faith and have persevered through times of persecution by being ready to give their lives for their faith in Christ. They are the martyrs (a Greek word meaning ‘witnesses’), those who gave the ultimate witness of their faith. They are, as it were, the nucleus of the final Kingdom.

And John hears:

…a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps…

It was the accompaniment to a new song that the four creatures and the 24 elders were singing in the presence of God’s throne. Just as Moses celebrated the deliverance of God’s people from Egypt with a new song, so the 144,000 also celebrate the deliverance of God’s people and the new order which the Lamb has inaugurated with a song. It was a song only they who had been saved from the ‘world’, the pagan world of sin, by the Lamb were competent to sing.*

And so they are said to “follow the Lamb wherever he goes”, just as the Israelites followed Yahweh after the Exodus into the desert, where the marriage rite of the covenant was sealed and signed, and as the first disciples left everything and walked after Jesus.

They are called the “first fruits” of God and of the Lamb. Just as in Jewish tradition the first fruits of the crops were always offered to the Lord, so these martyrs are the choice offering of the community made to God and the Lamb. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the phrase applies to the first converts in a particular place, and to the first to rise from the dead.

The last line reads:

…in their mouth no lie was found; they are blameless.

That is, they never invoked the Beast (the emperor Nero, most likely) as their god. This is unlike the Gentiles mentioned by Paul in his Letter to the Romans who:

…exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator… (Rom 1:25)

Naturally, we all hope and pray that we too may be numbered among that host of martyr-witnesses with the Lamb, our Lord and Saviour. We too, have been marked in Baptism with God’s sign of ownership on us. But that still requires our total commitment and response to his call.

May we strive to follow the Lamb closely in our faithfulness to the Gospel at all times. Let our lives be lived in total integrity so that we always in fact are what we would like to be seen to be.

___________________________
*Although it is present in the NRSVue translation, in some Bible editions, the original text of a sentence (verse 4) is omitted at this point in the passage:

It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins; these follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

In this context, it is generally understood that John is speaking metaphorically. In the Old Testament, marital infidelity was often a metaphor for idolatry, and in this case, the worship of the Beast. But even after legitimate intercourse, the release of semen was regarded as rendering the man unclean and similarly for the release of menstrual blood in the woman. The only way to avoid such ‘uncleanness’, then, was total abstinence.

The “virgins” in this context are those who, even at the cost of their lives, have remained totally faithful to God and Christ, who have not been contaminated in the slightest way by a corrupt and immoral world—whether they were actually married or not. One wonders to what extent this verse had an influence on the future asceticism of the Church and the high esteem given to virginity and celibacy in the Christian life. There are far more ‘virgin’ saints, men and women, than married men or women in our liturgical calendar.

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Commentary on 2 Timothy 4:10-17; Psalm 144; Luke 10:1-9

The Gospel reading comes (appropriately) from Luke. It is a description of Jesus sending out 72 disciples in pairs to every town and place that he himself was going to visit. There is a tradition that Luke was one of these disciples, although there is no way to confirm it as a fact. At the same time, what Luke describes here must also have matched in many ways his own experience as a missionary in the company of Paul during their journeys through Asia Minor and Greece and, finally, in Rome.

Jesus begins by reminding his disciples that there is a huge harvest out there and that many workers are needed to bring it in. As he sends them out with a message of love to the world, he warns them not to be surprised if they meet with opposition. They will be like a flock of lambs among a pack of wolves. Luke must have seen this happen many times in the company of Paul.

They are to travel with the absolute minimum of belongings—not even a staff or travelling bag. They are to walk in their bare feet and not to waste time chatting idly with people they meet on the way. Much of this must have been practised by Jesus himself, who did not even have his own bed to sleep in. When they enter any house offering them hospitality, they are to wish God’s peace on that house. But if they are not welcomed, they are to leave without a blessing. And, on their travels, they are to stay in the one house, satisfied with whatever is offered them. On the one hand, because of the work they are doing, they deserve to be taken care of. At the same time, they are not to be hopping from house to house in search of better conditions and more comfort.

Once welcomed in any place, they are to preach Jesus’ message and bring healing to all those who need it and they are to proclaim that:

The kingdom of God has come near to you.

Of course, this Kingdom or Reign of God is personified in Jesus himself who will be coming to these places after his disciples. The Reign of God comes into existence when people lead their lives according to the will of God—when they are people filled with love and compassion, ready and eager to serve each other, attending to people’s genuine needs and in general sharing with each other everything they have.

We are grateful to Luke for the wonderful picture of Jesus he has given us and for telling us how Jesus’ disciples, especially Paul, put the Gospel of Jesus into action and brought the message of the Kingdom all the way to Rome, then the capital and administrative centre of their world. And from Rome it would extend to the furthest corners of our planet.

The First Reading is taken from the Second Letter to Timothy. Here Paul, who is now a prisoner in Rome and awaiting execution, complains of his loneliness and asks Timothy, who seems to be in Ephesus, to come and join him. Many of his companions (e.g. Demas) have left him or he has sent them (e.g. Tychicus) away on some mission. However, one person is still with him and that is Luke. Timothy is also asked to bring Mark along.

Paul regrets that during his trial no one stood by him. In this, Paul’s experience is not unlike that of his Master, Jesus. But through it all, God has stood by him and given him the strength to complete his mission that all nations would hear the message of the Gospel.

Let us, too, make the message of Luke’s Gospel and Acts part of us and be ready, even in difficult circumstances, to live and spread it in all the situations of our life.

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Practically all we know of Luke (and it is not very much) comes from the New Testament. We do not know the place or date of his birth. In Paul’s Letter to Philemon (1:24) Paul refers to “Luke, my coworker”. In the Letter to the Colossians (4:14) he speaks of “Luke, the beloved physician”, so it is taken that he was a medical practitioner of some kind. In the Second Letter to Timothy (4:11) Paul says, “Only Luke is with me”. He seems to have been a close companion of Paul on some of his missionary journeys and on his final journey to Rome. This is based on the belief that the Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke, and that in Acts, a number of passages use the word “we”, suggesting the writer was a companion of Paul (Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 27:1—28:16).

As well as being the author of Acts, Luke is also taken to be the author of the Gospel bearing his name. The two works are linked by his statement at the beginning of Acts that:

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven… (Acts 1:1)

Both books are dedicated to someone named Theophilus, and no scholar seriously doubts that the same person wrote both works, even though neither work contains the name of its author.

A number of assertions about Luke are based on a document believed to date (in part) from the 2nd century:

Luke, a native of Antioch, by profession a physician. He had become a disciple of the apostles and later followed Paul until his [Paul’s] martyrdom. Having served the Lord continuously, unmarried and without children, filled with the Holy Spirit he died at the age of 84 years.

However, there is no way that these statements can be historically verified. There are legends that Luke was with Jesus as one of the 72 disciples, or that he was one of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus on Easter Sunday, a story which, incidentally, only appears in Luke’s Gospel. Based on the quality of the writings attributed to him, Luke is thought to have been well-educated. The Letter of Paul to the Colossians (4:11) seems to include Luke among the non-circumcised companions of Paul and hence that he was a Gentile. In that case, Luke would seem to be the only non-Jewish author of New Testament books.

Luke’s Gospel has many special characteristics which perhaps tell us something about the kind of person he was. Unique to him is the account of the circumstances leading to the conception and birth of Jesus (Luke, chaps 1-2). As well, his Gospel contains some of the most touching parables in the New Testament:

Luke’s Gospel, while presenting an all-or-nothing following of Jesus with an emphasis on radical simplicity of life, at the same time places great emphasis on the compassionate nature of Jesus. He focuses on Jesus’ praying before every important phase of his public life, and there is an openness to the Gentiles to whom the Gospel is especially directed.

Women figure more prominently in Luke’s Gospel than in any of the others—the mother of Jesus, her cousin Elizabeth, the sisters Mary and Martha, the widow of Nain, and the striking story of the sinful woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke is revealed as a very accurate observer, skilfully linking the sacred events with secular history. Many of his details have been confirmed by archaeology.

His writings have received high endorsements from secular scholars:

Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy…[he] should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.
(Sir William Ramsay, archaeologist)

Luke is a consummate historian, to be ranked in his own right with the great writers of the Greeks.
(E.M. Blaiklock, Professor of Classics at Auckland University)

In all, Luke names thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities and nine islands without an [factual or historical] error.
(Professor Norman L. Geisler, Southern Evangelical Seminary)

However, it should also be strongly emphasised that Luke did not write as a historian, but as an evangelist. He proclaimed the message of Jesus as the Word of God to the world. Some early Church documents say that Luke died in Thebes, the capital of Boeotia. There is a tradition that he was a painter, and one well-known icon of the Virgin Mary has been attributed to him, but with little claim to historical accuracy. It is understandable why Luke should be made the patron of artists and doctors.

When represented with the other three evangelists, Luke’s symbol is an ox, perhaps referring to the sacrifice in the Temple mentioned at the beginning of his Gospel—the scene of Zechariah and the angel announcing the birth of John the Baptist. The earliest pictures of him show him writing his Gospel, but in later art works he is represented as painting the Virgin Mary. Both Constantinople (Istanbul) and Padua in Italy claim to have his relics.

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Commentary on Zephaniah 3:14-18 or Romans 12:9-16; Luke 1:39-56

Today’s feast commemorates the visit that Mary, already pregnant with Jesus, made to her older cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the future John the Baptist. This story is within the Infancy Narrative of Luke’s Gospel, immediately after the account of the Annunciation, when Mary was asked by the angel to become the mother of Jesus. She had given her unconditional assent to the request, even though at first she found it difficult to understand because, although she was already committed in marriage to Joseph, they had not begun to live together. Nevertheless, after the assurance of the angel, she put herself totally in God’s hands:

Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)

It is shortly after this that Mary travels south from Galilee to a town in Judah (the province where Jerusalem was located). We are told that she went “in haste” as if keen to congratulate her cousin, who strictly speaking was well beyond the age to have a child. She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Immediately, the child in Elizabeth’s womb leapt in joyful welcome. It is not Mary who makes the child do this, but rather the Child that Mary is carrying.

Elizabeth, inspired by the Spirit, then cries out:

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And then she asks in surprise,

And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.

For there is a surprise here. If anyone should be making the visit, it really should be Elizabeth to the Mother of the Son of God. But no, it is Mary with Jesus who visits. It is an anticipation of something that Jesus will tell his disciples later on:

…the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…
(Mark 10:45)

It is part of his kenosis, the self-emptying of Jesus as part of his mission to communicate God’s love to us.

Elizabeth then goes on with words of praise for Mary herself:

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

It is the faith of Mary in God’s word that she praises. Although not having had intimate relations with any man, her trust in the words of the angel has been vindicated—and she is carrying the Child.

It is then that Mary, in response to Elizabeth’s words, speaks her hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God, a hymn we know as the Magnificat, from its first word in the Latin version. It is a hymn which has many resemblances to the hymn that Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, sings after she, although past child-bearing age, gives birth to her son (1 Sam 2:1-10).

First of all, Mary thanks God for taking notice of her in her lowliness. She was a simple girl living in a small town, someone of no consequence in the eyes of the world. Yet, as she rightly foresees, all ages will call her blessed because God has done such great things for her—called her to be the earthly mother of God’s own Son, and the instrument by which he would come to share our human nature. And she has words for all those who submit themselves in loving obedience to God: His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him.

In contrast, it is those who think they are powerful and strong, those who are arrogant in mind and heart, who meet their downfall, while those who accept their lowliness before God are lifted up:

…he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.

The ‘hungry’ are those who are aware that they themselves have nothing and that all is a gift from God. The rich are those who think they have it all when in truth, they have nothing that lasts. It is a teaching that will go right through the Gospel.

Mary, of course, lived out this prayer all during her life as she supported and stood by her Son to the very end. It seemed to end in disaster at the foot of the Cross, but that was not the end. New life, a life that no one can take away, was to come.

There is a choice of two First Readings. The first is from the prophet Zephaniah and reflects the joy of the Visitation, the joy of the two cousins with their children as they greet each other:

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!

For indeed the birth of these two children is a cause of joy for all God’s people:

The Lord, your God, is in your midst…he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will renew you in his love…

Yes, their Saviour is already in their midst but they do not know it yet. They will have to wait another 30 years until Jesus appears on the scene and brings the Good News of his Father. But the beginnings of the story are already here in today’s celebration.

The alternate First Reading suggested for today is from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans. It consists really of instructions on the spirit in which we should live our lives. It summarises, in part, the teaching that Jesus will later communicate to his disciples and all those who make him their Lord. Later, Jesus in his manhood will communicate these lessons not just by his words, but by the way he lives and relates to all those he encounters:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

This is just what we see taking place between Mary and Elizabeth as they meet together. It is the way in which we, too, should behave in dealing with all the people who come into our lives.

Further on, Paul says:

Contribute to the needs of the saints [the hagioi, members of the Christian community]; pursue hospitality…Bless those who persecute you…Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

Clearly this is a challenging programme! But we know that it is the only way to go. Let us, then, today truly give our welcome to Jesus and do that by our every word and action.

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Commentary on Acts 1:1-11; Hebrews 9:24-28,10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53

The First Reading and the Gospel today seem to be in contradiction with each other. Although both are written by Luke, the Gospel says that Jesus’ ascension was on Easter Sunday and the Acts of the Apostles says it was 40 days after the Resurrection. The Gospel also seems to say that the Resurrection and the Ascension are one thing while Acts seems to say they are two separate events.

In fact, the Ascension is part of the Resurrection. Resurrection emphasises that Jesus has entered a new life and not just that he recovered his previous life. The Ascension emphasises that the risen Jesus is together with the Father and that he shares the place and dignity of the Father.

Real meaning of Ascension
The real meaning of the Ascension is in the Second Reading, a passage from St Paul’s magnificent Letter to the Hebrews. The author makes a clear distinction between the role of Jesus and that of the Jewish High Priest. Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands; he entered the dwelling place of God himself. Nor, unlike the High Priest, did or does Jesus enter the sanctuary again and again, as the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies every year. Nor did he, again unlike the High Priest, offer blood that was not his own—the blood of goats and bulls. Jesus entered God’s presence by the spilling of his own blood on the cross:

Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many [i.e. all], will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Washed totally clean
How are we to share in all of this? It is again put very well in the second part of the Second Reading:

…since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Jesus has totally replaced the old way, i.e. the old covenant. The place where God is is the new Holy of Holies. Jesus is the curtain through which we, all of us sharing in the priesthood of Christ, have access to that presence. That is the meaning of the Ascension, which we celebrate today.

Therefore, we have no need to fear. We have freedom and, by the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, we can go into the holiest place. This is the path which has been opened for us through our baptism and our participation in the life of the Christian community.

Continuing the work of Jesus
But before we go to share Jesus’ glory, there is work to be done. When Jesus left us, he made it clear that he wanted us to carry on the work he had begun. He said that we could do the same things he did, and even greater. So before leaving them, he tells his disciples to go back to Jerusalem and there wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

This experience will be their baptism when they will become filled with the very Spirit of Jesus. But before Jesus leaves them, Acts tells us that the disciples ask him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?

Even at this late moment, they still do not understand the meaning of Jesus’ life and work. They still do not understand what kind of Messiah he is.

Jesus will not just restore the kingdom of Israel; he will establish a new Kingdom altogether. This Kingdom will be open to include all the people of the world. It will not be a political force or a military power. Rather, it will be—as the Preface of the Mass of Christ the King says,

An eternal and universal kingdom:
a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

The disciples will soon learn this, accept it and promulgate it everywhere. For after they receive the Spirit of Jesus themselves, they themselves will begin to inaugurate the Kingship of God not only in Israel (Jerusalem and Judea), but in time to the very ends of the earth. This is their mission—and ours—to carry the message of Jesus to the whole world.

As Jesus spoke, he is covered by a cloud, clearly indicating the enveloping presence of God. Jesus can no longer be seen. But the Ascension should not be understood too literally, as if Jesus floated up into the sky to a place called ‘heaven’. Rather he is wrapped in the all-embracing presence of his Father, symbolised by the cloud.

Lower your eyes
As Jesus disappears from their sight, the disciples continue to gaze upwards into the sky. It is then that two men wearing white clothes stand beside them and say:

Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

Did they take these words to mean that they, in their lifetime, would see him return? Time would show that this was not the meaning of the messengers’ words. The nameless messengers in white are understood to be angels—direct representatives of God—indicating the importance of what is happening. They were also present at the Resurrection.

A new lesson
The disciples have a new lesson to learn: they will not now find Jesus in the sky, in “heaven”. The Jesus they knew before the Crucifixion has left them for good. They have to go back to Jerusalem. There, through the outpouring of the Spirit of the Father and Jesus on them, they will begin to understand and grow in understanding. If they want to find Jesus, they will find him in the Christian community—in those they mix with every day of their lives.

Every time they receive the love of a brother or sister, it is the presence of Jesus. Every time they share their love with a brother or sister, they are making Jesus present to that person. They—and we—are to be Jesus in this world. We are to be the visible presence of Jesus. It is really a great challenge and a rather scary responsibility.

When people see me, do they see Jesus? When people see me, do they want to know Jesus? When people see me, do they want to join our community, share our life, and take the Gospel as the foundation of their life? That is the meaning of the Ascension.

Today we gather here not only to remember something that happened a long time ago; we are also here to remind ourselves that when Jesus left us he gave us a very important mission. That mission was and is to continue his loving and redemptive presence in the world. Let us ask him today to help us, together with him, to carry out that huge responsibility in the way he wants.

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Note: When the Ascension of Our Lord is celebrated on the following Sunday, the Second Reading (Rev 22:12-14,16-17,20) and the Gospel (John 17:20-26) of the Seventh Sunday of Easter may be used today.

Commentary on Acts 15:1-2,22-29; Revelation 21:10-14,22-23; John 14:23-29

Two sides of Christian living are reflected in today’s readings. The Gospel radiates a calmness and peace and reassurance that we all need so much. However, the First Reading reflects the areas of difference and conflict that are bound to arise when even Christians come face to face with new problems and new questions for the articulation of their faith. Such conflicts, when properly handled, are necessary, even desirable, if we are to have a deeper understanding of the real meaning of our faith in a changing world.

God speaks to us through the changing situations in which the world finds itself. So, at first sight the answers are not always clear. There are different interpretations and even disagreements until we find where the Spirit is leading us. We have conflicts like that today in questions about married priests, women clergy, marriage and family planning, death and dying, sexual relationships and sexual orientations, and other complex issues.

Yet both calm and conflict have something in common. They remind us of the different ways in which God speaks to us. Through his Spirit, which Jesus promises to send after he has left his disciples in the flesh, he will continue to be present to us and to be with his community, the Church. He says:

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

The proof of our love for Jesus is that we keep his word, and in turn we will experience the love of the Father, and the Father and Jesus will make their home in us. If we only had those words from Jesus and nothing else, they would be enough to guide us through life and point us in the right direction.

Love is a Verb
Love, as has been said, is not a feeling—it is a verb. For example, we might hear someone say: “There is no love in our marriage any more”; or, “There is no love in our family… our office… our group.” What is really being said is that there are no feelings of ‘love’ for the simple reason that there is no love going on. There can be no love (feeling) without loving (doing). And anyone can start the process.

For Jesus, love—by which he means loving—is achieved by keeping his word. The ‘word’ of Jesus must not be limited to what we were taught as commandments or doctrines or moral behaviour, although it obviously includes these. The ‘word’ of Jesus embraces everything we know about him through the Scripture—his words, his actions, his relationships with people of all kinds, the guiding principles of his life and his values and attitudes. Above all, it includes his blueprint for the setting up of the Kingdom.

Jesus is the Word of God not only because of what comes from his lips, but from the whole impact of his life—from his birth in an animals’ shelter at Bethlehem to the appalling last moments of agony and humiliation on the Cross. To ‘keep Jesus’ words’ is to embrace all of that, to identify with it and make it real in the particular context of my own life.

We may say, too, that the ‘word’ of Jesus also comes to us from all our interactions and experiences within the Christian community where Jesus still speaks to us. It comes to us through the whole of creation of which Jesus is the Head and with which he identifies through his Creator Father.

Nice and Soothing
The words of today’s Gospel are relatively abstract. They sound so nice and soothing, which is perhaps why they are so easy to digest. But life is not abstract; it constantly puts us face to face with the nitty-gritty. The Church, too, is not abstract although we often speak impersonally of it in phrases such as “Why doesn’t the Church…?”; “What does the Church say…?” and so on.

The Church is much more than an organisation founded 2,000 years ago by Jesus Christ. It is, as the Second Vatican Council emphasised, a people. It is a community—at times a rather fractious, disjointed, flawed community—whose members in varying degrees share their faith and hope, their love and caring. It is a community which, with and in Jesus, is called to work for the transformation of our world of sin and weakness, to make it, in the words of Revelation today, a city where:

…the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

It is through this community, with all its faults (and they are many), that the Spirit continues to speak as it did in the days of the first disciples. That Spirit of the Father and Jesus speaks not only through the pope, bishops and priests, but can and does speak through each and every one of the members of Christ’s Body—old or young, educated or illiterate, men or women, friends or enemies.

Today, bishops and priests are urged to listen to each other and to listen to the whole community. In its Decree on the Lay Apostolate (paragraph 10), the Second Vatican Council said that the laity should:

“…develop the habit of bringing before the ecclesial community their own problems, world problems, and questions regarding men’s (sic) salvation, to examine them together and to solve them by general discussion.”

Working Together
We may think this is something new, but we see it at work right from the beginning of the Church’s existence. We have a lovely example in today’s First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles where there was a new problem arising in these early church communities.

Many non-Jews were becoming Christians, but some of the Jewish Christians wanted the non-Jews to observe (as they themselves continued to do) the laws of Moses, especially the distinguishing badge (for men) of circumcision. It was difficult for anyone from a Jewish background to accept the abandonment of this very distinctive mark of identity for God’s people.

However, some of the Apostles and others working among non-Jews were opposed to this.* After a long discussion, which, we may imagine by reading between the lines, must have been quite heated at times, the leaders of the Church agreed that non-Jewish converts did not have to observe Jewish laws, especially that of circumcision. They did ask for some exceptions, namely, that all Christians continue to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from animals that had been strangled and from extra-marital sexual activities or marriages against prevailing Jewish law.

These were things that even non-Jews were expected to observe when living among Jews. Promiscuity was something taken lightly in Greek culture and often connected with temple prostitutes. However, the imposition of some dietary restrictions (which have been long since abandoned) was surely to avoid unnecessarily hurting the sensitivities of Jewish converts. Paul speaks about this in his Letter to the Romans (chap 14).

The Church leaders made it clear that their decision was not theirs alone. In their letter to the “gentile belivers”, they said:

…it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…

This was only the implementation of Jesus’ own words that his authority would be passed over to the community of his followers:

…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven [i.e. acknowledged as binding by God]…

And again:

…the Advocate [Paraclete], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name [it happened at Pentecost], will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.

And He still continues to teach us in our own times.

Spirit-Filled
This decision was reached ultimately by consensus, because many of the community expressed their opinion and shared their experiences. The leaders, then as now with a bias for retaining the status quo, recognised the presence of the Holy Spirit in the arguments of those who had been called back from their mission fields and who had first-hand knowledge of the high calibre of the new non-Jewish disciples. It was clear that the Spirit of God had entered into these people’s hearts as much as it had into that of Jewish-born disciples.

It was a major turning point in the development of Christianity. It involved a ‘paradigm shift’, a radical alteration of the way truth and reality were to be seen. It happened because some people were open to what God was clearly saying through circumstances and experience. It is an openness that is both valid and needed in today’s Christian communities, large and small, and even in individual lives.

In subsequent years, Paul had constantly to warn people against wanting to slide back to the old ways—people who wanted to re-introduce circumcision and other items of Jewish custom. He told the Galatians:

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal 5:1)

We see the same tendency in the Church today, in people who want to turn the clock back and resurrect old customs and impose them on others. These people tend to make the Church an end in itself. The Church is primarily a vehicle, a means by which the experience of God’s love is extended to the whole world. And, if the Church is to be true to the Spirit, it must remain open to the world, for it is the world which, in the words of one theologian, “writes the agenda for the Church”.

It was precisely because they listened to the situation of the new non-Jewish converts that the Church realised where the Spirit was leading it. When the Church becomes an enclosed, elitist society sitting in unbending judgement on the rest of the world, it is no longer the Church that Jesus founded.

Collectively and individually, we need to become aware of the wonderful ways that the Lord can come into our lives. If we give a little time to God each day, if we can remain completely still for even a short while, we can experience an overpowering desire to share in the loving that is reaching out to us from God—and then start reaching out ourselves. God wants to share with us more and more of what he has and is. The problem is that most of us hardly give him a chance. Loving is not only a verb; it is also a two-way street.

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*On the purely physical level, for an adult convert to be circumcised, given the limitations of ancient surgical practices, would surely be a very painful experience. On a psychological level, what would seem to non-Jews a mutilation of the male sexual organ would surely be regarded by some very difficult to accept.

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Commentary on Acts 14:21-27; Revelation 21:1-5; John 13:31-33,34-35

Easter is the time when we both remember and celebrate the new life which has come to us through our Risen Lord. What do we mean by this ‘new life’? Can you say that you have experienced ‘new life’ this Easter or, for that matter, in any previous Easter? Are you aware of becoming changed in any way—for the better—over the years? Or has the Easter experience simply passed you by?

The word ‘new’ appears several times in today’s readings. The passage from Revelation speaks of a “new heaven”, a “new earth” and a “new Jerusalem”. Jesus in the Gospel speaks of a “new commandment”. What’s supposed to be ‘new’?

A new life in Christ, of course, is something that can come early or late into the life of a person. For many saints it came after quite a long period of loose and immoral living without God—St Augustine and St Ignatius Loyola come to mind. For others, like Therese of Lisieux, it came relatively early. She was already a saint when she died at the tender age of 24. For most of us, it is something that may come in waves. In other words, it will not be a once-for-all experience, but something that comes at different stages in our life, each time bringing us to a deeper level of understanding, insight and commitment.

Conversion
The “new life” that the Scripture speaks of is also referred to as ‘conversion’, a turning round (Greek, metanoia). It means a radical change of vision and of our priorities in life. It means new attitudes, new values, new standards of relating with God and with people and indeed with our whole living environment of which we are a synergistic part.

In the Gospel Jesus speaks of the foundation and heart of his teaching and message. These are his parting words to his disciples before he goes to his Passion and death. What is this message? Is it to be faithful in keeping the Ten Commandments and leading a moral life? Not exactly. Does he warn us to be sure to be in church every Sunday and to go to confession regularly? Not really. Does he tell us to use all our energies in loving God? Surprisingly, perhaps, no!

What he does tell us is to love other people—and to love them as he has loved us. This, he says, is a “new commandment”. The Hebrew Testament told us to love God with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole soul, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Jesus has added a new element in telling us that the true test of discipleship is to love other people in the same way that he has loved us. And we might remember that these words lead the way to the greatest possible love that a person can show, that is, by letting go of one’s very life for others. This Jesus will very dramatically portray in the terrible suffering and degradation which he will submit to out of love for us—out of love for me.

The only valid test
To incorporate that level of love in my life will surely call for a new way of thinking, of seeing, of behaving and of interacting with other people. And it will be the test, the only valid test, of whether I truly love God as well. Is this really the way, is this the frame of mind in which I live my normal day? Or rather, let me say, is this the way we—who dare to call ourselves Christians—live our normal days?

For it is clear that the disciple of Christ is not primarily an individual person, but an ‘inter-person’. I am defined as a disciple not by how I individually behave—my personal moral life—but by how I ‘inter-act’ with other people. The ‘solitary Christian’ is a contradiction in terms because the Christian is only to be measured by the way he/she loves and that love, by definition, involves other people. I am my relationships.*

What is love?
The word ‘love’, of course, can lead to misunderstandings. The word is used by us mainly in contexts which imply deep affection, emotional attraction and a good feeling when the beloved is around or even just thought of. That is not quite the meaning of the word in this context. The word that is used by John in this passage is the Greek word, agape.

This is not, strictly speaking, love in the mutual or romantic sense. Rather, it implies a reaching out to others in a caring attitude for their well-being, irrespective of whether there will be a similar response by the other. It is the compassion that Jesus shows for the sinner and the evil person. It would be impossible for me to love a Hitler or child abuser in the first sense. It would have no meaning and Jesus does not expect me to create such an artificial attitude.

Loving enemies
On the other hand, in terms of deep caring for the good of another, I can certainly ‘agape-love’ an evil person or any other person who causes me difficulties—who I believe has hurt me or failed me or who simply behaves in a way which I cannot accept as good. This is what makes it possible for me to ‘love’ my ‘enemies’ and to pray for them and to wish God’s blessings on them so that they may change their ways (not to suit me, but for their own well-being and to bring them back into harmony with God’s way).

It is why the true Christian disciple does not in fact have enemies. This is what Jesus is doing in praying for forgiveness for those who were nailing him to the cross. He loves them then not as close friends (obviously), but as people who truly needed enlightenment about what they were doing not just to him, but to themselves. Jesus cared; he had a deep sense of agape-love at that moment.

In the First Reading, from Acts, we see another form of agape on the part of two early missionaries, Paul and Barnabas. They went through all kinds of hardships and misunderstandings so that the message and vision of Jesus might be communicated to as many people as they could reach. And to those who were already Christians they gave support and encouragement to persevere in their Christian convictions.

In this sense then, can people say of me that I am a truly loving, caring and forgiving person? Can they say that I am a redeeming person, a person who makes hurt people whole again? It is all that Jesus, on the threshold of his suffering and death, asks of me and nothing else. It is not impossible, it is not hopelessly idealistic and it does not require massive willpower and self-control. What it does require is a change in attitude and in the way I see the world, others and myself.

Where do I fail?
I might reflect today on the ways I personally fail to be a loving, caring, compassionate and understanding person. Who are the people I really love and care for? Who are the people I cannot bring myself to love and care for—and why? Who are the people I never even think of loving and caring for—and why? Do I only love the people of my own race, my own class, my own religion?

Do I care for anybody outside the circle of my family and immediate friends? Do I love and care for my family members? Whom do I regard as my friends and why? Do I love and care in any tangible way for people who need my care—however indirectly—even though I do not know them and they can give me nothing in return, e.g. the poor, the addicted, the exploited and marginalised in my own and other communities?

Finally, do I really love myself? A great deal of our difficulty in extending love and especially forgiveness to others is our own insecurity and the fragility of our egos, which can be so easily hurt. Only those persons who are fully convinced that they are themselves lovable can reach out comfortably and unconditionally to love those who themselves cannot love, but can only hurt and hate and destroy.

It is through this constant love-centred interaction among each other that the “new heaven and a new earth” and the “new Jerusalem” can begin to come into existence. It is in our hands, and we have a perfect example in Jesus our Lord.

As disciples of Jesus, imbued with his message of agape, loving in the way that he loved us, we are called to do the same—to give support to our fellow disciples and to share our faith and our love with as many people as possible. The words of the Second Reading from Revelation apply very suitably here:

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

It is precisely by our being an agape-filled people that God will come into people’s lives in this way. It is through this constant love-centred interaction among each other that the new earth, the new heaven and the new Jerusalem can begin to come into existence—not at some unknown future time and in some other place, but here and now. Today. It is in our hands. All we have to do is follow the lead of Jesus the Lord.

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*This, it could be said, is the vital distinction between being a Christian and being involved in other religious or quasi-religious activities such as yoga, secular meditation or other ‘New Age’ practices to which many ex-Christians turn. However, most of these are ‘inner-centred’, aimed at personal peace of mind and developing coping skills in order to survive in a surrounding society.

Christianity is primarily concerned at reaching out, at building communities whose main concern is together to work for the transformation of our whole society in the vision of the Kingdom. It might also be said that all the other great religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, are also community-centred. Further, all of these religions include as integral parts prayer, meditation and contemplation. In truth, the aim of these religions is not limited to just helping the individual cope. And in the case of Christianity, the aim is to help with strengthening one’s understanding of and commitment to the common vision of the Kingdom.

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Commentary on Acts 13:14,43-52; Revelation 7:9,14-17; John 10:27-30

In the First Reading, Paul (as he is now called) and Barnabas say to the people of Antioch in Pisidia:

…the Lord has commanded us, saying,
‘I have set you to be a light for the gentiles,
so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’

We are then told that:

When the gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord, and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.

Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is commonly known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ (because the Gospel is taken from Jesus’ teaching in chapter 10 of John’s Gospel about himself as the Good Shepherd). But it is also known as ‘Vocation Sunday’ because on this day we pray especially that more may answer the call to serve the Church in a special way (as did Paul and Barnabas), particularly as pastors and religious.

In his various letters, Paul speaks strongly of the unity of faith and love that binds all Christians together. Jesus at his Last Supper also prayed that all his followers be one. This would be the most potent sign of his presence among us.

But Paul also emphasises another important characteristic. Unity does not mean uniformity; it does not mean that all are exactly the same. We are not clones. Quite the opposite, in fact. He speaks of a huge variety in the Christian community. It is this variety that makes the unity so striking. This variety is based on the special gifts that each one has received. These gifts are called ‘charisms’. “Charism” comes from the Greek word charis, which means a gift or grace.

Like the human body
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul compares the Christian community to the human body (see 1 Cor 12:12-31). The body consists of a large number of separate organs, external and internal. Each one has its own particular functions, which are totally different from others. He writes:

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. (1 Cor 12:14-18)

Paul continues:

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable… If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor 12:24-27)

The parts of the Christian body
But in the body that is the Christian community, what are these parts? They are the charisms, the special gifts and abilities which have been given to each one by the Holy Spirit. There are no exceptions! And these gifts are given for just one purpose: to build up the whole body of the Christian community, the Church. They are not just for me, they are not even just to help me become a holy person.

Again in his First Letter to the Christians of Corinth, Paul lists some of the main charisms:

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work powerful deeds? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? (1 Cor 12:28-30)

What is my charism?
In our parish we might ask, “Are all priests? Are all sisters? Are all Scripture readers? Are all choir directors or choir members?” But we can also ask each one here: “What is your charism? What have you been given so that you can make a personal contribution to the life of this community?” Maybe it is as a parent forming children; maybe it is as a teacher educating young people not just to know mathematics and geography, but to become constructive members of our society and Church; maybe it is as a civil servant, a policeman, a fireman, or a businessman, an engineer or as an architect. The question is: how do you express your Christian faith through your daily work? How do you serve the Christian community by what you do?

All are called
The first thing we need to say on this Vocation Sunday is that every single person here has a vocation, every single person here has been and is being called by God through the Holy Spirit to offer their special gifts to the rest of the community. What is your vocation? What is your special gift? What contribution are you making to the life of this parish both inside the Church and outside it?

Today we are being asked to pray in a special way for particular types of vocations which are very necessary for the life of the Church. We need pastoral shepherds for our parish communities and we do not have enough. We need the special witness that religious give through lives of celibacy, poverty and obedience.

What we are praying for is not so much more vocations, because the Holy Spirit is surely calling those who are needed for the service of the Church. Rather we are praying that those who are being called will answer the call.

Praying for other people
At the same time, while we pray fervently for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and give generously in the collection for the seminary, there is a real danger that we are praying for other people’s vocations—for other parents to generously encourage their children to enter the seminary or the convent.

No, Vocation Sunday is for all of us here. On the one hand, each one needs to reflect on what their particular calling is and how they can respond to it for the well-being of the whole parish community. Secondly, we each need to help and not be an obstacle to others in responding to the particular calling or grace that God through his Spirit is giving them.

We sometimes speak of a ‘vocation crisis’. There is no vocation crisis in the sense that everyone has a vocation. There is no vocation crisis in that far more lay people are now being formed for pastoral service in the Church than was the case in even the relatively recent past. There is a crisis in that too many are not aware of their vocation or, if they are, they are not responding to it. Let us pray today that every one of us here will be sensitive to the guidance of the Spirit in our lives and that we may respond generously to the calls which he is making on us. If we all actively responded to that call what a wonderful community we would be!

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Commentary on Acts 5:27-32,40-41; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

We continue to look at the experience the disciples had of the Risen Jesus. Today’s readings speak of the meaning of discipleship both in our internal attitudes and in our relating with other people. The Gospel and, to some extent, the Second Reading speak of recognising the presence of God and of Jesus in our daily life while the Second Reading also calls us to witness to our faith with consistency and courage. One flows from the other. To be a genuine disciple of Jesus, it is not enough just to be ‘holy’ and to be good, but to have the courage, when the call comes, to do difficult things and perhaps even to suffer. In sharing the suffering of Jesus we also share in his glory.

Back to old ways?
Let us first look at the Gospel, in which the Risen Jesus reveals himself to his disciples. Jesus, some days previously, had died on the Cross. His followers, including Peter, who had made such great protestations of loyalty, had fled. As far as they were concerned, it was all over and they themselves were in danger. Today’s Gospel implies that they had left Jerusalem and gone all the way back to their native Galilee to resume their former way of life as fishermen. The previous three years had been an interesting and even exciting interlude in their lives, but now they were back to what they had always been doing.

It is early morning. They are all tired and disappointed. After a whole night’s fishing, they had caught absolutely nothing. They had forgotten the words of Jesus, who said:

…apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Suddenly, a stranger on the shore, perhaps a shadowy outline in the morning’s half-light, begins a dialogue with them:

Children, you have no fish, have you?

Reluctantly the fishermen (and you know what fishermen are like!) admit they have caught nothing. They are then told:

Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.

They did so and they were overwhelmed. There were so many fish that they simply could not be taken into the boat.

The moment of insight
It is at that moment that the disciple whom Jesus loves, reading the meaning of what has just happened, cries out:

It is the Lord!

He says this, not because he has suddenly recognised the face of the stranger on the shore, but because he has recognised the hand of God and of Jesus in what has just taken place. (It is the same disciple who, after looking into the empty tomb on Easter morning, “saw and believed”. The arrangement of the burial cloths told him something that Peter did not recognise.)

Traditionally, the “disciple whom Jesus loves” is identified with John. But in this Easter context, it can be understood especially to refer to anyone who has a close relationship with Jesus. In the symbolism of the Gospels, the boat and those in it represent the Church, the community in Christ. And it is this ‘beloved disciple’, who is particularly close to Jesus, who can recognise his presence.

Peter and the others now also realise that Jesus is present. And, totally in character, the impetuous Peter jumps into the shallow water to go to Jesus. But not before putting on some clothes, for he was naked. Under the circumstances, this would have been quite normal, and perhaps none of the others were wearing clothes either. But in Peter’s situation, it had a different meaning. Nakedness implies innocence, but Peter is not innocent. He still has the shadow of his denial hanging over him. Like our first parents in the garden, he is covered with shameful guilt in the presence of his Lord. It is not until after they go ashore that he will be fully reconciled with the Jesus he betrayed. Meanwhile, the other disciples are left to bring in the boat and the catch.

Sharing bread with the Lord
When they come ashore they find the stranger-Lord is preparing a meal for them of bread and roasted fish. He tells them:

Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.

The fish “you” have caught? Yes, they had pulled them in, but without the Lord they would never have found them, because again:

…apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

There are all the elements of a Eucharist here. They are in the presence of Jesus, the Word of God, and listening to him say “Come and have breakfast,” not unlike what he had said to them at his Last Supper with them:

…take, eat; this is my body… (Matt 26:26)

They and he are sharing what they have and eating in unity and community. This is such a simple scene, but it is a beautiful picture of the Church.

Who is he?
At the same time, there is what may seem a strange comment:

Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.

This is something they have to learn. The Risen Jesus does not look as he used to look. He now takes on many forms, but with faith, they are sure it is he.

Jesus from now on has many faces—my friend’s, my enemy’s, my rich neighbour’s, my poor neighbour’s. He is especially to be found and recognised in the poor, the exploited, the disabled, the weak, the uneducated, the stranger and the foreigner. Jesus has a Jewish face, a Chinese face, an Indian face, a Filipino face, a Nigerian face, an Arab face and an American face—indeed, a face of people from every race, ethnicity, and culture all over the world.

Hymn to the Creator
Like the disciples, too, we must come to recognise him, not just at privileged moments of high spiritual experiences, but in the most mundane moments of our daily work. In doing so we are simply being one with all creation, which by its very existence is a hymn to the Creator, as expressed in today’s Second Reading:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them, singing,

“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might
forever and ever!”

As the ‘beloved disciple’ was the first to recognise the Lord in the shadowy stranger, so we too will have Jesus pointed out to us in our own lives. As well, it is our responsibility to help others recognise the presence of our Lord Jesus at work in their daily experiences. It can have such a liberating effect on people, and it is a real form of evangelisation that anyone can do.

Being Christ for others
There is, however, a further step demanded of us. It is not enough for us, in our own lives, to be aware of God’s presence among us. That realisation calls for a response on our part to make that presence a felt reality, a genuine experience for those around us as well. The disciples could not simply stay in the upper room relishing the joy of knowing that Jesus, their Lord and friend, was risen. Their encounter on the lakeside made them realise that they could no longer go back to their boats and live for themselves.

Making up
And so, after the meal with Jesus, we have the touching scene between him and Peter. Within one dialogue it combines two things. On the one hand, there is the reconciliation between Jesus and Peter. Despite all his posturings during the Last Supper about his being more faithful than all the others, it was Peter and Peter alone who denied with an oath three times that he had anything to do with Jesus. Now, in the gentlest of ways, the Risen Lord asks him:

Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?

Peter has learnt his lesson—the bravado is gone. He does not dare to compare himself with his fellow-disciples. Now he only speaks for himself:

Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.

Three times he is asked the same question, just as three times he had denied. It hurts him, and finally he says:

Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.

A special moment
And of course, it was true. It was always true, even when out of fear for his own safety, he denied Jesus. He had wept bitterly at that time, realising how he had betrayed his best friend. Some sins are a total rejection of God and mean a definitive turning away. Perhaps Judas was like that. But most of our sins are moments of weakness and do not represent a real turning away. Our going to confession is proof enough of that.

However, the dialogue is more than a moment of reconciliation. It is also the passing of the baton. Jesus now hands over to Peter and to his companions the mission he himself had been given by the Father: “Feed my sheep.” This is the responsibility of the Church and, as members of that Church, a responsibility that rests in varying degrees on every one of us. It is not just bishops, priests or religious who have this responsibility. It is also that of parents, teachers and most simply ourselves, as the brothers and sisters we are to each other.

Back to Jerusalem
The disciples now had to go back to Jerusalem where they began to proclaim what Jesus’ life, words, actions, suffering, death and rising to life meant for them and for everyone else as well. This we see recorded in the First Reading from Acts. The joy they had, the new meaning that had come into their lives because of their encounter with Jesus, simply had to be shared with others.

However, it was a message that not everyone wanted to hear. In fact, they were warned by civil and religious leaders to stop what they were doing. But they could not stop because they were guided by something deeper than human authority, the authority of God’s Truth and Love. Not even when they were arrested, punished and imprisoned could they stop. On the contrary, the scars of their beatings became badges of pride because they had shared in the humiliation and sufferings of Jesus their Lord.

An unpopular message
If we are to be truly disciples of Jesus, if we are to proclaim our faith in its fullness, we can expect that we will be misunderstood, that we may be pitied or despised, and that some may want to get rid of us—even violently. Thousands of our brothers and sisters, in many parts of the world and in our own lifetime, have had this experience. They do not regret it. Because of them, the message of Christ, the message of Truth and Love, lives on.

A Prayer to live by
Perhaps we could finish with the words of a prayer of Cardinal John Henry Newman (slightly adapted), which beautifully expresses what we have been considering:

Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that all my life may be only a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me and be so in me
that every person I come in contact with
will feel your presence in me.
Let them look up and see,
not only me, but also Jesus.