Acts of the Apostles 4,32-35. The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.
Psalms 118(117) 2-4.13-15.22-24. Let the house of Israel say, "His mercy endures forever." Let the house of Aaron say, “His mercy endures forever.” Let those who fear the LORD say, “His mercy endures forever.”
I was hard pressed and was falling, but the LORD helped me. My strength and my courage is the LORD, and he has been my savior. The joyful shout of victory in the tents of the just:
The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.
First Letter of John 5,1-6. Beloved: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the father loves (also) the one begotten by him. In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who (indeed) is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone, but by water and blood. The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 20,19-31. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, «Peace be with you.» When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. (Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may (come to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Second Sunday of Easter, 11 April 2021
The risen Jesus appeared to the disciples on several occasions. He patiently soothed their troubled hearts. Risen himself, he now brings about “the resurrection of the disciples”. He raises their spirits and their lives are changed. Earlier, the Lord’s words and his example had failed to change them. Now, at Easter, something new happens, and it happens in the light of mercy. Jesus raises them up with mercy. Having received that mercy, they become merciful in turn. It is hard to be merciful without the experience of having first received mercy.
First, they receive mercy through three gifts. First, Jesus offers them peace, then the Spirit and finally his wounds. The disciples were upset. They were locked away for fear, fear of being arrested and ending up like the Master. But they were not only huddled together in a room; they were also trapped in their own remorse. They had abandoned and denied Jesus. They felt helpless, discredited, good for nothing. Jesus arrives and says to them twice, “Peace be with you!” He does not bring a peace that removes the problems without, but one that infuses trust within. It is no outward peace, but peace of heart. He tells them “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20:21). It is as if to say, “I am sending you because I believe in you”. Those disheartened disciples were put at peace with themselves. The peace of Jesus made them pass from remorse to mission. The peace of Jesus awakens mission. It entails not ease and comfort, but the challenge to break out of ourselves. The peace of Jesus frees from the self-absorption that paralyzes; it shatters the bonds that keep the heart imprisoned. The disciples realized that they had been shown mercy: they realized that God did not condemn or demean them, but instead believed in them. God, in fact, believes in us even more than we believe in ourselves. “He loves us better than we love ourselves (cf. SAINT JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, Meditations and Devotions, III, 12, 2). As far as God is concerned, no one is useless, discredited or a castaway. Today Jesus also tells us, “Peace be with you! You are precious in my eyes. Peace be with you! You are important for me. Peace be with you! You have a mission. No one can take your place. You are irreplaceable. And I believe in you”.
Second, Jesus showed mercy to his disciples by granting them the Holy Spirit. He bestowed the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins (cf. vv. 22-23). The disciples were guilty; they had run away, they had abandoned the Master. Sin brings torment; evil has its price. Our sin, as the Psalmist says (cf. 51:5), is always before us. Of ourselves, we cannot remove it. Only God takes it away, only he by his mercy can make us emerge from the depths of our misery. Like those disciples, we need to let ourselves be forgiven, to ask heartfelt pardon of the Lord. We need to open our hearts to being forgiven. Forgiveness in the Holy Spirit is the Easter gift that enables our interior resurrection. Let us ask for the grace to accept that gift, to embrace the Sacrament of forgiveness. And to understand that Confession is not about ourselves and our sins, but about God and his mercy. Let us not confess to abase ourselves, but to be raised up. We, all of us, need this badly. Like little children who, whenever they fall, need to be picked up by their fathers, we need this. We too fall frequently. And the hand of our Father is ready to set us on our feet again and to make us keep walking. That sure and trustworthy hand is Confession. Confession is the sacrament that lifts us up; it does not leave us on the ground, weeping on the hard stones where we have fallen. Confession is the Sacrament of resurrection, pure mercy. All those who hear confessions ought to convey the sweetness of mercy. This is what confessors are meant to do: to convey the sweetness of the mercy of Jesus who forgives everything. God forgives everything.
-->Together with the peace that rehabilitates us and the forgiveness that lifts us up, Jesus gave his disciples a third gift of mercy: he showed them his wounds. By those wounds we were healed (cf. 1 Pet 2:24; Is 53:5). But how can wounds heal us? By mercy. In those wounds, like Thomas, we can literally touch the fact that God has loved us to the end. He has made our wounds his own and borne our weaknesses in his own body. His wounds are open channels between him and us, shedding mercy upon our misery. His wounds are the pathways that God has opened up for us to enter into his tender love and actually “touch” who he is. Let us never again doubt his mercy. In adoring and kissing his wounds, we come to realize that in his tender love all our weaknesses are accepted. This happens at every Mass, where Jesus offers us his wounded and risen Body. We touch him and he touches our lives. He makes heaven come down to us. His radiant wounds dispel the darkness we carry within. Like Thomas, we discover God; we realize how close he is to us and we are moved to exclaim, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). Everything comes from this, from the grace of receiving mercy. This is the starting-point of our Christian journey. But if we trust in our own abilities, in the efficiency of our structures and projects, we will not go far. Only if we accept the love of God, will we be able to offer something new to the world.
And that is what the disciples did: receiving mercy, they in turn became merciful. We see this in the first reading. The Acts of the Apostles relate that “no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common” (4:32). This is not communism, but pure Christianity. It is all the more surprising when we think that those were the same disciples who had earlier argued about prizes and rewards, and about who was the greatest among them (cf. Mt 10:37; Lk 22:24). Now they share everything; they are “of one heart and soul”” (Acts 4:32). How did they change like that? They now saw in others the same mercy that had changed their own lives. They discovered that they shared the mission, the forgiveness and the Body of Jesus, and so it seemed natural to share their earthly possessions. The text continues: “There was not a needy person among them” (v. 34). Their fears had been dispelled by touching the Lord’s wounds, and now they are unafraid to heal the wounds of those in need. Because there they see Jesus. Because Jesus is there, in the wounds of those in need.
Dear sister, dear brother, do you want proof that God has touched your life? See if you can stoop to bind the wounds of others. Today is the day to ask, “Am I, who so often have received God’s peace, his mercy, merciful to others? Do I, who have so often been fed by the Body of Jesus, make any effort to relieve the hunger of the poor?” Let us not remain indifferent. Let us not live a one-way faith, a faith that receives but does not give, a faith that accepts the gift but does not give it in return. Having received mercy, let us now become merciful. For if love is only about us, faith becomes arid, barren and sentimental. Without others, faith becomes disembodied. Without works of mercy, it dies (cf. Jas 2:17). Dear brothers and sisters, let us be renewed by the peace, forgiveness and wounds of the merciful Jesus. Let us ask for the grace to become witnesses of mercy. Only in this way will our faith be alive and our lives unified. Only in this way will we proclaim the Gospel of God, which is the Gospel of mercy.
FAUSTI -His wounds are the source of this peace, they bring back to unity the lost children of God. They are the plagues that heal us (Is 53:5), an ostension of His extreme Love. The hands are the sign of power. With them man does and undoes everything. In His hands lies all the power that the Father has given to the Son. They, which have washed and dried feet, are nailed to the love and service of every lost one. They are those hands from which no one can abduct us (10:28). They are in fact the same as Father's hands. "The Father and I are one" (10:30). His pierced side is Flesh from which we are born, the wound from which we are begotten. In those who look to Him whom they have pierced, a Spirit of grace and consolation is poured out (Zc 12:10). From the crack in the rock that saves us flows the gushing spring, opened in Jerusalem to wash away all sin and impurity (Zc 13:1- 14,8). From there comes the river of living water that gushes forth from the side of the temple. It is an immense river that fertilizes the earth and heals the bitter waters, reviving what has died. All sorts of fruit trees grow on its banks, whose branches do not wither and whose fruits ripen every month; and the fruits are life and the leaves medicine for man (Ez 47, 1-12). "He that thirsteth, come unto me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his breast"(7,37). "That day", towards evening, darkness becomes light (Zc 14:7), like the day "one" of Creation. The disciples, contemplating the hands and the side, the perennial memory of God's love, see the light of the world. They receive everlasting peace and joy. The mission of the brothers is the same as that of the Son, who washed their feet and said: "I gave you an example, that as I did to you, so that you also do" and "I give you a new commandment ... as I loved you, you also love one another"(13:34). The disciples are sent like Him to bear witness to the Love of the Father (3:16). "Father, as You sent Me into the world, I also sent them into the world"(17,18). That is why He has chosen them (15:16). The sending makes the envoys equal of the one who sends them: "He who welcomes the one I will send, welcomes me". (13,20). He who is sent is called to do as He does: to love and wash feet (13:13-17), doing His own works (14:2). Associated with His destiny, He is like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and bears much fruit (12,24). The mission to the brothers expresses the nature of the son. It is by loving the brother that one becomes son. If the Son is necessarily sent by the Love of the Father toward the brothers, the one who in turn goes toward the brothers knows the love of the Father and becomes a son. The relationship that exists between Jesus and the Father ("As the Father sent me"), is the same that exists between Him and us ("I send you too"). It is like saying: "You are me, if you do what I have done to you. As you have received peace and joy, give peace and joy, forgiving you too". His disciples are not supermen. They are like us, fearful and infidel, marked by frailty and sin. But precisely in this our situation He comes to meet us and saves us.
----> While the others were in the Upper Room, piled up in common fear, Thomas, the twin, dared to go out, despising the danger. With his actions he contradicts his name; he is not in solidarity with them. He doesn't share their fragility and fear. For this reason he excludes himself from others, interrupting the relationship with them. He is the twin of that deepest part of ourselves that does not accept the limit, but, with the force of despair, represses the fear itself, closing in a loneliness as heroic as destructive. He does not believe in life. He lives death as the only possible horizon. The evangelist reserves the expression "having seen the Lord" to the direct testimony of the first disciples. In the story he prefers to emphasize the fact that Jesus comes among them, to be recognised through the Word and the Signs of the Passion imprinted in His Body. In this way He highlights that aspect of faith which is common to them and to us: Visio Dei, vita hominis" : to see God is the life of man. Fire burns, light illuminates: the encounter with the Risen One raises us up. The community lives because it has met the Living One. Transformed into Him by the encounter with Him, it is able to witness Him. It is in fact one with Him and the Father, in the one Love: it has welcomed the Spirit and lives of His Glory, which it testifies to the world. Thomas does not believe those who have seen. He doesn't accept the witness of the Word and of the Spirit: he doesn't recognize the new life of the community and he doesn't insert himself in it. The credibility of the Son and of the Father is entrusted to the brothers who live the communion of mutual love. There we meet the Word becomed Flesh. Thomas wants to "see" and "touch" in order to be part of the twelve, witnesses of the Risen One. To him, as to Paul, this experience will be granted. But what is important, Jesus will say to Thomas, is not having seen Him for that brief period in which He showed Himself. It is not possible for everyone to be in the place where the spring gushes out; but anyone who is thirsty can drink that living water which now flows over the whole earth. Those who were present where it has sprung up, they canalize it up to us with their testimony, so that everyone can quench his thirst. It is together the first and eighth day, that one day without sunset, source of life without end. Everything is illuminated by the light of the Risen One. It is not by chance that the following chapter, which recounts the third manifestation, no longer is indicated any time. By now we always live in that time. In the liturgy, in fact, we begin reading the Gospel with the expression "in that time", because the story re-presents the event to us, making us contemporaries to it. The Eucharist is the place par excellence where one encounters the Risen One. We must "make the Eucharist in all things" (1 Th 5:18), so that our concrete existence may become the true spiritual cult pleasing to God (Rom 12:1). "The disciples were again inside" "Inside" is no longer the place of darkness and of fear, but of communion in peace and in joy, where the fruit of the Spirit blossoms and matures in mission, forgiveness and witness. It is that inside of those who, being sons, are sent to the outside of the world to continue the work of Jesus. In this place, the brothers live the memorial of the Son, who makes them "one" and projects them out, witnesses of the common Father to the whole world. "Peace be with you" The arrival and the greeting of the Lord are referred to as in the previous narration. He addresses to the whole community first of all - He says: 'Peace to you', and now Thomas is also in it.
PRAYER. God, Merciful Father, who revealed Your love in Your Son Jesus Christ, and poured it out on us in the Holy Spirit Consoler, we entrust to You today the destinies of the world and of every man. Bend over us sinners, heal our weakness, defeat all evil, let all the inhabitants of the earth experience Your Mercy, so that in You, the One and Triune God, they may always find the source of hope. Eternal Father, through the painful Passion and Resurrection of Your Son, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Amen.
Acts of the Apostles
RispondiElimina4,32-35.
The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.
With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all.
There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.
Psalms 118(117)
2-4.13-15.22-24.
Let the house of Israel say,
"His mercy endures forever."
Let the house of Aaron say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
Let those who fear the LORD say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
I was hard pressed and was falling,
but the LORD helped me.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just:
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.
First Letter
of John 5,1-6.
Beloved: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the father loves (also) the one begotten by him.
In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments.
For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome,
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
Who (indeed) is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone, but by water and blood. The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Saint John
20,19-31.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, «Peace be with you.»
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
(Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."
Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you."
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe."
Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may (come to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaSecond Sunday of Easter, 11 April 2021
The risen Jesus appeared to the disciples on several occasions. He patiently soothed their troubled hearts. Risen himself, he now brings about “the resurrection of the disciples”. He raises their spirits and their lives are changed. Earlier, the Lord’s words and his example had failed to change them. Now, at Easter, something new happens, and it happens in the light of mercy. Jesus raises them up with mercy. Having received that mercy, they become merciful in turn. It is hard to be merciful without the experience of having first received mercy.
First, they receive mercy through three gifts. First, Jesus offers them peace, then the Spirit and finally his wounds. The disciples were upset. They were locked away for fear, fear of being arrested and ending up like the Master. But they were not only huddled together in a room; they were also trapped in their own remorse. They had abandoned and denied Jesus. They felt helpless, discredited, good for nothing. Jesus arrives and says to them twice, “Peace be with you!” He does not bring a peace that removes the problems without, but one that infuses trust within. It is no outward peace, but peace of heart. He tells them “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20:21). It is as if to say, “I am sending you because I believe in you”. Those disheartened disciples were put at peace with themselves. The peace of Jesus made them pass from remorse to mission. The peace of Jesus awakens mission. It entails not ease and comfort, but the challenge to break out of ourselves. The peace of Jesus frees from the self-absorption that paralyzes; it shatters the bonds that keep the heart imprisoned. The disciples realized that they had been shown mercy: they realized that God did not condemn or demean them, but instead believed in them. God, in fact, believes in us even more than we believe in ourselves. “He loves us better than we love ourselves (cf. SAINT JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, Meditations and Devotions, III, 12, 2). As far as God is concerned, no one is useless, discredited or a castaway. Today Jesus also tells us, “Peace be with you! You are precious in my eyes. Peace be with you! You are important for me. Peace be with you! You have a mission. No one can take your place. You are irreplaceable. And I believe in you”.
Second, Jesus showed mercy to his disciples by granting them the Holy Spirit. He bestowed the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins (cf. vv. 22-23). The disciples were guilty; they had run away, they had abandoned the Master. Sin brings torment; evil has its price. Our sin, as the Psalmist says (cf. 51:5), is always before us. Of ourselves, we cannot remove it. Only God takes it away, only he by his mercy can make us emerge from the depths of our misery. Like those disciples, we need to let ourselves be forgiven, to ask heartfelt pardon of the Lord. We need to open our hearts to being forgiven. Forgiveness in the Holy Spirit is the Easter gift that enables our interior resurrection. Let us ask for the grace to accept that gift, to embrace the Sacrament of forgiveness. And to understand that Confession is not about ourselves and our sins, but about God and his mercy. Let us not confess to abase ourselves, but to be raised up. We, all of us, need this badly. Like little children who, whenever they fall, need to be picked up by their fathers, we need this. We too fall frequently. And the hand of our Father is ready to set us on our feet again and to make us keep walking. That sure and trustworthy hand is Confession. Confession is the sacrament that lifts us up; it does not leave us on the ground, weeping on the hard stones where we have fallen. Confession is the Sacrament of resurrection, pure mercy. All those who hear confessions ought to convey the sweetness of mercy. This is what confessors are meant to do: to convey the sweetness of the mercy of Jesus who forgives everything. God forgives everything.
-->Together with the peace that rehabilitates us and the forgiveness that lifts us up, Jesus gave his disciples a third gift of mercy: he showed them his wounds. By those wounds we were healed (cf. 1 Pet 2:24; Is 53:5). But how can wounds heal us? By mercy. In those wounds, like Thomas, we can literally touch the fact that God has loved us to the end. He has made our wounds his own and borne our weaknesses in his own body. His wounds are open channels between him and us, shedding mercy upon our misery. His wounds are the pathways that God has opened up for us to enter into his tender love and actually “touch” who he is. Let us never again doubt his mercy. In adoring and kissing his wounds, we come to realize that in his tender love all our weaknesses are accepted. This happens at every Mass, where Jesus offers us his wounded and risen Body. We touch him and he touches our lives. He makes heaven come down to us. His radiant wounds dispel the darkness we carry within. Like Thomas, we discover God; we realize how close he is to us and we are moved to exclaim, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). Everything comes from this, from the grace of receiving mercy. This is the starting-point of our Christian journey. But if we trust in our own abilities, in the efficiency of our structures and projects, we will not go far. Only if we accept the love of God, will we be able to offer something new to the world.
EliminaAnd that is what the disciples did: receiving mercy, they in turn became merciful. We see this in the first reading. The Acts of the Apostles relate that “no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common” (4:32). This is not communism, but pure Christianity. It is all the more surprising when we think that those were the same disciples who had earlier argued about prizes and rewards, and about who was the greatest among them (cf. Mt 10:37; Lk 22:24). Now they share everything; they are “of one heart and soul”” (Acts 4:32). How did they change like that? They now saw in others the same mercy that had changed their own lives. They discovered that they shared the mission, the forgiveness and the Body of Jesus, and so it seemed natural to share their earthly possessions. The text continues: “There was not a needy person among them” (v. 34). Their fears had been dispelled by touching the Lord’s wounds, and now they are unafraid to heal the wounds of those in need. Because there they see Jesus. Because Jesus is there, in the wounds of those in need.
Dear sister, dear brother, do you want proof that God has touched your life? See if you can stoop to bind the wounds of others. Today is the day to ask, “Am I, who so often have received God’s peace, his mercy, merciful to others? Do I, who have so often been fed by the Body of Jesus, make any effort to relieve the hunger of the poor?” Let us not remain indifferent. Let us not live a one-way faith, a faith that receives but does not give, a faith that accepts the gift but does not give it in return. Having received mercy, let us now become merciful. For if love is only about us, faith becomes arid, barren and sentimental. Without others, faith becomes disembodied. Without works of mercy, it dies (cf. Jas 2:17). Dear brothers and sisters, let us be renewed by the peace, forgiveness and wounds of the merciful Jesus. Let us ask for the grace to become witnesses of mercy. Only in this way will our faith be alive and our lives unified. Only in this way will we proclaim the Gospel of God, which is the Gospel of mercy.
FAUSTI -His wounds are the source of this peace, they bring back to unity the lost children of God. They are the plagues that heal us (Is 53:5), an ostension of His extreme Love.
RispondiEliminaThe hands are the sign of power. With them man does and undoes everything. In His hands lies all the power that the Father has given to the Son. They, which have washed and dried feet, are nailed to the love and service of every lost one.
They are those hands from which no one can abduct us (10:28).
They are in fact the same as Father's hands. "The Father and I are one" (10:30).
His pierced side is Flesh from which we are born, the wound from which we are begotten. In those who look to Him whom they have pierced, a Spirit of grace and consolation is poured out (Zc 12:10).
From the crack in the rock that saves us flows the gushing spring, opened in Jerusalem to wash away all sin and impurity (Zc 13:1- 14,8).
From there comes the river of living water that gushes forth from the side of the temple.
It is an immense river that fertilizes the earth and heals the bitter waters, reviving what has died. All sorts of fruit trees grow on its banks, whose branches do not wither and whose fruits ripen every month; and the fruits are life and the leaves medicine for man (Ez 47, 1-12).
"He that thirsteth, come unto me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his breast"(7,37).
"That day", towards evening, darkness becomes light (Zc 14:7), like the day "one" of Creation. The disciples, contemplating the hands and the side, the perennial memory of God's love, see the light of the world. They receive everlasting peace and joy. The mission of the brothers is the same as that of the Son, who washed their feet and said: "I gave you an example, that as I did to you, so that you also do" and "I give you a new commandment ... as I loved you, you also love one another"(13:34).
The disciples are sent like Him to bear witness to the Love of the Father (3:16).
"Father, as You sent Me into the world, I also sent them into the world"(17,18).
That is why He has chosen them (15:16). The sending makes the envoys equal of the one who sends them: "He who welcomes the one I will send, welcomes me". (13,20).
He who is sent is called to do as He does: to love and wash feet (13:13-17), doing His own works (14:2).
Associated with His destiny, He is like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and bears much fruit (12,24).
The mission to the brothers expresses the nature of the son. It is by loving the brother that one becomes son.
If the Son is necessarily sent by the Love of the Father toward the brothers, the one who in turn goes toward the brothers knows the love of the Father and becomes a son.
The relationship that exists between Jesus and the Father ("As the Father sent me"), is the same that exists between Him and us ("I send you too"). It is like saying: "You are me, if you do what I have done to you. As you have received peace and joy, give peace and joy, forgiving you too".
His disciples are not supermen. They are like us, fearful and infidel, marked by frailty and sin. But precisely in this our situation He comes to meet us and saves us.
----> While the others were in the Upper Room, piled up in common fear, Thomas, the twin, dared to go out, despising the danger. With his actions he contradicts his name; he is not in solidarity with them. He doesn't share their fragility and fear. For this reason he excludes himself from others, interrupting the relationship with them. He is the twin of that deepest part of ourselves that does not accept the limit, but, with the force of despair, represses the fear itself, closing in a loneliness as heroic as destructive. He does not believe in life. He lives death as the only possible horizon.
EliminaThe evangelist reserves the expression "having seen the Lord" to the direct testimony of the first disciples. In the story he prefers to emphasize the fact that Jesus comes among them, to be recognised through the Word and the Signs of the Passion imprinted in His Body.
In this way He highlights that aspect of faith which is common to them and to us: Visio Dei, vita hominis" : to see God is the life of man.
Fire burns, light illuminates: the encounter with the Risen One raises us up.
The community lives because it has met the Living One.
Transformed into Him by the encounter with Him, it is able to witness Him.
It is in fact one with Him and the Father, in the one Love: it has welcomed the Spirit and lives of His Glory, which it testifies to the world.
Thomas does not believe those who have seen. He doesn't accept the witness of the Word and of the Spirit: he doesn't recognize the new life of the community and he doesn't insert himself in it.
The credibility of the Son and of the Father is entrusted to the brothers who live the communion of mutual love. There we meet the Word becomed Flesh. Thomas wants to "see" and "touch" in order to be part of the twelve, witnesses of the Risen One. To him, as to Paul, this experience will be granted.
But what is important, Jesus will say to Thomas, is not having seen Him for that brief period in which He showed Himself. It is not possible for everyone to be in the place where the spring gushes out; but anyone who is thirsty can drink that living water which now flows over the whole earth. Those who were present where it has sprung up, they canalize it up to us with their testimony, so that everyone can quench his thirst. It is together the first and eighth day, that one day without sunset, source of life without end.
Everything is illuminated by the light of the Risen One.
It is not by chance that the following chapter, which recounts the third manifestation, no longer is indicated any time. By now we always live in that time. In the liturgy, in fact, we begin reading the Gospel with the expression "in that time", because the story re-presents the event to us, making us contemporaries to it.
The Eucharist is the place par excellence where one encounters the Risen One.
We must "make the Eucharist in all things" (1 Th 5:18), so that our concrete existence may become the true spiritual cult pleasing to God (Rom 12:1).
"The disciples were again inside" "Inside" is no longer the place of darkness and of fear, but of communion in peace and in joy, where the fruit of the Spirit blossoms and matures in mission, forgiveness and witness.
It is that inside of those who, being sons, are sent to the outside of the world to continue the work of Jesus.
In this place, the brothers live the memorial of the Son, who makes them "one" and projects them out, witnesses of the common Father to the whole world. "Peace be with you" The arrival and the greeting of the Lord are referred to as in the previous narration. He addresses to the whole community first of all - He says: 'Peace to you', and now Thomas is also in it.
PRAYER. God, Merciful Father, who revealed Your love in Your Son Jesus Christ, and poured it out on us in the Holy Spirit Consoler, we entrust to You today the destinies of the world and of every man. Bend over us sinners, heal our weakness, defeat all evil, let all the inhabitants of the earth experience Your Mercy, so that in You, the One and Triune God, they may always find the source of hope. Eternal Father, through the painful Passion and Resurrection of Your Son, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Amen.
RispondiElimina