Fifth Sunday of Easter Cycle C

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

A Condition That Cannot Be Denied

Today we are going to learn a little bit of logic. Some of us might have learned the subject Logic in college. I am almost sure we have forgotten most of what we learned in that subject Logic.

What most of us do not know is that logic is very dear to Jesus. This is because one of his titles in the Bible is the source of the word "logic". St. John the Apostle calls Jesus the logos, the word from which the word "logic" comes from. Logos basically means word or idea. And logic means the correct way of using words or ideas.

The Gospel according to John begins, In the beginning was the Word (logos in Greek), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John continues that this Word became a human being and was named Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God, the logos of God and he is very much concerned with our correct way of using words because he is the source of all words. In the book of Revelation Jesus declares, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet.

In our Gospel reading for today we heard Jesus, the Word of God, the logos say, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another". In making this statement Jesus used logic.

According to our subject Logic what Jesus used was a conditional syllogism or argument called in Latin Modus Ponens or in English "Way of Affirmation".

A very simple example of Modus Ponens or Way of Affirmation is: If it is raining, the streets are wet. It is true that it is raining. Therefore it is also true that the streets are wet.

In a conditional syllogism or argument there are four parts: the condition, the consequent, the affirmation and the conclusion. In our example the condition is: If it is raining.The consequent is: the streets are wet. The affirmation is: It is true that it is raining. The conclusion is: It is true that the streets are wet.

The first rule for this kind of reasoning or argument is that if the condition is true or affirmed, the consequent is also true or affirmed. And the affirmed consequent is the conclusion. Thus if we affirm that it is raining, then by correct reasoning we have to affirm that the consequent is also true, which now becomes the conclusion. We affirm that the streets are wet.

The second rule for this kind of reasoning is that you cannot deny the condition. You can only affirm it. If you deny the condition, there can be no valid or correct conclusion. For example you cannot say, It is not raining, therefore the streets are not wet. This kind of reasoning is not correct because common sense tells us that the streets can be wet without raining. Fire trucks may have sprayed the streets with water or the water connections may have leaked flooding the streets.

Are you still with me?

In the conditional argument called Modus Ponens or Way of Affirmation which we have just considered you can only affirm the condition. You cannot deny it and produce a correct conclusion.

Going now to Jesus' statement in our Gospel reading, for the sake of getting the same form we used in our example, we place the condition of Jesus ahead of the consequent. If you have love for one another, then all men will know you are my disciples. Remember that in order to have a correct conclusion you can only affirm the condition. The condition here is: If you have love for one another. The rule of logic we just learned says that you can only affirm this to produce a correct conclusion.

Thus you cannot twist the words of Jesus this way: If you do not have love for one another, not all men will know that you are my disciples or all men will not know that you are my disciples.

To deny the condition in this case is to do injustice to the words of Jesus, the logos, the source of logic or correct reasoning. And yet we have heard some preachers and even some priests say and it seems for us correct to hear this statement: The reason why men do not recognize us as disciples of Jesus is that we Christians do not love one another, which is just a restatement of this false reasoning: If you do not love one another all men will not know that you are my disciples. This statement is nice to hear but it is not what Jesus intended by his statement in our Gospel reading. So, let us not make this statement: If we Christians do not love one another, people will not recognize us as Jesus' disciples.This is not correct reasoning according to the rule of logic established by Jesus and discovered by the philosophers.

What is the value for Jesus and for us of our discussion so far? First, for Jesus, let us not put words into his mouth which he never intended to say, such as the false statement which we have just shown. Jesus did not say that if we do not love one another people will not recognize us as his followers.

For us, the value of this discussion is that if the only way to make Jesus' conditional statement true is to affirm the condition then let us affirm it, let us make it true. Let the day come when we can truly say, It is true that we love one another. Then the consequent will also be true and the conclusion will be: Now all men know that we are Jesus' disciples.

To affirm the condition is not difficult or impossible for us because Paul the Apostle says that the love of Jesus for us which makes us love one another is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). We received the Holy Spirit in baptism and were strengthened by him in confirmation and we only need to make this love actual in our life.

Right now Jesus' Spirit is actualizing or making actual this love of Jesus for us. He makes us even feel this love as we learn more of Jesus, the author of logic or correct thinking. By ourselves we cannot have this love because it is the way Jesus loved. He said, Love one another as I have loved you. We love one another with the love of Jesus.  

Let us now pray to the author of correct thinking as we bow down our heads.

Lord Jesus, you are the Word, the Logos, the author of logic or correct thinking. Teach us to think the way you think which is always correct. Thank you for pouring the love of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, the love which enables us to love one another so that all men will know that we are your disciples or followers. Amen.

Fourth Sunday of Easter Cycle C

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

Eternal Is Not Everlasting

Our reflection today is about a topic which is not only difficult, but impossible to understand, for us human beings. This is because it is a topic beyond human understanding. Then you may rightfully ask, If this topic is beyond our human understanding why do we reflect on it? Why do we think and ponder about this topic?

We reflect on this topic because although it is beyond our human understanding, God has given us someone who will teach us to understand it. God has led us by his own way so that we can understand it, not with our human understanding but with some other kind of understanding which he has freely given us.

This topic is about the eternal life which we have just heard in our Gospel reading today. Jesus said, "I give them eternal life". Jesus gives us eternal life. What is this eternal life?

The word "eternal" is "aionion" in the original Greek of John's Gospel. "aionion" means that which is without beginning or end. It is different from the word "everlasting" or "aidios" in Greek, which only means without end. Eternal life then is a life which is without beginning or end. In other words it is a life that is always there, even before our worlds were created. It is a life outside of time because time has a beginning and an end.

Most think that eternal is the same as everlasting. They are not the same. In fact in many aspects they are opposite to each other. Eternal is without beginning and without ending. Everlasting is with a beginning but it has no ending in time. If time ends what is everlasting also ends. But what is eternal never ends even if there is no more time, that is, even if there is no more sun or moon or any other heavenly body with which we can measure time. For our present time is measured by the movement of the earth around itself and around the sun. One day is one complete turn of the earth on its axis. One solar year is one complete turn of the planet Earth around the sun. That is how we measure time. But eternal has no measure because it has no beginning and it has no end. Eternal is not the same as everlasting.

As human beings we have never seen something that did not begin. We have seen and experienced many things which have ended but we have not seen or experienced something that did not begin. As human beings we can only understand what is in time. The things around us began sometime in the past, distant or recent. The ideas that we have in our mind have a beginning. That is why as human beings we cannot understand eternal life because it is a life that has no beginning and we have not seen or experienced something that did not begin. We can only see and experience something that has a beginning. But because eternal life has no beginning we have not seen or experienced it as human beings.

What is then the importance of reflecting upon this topic which as human beings we have not seen or experienced, which as human beings, I repeat, we cannot understand?

It is important, very important that we reflect upon this topic because on this depends our living life to the fullest on earth and in heaven. Jesus said that he came that we might have life to the full (John 10:10). Other translations say, Jesus came to give us abundant life. But this abundant life is the eternal life that Jesus gives us. Hence if we do not know what this eternal life is we can never experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give us.

Lest our present discussion seems too difficult or too uninteresting for us to think about, let us go to the heart of this reflection.

If we use our mind even just a bit we realize that the only one who has eternal life is God because he has no beginning and no end. Therefore the life that Jesus said he would give us is the life of God himself. When he said, I give them eternal life, he means that he gives us the life of God himself. It is as if he said, I give them God's life or I give them divine life.

What is wonderful about what we are reflecting is that Jesus has given this eternal life to us and we have actually received it already if we were baptized. This life of God was given to us when we were baptized and our parents and godparents have received this divine life for us.

Our Catechism of the Catholic Church from number 1213 to number 1284 teaches us the benefits this eternal life gives us. By this life we are freed from sin and born again into the family of God. God has truly become our father because he gives us his own life. We become members of Christ's body, the Church, and we are made prophets, priests, and kings. We have become a new creature. We are now part of the kingdom of God. This is God's most beautiful and magnificent gift to us. Nothing can be greater than this gift, neither wealth, beauty or fame. It is a gift because it is given to us freely, without any requirement on our part. This eternal life makes us holy, as holy as God himself. We have become partaker of the nature of God himself. We are now given the power to live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit through his gifts. In other words God now guides us in our life, in everything we do.

But why do we seem not to feel or enjoy these benefits? Why do we seem still enslaved by our sins? Why do we get irritable? Why are we surrounded by so many problems in life, material, physical, financial, psychological and spiritual? Why are we not so excited about this eternal life as we would if we won in the lotto?

This is because we have not actualized the eternal life that was given to us. In the Declaration "Dominus Iesus" issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when Pope Emeritus Benedict the Sixteenth was still its prefect or head, we read the word "actualize" twice. Because most of us were infants or small children when we received this eternal life in baptism through our parents and godparents we were not aware of it. There was a need to make this eternal life actual in our life. In the analogy used by our Charismatic brothers and sisters there is a need to unpack this gift of eternal life and follow the instruction on how to use it. Otherwise if it remains unpacked we can never enjoy this gift. This actualization of this eternal life is done by the Holy Spirit, according to this Declaration.  

Now we understand a bit about this eternal life that Jesus said he gives us. It is the life of God himself, making us live, think, speak and act like God. That is the real abundant life.

Let us then ask the Holy Spirit to make this eternal life actual in our life so that we can truly experience it, feel it, be excited about it, and share it with others or help others actualize it.

We bow our heads to pray.

Holy Spirit, Spirit of Jesus, you have given us eternal life when we were baptized. Help us to actualize this life in our life so that we can enjoy it while we are still on earth and continue to enjoy it in heaven with you. Amen.

Third Sunday of Easter Cycle C

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

The Power Is In the Spoken Word

Triple denial, triple affirmation. Peter denied Jesus three times after Jesus was arrested. After Jesus' resurrection Peter affirmed he loved Jesus three times. Most commentators say that the reason why Jesus asked Peter three times in our Gospel reading today whether he loved him was to compensate for the three times he denied him.

But notice carefully what Peter meant when he said that he loved Jesus. In the original Greek of our Gospel reading there is a difference in the word translated here "love" in English.

Jesus asked Peter first using the word agapas, do you love me. When Peter answered he did not use this word. He did not say, agapo, which would be the proper answer. Instead Peter answered filo, in English still "I love you" although now it has a different meaning.

What Jesus meant by using the word agapas was, 'Peter, do you esteem me, do you treasure me as your God, as your all?' Peter answered this with filo, 'Yes, I have a feeling of love for you.'

In the second instance Jesus again used the word agapas. And Peter still answered with filo. In the third instance Jesus no longer used the word agapas, he used the word Peter was using for two times now. He used the word fileis. It is as if Jesus said to Peter, 'You cannot affirm that you agapas me, then do you really fileis, that is, have an affection of love for me? Peter still answered with filo.

We note also that in the first question of Jesus he added a phrase which Peter did not repeat. This phrase was "more than these". So the question of Jesus for the first time was, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" The sense here, as pointed out by the commentary in our New American Bible, is that Jesus asked Peter if he loved him more than the rest of the apostles loved him. In the answer of Peter he did not use this phrase. He was careful now. When before Jesus was arrested Peter professed that he would not abandon him, he said that even if the rest of the apostles abandon him, he would not abandon Jesus. Now he was careful. He did not say that he loved Jesus more than the rest of the apostles loved him.

That is some information which we need to keep in mind when we read our Gospel reading today. It provides some background for our reflection today. Today we reflect upon a statement of Peter which he applied to Jesus.

When Peter was asked by Jesus whether he loved him, Peter always replied with the clause "you know", and the third time he added the word "well". If Jesus knew, as Peter affirmed, that he loved him (Jesus), why did he ask such a question? Why did Jesus not just say, "Peter, son of John, since I know that you love me more than the rest of the apostles love me, I am giving you the charge of feeding my lambs and my sheep"?

The reason Jesus asked Peter this question although he knew what was in the heart of Peter was because Jesus wanted to hear from the lips of Peter that he loved him, athough he also knew that Peter was humble now to acknowledge that he loved Jesus only on the human level, on the level of affection, not on the level of esteem and treasure, not on the level that Jesus loved him, which was on the divine level.

The point is that Jesus wanted to hear from Peter the words "I love you".

Today Jesus wants to hear us say to him, "Jesus, I love you".  And he wants to hear us say that we love him not just on the level of feeling, but on the level of esteem and treasure, that for us Jesus is more important than anything there is.

The seriousness of the spoken word is taught by Jesus in Matthew. He said, "I assure you, on judgment day people will be held accountable for every unguarded word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned" (12:36-37).

There is power in the spoken word. God spoke and the worlds were created. He did not just think of creating the worlds and commanded from his mind that the worlds would be created. He spoke, Let there be. And what he spoke came to be.

Paul tells us that the spoken word which is rhema in Greek, in contrast to logos which is word as an idea,  is near us, in our lips and in our heart, we confess with our lips and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and was raised from the dead, then we will be saved (Romans 10:8-9). It is not enough to think about Jesus as our Lord, we have to speak it out according to Paul.

This is like the relationship of a boyfriend and girlfriend. The girl is not satisfied with just being near her boyfriend. She is waiting for her boyfriend to say to her, I love you. The boy is also waiting for an opportune time, sometimes he waits for months, to say to his girlfriend, I love you. In a love relationship the spoken word is important. There is power in that spoken word.

In the same way Jesus is waiting for us to tell him in spoken word, not just in our mind, that we love him.

We begin our love for Jesus on the human level, with affection, with feeling. Jesus will take us up to his level, to loving him as our all in all. Then we can truly say, Jesus is all there is for us.   

When you say to Jesus that you love him, be ready for an assignment. He gave Peter the charge of feeding his lambs and his sheep. The assignment he gives us may be very simple, feeding his lambs around us.

Join me now as we bow our heads to pray, if this is what you really want to say to Jesus. Otherwise if you do not mean it, do not say this prayer. You will only be telling Jesus a lie and he knows it.

Jesus, you are the fairest of tens of thousands. I love you. Amen.

Second Sunday of Easter Cycle C

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

Matter Matters Now

There is a detail in our Gospel reading today that is not much discussed by commentators or those who study the Bible. But it is a very important detail both for knowing more of Jesus and for knowing more of ourselves. It is mentioned twice. John the Evangelist mentions this detail at the beginning of his story of Jesus' appearance to his disciples. He repeats this detail at the second appearance with Thomas present.

This detail is that the doors of the room where the disciples hid for fear of the Jews were locked. John writes "doors", plural. Either the room had more than one door or that there was more than one door leading to that room. There was certainly a door in the first floor which would lead to the room where the disciples were.

We notice certain implications of this detail. This meant that Jesus did not open any door of the room to get inside that room. The disciples just saw that Jesus was already inside the room.

But John emphasized that Jesus had a material or physical human  body. He was not just an appearance like a ghost. Jesus showed his hands and his side to the disciples. In the second appearance Jesus told Thomas to put his finger in his wounds. In the Gospel of Luke the materiality of Jesus' body is even made clearer. Jesus invited his disciples to touch him to prove that he was not a ghost, but that he had a real body. Then Jesus took a cooked fish and ate it in their presence. In another passage of John's Gospel Jesus is described as taking bread and fish and giving these to the disciples after they caught 153 pieces of fish.

These incidents clearly described Jesus as having a material, physical body after his resurrection, the same body that he had before the resurrection but it had now an added characteristic or property because it could enter or appear in a room without passing through doors. Even if the doors were closed and locked this body could still enter that room.

A good question to ask is:  What has happened to Jesus' body? Why is it able now to enter a locked room?

The answer from the Gospels is that Jesus' body is now able to appear and disappear at Jesus' wish. In the Gospel reading for today we are not told what Jesus did immediately after he appeared and talked with his disciples in that room. But there is a story in Luke's Gospel which can tell us what Jesus did after he appeared to those disciples in that room.

In Luke's Gospel we read the story of Jesus appearing to two disciples on the way to Emmaus. During the meal after their journey Jesus blessed the bread and gave it to them. They recognized Jesus, then he vanished.

Most probably that is also what happened in our Gospel reading. After conversing with his disciples Jesus just vanished.

It is very clear then that Jesus' body after his resurrection is real, is material, is physical. It is not a ghost. But it can appear and disappear at the wish of Jesus. This fact tells us more about Jesus' body. It is no longer limited by time and space. It does not need time to get to a certain place. It can appear any time at any place by the wish of Jesus.

This body of Jesus is still matter but it has no longer the limitations of matter. It will no longer suffer pain because pain is a limitation of matter. In Jesus' body is fulfilled the description we read in the book of Revelation: " . . . there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away" (21:4).

Jesus has truly become the first-born of the dead as we read in Colossians (1:18). In his letter to the Romans Paul tells us that Jesus is our first-born brother. He is our first-born brother and we are born after him.

In other words, what Jesus is now that we will be. We will also have a material body which can appear and disappear at our wish. Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrance, OP, is bold enough to tell us in his writings that the seed of this glorious body is already in us by faith. Our bodies contain already the seed of that new body which we will have after our resurrection, a body no longer subject to pain, suffering or decay, but one that is full of light and glory.

That is why we can truly rejoice during this Easter season and always, because the resurrected life of Jesus is already in us, the seed of a glorious body, able to appear and disappear whenever and wherever we want. This seed is in our mortal, suffering bodies now, to be planted during our burial to blossom fully in eternity. 

Matter now matters, matter now is important because the matter in our body contains the seed of another matter, that glorious matter originally prepared by God for us but which Adam lost by his sin. Three verses before the passage we cited that Jesus is the first-born of the dead, Paul says that Jesus is the first-born of all creation. This means that the resurrected Jesus is the first matter of the new creation. The ordinary matter that we see around us now will be renewed to another form of matter, one that will have no more limitation. That wonderful world of new matter is being created through our own bodies by the resurrected life of Jesus in us. In Revelation Jesus exclaims, "See, I make all things new" (21:5). This is truly a reason for us to rejoice during this season of Easter.

As we bow our heads we pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for this seed of another kind of body in our bodies which you won through your resurrection. Thank you for making us new, with a matter that will have no more limitations. Amen.