The solemnity of the Ascension celebrates Jesus being “lifted up” or “taken up into heaven” (Mk 16:19). We may ask ourselves about the meaning of such language. Certainly, it has nothing to do with physical lifting. Jesus’ ascension into heaven is not a rocket launching. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks of the glorification of Jesus Christ, who seats at the right hand of the Father and is made Lord and ruler of everything (Ep 1:22). Jesus’ ascension is a source of hope for all those who have become his followers. With his ascension, humanity has been glorified and is seating at the right hand of God. If we become one body with him, then we will share in Jesus’ glory.
In the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we can find Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit and the mission entrusted to the disciples: they must be witnesses of Jesus “to the ends of the earth.” In the gospel of Mark, we find the confirmation that the disciples carried out the mission entrusted to them: “they, going out, preached everywhere” (Mk 16:20). However, up to the end, the disciples kept steadfast in their hope that Jesus would establish an earthly kingdom in which they would enjoy wealth and power. Wealth and power are like drugs to which we become addicted. Throughout the ages, people have been ready to sacrifice everything in order to obtain both wealth and power, considered as of supreme value. Jesus made it clear that they were wasting their time because an earthly kingdom was not part of his mission. That was in the hands of the Father.
At the end of the passage, as “a cloud took him from their sight”, the disciples remained there “looking into the sky”, as if in ecstasy. And they had to be called back to their senses and reality.
The disciples are continuously faced with two big dangers: a) to be seduced by wealth and power; b) to be allured by the heavens and forget the world we live in. We do not belong to the world, but we live in the world and are called to be witnesses of Jesus Christ in this world where we live. We must not forget that, here on earth, we are pilgrims. Our hearts hope for the glory of Christ, while at the same time leading us to walk in the way of Christ.
The word love can be heard countless times every day. It sounds as if love is a daily experience of every human being. However, the word love may be loaded with a variety of different shades. The Greeks were well aware of that and used different words for different kinds of love. Love may refer simply to friendship (philia), or maybe it refers to family love (storge) or a passionate and sexual attraction (eros). And then, there is the word agápe, used in the New Testament for the love of God, a love that is unconditional, free and gracious, full of tenderness, compassion and mercy. Agápe is divine love, ”because God is love” (1 Jn 4:8) and the source of all true love, which implies total self-giving as if we turn ourselves out for the others. God has done that for us.
“God’s love for us was revealed
when God sent into the world his only Son
so that we could have life through him”.
By loving us first, God revealed his true love:
“…this is the love I mean:
not our love for God,
but God’s love for us when he sent his Son
to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.” (1 Jn 4:9-10).
God’s love is the fountain of living water that makes our love possible. The Holy Trinity is this relationship of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus, as the beloved Son, lived that love and he loved us with that same kind of love: he put himself at our service and offered his life in sacrifice for us.
In the gospel, Jesus tells us: “Remain in my love.” With him, we must experience God’s love as his greatest gift, the one which makes all the others possible. Feeling accepted and loved, we learn how to love, spending and consuming our life at the service of the loved ones. If we remain in Christ, we are going to learn with him the true love, the love which comes from God. This love is a gift of ourselves to the other and it implies a commitment and a decision to love. It is not simply a feeling or a passion, which may blind us for a while and then disappears. It has become so common nowadays that people speak of love when they feel happy and satisfied, but then turn their back and desert their loved ones when the road becomes rough and difficult. With Christ, we must learn how to love. True love is strengthened and guarded by rules: “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love”. These rules are not oppressive; on the contrary, they show the way that leads to joy and happiness:
“I have told you this
so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.” (Jn 15:10-11).
And the commandment is very simple and straightforward: “What I command you is to love one another.” (Jn 15:17).
Most of us learnt the 10 commandments when we attended catechesis for the first communion or the baptism. They set the values which should guide us, being the foundation of our moral behaviour. However, according to Jesus the two most important commandments which include all the others are: Love God and love your neighbour as yourself. And according to Paul, all commandments are summed up in this one: “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Ro 13:9). John, in his first letter, tells us that there are only two commandments:
“His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.” (1 Jn 3:23).
We must believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God. Salvation is given to us only through him. To believe in Jesus, that is to accept him, to listen to him, to follow him and become one with him - is a commandment given to us by God. Even before the creation of the world, God had a plan for us - that we live in his love and share in his glory. With sin, humanity turned that plan upside down. However, we cannot undo what God has decided since he always finds a way of straightening what we have made crook. Thus, through Jesus Christ, His beloved Son, God has carried out his plan of salvation. Jesus is the Way, the only to the Father. In him, we become God’s children, so that his glory may be manifest in us. That’s why we must believe in Jesus Christ and become one with him. He is the role model that we must follow. It is not enough to love my neighbour as I love myself. I must love in the way Jesus loved. In true love, there is no selfishness. Love gives us the strength to offer our life at the service of others as Jesus did.
In the Gospel, Jesus stresses the importance of having a deep relationship with him. He uses the comparison of the vine, explaining that he is the vine and we must be the branches of that vine. Being one with Jesus, we can bear fruit in plenty, “for cut off from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5).
Let us examine our relationship with Jesus. How deep is it? How committed are we? What effort do we put in to become more and more like Jesus?
In our days, we go on preaching the same Good News the apostles preached: Salvation can be found only in Jesus Christ.
“For of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.” (Act 4:12).
Jesus was rejected and sentenced to death on a cross, even though they could not find him guilty of any crime. However, God proved him right by raising him from the dead. He is like “the stone rejected by you the builders, but which has proved to be the keystone.” In him, we find the new humanity and upon him, the new people of God is set up. Jesus is the only Saviour through whom we can find meaning and purpose for our lives and the world. It is only through and in Jesus Christ that we can become God’s children. According to the second reading (1 Jn 3:1-2), God’s plan for humanity is to let us “be called God’s children; and that is what we are.” As God’s children, we will reflect on our faces the glory of God. Indeed, Christ “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21). Then, “we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.” (1 Jn 3:2).
The work of salvation was carried out by Jesus Christ, who came so that we may have life “and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd. In the Old Testament, God is seen as the Shepherd who cares for his people. And in one of the most beautiful psalms, we address God as “my shepherd”: “he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths” and “I fear no evil; for you are with me” (Ps 23:1-4). Jesus is that shepherd, a good shepherd because he “lays down his life for his sheep”. He is not like the hired man, who cares only about his salary, working solely for earning a living. He does not pay attention to the needs of the sheep and will not put his life in danger to save any sheep. The hired man is moved by selfishness, while Jesus is moved by love and compassion. He is ready to lay down his life for his sheep.
In the Old Testament, the religious and political leaders were compared to shepherds and many of them behaved like the hired man, abandoning the sheep to themselves and causing them to get lost and to be devoured by the wild beasts of the forest. In Ezequiel, God condemns the evil shepherds and promises that one day he will become the shepherd of his people (Ez 34). Jesus is the fulfilment of that promise.
The people of God is in dear need of good shepherds in the manner of Jesus Christ. Let us pray for all the leaders of the world in all spheres of life that they learn with Christ to their lives at the service of others.
In the first reading (Act 3:13-15,17-19), we have Peter addressing the people after the healing of the lame beggar. It is a short speech that goes straight to the basics. What happened with Jesus is an essential part of God’s plan of salvation and of the history of His actions to fulfil that plan. It is “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, who has glorified his servant Jesus”. God has proved right this Jesus who was rejected and crucified at the hands of the Romans by the instigation of the Jewish authorities. And Peter confronts the crowd with their sin: “It was you who accused the Holy One, the Just One, you who demanded the reprieve of a murderer while you killed the prince of life.” Peter speaks as if all his listeners were involved in Jesus’ condemnation to death and, most probably, they were not. Jesus’ arrest, condemnation and crucifixion were done in a hurry, in such a way that most of the residents of Jerusalem had no time to realise what was happening. Arrested late in the evening, by nine o’clock, Jesus was crucified. However, Peter wants to make it clear that with our sins - all of us - we are part and parcel of those who rejected Jesus and caused his death on the cross. With our sins, we are guilty of Jesus’ death. Most probably, like those who heard Peter’s speech, we are not aware of our sin and we don’t accept the sinfulness of our nature. We need to be called to repentance: “Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.”
In the second reading (1 John 2:1-5), John tells us that Jesus offered his life in sacrifice to take away our sins and the sins of the whole world. Thus Jesus reconciles us with God and becomes our advocate, always interceding for us with the Father.
In this Sunday’s gospel (Luke 24:35-48), we find the disciples walking on a difficult path, taking them from unbelief to belief. Being the risen Jesus, the disciples remained “in a state of alarm and fright” and Jesus had to call on them to look closely at him. And “they still could not believe” that Jesus rose from the dead and that he was with them. To prove to them that he was real and not any kind of ghost, he took a piece of grilled fish “and ate before their eyes.” Then, Jesus explained to them that what was written in the Scriptures - “the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms” - had “to be fulfilled”. And he “opened their minds to understand the scriptures”. The Christ should “suffer and on the third day rise from the dead”, thus reconciling us with God and opening for us the gates of heaven. The disciples are witnesses of his passion and death and then his resurrection. Being witnesses, they must proclaim the Good News to the whole world: in Jesus’ name, “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” must be preached, so that we may live as a reconciled community.
II SUNDAY OF EASTER - Divine Mercy Sunday - John 20:19-31
In this Sunday’s liturgy, in the second reading taken from the First Letter of John, we can hear the following question being put to us: “Who can overcome the world?” (1 Jn 5:5) We may be puzzled by the word “world”. Does it mean the universe, the earth on which we live or simply humanity?
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ep 2:1-2). In the gospel of John, we can find Jesus claiming: “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” (Jn 12:31). Indeed, with Jesus’ death and resurrection “the ruler of this world is judged.” (Jn 16:11). Thus speaking of the “world”, John is speaking of humanity ruled by the power of evil, that is humanity that has rejected God and established itself as the only source of legitimacy and righteousness. The “world” refers to humanity guided by inverted values, humanity that praises selfishness, pride, lust, wealth and power. The “world” is humanity that blindly pursues the road that takes it to self-destruction. Is there a way out of the bottomless pit in which we have fallen? Only Jesus Christ can redeem us, pulling us out and raising us up. He alone is the Saviour given to us by God because he alone is the faithful One, who has defeated the ruler of this world.
In his first letter, John answers his question: Only the ones who believe that “Jesus is the Son of God” can overcome the world, finding the straight road to salvation. In this Sunday’s gospel, we find the journey of faith of Thomas, “called the Twin”. Being absent from the community’s assembly, he refused to accept the testimony of his friends. To believe, he demanded to see, touch and measure. When Jesus came to him during the community gathering, he was scolded for his lack of faith. However, taking into account his search for the truth, Jesus allowed him to touch his body and feel through his fingers the reality of Jesus’ wounds. To belong to the new world established in the Risen Christ, we must believe that he is the Son of God, who suffered death for us on the cross and then rose to life, thus affirming his power to save. In him, we are reconciled with God, being able to give thanks and praise for God’s loving mercy. The community of disciples received from the Risen Christ the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of the Lord - to take away our sins and reconcile us with God. This reconciliation must be shown forth in a reconciled community - the community of disciples, the Church of Jesus Christ, which is guided by the Spirit and not by the values of the world. In the first reading, the Acts of the Apostles present a community that has Christ as the cornerstone. In that community, we find solidarity and communion instead of selfishness and division. We must learn love and mercy from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And we must be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful (Lk 6:36).
The Passover Feast (Easter) is a very old feast, celebrated since the times the people of Israel fled the slavery of Egypt. Since then, Passover has always been a feast of liberation and has inspired countless liberation movements throughout the centuries. The Holy Scriptures speak abundantly of the first experience of liberation: The Pharaoh, king of Egypt, seeing a threat in the growing numbers of the people of Israel, decided first to enslave them and then planned to do away with them. In their suffering, as they faced doom, they cried out to God for deliverance. And God, listening to their cry, set in motion a plan for their liberation, taking them out of slavery and leading them to a land of their own, where they would be established as a nation with her own identity.
While the story of Exodus is being proclaimed during the most sacred Easter Vigil, it may come to our minds that the escape out of slavery in Egypt was mainly or even exclusively a political event, through which a people got their freedom, thus being able to affirm their own identity. However, as we listen to the word of God, during the Easter Vigil, we come to realise that the liberation from slavery and the exodus to the land of freedom is part of a much greater plan, that’s God’s plan of salvation. That Passover in Egypt was the first of many others celebrating God’s acts of salvation. We come to realise that we will only become truly free, when God himself set us free and when we recognise his primacy and accept his love and mercy. Whenever humanity turns its back to God, cuts all bonds with him and affirms its independence, taking God’s place and role, then humanity is running fast into slavery and true freedom is endangered. Left to ourselves, we don’t become gods but devils and evil become the master of our lives and society at large.
Going through the history of salvation, we discover that God is constantly on our side, never wavering in his commitment to making life and salvation possible for us. The people of Israel broke their alliance with God time and again and caused God to be frustrated and disappointed. Despite that, God does not go back on his word and promise. He pays always attention to our suffering and is always ready to answer with love and mercy.
“Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty;
though you have no money, come!
Buy corn without money, and eat,
and, at no cost, wine and milk.” (Is 55:1)
Seeing that we addicted to evil and unable to become worthy of entering his Kingdom, the Lord decided to give us a new heart and a new spirit:
“I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols. I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and sincerely respect my observances.” (Ez 36:25-27).
Passover goes to the root of slavery to cut it out and establish a way of true salvation. Passover is the feast of life and salvation.
The Passover in which we remember the passion and death of Jesus Christ and celebrate his victory over death and sin makes it clear that humanity left to itself is capable of the most heinous crimes. In an act of revolt and independence, humanity is ready to kill God and take his place. And nothing else is sacred, nothing else is beyond our reach. There are no limits to what we can do, pursuing the ideal of becoming the centre of the universe and of manipulating everything to our profit. That is the way for self-destruction. However, the Passover of Jesus Christ which we are celebrating puts forward a completely different way, the only way possible for salvation. Jesus, the Son of God, offered himself to come and, remaining faithful up to the end, he accepted death imposed on him by evil men and offered his life as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin and the reconciliation with God. The way to life passes through death. Like Jesus, we must carry the cross, so that dying with him we may rise to life with him. The Passover is the great feast of life and salvation, offered to us in Jesus Christ. In him, God has proved his love and his commitment to humanity, as if He cannot be God without us sharing in his glory.
Let us offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise - the sacrifice of Jesus Christ - for the salvation of the world. If we become one with Christ, we will share in his resurrection and his glory.
I wish everybody a happy Easter celebration. May the Risen Lord pour his blessings on each one of us and on the whole world.
