EVEN WHEN WE FAIL HIM
May 9, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

It is the evening of the last supper. Jesus is speaking final w ords, one last sermon, to his disciples. He is preparing  them for life without his physical presence. Listen to what he tells the disciples:

I love you with the same love that the Father loves me. You have what I have. I give to you the joy that my Father and I share. You are a part of us. You are my joy, my life, and my purpose. I want your joy to be full, complete, whole, and perfect. You are my friends, my peers, my equals. I have told you everything. Nothing is held back or kept secret. I chose you. I picked you. I wanted you. I appointed, ordained, commissioned, and sent you to bear fruit, to love another. I trust and believe you can do this.

We all know from our experience that one of the great blessings in life is friendship. We value our friends deeply. We are very aware that our lives would be the poorer without them. One of the books of the Old Testament, from which we don’t often read, the Book of Sirach, has some very striking things to say about friendship. It was written about one hundred and eighty years before the birth of Jesus. It is clearly written by someone who knew the value of friendship in his own life. At one point, the author says the following about friendship: “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: whoever has found one has found a treasure. There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend, and no scales can measure their excellence” (Sir 6:14-15). The image of a faithful friend as a sturdy shelter, as a treasure, rings true to all our experience.

In today’s gospel reading (John 15:9-17), Jesus speaks of his relationship with his disciples in terms of friendship. He says to them, to us, “I call you friends… I chose you.”
He tells us here that he has expressed his choice of us as his friends in two very significant ways. “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” The most radical expression of our friendship for someone is to give our lives to that person, for that person. This is what Jesus has done for all of us. By his death he has befriended us in the most complete way imaginable.

Jesus mentions a second way in which he has expressed his choice of us as friends, “I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father.” The most intimate relationship in Jesus’ life was his relationship with God, his Father. Jesus has shared with us that most intimate part of himself. Friends can share what is deepest and most precious in their hearts with each other. Jesus has done that with us. He has spoken to us about this most intimate relationship in his life so as to draw us all into that relationship, so that we can come to know and love God the Father as Jesus does.

In these two ways, Jesus has given us the most incredible gift of his friendship. He has chosen us in love. This is a gift he will never take back, no matter what happens in our life. Just as a parent loves each child differently but equally, Jesus has befriended each of us differently but equally. He befriends each of us in accordance with our own unique identity.

In any human friendship, two people have to choose each other in love. Jesus has chosen to befriend us. Yet, in the gospel reading, he doesn’t ask us to choose him as a friend. In fact, he says, ‘You did not choose me, no, I chose you.” Jesus does not call on us to choose him as he has chosen us, but, rather, he calls on us to remain in his love. We are to remain in the love that has chosen us.

We are being reminded that Jesus’ friendship with us is of a different quality than our human friendships where mutual choice is so important if it is to endure. In a human friendship, if either one of the friends ceases to choose the other, then that other person’s choice will eventually weaken too. This is not true of Jesus’ friendship with us. His loving choice of us endures, regardless of how we respond. It is always a given. Our calling is to remain in that enduring friendship, and, if we fall out of it, to return to it.

Dear brothers and sisters, we need to let ourselves hear those words of the Lord – “I call you friends, I chose you” – as addressed to us, to me. Hearing those words and somehow experiencing the love they express is foundational to our life’s journey. It is the only foundation on which our choice of the Lord can rest.

We believe that the Lord’s choice of us endures, even when we fail him. Peter made this discovery. When he reneged on his choice of the Lord and denied him three times, the risen Lord met him by the shore of the sea of Galilee and asked him one question, “Do you love me?” This question was an opportunity for Peter to renew his choice.

That same opportunity is repeatedly given to us throughout our lives. The Eucharist is one moment when that opportunity is given. At Mass we celebrate the Lord’s choice of us, and we renew our choice of him as our way, our truth, and our life. Jesus is not indifferent regarding whether or not we remain in his enduring friendship. Rather he strongly desires that we remain in his friendship

WINTER AND SUMMER PRUNING
May 2, 2021
Dcn, Dennis Walters

If you travel to Jerusalem today, you should visit the model of Jerusalem as it looked in Jesus’ day, especially the model of the Temple. Although that model doesn’t show it, pilgrims in Jesus’ day would have seen a sculpture of a large golden vine across the façade of the Temple proper and wrapped around the two pillars that flanked the entrance to the Holy Place.

The grapevine was a traditional symbol of Israel as God’s beloved plant. Psalm 80 describes how God cleared the ground and planted a choice vine in Israel, and how its branches spread from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Euphrates, the boundaries of the kingdom under Solomon. Because of the importance of viniculture in Israel, Jews could appreciate how God plants, cultivates, waters, and defends his people. That vine sculpture in the Temple may explain why Jesus after the Last Supper pointed to himself as the “true vine,” to the disciples as branches on the vine, and to his Father as the vinedresser who prunes them.

The metaphor of pruning is particularly important for anyone who wants to grow spiritually. In the gospel, John does not spell out what kind of pruning the Father does, but the disciples would probably have known what Jesus was referring to. A vinedresser does two types of pruning, once in the winter and once again in the summer or early fall. For winter pruning when vines are dormant, the vinedresser cuts the vine way back, leaving little more than the main trunk. All the previous year’s growth is removed and discarded so that new growth can emerge in the spring. Summer pruning is much simpler, since the vinedresser simply pinches off new shoots that take up sap but produce nothing.

At the Last Supper, Jesus assures his disciples that they are already pruned by means of the word he has spoken to them. Most likely, he refers to winter pruning which, with the disciples, probably took place through some of the shocking statements Jesus made about himself. These would include statements like: I AM the light of the world; I AM the good shepherd; I AM the one gate; I AM the resurrection and the life; before Abraham came to be, I AM – and most surgically, I AM the Lamb whose flesh and blood one must eat and drink. Statements like those pruned away many would-be disciples, including Judas Iscariot. As of this Last Supper moment, this winter pruning has now been completed in them.

What was left was the summer pruning, which took the form of the challenge to “remain in me.” The word “remain” occurs eight times in the gospel reading, and twice in the second reading — it’s a major theme in John’s writings. For the disciples, remaining in Jesus would be a challenge because he would soon be crucified and they would face the temptation to scatter. After the Resurrection, and especially after the coming of the Holy Spirit, remaining would take the form of letting themselves be formed into the leaders and missionaries who planted other vineyards all over the known world.

For us, winter pruning is most likely to occur when we reach the point in our lives where we realize that we can’t remain Catholic simply because we were raised that way. At some point, we must face the decision to stay in the Church or leave it, to take on the faith as our own, accept that Catholic doctrine is true even when we don’t like it, and determine to live according to it. Winter pruning ends when we can finally say with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have come to believe.” It’s at that point that the branches can extend from the vine and begin to bear fruit.

What’s left is the summer pruning, the ongoing decision to remain in the faith we’ve committed to, regardless of what happens. Remaining implies steadfast commitment, one that allows the word of God to pinch off the new shoots of doubt, impatience, ignorance, and fascination with the world. Such pruning is always necessary. It happens every time the events of our lives bump up against the demands of faith. God wants us to serve him first and trust that he will take care of our everyday needs. We know we remain in Jesus as long as, first, we obey his commands to love one another in fact and not just in words, and second, we live according to the Holy Spirit, who is the life-sap of the vine. In short, we remain only by keeping on obeying and loving truly in our everyday behavior.

It may happen that some of us will need the winter pruning again, when some loss or tragedy brings us to the point of challenging everything we thought we knew and believed, when everything drives us back to what seems like the beginning. Such is not necessarily a setback; it may be the way to greater growth. The Lord, the vinedresser, is relentless. He will cut away everything we depend on that is not him. If we think we can bear fruit on our own, by our own efforts, then we will die spiritually. But if we are willing to accept that without him we can do nothing – absolutely nothing – and let ourselves be formed by him, then the branches can winter over and begin bearing fruit again.

The golden vine outside the Holy of Holies was a symbol of Israel’s nearness to God. The “true vine” is Jesus, and we’re in him and he in us. As we approach Pentecost, let’s pray for the grace to remain and grow in him. “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so become my disciples.”

HIS STARTING POINT
April 25, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

oes my life matter? Do I make a difference? How? And we don’t just want someone else to say “yes.” We want to be able to say yes for ourselves.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a nursing home and heard someone say, “I’m just ready to go. I don’t want to be here. Why am I still here?” I can’t help but wonder if what they are really asking is whether their life matters and what difference does it make to another. Are they of value?

Regardless of when or how those questions come up, I think they are grounded in a deep longing and desire for abundance in our life. We want to be an abundant people. We want to live an abundant life.

In John 10:10, just preceding today’s gospel reading, Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” This statement underlies everything he does, and it sets the tone for his telling of today’s story about the good shepherd, the hired hand, the sheep, and the wolf.

Abundance: What does abundance mean for you? What does it feel like when you live apart or distant from abundance? And I’m not talking about quantity; rather, abundance is a quality of life. It is a way of being that touches the deepest part of ourselves. It connects us with the divine, with the holy, and with what is good, true, and beautiful in this world. It’s not so much about getting something we don’t have but about living more fully into what is already present.
So that abundance is love that leads to love. It is joy that leads to joy, peace that leads to peace, kindness that leads to kindness. It is stepping more deeply and more fully into our own life and into the life of another. It is the presence of God lived through your life and my life.

So, what if we took those four images in today’s gospel – the good shepherd, the sheep, the hired hand, and the wolf – and considered them as lenses through which to see abundance, windows into the abundant life?

The Good Shepherd: When you hear about the good shepherd, who do you think of? Jesus. Yes, that’s the usual answer, and it is a correct answer. I am not disputing that it is Jesus, but could it be more than Jesus? Could you be the good shepherd? Could I be the good shepherd? Who have been good shepherds is your life? I don’t ask those question to take away from Jesus, but to expand, enlarge, and extend his presence.

Think about what Psalm 23 says about the shepherd. What does the shepherd do? The shepherd leads and guides. The shepherd revives. The shepherd protects. The shepherd companions. The shepherd nourishes and feeds. The shepherd sets a table of welcome and hospitality in the difficult places of life. How about those times you did those things for someone else? You set the table. You were the guide. You were the companion. You were the reviver. You were the good shepherd. I think this is happening in all sorts of ways. It happens when we parent. It happens when we love our spouse. It happens when we care for a sick or dying friend, parent, or spouse.

Here is the thing: The shepherd, regardless of who it is, is always leading to abundance. The shepherd is always leading to the green pastures, to the still waters, to the table that is set and the cup that is overflowing. It’s always about getting to that place of abundance. But it’s not as if abundance wasn’t already there. It’s always been here, right before us. Sometimes we just need someone to help us find it, to point to it, to show us that it is already here, and to remind us of what really matters most.

Sheep: What about the sheep? Suppose the sheep are the things that really matter, the things that have ultimate value? What if the sheep are the things entrusted to us and that we entrust to another? If someone comes to you and says, “You know, I’m really struggling in my marriage. Can I tell you what’s going on?” They are a sheep asking for your shepherd guidance. Or you go to someone and say, “I don’t know what to do with my child,” or “I don’t know how to get through this tough spot in life. I just need some courage and some hope.” You are the sheep looking for a shepherd. There’s something about sheep that is abundant. It’s in their vulnerability, their honesty, and the way they hope. It’s why they matter, why we care for them. It’s why we receive that entrustment with great respect and honor.

It’s pretty easy to see the good shepherd and the sheep as images of abundance. They point to what is. But what about the hired hand and the wolf? That’s more difficult, and yet they also point to abundance but in a different way. The remind us of what’s been lost and carried away. Abandoned. It is not as if the abundance was never there or can never be regained again. It’s lost, scattered, forgotten.

Dear brothers and sisters, how might these images help you to make a difference, to live the abundant life? What will you do with what you see through these windows? There is no one right answer. There is only each of us working it out in our life. Sometimes it is helpful and insightful to look at where the gospel story falls in relationship to what comes before and what comes after. You’ve got to know that we are never just one of them. We are all of them. They are all parts of us, pieces of our lives, ways that we’ve been, and experiences that we’ve had.

Every one of us could tell a story about when we were the good shepherd, when we guided and protected and nourished. And we could tell a story of how, ten minutes later, we were the hired hand and ran out. We could talk about the sheep that matter and are so valuable. And we could tell stories about the wolves that devour, snatch, and scatter. It would be easy to divide this gospel into good characters and bad characters. Let’s not do that. Let’s just hear this story as information about our lives, without making a judgment or a conclusion, but simply as an opening to the abundant life.

“I have come,” Jesus says, “that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” That is his starting point, and it is his goal. Abundant life is Jesus’ promise to each of us.

YOU ARE WITNESS TO THESE THINGS
April 18, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

It is not enough that the tomb is empty. It is not enough to proclaim, “Christ is risen!” It’s not enough to believe in the Resurrection. Experiencing resurrected life begins with recognizing the risen Christ among us. That is the gift of Easter, and it is also the difficulty and challenge described in today’s gospel (Lk 24:35-48). 

Cleopas and his companion are telling the other disciples how Jesus appeared to them on the road to Emmaus when Jesus, again, shows up out of nowhere, interrupting their conversation. “Peace be with you,” he says. They see him, they hear his voice, but they don’t recognize him. They “thought that they were seeing a ghost.” They know Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. They know dead men don’t come back to life. This can only be a ghost, a spirit without a body. The tomb is open, but their minds are closed.

They are unable to recognize the holiness that stands among them. They are continuing to live, think, and understand in the usual human categories. They have separated spirit and matter, divinity and humanity, heaven and earth. Whenever we make that separation, we close our minds, we deny ourselves the resurrected life for which Christ died, and we lose our sense of and ability to recognize holiness in the world, in one another, and in ourselves.

With Jesus’ resurrection, however, God shatters human categories of who God is, where God’s life and energy are to be found, and how God works in this world. Resurrected life can never be comprehended, contained, or controlled by human thought or understanding. Jesus’ resurrection compels us to step outside our usual human understandings of reality and enter into the divine reality.

That new reality begins with touching and seeing, flesh and bones, hands and feet, and broiled fish. Jesus said to his disciples, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Then “he showed them his hands and his feet.” After this he ate a piece of broiled fish in their presence.

Flesh and bones, hands and feet, and broiled fish are the things of creation, the natural order. Mary, a woman created by God, gave Jesus his flesh and bones and his hands and feet. She also gave him the stomach that would eat the fish God created. The very same flesh and bones, the very same hands and feet, appeared to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus and then “vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:31), and now show up unannounced and unexpected in the midst of their conversation with others. In last week’s gospel, Jesus’ hands and feet, his flesh and bones, passed through walls and locked doors.

The resurrected life of Christ, it seems, is revealed in and through the created order. It is not, however, bound by the created order. Rather, the resurrected body and life of Christ unite the visible and invisible, matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. On the one hand Jesus has a real body. On the other hand, it is not subject to the natural laws of time and space. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. It is a new and different reality.

The resurrected life of Christ reveals that all creation and every one of us are filled with God, holiness, divinity. Nothing can bind or supersede the grace that is given us through resurrection: unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, unconditional life. That is, I think, one of the most difficult things for us to see, believe, and live into. It is, however, the divine reality into which we are invited, not at some future time and place but here and now.
Christ our God longs and desires to open our minds to understand the scriptures, to understand all that has been    w   r itten, spoken, and revealed about him in whatever form that happens and has happened. That’s what Jesus did for the disciples, and it’s what he does for us. This is not an academic or intellectual understanding. That the disciples are witnesses does not mean they now have all the answers. It means they now have the life Jesus wants to give them. They are witnesses based not on what they know, but on who they are, how they live, and their relationship with the risen Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, let’s not put this text behind us. It is much too easy to come here each Sunday, listen to the gospel, hear – for better or worse – whatever I have to say, and then return to life   as usual. But let us carry this text of today’s gospel with you, let it open your eyes, your heart, and your mind to the life Christ is offering you. Let it be the voice of Christ opening your mind to understand. “You are witnesses of these things,” he says to us. Tell it. Live it. Become it. The resurrected life is yours.  

SURROUNDING OURSELVES WITH HIS MERCY
April 11, 2021
Deacon Dennis Walters

Recently I listened to an interview with Dr. Janet Smith retired theology professor from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. You may recall that Janet Smith has spoken often about the immorality of contraceptive measures and in defense of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, on the regulation of birth. The subject of her interview, though, was on the silence of the American bishops and senior clergy over the McCarrick report and its fallout.  

in her mind the content of that report blows the cover off the misconduct not only McCarrick himself but of anyone associated with or influenced by him, be it bishop, priest, or seminarian. As a lay person and a theologian of repute, Smith said, “I’m mad at the Church. I’m mad at our bishops. For whatever reason, they’re silent about that report. They’re not doing anything to reform themselves or their own dioceses!” With her years teaching moral theology in a seminary, she knows whereof she speaks.

Many faithful Catholics share her anger. The Church is in trouble, and they believe that God’s judgment is falling on the Church. Yet God still loves her – always loves her – and His mercy is always with her. On this feast of Divine Mercy, I’d like to share some positive, concrete examples of where His mercy shines through this darkness.

Consider the second Vatican Council. Pope John XXIII called for a Council because he felt the Holy Spirit wanted it so as to update how the Church proclaims her message of Christ to the world. After three years of preparation, the Council opened on October 11, 1962, with over 2600 bishops in attendance. 

Most don't realize this, but within five days after it began, the U.S. and Russia faced off in the Cuban Missile Crisis. We came within a hair’s breadth of thermonuclear war. God’s protection was on the Council, which accomplished a great deal. For the first time in Church history, it defined the nature of the Church herself. It affirmed the inspiration of Scripture, called for certain reforms of the liturgy, and addressed several issues of Catholic social teaching. While the Council has faced criticism, Pope John Paul II in 1985 would call it the “greatest grace of the century.”

Despite its clear teaching, U.S. and Russia faced off in the Cuban Missile Crisis. We came within a hair’s breadth of thermonuclear war. God’s protection was on the Council, which accomplished a great deal. For the first time in Church history, it defined the nature of the Church herself. It affirmed the inspiration of Scripture, called for certain reforms of the liturgy, and addressed several issues of Catholic social teaching. While the Council has faced criticism, Pope John Paul II in 1985 would call it the “greatest grace of the century.”

Despite its clear teaching, a time of chaos followed almost  immediately. Priests left ministry, religious orders imploded, and doctrinal confusion reigned among the laity. During the 1970s,   children and adults was in a shambles; catechetical programs focused on instructional technique rather than content. And at the time, Easter Weekday finding an orthodox catechism was not easy. 

To rectify that situation, when the bishops reevaluated the Council in 1985, the pope commissioned a new universal Catechism, which was completed in the early 1990s. It was a huge success and was followed up by strong moral teaching to implement the true spirit of the Council.

A third Mercy, the growth of renewal movements, some begun before the Council, most of which are still active, still effective. I’m most familiar with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which began in this country in 1967, and by 1975 was worldwide. But there are others: the Cursillo Movement, the Christian Family Movement, Opus Dei, the Neocatechumate, Communion and Liberation, and other mainly lay-led movements. These were a direct outgrowth of Vatican II and the papal teachings that followed it. And all of them have received papal approval.

Finally, we live in the age of Saints he twentieth century was graced with a long string of canonized popes, who include Pius X, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II; the cause of Pius XII is under investigation. Other saints newly raised to the altar include religious like Mother Teresa of Calcutta; mystics like Faustina Kowalska and Padre Pio; martyrs like Maximilian Kolbe and Oscar Romero; lay men and women like St. Gianna Molla (a physician) and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati (an athlete), and many more whose canonization is in process, like Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Bl. Solanus Casey. 

The mercy of God usually presents itself in two ways. It can come as a severe mercy, as when the Lord publicly reveals to us the sins that we try to keep hidden, the shame of which is designed to bring us to repent. That may be happening to the Church now. Mercy can also come positively, as I’ve tried to show in these four examples.

You may, like Janet Smith, be mad at the church for the abuses and inaction on the part of the hierarchy. However, we can’t afford to forget that the mercy of God is still with the Church; as Smith admitted in her interview, “the gates of Hell will still not prevail.” 

 You and I both have access to all the means necessary for us to become saints and to help sanctify the Church. We have the Mass in both the New and Extraordinary forms, with the Eucharist. We have the sacraments, especially Confession. We have devotions, both traditional ones like the Rosary and new ones like the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Whatever faults today’s Church has, she is still holy and still presents us with the call and the means to holiness.  
On this feast of divine mercy I invite you to take some time to reflect on how God has been surrounding you with His mercy in very concrete ways. 

THE EASTER SUNDAY ASSURANCE
April 4, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

he disciples of Jesus felt on that day that the one who had been central to their lives, who
had given meaning to their lives, was gone, he was crucified. They went into hiding for the fear of their life. The women followers, in contrast, rendered Jesus a final service: they visited his tomb as soon as the Sabbath was over to anoint his body with their spices. They were paying their respects to the mortal remains of their master.    

Yet, what the women discovered early on that first day of the week was not reassuring to them, at least not initially. All four gospels tell the story of the women’s discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb slightly differently.  

According to John’s account (Jn 20), when she found the tomb empty Mary Magdalene concluded that grave robbers had been at work. When reporting her discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb to Peter and the beloved disciple she exclaimed, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him.” On discovering Jesus’ tomb to be empty, her first thought was not that Jesus had been raised from the dead but that his body had been stolen.

According to Matthew’s account (Mt 28), the women, on finding Jesus’ tomb empty, “stood there not knowing what to think.” It was only after the risen Jesus appeared to them that the women and the male disciples understood why the tomb was empty. Jesus had passed beyond death into a new kind of life, a resurrected, glorious, life. The tomb was empty because Jesus was no longer held by the tomb; he had been raised from the dead. He had undergone an extraordinary transformation, and that transformation affected his whole person, including his body.

What happened on that first Easter Sunday had enormous implications not only for those first disciples but for all of us who are trying to be the Lord’s disciples today. On the cross Jesus absorbed all human sin. In his resurrection from the dead, he defeated sin with life-giving love; he showed that God’s love cannot be buried, and God’s faithfulness cannot be shut up in a tomb.  

Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we can be sure that God’s love – present in Jesus – is stronger than sin and death. Jesus’ resurrection assures us that beyond death there is new life, beyond darkness there is light, and beyond sin there is forgiveness. His resurrection shows us that our own death, like his death, can be a gateway to a new form of life.

The earliest reference to the appearance of the risen Lord to his disciples is to be found in the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, written about twenty-five years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In that letter Paul passes on to the church in Corinth what he himself had received from others (1 Cor 15:3-8), namely, that Christ “as raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” and that “he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters… then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” Paul concludes by stating, “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” Earlier in that letter Paul asked, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” Paul was very clear that he had seen the risen Jesus and that the risen Lord had appeared to him.  

     We have not seen the risen Lord in the way that Paul and other eyewitnesses saw him, but we share their conviction that Jesus is risen. And that is what we are celebrating on this feast of Easter. The   e  y ewitnesses saw and believed, and because they saw and believed, we are able to believe without having seen in the way that they saw.  

At the end of the chapter of John’s gospel (Jn 20:29) we read Jesus declaring, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” If Jesus had not been raised from the dead, there would have been no community of disciples after Jesus’ death; there would have been no church and, therefore, no gospels, no letters of Paul, no New Testament, no sacraments. Without the resurrection, we would not be here this at this Mass. In raising Jesus from the dead, God ensured that the seed that Jesus sowed by his life and his death would bear fruit. Because of his resurrection, Jesus is not only the seed that falls into the earth and dies, but the seed that in dying bears much fruit.

The resurrection of Jesus speaks powerfully to us of God’s faithfulness to all of humanity. God sent his Son into the world as his most precious gift. Even when God’s most precious gift was rejected, even when God’s Son was put to death in the most inhuman way possible, God did not take back the gift of this Son. Rather, God raised his Son from the dead and gave his Son to humanity again. Jesus who was transformed through being raised to new life holds out the possibility of our transformation.  

St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians speaks of the final transformation that awaits us beyond death. He declares that the risen Lord will transform our humble bodies into copies of his own glorious body. What God has done for Jesus in bringing him through death into a transformed life, God will do for all those who believe in Jesus.  

It is because of that first Easter Sunday that we can face death, our own death and the death of our loved ones, with great hope. Easter Sunday assures us that Good Friday is never the final act in our life’s drama. Death does not have the last word. The God of the living will bring us through death to a new and transformed life.   †
 

HE LOOKED AROUND AT EVERYTHING
March 28, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

During Christmas time confessions, one of our parishioners told me, “It is always
very difficult to go through this season.” I asked why? “In few months He will be crucified.” I wish today were as easy as the crowd around Jesus made it look and sound: We could wave our palms, sing our hosannas, offer blessings, and then just go home. But it’s not that easy. Today is the doorway into Holy Week, the last few days of Jesus’ earthly life: the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord. And it’s not an easy week for anyone who enters deeply into the mystery of our faith – like the one who came to confessional during Christmas.    

I know that the palms in our hands today will become the ashes that mark our foreheads next year. Triumph, it seems, isn’t always what we think it is. There is more to this day and the coming week than we can comprehend or explain. So, I always come to this day with conflicted feelings. I come with joy, anticipation, and hope, but I also come with some dread, resistance, and fear. I want to trust and follow the way, but I am not so sure about the suffering and dying.

If we truly understand what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah and what triumph really looks like, we might well have some questions about carrying the palms. If we realize where this parade is going and what it will ask of us, we might want to pause and take another look. Today isn’t just Palm Sunday (Mark 11:1-11). It’s also the Sunday of the Passion (Mark 14:1–15:47). The victory parade of Palm Sunday is the funeral procession of Passion Sunday.  

We begin with the crowd shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” We finish with Jesus giving a loud cry and breathing his last. A borrowed colt will carry Jesus to Jerusalem. A borrowed passerby will carry his cross to Golgotha. It was Simon of Cyrene, but it could have been anyone – you and me included. After all, didn’t Jesus say, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark. 8:34)?

I’m not suggesting that we ought to change our minds and avoid this week – rather just the opposite. We need to be present, fully present, to all this week offers. We need to show up with all that we are and all that we have. The Holy Week story is not a story to be explained or understood. It is a story to be embodied and lived.  

So maybe today is a day to slow down, re-group, and take a   look at everything. Isn’t that what Jesus does? According to St. Mark, “He entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve” (Mark. 11:11). No other gospel account describes this. Only St. Mark offers us the opportunity to look around at everything. In St. Matthew’s account of the gospel, Jesus immediately enters and cleanses the temple, driving out those who bought and sold, and overturning the moneychangers’ tables. According to St. Luke, Jesus sees the city Jerusalem and weeps over it. Then he enters the temple and drives out the den of thieves, those who bought and sold. And in St. John’s account, it’s not clear if Jesus even enters the temple. Instead, the focus is on Jesus’ teaching about the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies.  

Not so for St. Mark. At the end of the donkey ride, when the shouting is over and the last cloaks and palms have been thrown down, Jesus enters the temple, looks around at everything, and then leaves. It’s a strange and anticlimactic ending to what is known as the “triumphal entry.”  If that’s what Jesus does, maybe we should too. Maybe we need to look around at everything before we go any further into this week.

Jerusalem was the center of Jewish life. It was the center of the religious, social, political, and economic structure. The temple stands at the center of the center. It is the heart of Jewish life. That means that when Jesus entered the temple and “looked around at everything,” he was looking into the very heart of the people. Isn’t that what this Lenten journey has been about?  
Take a look around at everything in your heart. What do you see? Where does it hurt? In what ways are you heartbroken? Are you carrying guilt? What are the sins, things done and left undone? What are your regrets? Is your heart fearful? What scares you? Are you so overwhelmed by life that it feels like you are drowning, and you just want to escape? Is your heart filled with loss, sorrow, grief? What parts of you are dying? Where is your life overcome by darkness? Who are the loved ones that have died and you miss? Take a look around at everything in your heart. That’s what Jesus did.

I think Jesus looked at everything so that He might take it with him and carry it through this Holy Week. So must we. Jesus left nothing behind. We mustn’t either. If we refuse to look at and bring it to Holy Week, it cannot be healed, cannot be restored, renewed,   re-created, or resurrected.  

So, what will you carry into this week? What will you bring and offer? The triumphal entry is not about the donkey ride, the palms, or the hosannas. The triumph is in taking a look around at everything and leaving nothing behind.     †
 

WE HAVE A PATH TO FOLLOW
March 21, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

There is something we do not talk about often. Death. Yes we knowledge death when it happens but for the most part we do not talk about death with any real depth or substance, and certainly no enthusiasm. We ignore it. We avoid it. The death of our loved ones is too real, too painful. Our own death is too scary. The relationships and parts of our lives that have died are too difficult.   

I suspect the Greeks in today’s gospel (John 12:20-33) did not go expecting to talk or hear about death. They just want to see Jesus. And who can blame them? Jesus has a pretty good track record up to this point. He has cleansed the temple, turned water into wine, healed a little boy, fed 5000, given sight to the blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead. Seeing Jesus makes it all real. After all, seeing, they say, is believing. We all have our reasons for wanting to see Jesus.  
If you want to know your reasons for wanting to see Jesus, look at what you pray for. We don’t want to face the pain of loss and death in whatever form it comes. We skip over and leave behind what we do not like, want, or understand. But Christianity is participating in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is what Jesus sets before the Greeks who want to see him. 

"Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also."

 If we want to see Jesus then we must look death in the face. To really look at, acknowledge, and face death may be the most difficult work we ever do. It is, as Jesus describes, soul troubling. It shakes us to the core.

There is a temptation to want to skip over death and get to resurrection. So it is no coincidence that this week the Church points us towards Holy Week and reminds us that death is the gateway to new life. Death comes first. Death is not always, however, physical. Sometimes it is spiritual or emotional. There are the deaths of relationships, marriages, hopes, dreams, careers, health, beliefs. Regardless of what it looks like, this is not the end.

Think about the scriptural stories of loss and renewal. Abram left his country and kindred so that he might be made a great nation, renamed Abraham, and be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Jacob lost his old identity and was wounded so that he could become a new man, Israel, with a new life. James and John left their father, boats, and nets to become disciples of Jesus and fishers of people. Jesus taught his disciples, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again” (Mark 9:31). Resurrection is always hidden within death. There can be no resurrection without a death.

To the extent we avoid death, we avoid life. The degree to which we are afraid to die is the degree to which we are afraid to fully live. Every time we avoid and turn away from death, we    p  r  o  c  l aim it stronger than God, more real than life, and the ultimate victor.
The unspoken fear and avoidance of death underlies all our “what if” questions. What if I fail, lose, fall down? What if I get hurt? What if I don’t get what I want? What if I lose that one I most need and love? Every “what if” question separates and isolates us from life, God, one another, and ourselves. It keeps us from bearing fruit. We are just a single grain of wheat. We might survive, but we aren’t really alive.  

Jesus did not ask to be saved from death. He is unwilling to settle for survival when the fullness of God’s life is before him. He knows that in God’s world strength is found in weakness, victory looks like defeat, and life is born of death. This is what allowed him to ride triumphantly into Jerusalem, a city that will condemn and kill him. That is what allows us to ride triumphantly through life. Triumph doesn’t mean that we get our way or that we avoid death. It means death is the beginning not the end.

Dear brothers and sisters, regardless of who or what in our life has died, God in Christ has already cleared the way forward. We have a path to follow. That path is the death of Jesus. Jesus’ death, however, is of no benefit to us if we are not willing to submit to death, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Ultimately, death, in whatever way it comes to us, means that we entrust all that we are and all that we have to God.  We let ourselves be lifted up; lifted up in Christ’s crucifixion, lifted up in his resurrection, lifted up in his ascension into heaven. 

He is drawing all people to himself – that where he is, we too may be. Grains of wheat. That is what we are. Through death, however, we can become   the bread of life. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies….”

MEDICINE FOR THE SNAKY PLACES
March 14, 2021
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

"Pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us," the people say to Moses.

They’ve come to one of those snaky places in life. They’re impatient and wandering in the wilderness. They are thirsty and hungry. Even if they didn’t like the life they once had in Egypt, it was their life. It was familiar and they want to go back to what used to be.    

They’re grumbling, and nothing is right. Life is difficult. They complain that they have no food. I don’t think this is really about what is going on around them, but rather about what is going on within them. Their stomachs may be empty, but there is venom in their hearts and in their lives.  

Sometimes the snakes of our life strike and bite when we least expect it. They take us completely by surprise. Sometimes we wander in the snaky places of life despite our best intentions. I have heard people say: “More than once my wife has warned me.” “You better be careful. That one’s going to come back to bite you.” “Pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” How many times have we prayed that? “Just fix it God. Make it stop. Take it away. I don’t want this.”  

Moses prayed to the Lord for the people. What did God do? God did not take away the serpents from the people. That has been my experience as well. God has not offered a magical fix. I have had to face my serpents and deal with the snaky places of my life.  

It seems snaky places are a part of life. God did not take away the serpents or stop them from biting. Instead, God, sent another snake. God tells Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” God offered an antidote to the snakebites of life; the salvation God offered the Israelites was that they were to stare at the very thing they feared. The serpent that bites and kills and is also the serpent that heals and give life.  

That doesn’t make sense, but what if that is really how it is? What if the snaky places are not so much places to escape but places from which soul-medicine arises? Where does the anti-venom to treat snakebite come from? It comes from the snake’s venom. What about the immunization that protects from disease? It often comes from the same virus that causes the illness.

The cross that kills is also the tree of life. The empty tomb of resurrection is already hidden in the crucifixion. Every sin, misstep, or wrong choice holds out repentance as an antidote. Reconciliation is the medicine planted in our broken relationships. Eternal life is found in the Son of Man, lifted up on a cross (John 3:14). There’s a snake that bites and kills and a snake that heals and gives life. They must decide to which one will they give their attention and focus. So must we. We too live in that tension. We too have the same choice before us.  

Look at that tension in your own life. We claim certain values for our lives, but we often do the very opposite. Sometimes we say one thing and mean another. Or in the words of St. Paul, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15). That tension of opposites is always with us.  

It’s in today’s gospel. Jesus says that “those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are   c ondemned already.” “Those who do evil,” he says, “hate the light” and hide in the darkness. They don’t want to be seen. “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” To stand in the tension of those opposites is to begin to better understand and    c  l a  r ify who we are, what our priorities are, where our loyalties lie.  
That tension is what can shape and transform our lives. It asks a question of us. To which one will we give our attention and focus? Look at the snaky places in your life today. Acknowledge the contradictions within you. Recall the serpents that have bitten you. To what are you giving your attention? Do you need to change your focus? What would it mean to shift your attention from the biting serpent to the bronze serpent?
     
 I don’t mean that we ignore or deny the biting serpents, pretend they are not real. I don’t want us to be naive about life, our self-contradictions, or the venoms of this world. I do want us to be alive, hopeful, and whole. I want us to find the medicine our soul needs. And that means acknowledging the biting serpents even as we look up to and give our focus to the bonze  serpent. The one to which we give our attention will fill our hearts and shape our lives.  

To the degree we give our attention to the biting serpents and the venoms of this world, we will become toxic to ourselves and one another. If we give our attention to the light, the bronze serpent, the lifted-up Son of Man, we become life and light to ourselves and for one another.
 
Whatever the snaky places of your life are today, the gospel promise is that there is an antidote to the venom, a healing for every bite, a life for every death. There is hope in the midst of despair, forgiveness in the midst of sin, reconciliation in the midst of brokenness, strength in the midst of weakness, light in the midst of darkness. That medicine is already within us. We are all sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” The medicine of Christ has never gone away or run out.  †