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On February 25, 2004, Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, was released to hostile reviews but strong audiences. It was soon the highest grossing ‘Christian film’ of all time. One of the most moving moments in the film is when Mary (played by Maia Morgenstern) runs to meet her Son (played by Jim Caviezel) on his way to the cross and the two strengthen each other. Gibson uses poetic license to put on the Suffering Christ’s lips the words He speaks from His heavenly throne in today’s second reading (Rev 21:1-5): “See Mother how I make all things new!”

The fourth Sunday of Easter is always given over to the imagery of the Good Shepherd and is being christened ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’. It carries an invitation to pray for the Holy Father, Bishops and Pastors and all who play the role of a shepherd in the Church. The image of the shepherd appears to have been precious to the people of God for a very long time, perhaps it was a familiar motif even when David penned those familiar words of Psalm 23 over three thousand years ago.

On the beach, there is a charcoal fire burning and two men are huddled near it. One turns to the other and asks, “Simon, do you love me”? The question is loaded with many contours of meaning. This is not just an inquiry or casual playful quip. Some time back, Jesus of Nazareth had changed Simon’s name to Peter when he made him the ‘rock’ on which he was building his Church. A few days back, around another charcoal fire, Simon swore to the bystanders that he did not know the man from Nazareth. So, this question cuts deep into the marrow of fidelity.  If you were in Peter’s shoes at this very moment of your life, how would you feel? Troubled because you were unfaithful or joyous because your life overflows with deeds of love for the Master. When Peter affirms his love in definitive terms, the Master binds him to service. The love must be lived out in service, even to the point of going where we normally would not go.        

Fear is a part of everyone's life, although sometimes we call it worries or concerns or anxieties instead. All through life, there is fear, fear, fear. And the resurrected Christ in today's gospel comes to the apostles who are living in fear. And in this frst visit, he says, "Peace be with you." And he aims to dispel their fears, as they are behind locked doors, worried whether they will be located, handed over, and crucifed as Jesus had been. Then, in this same visit, a second time, Jesus says, "Peace be with you. " What is this second imparting of the peace for? Peace, peace, peace be with you. Why is he repeating this? The peace he is offering is the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is for inner peace and keeps the outside from disturbing what is within. And the second imparting of peace is meant, primarily, to empower them with the gift of the spirit so that they can offer peace to others. Because the second time, he says this. "Peace be with you, as the father has sent me, so I send you to bring peace to others." So, the frst gift of peace is to conquer the fears inside. And then the second gift of the spirit is to help the apostles to conquer the world's fears.

Throughout the world from the very beginnings of the Church this has been the cry that gives us our identity. This is the truth that changes everything and everyone. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.” Easter is the great celebration of victory of life over death. Ours is an Easter religion. We do not deny or turn away from the evils that surround us. We are witnessing the horrors of war in Ukraine daily on our TV screens. Some 100 million people died due to conflicts in the last century. Poverty grips more than half of the human race and hunger kills millions every year. Discrimination divides the human family into contending parties. We do not deny these miseries, but we refuse to surrender to their power because of our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The postmodern world has problems with resurrection. It has problems with anything transcendent. “This life is all there is” they proclaim. You live only once - Grab all you can – By all means you have! It doesn’t get any better than this. Bound by immediate distraction, enthralled by skills of indulgence, we are jarred by talk of heaven. For the secular media the subject is even inappropriate.

 Today’s liturgy combines two contrasting moments, one of glory, the other of suffering - the welcome of Jesus into Jerusalem and the drama of His trial which ends in His crucifixion and death. Let us rejoice and sing as Jesus comes into our life today. Let us also weep and mourn as His death confronts us with our sin. The African-American song asks the question, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed Him to a tree?" The answer is yes, a definite yes. Yes, we were there in the crowd on both days, shouting, “Hosanna!” and later “Crucify Him!” We live out this fickleness of the crowd in our vacillating fervor between fervent prayer and missing our practices of piety due to laziness. Normally, the celebration of Mass on Palm Sunday takes the usual form, but with two key exceptions or marks.

In today’s gospel, the Pharisees and the scribes brought to Jesus an adulterous woman for Him to judge. Adultery, in the Jewish law, was a serious crime punishable with death by stoning. Anyway, the main purpose of the Pharisees and scribes is to trap Jesus and use this against Him. It is not because they wanted to uphold the law. If Jesus would say: “Yes, stone her and kill her’” He would lose His untarnished name with the crowd that He is compassionate and loving with the sinners. He would no longer be seen as the merciful miracle worker. He would lose His popularity and He would lose His appeal to the crowd. There is a tradition, that about the year thirty, the Romans took away from the Sanhedrin the right of capital punishment. Therefore, they could not put Jesus to death. While it is impossible to tell whether this arrangement was in effect when this woman was caught, the most credible reason for involving Jesus in this matter is to assume that the arrangement already existed. So, Jesus would be in trouble with the Romans as well  if he condoned capital punishment. And if He would say: “No, do not kill her,” then He would be accused too because they would be able to condemn Him of being against the law and of being against their traditions.      

The story of the ‘prodigal son’ or ‘prodigal father’ is a story with many names. It is a favorite of many people and one of the most loved stories of Jesus. This story unlike other parables has several facets, almost like a gem that reflects different colors as you turn it in the light. So let us look at it from the cultural perspective colored by Biblical insights. The fathers, guardians of the ancestral property were discouraged from distributing inheritance during their lifetime (Sir 33:20-24). But if he did, a father still was entitled to live off the proceeds while he lived. This son acts shamefully, effectively wishing his father were dead. That the father did not explode and discipline him on the spot testifies to the depth of his love.

On this third Sunday of Lent, we turn our attention to the God who reveals himself. A single thread runs through today's readings. It is indicated by the name of God as revealed to Moses: “I am who I am.” Our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the God of the philosophers —that is to say, not an abstract, impersonal reality, but the transcendent One who intervenes powerfully in human history. God calls Moses and sends him to lead his people out of Egypt through the wilderness. Here is a tender, loving God, grieving over the troubles of his people. “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt …” God speaks these words miraculously to Moses from the midst of a burning bush that is not consumed by its own flames! Great compassion from the depths of the transcendent God.

As we begin the journey of Lent, the Church, invites us to reflect on Christ’s humanity by presenting the temptations of Christ on the first Sunday of Lent.  But, on the second Sunday, by presenting the Transfiguration scene, the Church invites us to reflect on Christ’s Divinity. Transfiguration was probably on Mount Hermon in North Galilee, near Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus had camped a week before this wondrous event.  Mt. Hermon was a desolate mountain, 9200 feet high, a veritable wilderness.  The traditional oriental belief that Transfiguration took place on Mount Tabor is based on Psalm 89:12. But Mount Tabor is a small mountain or a big hill in the south of Galilee, less than 1000 feet high, with a Roman fort built on it.  Hence, it would have been an unlikely place for solitude and prayer.   Moses and Elijah received God’s revelations on mountains. Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:1-17). Elijah fled to Mount Horeb, and there, God spoke to him in “a sound of sheer silence”/ “a still small voice.”  (1 Kings 19:12). It is those two men who appear on the mountain with Jesus and his companions.

Every year on the first Sunday of Lent, the liturgy of the word invites us to meditate on the temptations of Jesus.  The synoptic gospels (Mk, Mt, Lk) capture at the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus what John narrates as a lifetime of discernment of the will of the Father (read Jn 6:15, 30-31; 7:3).   The narrative of the temptations of Jesus in the synoptic gospels resembles those of the people of Israel in the wilderness. On another level, in Jesus “we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). Therefore, the temptations of Jesus are also our own.  The gospel of today reminds us that the journey of our life is often marked by trials and temptations, even as the Spirit leads us forward. Jesus’ response is also for us a way of life to overcome the temptation we will face in life.

One of the modern-day phenomena of having access to social media is the fact many people assume the role of self-proclaimed gurus. Imagine the scenario of would-be teachers or leaders who are expert at putting on a mask and offering advice to others regarding moral improvement. But this reality of incompetent teachers existed in the ancient world too. In fact, audiences constantly wonder about the teacher. And the teacher always strives to put on the best front!

The readings today are linked together by one main theme: the power of Christian love, when exercised in unconditional forgiveness. The readings also instruct us about our right and wrong choices. The right choices lead us to God, and the wrong ones break our relationship with Him and with one another.  By most reasonable judgment, David should have finished off his enemy and predator who was hunting him down. Saul wanted nothing more than David's defeat and death. Yet, at the very moment when God had delivered Saul into David's grasp, the chance to drive a final stab to the heart and end the threat, David turned away from revenge and violence. “Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the Lord's anointed?” So, David made the right choice, respecting God’s anointed king by forgiving his offenses, while Saul continued to make the wrong choices, perpetuating his own misery seeking his revenge. 

“Rags to Riches – a lesson in heavenly wisdom” "Blest are you poor. … but woe to you rich.” These powerful words, recorded for us by Luke, offer many avenues for thought. Today’s liturgy places them in the context of Jeremiah 17 and Psalm 1, and thus connects them with the search for happiness. Jeremiah’s powerfully imaged set of alternatives provide a perfect preparation for hearing Luke's version of the Beatitudes. Notice that Luke’s Beatitudes differ from the more familiar eight (nine, really) Beatitudes in Matthew in that the Third Gospel presents them in a set of our blessings paralleled by a contrasting set of four woes.

This weekend’s liturgy of the word presents three of the greatest witnesses in the Bible possessing a quality that is quite ‘unpopular’ in our progressive culture namely ‘declaration of worthlessness’. In the first reading, Isaiah receives a vision of heaven itself. The Lord is seated on a high and lofty throne. The Seraphim angel choir is crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” He has a vision of heavenly liturgy. And Isaiah reacts with shame. “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! But woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips.” In response an angel swoops down with a burning coal to cleanse his lips! He is doomed, alright, but doomed to be made clean through suffering, to be made able and willing to be a messenger of God most high.

In both the first reading and the Gospel, we are shown, in Jeremiah and Jesus, God’s prophets (prophetes in Greek means mouthpiece), chosen, consecrated, and sent to their brothers and sisters as emissaries of the Word of God. The prophet Jeremiah (600-550 BC) never held back in describing the persecution he suffered. Here in the first sentences of his book, Jeremiah describes how God called him, bolstered up his Faith and courage, and predicted the opposition he would endure. Speaking to Jeremiah, God makes four assertions: “I formed you” (as a potter forms clay), “I knew you” (referring to the intimate relationship between God and Jeremiah), “I dedicated you” (consecrating Jeremiah to do God’s work), and “I appointed you” (to a mission as His prophet to Israel). At the start of Jeremiah’s ministry, Yahweh warns the young prophet not to be intimidated by those to whom he prophesies (Jer 1:4-5, 17-19). “They will fight against you,” Yahweh warns, “but will not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you.” During his lifetime, Jeremiah was considered a total failure, but in later times he has been recognized as one of Israel’s greatest prophets. Jeremiah is a wonderful example of “the triumph of failure.”

Both today’s first reading, taken from Nehemiah, and Luke’s Gospel, describe the public reading of Sacred Scripture which challenges the hearers to make a “fresh beginning” with a new outlook. In the first reading, after rebuilding the Temple and restoring the city, Ezra leads the people in a “Covenant renewal” ceremony. Returning to the Temple after many years of exile, with the active assistance of a few Levite helper-priests, Ezra reads and interprets the Law to the Jews gathered before the Water Gate from early in the morning till mid-day on the first day of the Jewish year.

Cana and our readiness for a miracle With feast of the Baptism of the Lord we completed the Christmas season. Now the Liturgy invites us to enter into the Ordinary Season of the year. There are three different years of Ordinary Time readings, one for each year in the three year cycle, each having a simple name such as A, B, or C. In every one of these years one particular “synoptic” Gospel writer is featured, Mark, Matthew, or Luke. We are now in year C, which we began in Advent. Ordinary Time for this year will feature the Gospel according to Luke. The following words will be proclaimed before the Gospel reading each Sunday: “A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.”

Today marks the formal end of the Church’s Christmas season. Jesus' birth into earthly life has now been sufficiently celebrated. His public life comes next and his baptism begins it, even though the vestment color is still white. George Caird in his Pelican commentary on the Gospel of Luke asked this question, “Why was Jesus baptized?” The New Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The fruit of baptism or baptismal grace is a rich reality that includes the forgiveness of original sin and personal sins, birth into the new life by which man becomes an adoptive son of the Father, a member of Christ’s Body and a temple of the Holy Spirit,” (CCC no. 1279). The New Testament of the Bible is very consistent also that Jesus has no sins of his own to confess.

The feast of the Epiphany holds a magic spell on everyone who reads the story. The story evokes a plethora of questions to the reader. Who were the Magi? Which is the country of their origin? How many were they? How long did they travel? Why these special gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh for a newborn child? What happened to them after they reached back to their country? Is it possible that the bones of the Magi — Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar — are kept in a golden tomb in the largest Gothic cathedral in Europe? An ancient tradition recounts the tale of how the bodies of the Magi who visited the Christ child found their way to their final resting place in Germany’s Cologne Cathedral. We may not get convincing answers to any of the questions. But the story gives an insight into humanity’s search for meaning and purpose for life.