FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER YEAR A, 30TH APRIL 2023

 
We pray through the fruits of this Holy Sacrifice, that we receive the grace to always fix the gaze of our mind and heart on Jesus, the good shepherd. It is He who will transform our life through the glory of his resurrection. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Acts 2,14a.36-41; Psalm 22 (23); 1 Peter 2,20b-25; John 10,1-10; 4th Sunday of Easter, Year A, April 30, 2023)

In the heart of the Easter season, the liturgy invites us, every year, to fix the gaze of our mind and heart on Jesus, the good shepherd. More exactly, he is the beautiful shepherd, as John defines him in his account. Beautiful in the sense of an exemplary shepherd, and therefore true, reliable, credible. In Greek - the word which the evangelist rendered - beautiful is kalos, a term built on the same root from which the verb “to call” (kaleo, in Greek) comes. It is a verb on which all of today's biblical readings seem to insist.

In the Gospel, John writes that the handsome\good shepherd calls his sheep, each one by his name, and leads them out (John 10,3). And the sheep, recognizing his voice, listen to him and follow him. They can do this because they recognize that it is not only the sound of his voice that calls them but also the beauty of the shepherd, the beauty of his life. The sheep know his voice not only in the sense that they know how to distinguish it from other voices - such as those of thieves, brigands, or mercenaries -, they also know it more deeply. They listen and understand that it springs from a beautiful\genuine life that it is totally delivered\donated, like gift, in love, so that all of them could have life, and have it in abundance. In the passage that we read this Sunday, the evangelist alludes to this, but he says it more clearly only in the verses that immediately follow: The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (John 10,11; cf. also John 10, 15.17-18). This is the beautiful shepherd that calls the sheep and the sheep know how to listen to, recognize and follow and allow themselves to be attracted by him. He is no other than the one (as Peter recalls in his First Letter) who suffered for you and who bore our sins in his body, on the wood of the cross (1 Peter 2,21.24). By his wounds, we have been healed! Healed and transformed, this is so because letting oneself be attracted by the voice of this shepherd means, Peter insists, accepting his example and following in his footsteps. And here, in the context of this letter, the verb to call still resonates strongly: To this you were called (1 Peter 2,21), that is, to do good, even at the cost of having to bear with patience some unjust punishment (1 Peter 2,20). However, this is not just any kind of patience, much less painful or passive patience. It is rather the patience of love that continues, with perseverance, to love and to do good, even when faced with adversity, misunderstanding, and hostility, which often expose one to violence and rejection.

What are we to do, brothers? (Acts 2,37), the crowds of Jerusalem ask in the Acts. Repent … (replies Peter) for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is for you and for your children and for all those whom the Lord our God is calling to himself (Acts 2,38-39). Converting doesn't mean adjusting one's life and behavior a little. There is a more radical transformation that is required of us: to truly believe in God's promise, which preserves his desire to make us, through the gift of the Spirit, more like his Son. Receiving baptism in the name of Jesus Christ in fact means, in addition to accepting the forgiveness of sins, allowing oneself to be clothed by him, so that the beauty of his life may radiate and shine through in our existence as well. Also in Acts, in Peter's words, the verb “to call” resounds brightly as the Lord calls people to himself. (Acts 2,39). The Lord calls us to believe in this promise: in the Spirit we are given through whom we are clothed with the very beauty of the handsome shepherd whose voice we recognize and whom we follow with trust. He, John reminds us, that Jesus is not only the shepherd but also the door. In the temple of Jerusalem, there was a door designated of the sheep, through which the animals were led to be sacrificed. Now, Jesus solemnly affirms that he is the true door, but a different door, because it does not lead inside, towards sacrifice, but outside, towards communion with the Father, interwoven no longer with observances, precepts, sacrifices, yokes, and heavy burdens to carry, but with mutual knowledge in love. The shepherd calls his sheep by his name, because he knows them one by one; the sheep follow him because they know his voice. Now, it is mutual knowledge (a sign of a profound communion in love) that becomes the sole foundation of the relationship with God. And the sheep must no longer be led to sacrifice, because it is the shepherd himself who gives them life, in abundance, through the gift of his own life. It is the shepherd (no longer the sheep) who passes through the door, making himself a lamb, and a sacrificed lamb. Among the negative figures to whom Jesus controversially contrasts himself, there are not only thieves and brigands but also strangers. Now, every extraneousness that could characterize our relationship with God is demolished: mutual knowledge and communion in love are possible and are implemented in the gift of himself. The shepherd comes to give us his life and this gift, which precedes us, allows us to listen to his voice and to let ourselves be called by him, in turn giving our lives to him and to our brothers and sisters. It is in this mutual exchange, of a gift that is accepted and paid for, that we can savor life, and life in abundance for that matter, letting the beauty of him shine through. 

+ John. I. Okoye.

(graphics  by Chukwubike OC)

Easter Sunday, Year C, April 9, 2023

We pray in this Eucharist, that the risen Lord gives us grace, so that as we have died with him through our Lenten observances, we may also rise with him at Easter. Happy Easter!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Acts 10,34a.37-43; Psalm 117 (118); Col 3,1-4 (1 Cor 5,6-8); John 20,1-9; Easter Sunday, Year C, April 9, 2023)

The choice of the liturgy which offers us only the first nine verses of the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John is surprising. The account seems to stop at the most beautiful part because immediately after it, Evangelist John will recount the meeting of the Risen One with Mary of Magdala. And this is strange, all the more so, since the Sequence of the Mass, that is sung before the proclamation of the Gospel questions precisely Mary's experience: Tell us, Mary: who did you see on the way? What is the reason for this choice?  What sense can it have for us to listen to this page which tells us about the faith of the beloved disciple, who runs to the tomb together with Peter? Both enter the tomb and see the same things, but it is only of the other disciple, the beloved one, that it is stated that he saw and believed (John 20,8). And it is precisely on his experience of faith that the liturgy invites us today to pause our gaze. After all, this disciple's experience of faith is more similar to ours than that of the Magdalene. In fact, Mary heard herself called by name, she saw the Lord, she was able to hear him. Instead, what did this disciple see? Not the Lord, like Mary, but only signs: an empty sepulcher and cloths that had served to wrap the lifeless body of Jesus, left lying there (John 20,6), or rather collapsed there, because the body they had wrapped up was gone. The disciple sees only signs, yet they are enough for him to believe.

We are in the same condition as him: we believe not because, like Mary, we have heard and seen the Lord, but only because there are signs that make us pass from disbelief to faith. Precisely at the end of this chapter, Jesus will say it to Thomas, announcing to him the beatitude of faith: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!”  (John 20,29). Such is the faith of the beloved disciple, which he believes even before personally meeting the Risen One. Signs are enough for him, as long as they are seen by listening to the word of God, opening his ear to the testimony of the Scriptures, of those Scriptures which, until then, he has not even understood and which, then, he is only beginning to understand in a new way. It is necessary to listen to see, and to see in a different way.

On this page of the gospel of  John, all the characters who enter the scene, see. But their seeing differ. Mary sees that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Her seeing, blepo in Greek is a verb that indicates bodily, physical, natural seeing; seeing with one's physical eyes. Peter too, a little later, sees or rather observes the clothes placed there (John 20,6). The verb used here is theorem from which the English term theory is derived. It is a more reflective way of seeing, in which one reasons, investigates, and questions itself. It is seeing not only with the eyes but also with the head. Peter sees and reasons, but does not come to understand. To believe it is not enough to see and reason.  Finally, it is the beloved disciple who sees and whose seeing gives rise to belief: He saw and believed (Jn 20,8). Here the verb changes again; this time and now, it is seeing not only with the eyes, like Mary, or with reason, like Peter, but it is a deeper seeing, with the heart one could say. The verb orao, used to indicate the seeing of John, is used of someone who has continued to dwell in the love of the Lord and to let himself be penetrated by this love as the entire narrative of the passion shows. It is the seeing of one who preserves the word of Jesus and lets himself be influenced by it, thus remaining in his love. Deep down, both Mary and Peter and this disciple see the same things: they see signs, but their way of looking is very different. It is, however, to be noted that these three verbs of seeing are not mutually exclusive, they should all necessarily be connected. One level of meaning should give rise to a better and more profound sense. What you see with your eyes must arouse a search, a reflection, it must lead to reason, to question, to investigate. This research must in turn go beyond itself; it cannot remain only in the horizon of reasoning. It must refract and resound in the depths of our interiority, in the deepest areas of our being, where there is not only our way of reasoning but where God himself lives; where the Spirit of him offers us a different perception of reality, attracts us, and convinces us. His is an inner persuasion that we don't know exactly where it comes from, but we still feel more convincing and reliable than any other truth to which we can come by trusting only in our efforts. And then, precisely at the intersection of these three verbs, of these three ways of seeing, faith is born: one sees and one believes.

Yes, Lord, we love you; but before that, we feel loved by you with a love without measure. And we remain in this love in which everything becomes a sign. The word we have heard, the bread we break in your memory, our being gathered in the joy of Easter, our friendship, the sun that illuminates this day just as the Paschal candle has illuminated our night: everything becomes a sign of your presence, alive and resurrected, among us. Yes, Lord, we love you. And by loving you, and knowing that we are loved by you, we too see and believe. + John I. Okoye

graphics  by Chukwubike OC