EASTER SUNDAY
Reading 1 Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Peter proceeded to speak and said: “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23 R. (24)
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
Second Reading Col 3:1-4
Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.
Gospel Jn 20:1-9
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.
Commentary
Our Easter celebrations form the heart of our Christian living. Our faith is deeply rooted and finds its real meaning in the resurrection of Jesus. St Paul says that, if Christ is not risen, then all our believing is in vain.* It is sad, then, that we still find people who make Good Friday and the death of Jesus the climax of Holy Week. However, attitudes seem to be changing and more and more people have come to love the Easter Vigil liturgy, especially when it is done well.
Those Christians who depict the cross without the body of Christ on it are making a very important point. The cross was the high point of Jesus’ gift of himself to the father for our sake, but he is no longer there and it was his entry into glory with the Father which gives the Cross its validity. Otherwise, it would have been a journey into nothingness.
Because of the resurrection, the disciples, who were at first paralysed with fear of being arrested as accomplices of Jesus, suddenly made a complete turnaround and began boldly to proclaim that Jesus, who died on the Cross, was alive and with them. And when, in fact, they were arrested, persecuted and imprisoned, it became a cause of rejoicing that they were now even more closely related to the life experience of their Lord, sharing in his sufferings that they might share in his glory.
A call for change
Easter, however, is not only concerned with recalling the resurrection of Jesus or its impact on the first disciples, but also with the meaning of this event for our own lives and for our faith. The celebration of Easter (and the days of Holy Week leading up to it) are a call for us to change – and perhaps change radically – as Jesus’ own disciples changed.
The sign that we are truly sharing in the risen life of Jesus is that our lives and our behaviour undergo a constant development. We not only believe, we not only proclaim, but we do what we believe and what we proclaim.
Proclamation and witness
The theme of today’s Mass includes both proclamation and witness. In the First Reading, we see Peter speaking after the baptism of Cornelius and his family, the first Gentile Christians. He is speaking about his own experience and sharing that experience with the listening crowds. For the true disciple of Jesus, there is a close and indivisible relationship between experiencing and proclaiming. Because of Peter’s experience of knowing with utter conviction that Jesus, who died on the Cross, is now alive, he is so filled with the joy of it that he simply must share that joy with others – so that it can be theirs, too.
We find a similar theme in both of the Second Readings (we are given a choice) and the Gospel. Paul was a Pharisee, a dedicated Pharisee and a man of integrity. He persecuted Christians because he saw in them a dangerous deviation from the Jewish Law and Jewish traditions. Then he, too, had that sudden experience when the Risen Jesus revealed himself while Paul was on his way to Damascus to bring the Christians (whom he saw as heretical Jews) into line.
That experience, as we know, brought about a total change in Paul’s life. It gave him a totally new vision of things and especially of the meaning of Jesus’ life and message. For the rest of his life, he used all his energies, the same energies he once used against Christians, to help others – Jews and non-Jews alike – to know, love and follow Jesus his Lord.
Empty tomb
In the Gospel, we have the experience of the empty tomb as the sign of Jesus’ resurrection to life. Mary Magdalen saw the stone rolled back (it was so heavy; who could have managed to do such a thing?) and she went running to the disciples. The “disciple whom Jesus loved” went with Peter. They ran to the tomb and, although the “beloved disciple” got there first, out of deference, he let Peter go in before him. They saw, they understood, and they believed. Until that moment, the Gospel says,
…they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture [i.e. the Hebrew Testament] that he must rise from the dead.
The disciples on the way to Emmaus will also hear that the positive meaning of the sufferings of Jesus can be found in the Hebrew Testament for those who can see and understand.
Not just resuscitation
It is important, however, to be aware that the Resurrection is not simply the resuscitation of the body of Jesus after he died on the Cross. No one saw the resurrection because there was nothing to see. The crucifixion is a historical event, but the resurrection is a faith event. The Risen Jesus enters a completely new way of living. The post-Resurrection texts all indicate that. He is not recognised at first by even his intimate friends, he is everywhere that his disciples happen to be, and his new Body – the means of his being visibly present among us – is the community of his disciples. We are, quite literally at this time, the Body of Christ.
We see the beginnings of this in the next part of John’s Gospel that we will read during the first week of Easter. Peter and the “beloved disciple” went back to their companions to tell them of their discovery. But Mary Magdalen, a formerly sinful woman who was now totally devoted to Jesus as her Lord and Master, stayed behind. She was distraught. Her beloved Master was not only dead, his body was now missing. In the tomb she saw two angels, representing God’s presence, who asked her why she was crying.
A familiar voice
At that very moment, she turned and saw Jesus but did not recognise him. This is a constant feature of post-Resurrection apparitions. Jesus is not recognised; he looks just like an ordinary person, any person. In this case, Mary thinks he is the gardener, and wonders if he is the one who has taken away the body of Jesus. When he calls her name, “Mary”, she immediately knows who it is. Earlier in John’s gospel Jesus had said:
The gatekeeper opens the gate for the shepherd; the sheep hear his voice as he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow someone else; instead, they will run away from him, because they do not know his voice.
Mary then begins to cling passionately to Jesus, not wanting to let him go. But she has to let go – she is clinging to the “old” Jesus. The Risen Jesus is going into glory with the Father. He will return, but in a very different way. From now on he will be found in all those who call themselves his disciples and who are united together as one Body – the Church and all its constituent local churches.
And Mary, too, runs back to the disciples proclaiming her personal experience:
I have seen the Lord.
Not that she had seen Jesus, but that she had seen the Risen Lord. And that is what evangelisation is about: it is not just the handing on of doctrines but the sharing with others our experience of having seen the Lord in our own lives and inviting them to have the same experience.
The same mission
The celebration of Easter reminds us that we have the same mission as Peter and Mary Magdalen and the other disciples of Jesus. First, as the optional Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians indicates, Easter calls for a radical conversion, a radical purging on our part. In the celebration of the Pasch, the Jews used to throw out all the leavened bread they had and replace it with freshly baked unleavened bread.
Because of the fermentation process that leavened bread undergoes, yeast was regarded as a corrupting agent. So Paul tells us that we, too, as we celebrate our Christian Passover, are to become:
…a completely new batch of bread, unleavened [in other words, free from all the corrupting influences in our life] as you are meant to be…having only the unleavened bread of integrity and truth.
And, to go back to the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter emphasises the importance of Jesus’ disciples not only experiencing the joy of their Risen Master and Lord, but also of sharing that experience and joy with as many people as possible. It is something we must do also. Not to share our Easter joy and what it means to us is to leave Easter only half celebrated. For the true Christian, in fact, every day is an Easter Day lived joyfully in the close company of the Risen Lord.
Witnesses
Peter says: Now, we are those witnesses…
Witnesses that is, of Jesus’ preaching and healing, of his arrest, execution and death and also of his being raised again to life.
Peter continues: We have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead.
Is that not something that we, too, do every time we take part in the Eucharist – to eat and drink with the Risen Jesus? And what message comes from that? Have we satisfied our Christian responsibility just by being in church on Sunday?
He has ordered us to proclaim this to his people and to tell them that God has appointed Jesus to judge everyone, alive or dead,…that all who believe in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name.
There we have our mission.
Putting it in language that may be more easily understood today, Peter is saying that Jesus, and the way of life he proposes, is the yardstick by which people are to measure themselves, and not just as Christians, but as human beings. To attach oneself totally to the Way of Jesus, a way of Truth and Life, is to bring about a deep reconciliation with God and with all our brothers and sisters. It is to bring freedom, justice and peace into our world, and prepare us for the day when we all become one in our Creator God, the Father of Truth and Compassionate Love.
Monday of Holy Week
Reading I Is 42, 1-7
Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations, Not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, Until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, Who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
Gospel Jn 12:1-11
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
The large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came, not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him.
Commentary on John 12:1-11
Today’s Gospel serves as a lovely prelude to the Passion of Jesus.
Jesus is back in the house of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, recently brought back from the dead. Perhaps these are his last moments of companionship before the horrors that are to come. True to character, Martha is the active hostess. Mary, the contemplative, brings in a jar of an expensive perfumed unguent and pours it all over the feet of Jesus, filling the house with its fragrance. It is a sign of great love and echoes what the “sinful” woman in Luke’s gospel also did. This account is probably the same as that described in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 but is distinct from the story of the woman in Luke 7:36-50.
While the “Beloved Disciple” is a nameless character in John’s gospel, he can be matched by this beloved disciple.
Judas, the spiritually blind materialist, only sees what he regards as terrible waste. Hypocritically he suggests the money would have been better spent helping the poor. John suggests Judas was more interested in getting the money for himself than sharing it with those in need.
Jesus sees an altogether different meaning in Mary’s action. He sees the tremendous love behind the action and interprets it as a symbolical anointing for his burial. Dying as a common criminal, Jesus would normally not have been anointed. (And, in fact, he was not anointed after his burial; when the women went to do the act on Sunday morning, Jesus was already risen.)
You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me.” This is not to be understood any cynical way. The poor cannot be truly loved except in God and in Jesus.
As often as you do it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.” Only those who truly love God (whatever name they call him) are able truly to love the poor and all those in need. And vice versa. Also, in Jewish tradition there was disagreement as to whether giving alms to the poor or burying the dead (which would include anointing) was the greater act of mercy. Those in favour of burial thought it an essential condition for sharing in the final resurrection.
Finally, we are told Lazarus’ own life is in danger as well as Jesus’. Lazarus is seen as the living sign of Jesus’ divine power and so they both must be wiped out. Many of the Church’s martyrs died for the same reason. The word ‘martyr’ means ‘witness’, witnessing to the truth, love and power of Christ.
Am I willing to be a martyr-witness for Christ, to stand beside him on the cross as he is mocked and insulted? This is the week for me to find the answer to that question.
Tuesday of Holy Week
Reading I Is 49, 1-6
Hear me, O coastlands, listen, O distant peoples. The Lord called me from birth, from my mother's womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, Yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God. For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, That Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength! It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Gospel Jn 13:21-33, 36-38
Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, “Master, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night. When he had left, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later.” Peter said to him, “Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”
Commentary on John 13:21-33,36-38
A sad moment in the Gospel: double betrayal.
First, that of Judas. Judas is no outsider but one of the inner circle of the Twelve. Jesus announces solemnly: “One of you is going to hand me over.” The statement comes like a bombshell. For all their weaknesses, they cannot imagine any one of them planning such a thing. Peter asks the Beloved Disciple, who is closest to Jesus (in every sense of the word) to find out who it is. “It is the one to whom I hand the piece of bread after dipping it in the dish,” says Jesus. Jesus hands over the morsel, a symbol of sharing. It is probably part of the bitter herb, dipped in salt water which was a feature of the Passover meal. Jesus hands it over to the one who will hand him over to those who wish to be rid of him. This is an act of friendship which makes the coming betrayal doubly treacherous. The bitterness of the morsel is also significant.
In that very moment Judas knows he has made his fateful decision as Jesus tells him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” None of the other disciples realised the significance of the words. As soon as he has left, it is no wonder that the evangelist comments: “Night had fallen.” Yes indeed. It was a moment of utter darkness. This is a gospel which constantly contrasts light and darkness. Yet at that very moment which sets the whole passion experience in motion, Jesus speaks of his being glorified and of God also being glorified.
To do this, Jesus is going to leave his disciples. He will leave them in death but he will also leave them to return to the glory of his Father.
Peter, well-meaning but weak, swears that he will go all the way with Jesus, even to death. It is the second betrayal. Worse in some ways. At least Judas made no wild promises. What will save Peter will be the depth of his repentance and later conversion.
We too have betrayed Jesus and those around us so many times. We have broken bread with Jesus in the Eucharist and then turned our back on him by the way we treat those around us. We have promised at confession with his help never to sin again and then gone and done what we have just confessed.
Let us pray that we, like Peter, may weep bitterly for all the wrongs we have done and all the good left undone.
Wednesday of Holy Week
Reading I Is 50, 4-9
The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, That I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; And I have not rebelled, have not turned my back I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. He is near who upholds my right; if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together. Who disputes my right? Let him confront me. See, the Lord God is my help.
Gospel Mt 26:14-25
One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, AMy appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”‘“ The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,and prepared the Passover.
When it was evening,he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”He answered, “You have said so.”
Commentary on Matthew 26:14-25
The stage is being set for the final drama of Jesus’ mission. Judas has gone to the chief priests to make a deal for handing Jesus over to them. This term ‘handing over’ is like a refrain all through the Gospel and reaches a climax here. John the Baptist was handed over. Now we see Jesus being handed over – the term occurs three times in today’s passage. Later, the followers of Jesus will also be handed over into the hands of those who want to put an end to their mission.
Judas sells his master, hands him over, for 30 pieces of silver. Only Matthew mentions the actual sum given to Judas. The sum derives from a passage in Zechariah (11:11-13), where it is the wages paid to the shepherd (Zechariah himself) rejected by the people. He is then told by God to throw the money into the Temple treasury as a sign of God’s rejecting those who reject him. (Judas, too, will throw back the money to the priests after realising what he has done.)
What people will do for money! Judas is not alone. What he did is happening every day. Perhaps I, too, have betrayed and handed over Jesus more than once.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus’ disciples ask him where he wants to celebrate the Passover. Little do they know the significance of this Passover for Jesus – and for them.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover are closely linked but there is a distinction between them. The Passover was the commemoration of the Israelites being liberated from slavery in Egypt, their escape through the Red Sea (the Sea of Reeds?) and the beginning of their long trek to the Promised Land. The feast began at sunset after the Passover lamb had been sacrificed in the temple on the afternoon of the 14th day of the month Nisan. Associated with this on the same evening was the eating of unleavened bread – the bread that Jesus would use when he said over it “This is my Body”. The eating of this bread continued for a whole week (to Nisan 21) as a reminder of the sufferings the Israelites underwent and the hastiness of their departure. It was a celebration of thanks to God for the past and of hope for the future.
Jesus tells the disciples they are to contact a man who will provide all that they need for a Passover meal.
During the meal Jesus drops the bombshell: “One of you is about to betray me (in the Greek, ‘hand me over’). It is revealing that none of them points a finger at someone else. “Is it I, Lord?” Each one realises that he is a potential betrayer of Jesus. And, in fact, in the midst of the crisis they will all abandon him.
Nor is it one of his many enemies who will hand Jesus over. No, it is one of the Twelve, it is someone who has dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus, a sign of friendship and solidarity. All of this has been foretold in the Scriptures but how sad it is for the person who has to take this role, even though it is a role he has deliberately chosen. There is a certain cynicism when Judas asks with an air of injured innocence, “Not I, Rabbi, surely?” “They are your words,” is Jesus’ brief reply.
The whole approaching drama is now set in motion.
Let us watch it carefully during the coming three days not just as spectators but as participants. We too have so often betrayed Jesus, we too have so often broken bread with Jesus and perhaps have sold him for money, out of ambition, out of greed, out of anger, hatred, revenge or even violence for our own personal gain.
We can, like Judas, either abandon him in despair or, like Peter, come back to him with tears of repentance.
Reading 1 Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Peter proceeded to speak and said: “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23 R. (24)
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
Second Reading Col 3:1-4
Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.
Gospel Jn 20:1-9
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.
Commentary
Our Easter celebrations form the heart of our Christian living. Our faith is deeply rooted and finds its real meaning in the resurrection of Jesus. St Paul says that, if Christ is not risen, then all our believing is in vain.* It is sad, then, that we still find people who make Good Friday and the death of Jesus the climax of Holy Week. However, attitudes seem to be changing and more and more people have come to love the Easter Vigil liturgy, especially when it is done well.
Those Christians who depict the cross without the body of Christ on it are making a very important point. The cross was the high point of Jesus’ gift of himself to the father for our sake, but he is no longer there and it was his entry into glory with the Father which gives the Cross its validity. Otherwise, it would have been a journey into nothingness.
Because of the resurrection, the disciples, who were at first paralysed with fear of being arrested as accomplices of Jesus, suddenly made a complete turnaround and began boldly to proclaim that Jesus, who died on the Cross, was alive and with them. And when, in fact, they were arrested, persecuted and imprisoned, it became a cause of rejoicing that they were now even more closely related to the life experience of their Lord, sharing in his sufferings that they might share in his glory.
A call for change
Easter, however, is not only concerned with recalling the resurrection of Jesus or its impact on the first disciples, but also with the meaning of this event for our own lives and for our faith. The celebration of Easter (and the days of Holy Week leading up to it) are a call for us to change – and perhaps change radically – as Jesus’ own disciples changed.
The sign that we are truly sharing in the risen life of Jesus is that our lives and our behaviour undergo a constant development. We not only believe, we not only proclaim, but we do what we believe and what we proclaim.
Proclamation and witness
The theme of today’s Mass includes both proclamation and witness. In the First Reading, we see Peter speaking after the baptism of Cornelius and his family, the first Gentile Christians. He is speaking about his own experience and sharing that experience with the listening crowds. For the true disciple of Jesus, there is a close and indivisible relationship between experiencing and proclaiming. Because of Peter’s experience of knowing with utter conviction that Jesus, who died on the Cross, is now alive, he is so filled with the joy of it that he simply must share that joy with others – so that it can be theirs, too.
We find a similar theme in both of the Second Readings (we are given a choice) and the Gospel. Paul was a Pharisee, a dedicated Pharisee and a man of integrity. He persecuted Christians because he saw in them a dangerous deviation from the Jewish Law and Jewish traditions. Then he, too, had that sudden experience when the Risen Jesus revealed himself while Paul was on his way to Damascus to bring the Christians (whom he saw as heretical Jews) into line.
That experience, as we know, brought about a total change in Paul’s life. It gave him a totally new vision of things and especially of the meaning of Jesus’ life and message. For the rest of his life, he used all his energies, the same energies he once used against Christians, to help others – Jews and non-Jews alike – to know, love and follow Jesus his Lord.
Empty tomb
In the Gospel, we have the experience of the empty tomb as the sign of Jesus’ resurrection to life. Mary Magdalen saw the stone rolled back (it was so heavy; who could have managed to do such a thing?) and she went running to the disciples. The “disciple whom Jesus loved” went with Peter. They ran to the tomb and, although the “beloved disciple” got there first, out of deference, he let Peter go in before him. They saw, they understood, and they believed. Until that moment, the Gospel says,
…they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture [i.e. the Hebrew Testament] that he must rise from the dead.
The disciples on the way to Emmaus will also hear that the positive meaning of the sufferings of Jesus can be found in the Hebrew Testament for those who can see and understand.
Not just resuscitation
It is important, however, to be aware that the Resurrection is not simply the resuscitation of the body of Jesus after he died on the Cross. No one saw the resurrection because there was nothing to see. The crucifixion is a historical event, but the resurrection is a faith event. The Risen Jesus enters a completely new way of living. The post-Resurrection texts all indicate that. He is not recognised at first by even his intimate friends, he is everywhere that his disciples happen to be, and his new Body – the means of his being visibly present among us – is the community of his disciples. We are, quite literally at this time, the Body of Christ.
We see the beginnings of this in the next part of John’s Gospel that we will read during the first week of Easter. Peter and the “beloved disciple” went back to their companions to tell them of their discovery. But Mary Magdalen, a formerly sinful woman who was now totally devoted to Jesus as her Lord and Master, stayed behind. She was distraught. Her beloved Master was not only dead, his body was now missing. In the tomb she saw two angels, representing God’s presence, who asked her why she was crying.
A familiar voice
At that very moment, she turned and saw Jesus but did not recognise him. This is a constant feature of post-Resurrection apparitions. Jesus is not recognised; he looks just like an ordinary person, any person. In this case, Mary thinks he is the gardener, and wonders if he is the one who has taken away the body of Jesus. When he calls her name, “Mary”, she immediately knows who it is. Earlier in John’s gospel Jesus had said:
The gatekeeper opens the gate for the shepherd; the sheep hear his voice as he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow someone else; instead, they will run away from him, because they do not know his voice.
Mary then begins to cling passionately to Jesus, not wanting to let him go. But she has to let go – she is clinging to the “old” Jesus. The Risen Jesus is going into glory with the Father. He will return, but in a very different way. From now on he will be found in all those who call themselves his disciples and who are united together as one Body – the Church and all its constituent local churches.
And Mary, too, runs back to the disciples proclaiming her personal experience:
I have seen the Lord.
Not that she had seen Jesus, but that she had seen the Risen Lord. And that is what evangelisation is about: it is not just the handing on of doctrines but the sharing with others our experience of having seen the Lord in our own lives and inviting them to have the same experience.
The same mission
The celebration of Easter reminds us that we have the same mission as Peter and Mary Magdalen and the other disciples of Jesus. First, as the optional Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians indicates, Easter calls for a radical conversion, a radical purging on our part. In the celebration of the Pasch, the Jews used to throw out all the leavened bread they had and replace it with freshly baked unleavened bread.
Because of the fermentation process that leavened bread undergoes, yeast was regarded as a corrupting agent. So Paul tells us that we, too, as we celebrate our Christian Passover, are to become:
…a completely new batch of bread, unleavened [in other words, free from all the corrupting influences in our life] as you are meant to be…having only the unleavened bread of integrity and truth.
And, to go back to the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter emphasises the importance of Jesus’ disciples not only experiencing the joy of their Risen Master and Lord, but also of sharing that experience and joy with as many people as possible. It is something we must do also. Not to share our Easter joy and what it means to us is to leave Easter only half celebrated. For the true Christian, in fact, every day is an Easter Day lived joyfully in the close company of the Risen Lord.
Witnesses
Peter says: Now, we are those witnesses…
Witnesses that is, of Jesus’ preaching and healing, of his arrest, execution and death and also of his being raised again to life.
Peter continues: We have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead.
Is that not something that we, too, do every time we take part in the Eucharist – to eat and drink with the Risen Jesus? And what message comes from that? Have we satisfied our Christian responsibility just by being in church on Sunday?
He has ordered us to proclaim this to his people and to tell them that God has appointed Jesus to judge everyone, alive or dead,…that all who believe in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name.
There we have our mission.
Putting it in language that may be more easily understood today, Peter is saying that Jesus, and the way of life he proposes, is the yardstick by which people are to measure themselves, and not just as Christians, but as human beings. To attach oneself totally to the Way of Jesus, a way of Truth and Life, is to bring about a deep reconciliation with God and with all our brothers and sisters. It is to bring freedom, justice and peace into our world, and prepare us for the day when we all become one in our Creator God, the Father of Truth and Compassionate Love.
Monday of Holy Week
Reading I Is 42, 1-7
Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations, Not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, Until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, Who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
Gospel Jn 12:1-11
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
The large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came, not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him.
Commentary on John 12:1-11
Today’s Gospel serves as a lovely prelude to the Passion of Jesus.
Jesus is back in the house of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, recently brought back from the dead. Perhaps these are his last moments of companionship before the horrors that are to come. True to character, Martha is the active hostess. Mary, the contemplative, brings in a jar of an expensive perfumed unguent and pours it all over the feet of Jesus, filling the house with its fragrance. It is a sign of great love and echoes what the “sinful” woman in Luke’s gospel also did. This account is probably the same as that described in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 but is distinct from the story of the woman in Luke 7:36-50.
While the “Beloved Disciple” is a nameless character in John’s gospel, he can be matched by this beloved disciple.
Judas, the spiritually blind materialist, only sees what he regards as terrible waste. Hypocritically he suggests the money would have been better spent helping the poor. John suggests Judas was more interested in getting the money for himself than sharing it with those in need.
Jesus sees an altogether different meaning in Mary’s action. He sees the tremendous love behind the action and interprets it as a symbolical anointing for his burial. Dying as a common criminal, Jesus would normally not have been anointed. (And, in fact, he was not anointed after his burial; when the women went to do the act on Sunday morning, Jesus was already risen.)
You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me.” This is not to be understood any cynical way. The poor cannot be truly loved except in God and in Jesus.
As often as you do it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.” Only those who truly love God (whatever name they call him) are able truly to love the poor and all those in need. And vice versa. Also, in Jewish tradition there was disagreement as to whether giving alms to the poor or burying the dead (which would include anointing) was the greater act of mercy. Those in favour of burial thought it an essential condition for sharing in the final resurrection.
Finally, we are told Lazarus’ own life is in danger as well as Jesus’. Lazarus is seen as the living sign of Jesus’ divine power and so they both must be wiped out. Many of the Church’s martyrs died for the same reason. The word ‘martyr’ means ‘witness’, witnessing to the truth, love and power of Christ.
Am I willing to be a martyr-witness for Christ, to stand beside him on the cross as he is mocked and insulted? This is the week for me to find the answer to that question.
Tuesday of Holy Week
Reading I Is 49, 1-6
Hear me, O coastlands, listen, O distant peoples. The Lord called me from birth, from my mother's womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, Yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God. For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, That Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength! It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Gospel Jn 13:21-33, 36-38
Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, “Master, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night. When he had left, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later.” Peter said to him, “Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”
Commentary on John 13:21-33,36-38
A sad moment in the Gospel: double betrayal.
First, that of Judas. Judas is no outsider but one of the inner circle of the Twelve. Jesus announces solemnly: “One of you is going to hand me over.” The statement comes like a bombshell. For all their weaknesses, they cannot imagine any one of them planning such a thing. Peter asks the Beloved Disciple, who is closest to Jesus (in every sense of the word) to find out who it is. “It is the one to whom I hand the piece of bread after dipping it in the dish,” says Jesus. Jesus hands over the morsel, a symbol of sharing. It is probably part of the bitter herb, dipped in salt water which was a feature of the Passover meal. Jesus hands it over to the one who will hand him over to those who wish to be rid of him. This is an act of friendship which makes the coming betrayal doubly treacherous. The bitterness of the morsel is also significant.
In that very moment Judas knows he has made his fateful decision as Jesus tells him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” None of the other disciples realised the significance of the words. As soon as he has left, it is no wonder that the evangelist comments: “Night had fallen.” Yes indeed. It was a moment of utter darkness. This is a gospel which constantly contrasts light and darkness. Yet at that very moment which sets the whole passion experience in motion, Jesus speaks of his being glorified and of God also being glorified.
To do this, Jesus is going to leave his disciples. He will leave them in death but he will also leave them to return to the glory of his Father.
Peter, well-meaning but weak, swears that he will go all the way with Jesus, even to death. It is the second betrayal. Worse in some ways. At least Judas made no wild promises. What will save Peter will be the depth of his repentance and later conversion.
We too have betrayed Jesus and those around us so many times. We have broken bread with Jesus in the Eucharist and then turned our back on him by the way we treat those around us. We have promised at confession with his help never to sin again and then gone and done what we have just confessed.
Let us pray that we, like Peter, may weep bitterly for all the wrongs we have done and all the good left undone.
Wednesday of Holy Week
Reading I Is 50, 4-9
The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, That I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; And I have not rebelled, have not turned my back I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. He is near who upholds my right; if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together. Who disputes my right? Let him confront me. See, the Lord God is my help.
Gospel Mt 26:14-25
One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, AMy appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”‘“ The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,and prepared the Passover.
When it was evening,he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”He answered, “You have said so.”
Commentary on Matthew 26:14-25
The stage is being set for the final drama of Jesus’ mission. Judas has gone to the chief priests to make a deal for handing Jesus over to them. This term ‘handing over’ is like a refrain all through the Gospel and reaches a climax here. John the Baptist was handed over. Now we see Jesus being handed over – the term occurs three times in today’s passage. Later, the followers of Jesus will also be handed over into the hands of those who want to put an end to their mission.
Judas sells his master, hands him over, for 30 pieces of silver. Only Matthew mentions the actual sum given to Judas. The sum derives from a passage in Zechariah (11:11-13), where it is the wages paid to the shepherd (Zechariah himself) rejected by the people. He is then told by God to throw the money into the Temple treasury as a sign of God’s rejecting those who reject him. (Judas, too, will throw back the money to the priests after realising what he has done.)
What people will do for money! Judas is not alone. What he did is happening every day. Perhaps I, too, have betrayed and handed over Jesus more than once.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus’ disciples ask him where he wants to celebrate the Passover. Little do they know the significance of this Passover for Jesus – and for them.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover are closely linked but there is a distinction between them. The Passover was the commemoration of the Israelites being liberated from slavery in Egypt, their escape through the Red Sea (the Sea of Reeds?) and the beginning of their long trek to the Promised Land. The feast began at sunset after the Passover lamb had been sacrificed in the temple on the afternoon of the 14th day of the month Nisan. Associated with this on the same evening was the eating of unleavened bread – the bread that Jesus would use when he said over it “This is my Body”. The eating of this bread continued for a whole week (to Nisan 21) as a reminder of the sufferings the Israelites underwent and the hastiness of their departure. It was a celebration of thanks to God for the past and of hope for the future.
Jesus tells the disciples they are to contact a man who will provide all that they need for a Passover meal.
During the meal Jesus drops the bombshell: “One of you is about to betray me (in the Greek, ‘hand me over’). It is revealing that none of them points a finger at someone else. “Is it I, Lord?” Each one realises that he is a potential betrayer of Jesus. And, in fact, in the midst of the crisis they will all abandon him.
Nor is it one of his many enemies who will hand Jesus over. No, it is one of the Twelve, it is someone who has dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus, a sign of friendship and solidarity. All of this has been foretold in the Scriptures but how sad it is for the person who has to take this role, even though it is a role he has deliberately chosen. There is a certain cynicism when Judas asks with an air of injured innocence, “Not I, Rabbi, surely?” “They are your words,” is Jesus’ brief reply.
The whole approaching drama is now set in motion.
Let us watch it carefully during the coming three days not just as spectators but as participants. We too have so often betrayed Jesus, we too have so often broken bread with Jesus and perhaps have sold him for money, out of ambition, out of greed, out of anger, hatred, revenge or even violence for our own personal gain.
We can, like Judas, either abandon him in despair or, like Peter, come back to him with tears of repentance.