Homily — Thid Sunday of Easter

This morning’s Gospel begins dark and melancholy, as two brokenhearted disciples walk along despondently. “We thought he was the One who would redeem Israel, our only Hope, but we saw him mocked, scourged and crucified.” Soon Jesus walks along with them, just another Stranger on his way out of Jerusalem. They’re so dejected they cannot even recognize him. Jesus listens, interested in what’s weighing on their hearts. “Why are you so sad? What are you two discussing?” “What are we discussing?” Cleopas asks in exasperation. “Are you the only one who doesn’t know what happened in Jerusalem?” “Gee, no. What?” says Jesus. This is probably one of the most tragicomic moments in all of Scripture, as the risen Lord Jesus, his body riddled with the deep wounds and scars of his passion, plays dumb. My brothers and sisters, he knows the story alright; it’s written all over his body, even into the depths of his newly pierced heart.  

Then they explain - the empty tomb, the message of angels; but no one knows where Jesus’ body is. And then this Stranger tells them frankly, that they’re fools, not thinking straight. You know your Scripture; the Christ had to suffer all these things and so enter into his glory. It’s all right there; it was supposed to be like this. And then he interprets for them “what referred to him in all the Scripture.” Imagine listening to Jesus the Word telling his life with all these sacred words and allusions; all the hopes, the inklings of ancestors, all the prophecies fulfilled in the beautiful, wounded body of a crucified Lord who is truly risen and now really right beside them though unrecognized.

Their hearts too slow to understand are suddenly quickened; now hearts on fire with faith and joy in his presence. And they don’t want this Stranger to leave them. They beg him, “Please stay with us.” And so there is a supper at a small inn. They sit at table with this shadowy Stranger, the lamps are lit, and then they see – it is Jesus their Master, the One they long for, feeding them, breaking bread with hands gashed with deep holes. He breaks the bread; he himself is the Broken Bread. Brokenness signals resurrection. Jesus the Stranger is finally recognized in this ritual gesture of a community meal. Then he disappears. But they know they have seen him. This “drastic physicality” of the wounded, risen Jesus is undeniable. They leave the inn and rush back to Jerusalem, now the place of hope beyond hope. 

All through his Gospel, Luke has been tracing the history of salvation. And if, in the Garden of Eden the eyes of Eve and Adam were opened as they ate the forbidden fruit and they suddenly knew their nakedness; now here at a supper in Emmaus, Cleopas and his companion, most probably his wife, have their eyes opened with an absolutely unprecedented and “deeply welcome knowledge.” They see and recognize the risen Lord Jesus as he breaks the bread for them. Their once broken hearts have been broken open by the vision of a beautiful, broken Messiah breaking bread. It is the banquet in the Kingdom. Redemption is at hand; humanity’s long exile is over. The new creation has begun; and paradise regained.

Truth be told, the disciples never really understood what Jesus was in for, no matter how often he had tried to explain to them. And we may smugly assess their foolishness, thinking we’d know better. But how often we too are fools, too slow to understand as our lives in the cloister unfold, very often like a continuous repetition of that trek to Emmaus. Disappointed, our best hopes dashed; we plod glumly along. We feel like impostors; our best hopes for progress in love and kindness, progress in prayer and holiness cannot be achieved. Plus it seems the world is falling apart. So sad and self-absorbed, we forget that Jesus is right beside us. Then he explains, it’s supposed to be like this, and he shows us his wounded risen body. 

All will be well; and all manner of things will be well, for in his own body Jesus has reversed everything, and brought us home to the Father. The “horizon of God’s reign is immeasurable,” it eliminates death and leads to eternal life. And it begins here and now, if we will open our eyes and our hearts to see. From “the very beginning, God's intention was nothing other than this world, the world in which we live now - perfected, healed and sanctified.”

Finally, my sisters and brothers let us be clear. In all the resurrection accounts we’ve been listening to these days, the Lord Jesus is not playing games, a kind of continual hide and seek: now you see me now you don’t; catch me if you can. No. The message, the sacred reality we are called to embrace is that the risen Lord Jesus is always and ever present, whether we perceive him or not. He always walks with us, speaks to us words of truth and peace and life and wants to feed us with his own wounded body and blood. This is what we gather in this church, his house, to celebrate and share over and over again.

We have been ransomed from our futile conduct, with the precious blood of the wounded Christ.  But how slow we are to understand that confusion is grace, how reluctant to trust that God wants to turn things over and show us beautiful opportunities for his grace in our mess. Jesus is incessantly accompanying us, though most often hidden - in a thousand places and faces. And if we desperately want hearts on fire, at the end of each day, even better perhaps a million times a day, we must notice and reflect. Notice and reflect. Where, when have I seen you? How have you been using anything at all to get my attention? When have you spoken to me?

We are indeed foolish, O Lord, please stay with us; shows that it is OK to travel along in confusion, even sometimes to suffer, if we are with you. Give us faith. Stay with us in our foolishness. Teach us your divine foolishness, the mad folly of your love for us. Give us the broken bread that you are and help us to see you there, to consume you and so more and more be consumed with love for you.

Includes insights from: 

Luke Timothy Johnson, Gerhard Lohfink and NT Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God.

St. Benedict-Joseph Labre —Mass Introduction

Today we greet St Benedict-Joseph Labre, the 18^th-century vagrant whom we celebrate as the first saint of this Paschal season. After trying out both the Trappist and the Carthusian way of life, he was led by an extreme sacrificial grace to squander his life with and for Christ on the roads of France and Italy. He appears as the very embodiment of St Paul’s affirmation that the folly of God is wiser than [the wisdom of] men (1 Cor 1:25). 

Now, if Benedict-Joseph could joyfully become a “fool for Christ” this was only because of his conviction that, for our sake, Christ had first become a “fool for God”. It is Christ who sets for all time the redeeming pattern of divine madness through his life of freely embraced humiliation, suffering, and an ignominious death. It takes a faith like St Paul’s to recognize in this disruptive pattern the uttermost revelation of God’s folly of love for humankind.

Benedict-Joseph’s life of freely chosen poverty and itinerancy witnessed to Jesus’ own self-emptying in order to give us new and everlasting life. The Christian must give all in order to gain all, both for himself and for the world. Like the Son of Man, Benedict-Joseph “had nowhere to lay his head” in this world (Mt 8:20) because his head’s only destination was the blissful lap of the Father, and he would accept no substitutes. 

This puzzling saint upsets all our categories of classification, by which we normally seek to make rational sense even out of the deepest mysteries of faith. It is not surprising that he is the patron saint of both the homeless and the mentally challenged. He subverts all our categories of “normalcy”, not intentionally but by his mere existence in uncompromising conformity with Christ. No ready formulary for his feast exists in the present Roman Missal, and one must scramble around for what prayers to use from the Common of the Saints. For us monks he is a supreme reminder and warning that all our monastic regularity and minute observances ought never to become their own end. They will surely become obstacles to our union with Christ if we allow a well-ordered monastic routine to extinguish the unruly fire of the Spirit’s divine folly within us. 

Let us, then, now repent of all our attempts to domesticate God and his creative foolishness in our lives, as we strive to allow God’s grace to have its unpredictable way with us.

Spiritual Progress

One day I saw three monks insulted and humiliated in the same way at the same moment. The first felt he had been cruelly hurt; he was distressed but managed not to say anything. The second was happy for himself but grieved for the one who had insulted him. The third fought only of the harm suffered by his neighbor, And wept with the most ardent compassion. The first was prompted by fear; the second was urged on by the hope of reward; the third was moved by love.

JOHN CLIMACUS The Ladder of Divine Perfection, 8th step

Why Does God Allow Temptation?

One can distinguish five reasons why God allows the devils to attack us: first, so that from attack and counter attack attack we may become practiced in discerning good from evil; second, so that our virtue may be maintained in the heat of the struggle and so be confirmed in an impregnable position; third, So that as we advanced in virtue we may avoid presumption and learn humility; fourth, to inspire in us in unreserved hatred for evil through the experience with us have of it; fifth, and above all, that we may attain inner freedom and remain convinced both of our own weakness and of the strength of him who has come to our aid.

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR Centuries on Charity

Anonymous Acts of Love

Jesus aligns himself with those who do simple, anonymous acts of love. Who can know precisely where in the wide world all the many such acts of self-giving take place? Where someone gives greater weight to his neighbor than to his own importance? Such things remain in the mystery of God.

HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Who is a Christian?

Annointing of the Sick — Homily

Once more this Easter season, we meet the man born crippled who is brought to the Beautiful Gate in all his weakness to beg for alms. And the Lord Jesus comes to meet him in the representatives of his newborn Church, Peter and John. These two have neither silver nor gold, but what they do have, they give to the cripple: faith in the Name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of the Lord poured out at Pentecost. This is a marvelous exchange: weakness and need, faith and anointing. 

We, too, are witnessing a marvelous exchange. For our brothers are here with weakness of body or spirit or both, and they, too, have expectations. They are ready to receive the healing that Jesus will give. The rest of us, also, are weak in many ways; but like Peter and John, we give what we have, namely, our community prayer and the sacramental signs of the laying on of hands and anointing with holy oil. 

Who would think that such simple things as a human touch and a little oil could banish the pains of this world, and especially the one who has the power of death. We are a little like David against Goliath. With five smooth stones taken from the wadi and slipped into his shepherd’s pouch, David struck down the giant in the name of the Lord of hosts, and freed his people from their foe. We are doing something similar with this holy oil, striking the foe of the human race and restoring health and inner tranquility to our brothers.

When Peter healed the cripple, he said to the crowds, “Why should anyone be amazed at this as if this man were healed by our own power or piety? The same goes for us. The power is from Jesus. After he rose from the dead, he first received the Holy Spirit from his Father and then poured it out on us and on these holy oils. Exactly what type of healing will occur today is up to the Lord, but we know that a holy exchange is taking place today, each party bringing neither silver nor gold, only what they have: weakness, prayer, and trust in the name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God who has blessed this holy oil.

Advice on Spiritual Progress

I desire your progress, but it strikes me that enough has already been said and written for the attainment of everything you need. If anything is lacking it is not writing or speaking (for generally there is a surfeit of these anyway), but silence and work. Speaking distracts, whereas silence and work collect the powers and make us inwardly strong. When a person has understood any helpful advice that has been given him, he does not need to hear or say more, but rather to put it into practice with silence and care, in loving humility and self-contempt. He should not go seeking after new things which can only satisfy the desires in a superficial manner (and even here cannot satisfy fully) while leaving the spirit week and empty, without deep inner virtue.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS Letter VI