2nd Sunday Of Easter :: Op-stjoseph.org

2nd Sunday of Easter (Cycle B) – April 19, 2009 Scripture Readings First Acts 4:32-35 Second 1 John 5:1-6 Gospel John 20:19-31 Prepared by: Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P. 1. Subject Matter •

Christ’s resurrection is known through the witness of another

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Faith conquers the world

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The primacy of hearing and obedience to belief

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Divine mercy

2. Exegetical Notes •

“With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all”: “Two characteristics reflect the apostles’ activity: great power in the ongoing witness to the resurrection, and great grace. God’s presence and the proof of divine enablement for the apostles is also a point. The ongoing character of the powerful witness is the more dominant point rather than miracles.” (Darrell L. Bock)

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“Whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith”: “John emphasizes the intimate unity of faith and love. The faith spoken of here is the fruit of the divine life. Believing that Jesus is the Christ means identifying him as the incarnation of God’s wisdom, the unique and definitive recapitulation of all the approaches of God to humanity since creation. [Here is found] the only use of the noun ‘faith’ in the Johannine Gospel and letters. The power of believing is linked to the victory over darkness.” (Francis Martin).

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“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands…I will not believe”: “According to John, faith had no need to see the Risen One, but it based itself on appearances granted to the first witnesses of the living Christ, appearances in which seeing was always subordinate to hearing, obeying to a mission. The believer sees in the Crucified One the glory of Christ.” (Xavier Leon-Dufour)

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References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

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2472 The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known. All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on.

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2732 The most common yet most hidden temptation is our lack of faith. It expresses itself less by declared incredulity than by our actual preferences.

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156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived".

4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities •

St. John Chrysostom: “The disciples, when they heard what Mary told them, were obliged either to disbelieve, or, if they believed, to grieve that He did not count them worthy to have the sight of Him. He did not let them however pass a whole day in such reflections, but in the midst of their longing trembling desires to see Him, presented Himself to them.”

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St. Augustine: “The nails had pierced His hands, the lance had pierced His side. For the healing of doubting hearts, the marks of the wounds were still preserved.”

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Romanos the Melodist: “Oh the wonder, the patience, the infinite gentleness! The intangible is handled, is grasped by a slave and, to the servant, the master shows the wounds at the moment at which all creation was shaken. Found worthy of such gifts, Thomas offers up a prayer to him who found him worthy. ‘Be patient, master,’ he says, ‘with my rashness. Spare the grass, deliver me from my burden. Let me be lightened of my unbelief, that I may chant and say, ‘You are our Lord and our God.’ Stay gentle, that I may take my delight in you, Lord. Satisfy me, who am yours. You were patient with strangers; be patient too with your own and show me your wounds, that, like springs, I may draw from them and drink.”

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St. Faustina: “I have cast the anchor of my trust deep down into the abyss of your mercy, O my God and Creator! In spite of my great misery I fear nothing, but hope to sing you a hymn of glory for ever. Let no soul, even the most miserable, fall prey to doubt; for, as long as one is alive, each one can become a great saint, so great is the power of God’s grace. It remains only for us not to oppose God’s action. Jesus, when I look at the world and its indifference towards you, again and again it brings tears to my eyes.”

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Venerable John Henry Newman: “In the instance of Saint Thomas, I say that, when he was so slow to believe, his fault lay in thinking he had a right to be fastidious, and to pick and choose by what arguments he would be convinced, instead of asking himself whether he had not enough to convince him already; just as if, forsooth, it were a great matter to his Lord that he should believe, and no matter at all to himself.”

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Servant of God John Paul II: “Today the Lord also shows us his glorious wounds and his heart, an inexhaustible source of light and truth, of love and forgiveness. The Heart of Christ! His “Sacred Heart” has given men everything: redemption, salvation, sanctification. Saint Faustina Kowalska saw coming from this Heart that was overflowing with generous love, two rays of light which illuminated the world. A simple act of abandonment is enough to overcome the barriers of darkness and sorrow, of doubt and desperation.”

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars •

St. Faustina: It is the mystery of the Mercy of God which she contemplated in the word of God as well as in the everyday activities of her life that forms the basis of her spirituality. The process of contemplating and getting to know the mystery of God's mercy helped develop within Sr. Mary Faustina the attitude of child-like trust in God as well as mercy toward the neighbors. O my Jesus, each of Your saints reflects one of Your virtues; I desire to reflect Your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let Your mercy, O Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in this and the future life (Diary 1242). Sister Faustina was a faithful daughter of the Church which she loved like a Mother and a Mystic Body of Jesus Christ. Conscious of her role in the Church, she cooperated with God's mercy in the task of saving lost souls.

6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI •

“We become witnesses when, through our actions, words, and way of being, Another makes himself present.”

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Statements on faith: 1) “The essence of faith is not that I meet with something that has been thought up, but that here something meets me that is greater than anything we can think of for ourselves.” 2) “Faith is a liberation of my I from its preoccupation with self. Faith is a breaking out of the isolation that is the malady of my I.” 3) “Faith is an act of affirmation, a new Yes that which becomes possible when we are touched by God.” 4) “Faith means “resisting the brute force that would otherwise pull us under.” 5) “Faith means fellowship with him who has a power that draws us up, holds us fast, and carries us safely over the elements of death.” 6) “Faith is something living that demands our whole existence, understanding, our will, our feelings, our love. It requires letting go of ourselves. It is a fundamental option that affects every domain of our existence, our whole self.” 7) “Faith is a perishing of the mere self and thus a resurrection of the true self.” 8) “Faith is the opening up of the powers of understanding that are awaiting the light of truth within us.” 9) “Belief is never simply “there”; faith can only mature by suffering anew, at every stage in life, the oppression and the power of unbelief.” 10) “Faith makes us light. To believe means that we become like angels. We can fly, because we no longer weigh so heavy in our own estimation. To become a believer means to escape our own gravity.” •

“Belief is certainty that God has shown himself and has opened up for us the view of truth itself…In the act of believing the assent comes about in a different way from the way it does in the act of knowing: not through the degree of evidence bringing the process of thought to its conclusion, but by an act of will, in connection with which the thought process remains open and still under way. Here the will commands assent, even though the thought process is still under way…Any perception presupposes a certain sympathy

with what is perceived. Without a certain inner closeness, a kind of love, we cannot perceive the other thing or person. In this sense the “will” always somehow precedes the perception and is its precondition; and the more so, the greater and more inclusive is the reality to be perceived. We are able to give the assent of faith because the will—the heart—has been touched by God, “affected” by him. Through being touched in this way, the will knows that even what is still not “clear” to the reason is true.” 7. Other Considerations •

Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete tells the story of a Fr. Nembrini—a missionary priest who was sent by himself to bring to Gospel to the people in a remote village of Kazakhstan. The villagers had never heard of Jesus Christ; they had been brought up in the strictures of Marxist Communism. He needed to teach them about the resurrection. What could he ever say to get them to understand the meaning of the resurrection and to move them to believe? He told them the only thing that was possible—he said to them, “Look at me, stay with me.” And the more the people observed Fr. Nembrini’s life and what made him different, that is, happy, peaceful, certain, self-sacrificing, etc., the more they concluded that there had to be a reason for the priest’s exceptionality. And that Exceptionality which they discovered in the flesh of another person whom they had encountered they began to call “Christ.”

Recommended Resources Benedict XVI, Pope. Benedictus. Yonkers: Magnificat, 2006. Biblia Clerus: http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html Cameron, Peter John. To Praise, To Bless, To Preach—Cycle B. Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001. Hahn, Scott: http://www.salvationhistory.com/library/scripture/churchandbible/homilyhelps/homilyhelps.cfm. Martin, Francis: http://www.hasnehmedia.com/homilies.shtml