St. Anthony & Our Lady of Fatima

Today we reflect on part of the story of Nicodemus who came to Jesus one night. In the part of the story we have here Jesus is talking to Nicodemus who hadn’t really understood what Jesus was trying to teach him. Unlike the woman at the well in the next chapter, Nicodemus didn’t get the message. He didn’t get what Jesus was saying about spiritual rebirth and its necessity for entering God’s Kingdom. But this rebirth is the fruit of Jesus being lifted up. Here we are confronted by the meaning of Jesus’ Cross and Glory! Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save it: there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). He is the light! Are we ready to come to the light, so that everything we do may be clearly seen as done in God? Are we ready to walk in the light?

Jesus’s passion and resurrection transformed the table of Jesus the prophet into that of Jesus Christ the Lord and made it the springboard for the church’s universal mission.  If we are to be disciples who take seriously Jesus’s Easter greeting “Peace be with you!” and who offer this peace to one another around the eucharistic table, we need to create a space in our lives and our hearts where such peace with God and with our sisters and brothers can truly be at home.

The disciples were hidden away in a room with the doors locked. They were afraid. In so many ways, today, we are exactly like them. We too face the challenge of living resurrection life in a world opposed to God, a world full of doubt and unbelief. Some of us probably think that an appearance of Jesus would make all the difference. But today’s gospel paints a different picture. It took more than a post-resurrection appearance for Thomas to be convinced. Faith blossomed for Thomas when Jesus spoke to him personally: seeing and even touching, it seems, is no guarantee of faith! We too are challenged to make the leap of faith. What is needed is a personal encounter with the Living Christ, the Resurrection Lord. Faith comes from hearing the word of the Risen One and by extension from hearing gospel teaching proclaimed with integrity in the community of faith. May each of us hear the Risen One addressing us personally today, and may each of us embrace the Living Word of God with faithful love and true attention! Let faith blossom in the world! Embrace the power of resurrection!

Two different early traditions are at work in John’s account. The first is the tradition that Mary Magdalen, drawn there by her grief and her love, discovered the empty tomb. She reports this to Peter and the other disciple, the only men to show up at the empty tomb. Magdalen challenges all of us to see Christ and all reality with the eyes of the heart, with the eyes of love. She invites us to come to an ever-deepening faith in the transforming power of love. The second tradition concerns Peter’s visit to the tomb to which John adds the race between with the other disciple, noting the latter’s act of faith. At that point in time they still did not understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. But the story is not finished. We need Ascension and Pentecost if we are to fully understand.