A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 21)
Second Sunday of Easter, Year C – April 18, 2004
“Faith in the Risen Lord”
BIBLE READINGS
I thoroughly enjoyed Peggy Weber’s Easter experience that she shared with the readers of GUIDEPOSTS magazine (cf. p. 4-5, April 2004 issue). One April afternoon, that busy mother braved to shop in a department store with her four-year-old and toddler twins in tow. Peggy narrates how totally frazzled she was with the embarrassing situation of the children’s tantrums: “By the time I got to the linen department, they were having a total meltdown – kicking and bawling. I could feel the stares of other shoppers. ‘Can’t people keep their kids quiet?’ one muttered. Then an elderly woman came up. I braced myself for criticism. Instead, she said, ‘Looks like you could use a hand.’ She nudged her husband who headed to another department. He returned with three small bags, one for each kid. Inside? Chocolate Easter bunnies. You never saw two toddlers stop crying so fast. What a sweet reminder that patience and understanding do exist in a busy world.” The kind elderly couple brought peace and joy to an otherwise unpleasant and wearying predicament. Their compassion and understanding led a distraught mother closer to the Easter event.
In today’s Gospel passage (Jn 20:19-31), we contemplate the apparition of the Risen Lord to his disciples and his gentle compassion to make them experience the marvelous Easter event of his glorification. The evangelist John narrates: “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.” (Jn 20:19). The one who had undergone the saving passion appeared to the fearful disciples in glorified form. According to the authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 3: “He appeared in a locked room that no one could have entered except by breaking down the doors. He it was, with nail-marks in his hands and the lance wound still visible in his side (Jn 19:34). But he appeared in a wholly new state, which shall belong to him forever: he is the Living One seated at the right hand of the Father. Transfigured, freed from the constraints of his mortal body, he can appear anywhere: no obstacle, no locked door can prevent him from ‘coming’.”
John’s Gospel account continues: “He said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side” (Jn 19:20). Though the resurrected body of Jesus possesses spiritual qualities, the evangelist John and other New Testament writers would like to underline the continual existence of the historical Jesus whom the first witnesses had known familiarly. Jesus showed his hands and side to his disciples to make them realize that it was really the crucified who was standing there in their midst.
The Easter apparitions were meant to calm their fears and evoke the faith of the disciples in the reality of the resurrection of the one who suffered and died on the cross. According to the Augustinian monk and scientist, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), the discoverer of the laws of heredity: “For forty days Jesus reveals his new life in the most wonderful appearances and proofs of his presence. He manifests the sublime existence of one who is glorified, who is exalted above this world. But at the same time he deals with his disciples in so simple and intimate a way that they soon lose all fear and in turn deal very familiarly with him. He appears to individuals and groups, he speaks with them, eats with them, urges them to be convinced of the reality of his resurrection. Each of these many appearances of the risen Lord contains a wealth of instruction, edification, and consolation for all times.”
The disciples, who were huddled in that bolted room, rejoiced when they “saw” the Lord. The evangelist narrates: “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” (Jn 20:21-23). In this Easter apparition, the Risen Lord, who calmed the fearful disciples with his blessing of peace, bestowed upon them the greatest Easter gift of all – the Holy Spirit. According to Teresa Okure: “Jesus has kept his promise to the disciples that a little while after his departure they would see him and their hearts would rejoice. He gives them his peace, freedom from fear and total well being in body and mind, which the world cannot give. In this bestowal of peace, Jesus does not raise a word about their having abandoned him in his hour of trial, as other human beings would have done. He shows them his wounded hands by which he will hold them fast and keep them from perishing, and his side from which flowed and will continue to flow rivers of new life, which is the Spirit.”
Indeed, the ultimate Easter gift is the Holy Spirit, who enables the Christian disciples to relish the fruits of love, joy and peace that Jesus reaped from the tree of life, the cross of his passion and glorification. On the cross at Mount Calvary, Jesus breathed forth his Spirit to the Father in total oblation (cf. Jn 19:30). In the Easter apparition, the glorified Jesus breathes his Spirit anew as he celebrates the re-creation of God’s people. The Risen Lord’s gift is also the animating energy of the post-Easter Church in its mission to perpetuate the work of salvation accomplished by Christ in his passion, death and glorification. The Spirit of the Risen Lord is the power of the Christian mission throughout time and space. The biblical scholar, Neal Flanagan, comments on the Easter mystery as the wellspring of the mission of the Church: “Jesus sends out these disciples just as the Father had sent him. His mission becomes theirs; his work is placed in their hands. And that mission, that work, is to manifest God who is love in their words and deeds. Through them now, enlivened by the Spirit, will the presence of God become known and seen and felt in the world. If in truth Jesus is God’s sacrament, God’s exegete, we in turn, through the Spirit, become Jesus’ sacraments, his living exegetes.”
The Easter event of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples is related to the power given to the Church to continue the judicial character of Christ in the matter of sin. The biblical scholar, Bruce Vawter explains: “Catholic tradition has rightly seen in this act the origin of the Sacrament of Penance, even though it is equally true that the power over sin is also exercised in baptism and the preaching of the redemptive word.” Neal Flanagan elucidates: “But this reference to sharing in Jesus’ power probably intends more than that. Through the ever-present Spirit, the Christian community can offer a restored union with the Father and Son, a divine indwelling that creates peace (v. 21) with God and neighbor. Over the centuries, Christian communities have developed different means by which this unifying power is put into effect.” Indeed, the Church’s “resurrection power” brought about by the Holy Spirit, the Easter gift, is meant to break the barriers of sin and division in our hearts and to promote community-communion.
Today’s Easter Gospel is also an exhortation “to believe without seeing”. According to John’s narrative, the Risen Lord appeared eight days later and stood in their midst. Together with them was the doubting Thomas who reacted vehemently to their testimony with the following protestation: “Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25). Jesus confronted the doubt of Thomas with the stigmata of his passion and said to him: “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” (Jn 20:27). Thomas’ resistance and unbelief broke down completely in the face of the Risen Lord. He then uttered the ultimate Christian profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). The Risen Lord, however, exhorted him to a greater faith: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (Jn 20:29). Pheme Perkins asserts: “The concluding blessing insists that all those Christians who have believed without seeing have a faith which is in no way different from that of the first disciples. Their faith is grounded in the presence of the Lord through the Spirit.”
The last verse of today’s reading crystallizes the motive for the many “signs” written and proclaimed about Jesus, the glorious resurrection being the crowning event and the “sign of signs”. The evangelist John tells the recipients of the Gospel: “These are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:31). Indeed, to really relish the joy of Easter we need to believe this: that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Christ – the Son of God. He is the Lord and God of those who have experienced the power of Easter.
Are we receptive to the Easter event? Do we believe the testimony of the witnesses of the resurrection that Christ is truly risen?
Do we believe in faith that the Risen Lord is in our midst to renew all things and make us share in his glorious victory over sin and death?
What does the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, the Risen Lord’s Easter gift, mean to us? How will this Easter gift affect and shape our lives in Christ?
(Cf. Eucharistic Adoration for the Easter Season and Solemnities of the Lord, PDDM: Manila, 2003)
Leader: By his own power Christ raised up the temple of his body when it had been destroyed in death. With faith in him who has conquered death and blazed the trail into the bright world of divine grace and love, we cry out:
(R.) WITHOUT SEEING YOU, WE LOVE YOU.
WITHOUT SEEING YOU, WE BELIEVE.
Christ our Savior, when you rose again you brought to the holy women and the apostles the joyful news of a world redeemed. Make us witnesses to your risen life. (R.)
You promised to all people that we should rise up again to newness of life. Make us heralds of your Gospel. (R.)
You showed yourself to your apostles and breathed the Holy Spirit on them. Renew in us the presence of the same creative and renewing Spirit. (R.)
You invited the incredulous Thomas to put his finger on the mark of the nails in your hands and to put his hand into your side. Strengthen our feeble faith that we may believe even “without seeing”. (R.)
Leader: Father, by this Easter mystery you touch our lives with the healing power of your love. You have given us the freedom of the children of God. May we who now celebrate your gift find joy in it forever in heaven. Grant this through Christ our Lord.
Assembly: Amen.
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (Jn 20:29)
ACTION PLAN: On this Easter day, pray for a greater awareness of the blessings of Christ’s resurrection and of our consequent new birth in God’s Spirit, the Easter gift.
ACTION PLAN: At the consecration of this Sunday’s Mass, during the elevation of the sacred host and sacred wine, repeat solemnly the words of Thomas’ faith confession: “My Lord and my God!”
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, New York 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US