Let us briefly review our Lenten journey:
We began contemplating Jesus tempted in the desert, after being baptized in the Jordan River, and having heard the voice of the Father: You are my beloved Son… We marveled with the disciples witnesses of the Transfiguration of the Lord. On the Mountain we learned again that the Beloved Son, who has been tempted in the desert, is God incarnate who allows us to see his glory, and again the Father repeats to us the same words He pronounced at Jesus’ baptism, but he adds “Listen to Him.” Then in the three following Sundays the liturgy has put in front of our eyes for our contemplation different themes related to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus: o Jesus cleanses the Temple of his Father, and says that he (Jesus) is the true Temple, the true Law. (Third Sunday)
o Jesus has to be lifted up as the serpent in the desert, so that whoever looks at Him in faith will be saved. (Fourth Sunday)
o Jesus, the grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies to give life, invites us to do the same. (Fifth Sunday)
FIRST READING – Jeremiah 31:31-34
Ø Jeremiah is the prophet who witnessed the fall of Jerusalem into the power of the Babylonian Empire on 586 B.C.
Ø This Reading is taken from the part of his book called “the book of consolations” chapters 30 and 31. It is considered the high point of the Old Testament spirituality.
Ø Jeremiah presents in a daring way the substitution of the Covenant on Mount Sinai by a “New Covenant”.
Ø The accent is on the word “new”, on the newness that this covenant, which is almost here, will bring to the people.
Ø Jesus makes real this promise, and at the Last Supper when he consecrates the wine into his blood, Jesus says that this is the New and eternal Covenant… made in his blood.
Ø What is the newness of this Covenant?
o First of all it is new, it is not the old covenant with some small transformation, no, it is completely new.
o God says that He will make a new covenant with the House of Israel. The Church is called the New Israel which is formed by all who accept the Lord, who look at him with faith to be saved.
o This covenant will not be as the one made by God when He took “your fathers” and brought them from slavery to freedom.
o The law will not be written on cold and hard stone tablets as the First Covenant on Mount Sinai.
In that covenant God repeated over and over “you will be my people” and “I will be your God.”
o But in the New Covenant the Law will be written in hearts made of human flesh, in the heart of every man and woman who look at Christ to be saved.
o God will be more than ever “their God” and they will be “his people.”
o Something new will happen, each one (small or great, young or old) will know in his or her inner being the Law, since it will be put by God in their hearts.
o This law will become in the human heart as the rivers of living water that Jesus promised to the Samaritan woman.
o The Church has seen in these texts of the living water, and of the Law in the heart, the pouring of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, over the Church, and over each one of its members.
o All these marvelous things will happen because He will have pardoned their sin. Jesus will do this, by offering his life on the cross for the glory of the Father, and our salvation. Both things are the same.
In the RESPONSORIAL PSALM, we will ask our God CREATE A CLEAN HEART IN ME O, GOD, where you will be able to write your New Law, your New Covenant.
SECOND READING – Hebrews 5:7-9
« The author of the Letter to the Hebrews presents to us in this chapter the priesthood of Jesus.
« Every priest is formed in prayer where love warms his heart, and helps him to get closer to God.
« In this process man learns obedience, to help us to become what God has dreamed for each one when he created us.
« Jesus, the Word of God, the Incarnate Son of God, who partakes of our limited human nature, in prayer, in the process of the events of life, has learned to obey. The letter says: “He learned obedience from what he suffered…”
« Once perfected, consecrated in obedience, in suffering, and in the offering of his life
He will become the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him, who look at him to be saved.
« The author sees in this whole process of the priesthood of Christ, a new priesthood that is able to give salvation ,to all those who adhere to him; and He is able to take them to God.
« A “New” Covenant requires a “New” Priesthood.
GOSPEL- John 12:20-33
ü John presents to us a group of Greeks. As it is customary in the Gospel of John, the characters he presents are the symbol of different groups of people.
ü Here we have a group of Greeks who do not belong to the people of Israel.
ü They approach Philip and make this wonderful request WE WANT TO SEE JESUS.
ü When Philip and Andrew say this to Jesus, He says words, which might seem do not answer the request, but Jesus is giving the meaning of the whole situation: some gentiles want to see Him, let us remember that whoever looked at the bronze serpent in the desert were cured, whoever looks at Jesus on the cross with faith is saved.
ü The hour has come, what hour? The hour that Jesus refers to several times in the Gospel of John.
o It is not a chronological hour, it the hour “kayros” the time of salvation.
o It is the hour of the glorification of the Son. What glorification? His death and resurrection, his Passover, his Paschal Mystery.
ü Like the grain of wheat, He has to die in order to give life.
o All of us, if we want to give life, we have to die like the grain of wheat, like Jesus.
o Jesus invites us to serve him, to follow him, because where “I am” my servant will be.
o Who serves Him will be honored by the Father. The Father Himself has told us on the Mountain of the Transfiguration, “listen to Him.”
ü Jesus discovers to us his inner being, his feelings, “ He is troubled now.
o Jesus is ready to do the will of the Father, He had told us that this is his food, but human as He is, he experiences the fear of suffering, humiliation and death.
o How much we have to be thankful to Jesus to have opened his heart, and allowed us to know that He experienced fear in front of suffering, abandonment, rejection, death and witnessing to the love and truth of God.
o But John goes on saying that Jesus knows that this is “his hour”
o Will he ask the Father to deliver him from it?
o No, because he has come for this “hour”, the hour in which in his flesh He will make the “New Covenant” real for the salvation of all.
o Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him and in so doing glorify his name of Father
o He responds to Jesus, He speaks to him like in his Baptism and in the Transfiguration, and says “I have glorified it already and will glorify it again.” (it means his name)
o The glory of Jesus, the glory of the Father’s name is found in the obedience of Jesus. His, is a loving, filial and difficult obedience to the compassionate, and loving will of the Father.
o Those present did not understand the meaning of the voice, but Jesus told them that the voice came for them, not for Jesus, but to help them to “see Jesus” not with their bodily eyes, but with the eyes of faith.
ü And Jesus declares solemnly
o Now judgment has come upon this world
o Now the prince of this world, the spirit of evil and sin will be driven out, will not have power anymore.
o And once “I am lifted up from earth” I will draw all men and women to me. The cross of Christ has always been the point of attraction of Christian and even non-Christian people.
o Jesus makes the “New Covenant” real. This “New Covenant” written in the human heart. His death seals this covenant made in love, and compassion; and thus draws all to it. Only a compassionate love will help us to abandon sin, and return to the heart of our Father.
ü John ends this passage explaining that “lifted up on the earth” means the kind of death Jesus was going to suffer.
CYCLE A
GOSPEL John 11: 1-45
« Following what we have said on the previous Sundays, John unifies his characters, each one represents a group of human beings.
« Today he presents to us the resurrection of Lazarus as the resurrection of Israel into the New Israel.
« The Jews (according to John the Jews mean the part of the people of Israel who do not accept Jesus, sometimes he means also the Jewish authorities) they decide to kill Jesus because he has given life again to a dead man.
« For John this will be the cause of the condemnation of Jesus to death, for the Synoptic Gospels it will be that Jesus made himself equal to God.
« When Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus is sick he does nothing, he lets Lazarus die. Israel, like Lazarus, is sick and cannot be cured he has to be raised up.
« The sentence “the one you love is sick” means also that Israel, the beloved people of God, is sick, to the point of death. The death of Lazarus will be the occasion of the manifestation of the glory of God, in the same way that the resurrection of Israel into the “New Israel” will make the glory and power of God visible.
« Martha, at the beginning of the story represents the theological orientation of the Pharisees; but latter on she opens up to the new faith in Christ.
« The conversation of Jesus with Martha is a theological statement on life and resurrection, and on the identity of Jesus.
« Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I believe that God will give to you whatever you ask him – Did I not tell you that your brother will be raised up? – Yes, in the Last day – I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE… AND WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME WILL NEVER DIE. – Do you believe Martha? YES LORD I HAVE COME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE THE MESSIAH, THE SON OF GOD, THE ONE WHO HAS COME INTO THIS WORLD.
« Martha goes and calls Mary who did not move from where she was. The scene here remind us of the Song of Songs, the bride is waiting for the beloved. The relationship of Mary with Jesus is different from the relationship of Martha with Jesus. Mary relates to Jesus from her heart full of love. Her faith is based on the love for the Master…
« Mary says the same words of her sister Martha, but they have another meaning, and we know it, from the way Jesus relates to her. After saying these words Mary weeps….
« Jesus does not ask from Mary a profession of faith as he asked Martha, would it be because Mary already believed in him?
« It is four days since he died. For the Jews 4 days meant that he was truly dead.
« Israel is also dead in his faith, but Jesus has the power to bring it to life, because he is the Life.
« And Jesus rises up Lazarus, He gives new life to the faithful Israel that, like Martha accepts Him in faith.
« The man comes out tied hand and foot. Is that a symbol of the binding of the Old Law? Jesus orders that Lazarus be set free. Jesus keeps doing this continually, setting us free from the bindings that take our freedom away from us, thus He Himself can be our only freedom.
« A good action may produce different effects on different persons according to their interior disposition:
o For some, the resurrection of Lazarus helps them to believe and to put their faith in Him.
o For others it separates them from Jesus, and they decide to kill him. To kill life, the author of life, what a contradiction. How the human heart may close itself to the light, love and life.
« Do I believe in the resurrection? Do I believe that Jesus is raised from the dead? Do I believe that He can raise me up, give me life again, the life of faith in Him, even when I might have lost it? Let us repeat with Martha ‘LORD I HAVE COME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE THE MESSIAH.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- CASTRO SÁNCHEZ, Secundino. Evangelio de Juan – Compendio exegético-existencial. Madrid 2002.
- LOZANO, Juan Manuel. Escritos(Writings) María Antonia París, Estudio crítico, “El Misionero Apostólico- The Apostolic Missionary.” Barcelona 1985.
- RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras. Doble Comentario de las lecturas del domingo. Año B. San Pablo, Bogotá,Colombia 2005.
- RUBIO MORÁN, Luis. “Escrito a los Hebreos” en Comentario al Nuevo Testamento. Estella (Navarra) 1995.
- VIÑAS, José María cmf y BERMEJO, Jesús, cmf. Autobiography of Saint Anthony Mary Claret.
For us the Claretian Missionary Sisters today’s first Reading has a very special meaning. We think that this new covenant became a reality in the heart of María Antonia in her Initial Experience, when the Lord engraved in her heart the Law. Let her explain this experience to us
I was very attentive, overwhelmed to what was happening, and it seemed to me that I was reading the Holy Law of God, but without seeing any books nor letters; I was seeing it written, and I was understanding it so very well, that it seemed to me it was imprinting in my soul but in a particular way the book of the Holy Gospels, which till then I had never read, neither the Sacred Scripture (O.T). After, by God’s grace, I have read something and I have seen it written word by word, as our Lord taught it to me from the holy tree of the cross. It seems to me that the words I understood were coming out from his host holy mouth. Maria Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 5.
Claret describes the Apostolic Missionary that has been touched by the love of God, and lives according to the New Covenant, the New Law. I tell myself: A Son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man on fire with love, who spreads its flames wherever he goes. He desires mightily and strives by all means possible to set the whole world on fire with God's love. Nothing daunts him; he delights in privations, welcomes work, embraces sacrifices, smiles at slander, and rejoices in suffering. His only concern is how he can best follow Jesus Christ and imitate Him in working, suffering, and striving constantly and single-mindedly for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 494.
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