OMELIE / Omelie EN

18 mar 2018

18/03/2018 5th Sunday of Lent - B 

18/03/2018 5th Sunday of Lent - B 

Reading 1, Jeremiah 31,31-34 * Psalm 50 * Reading 2, Hebrews 5,7-9 * Gospel, John12,20-23

The path we are following alongside Jesus is a path leading to the cross. Today He makes it clear to us without a doubt. The occasion comes from a very simple event: a few Greeks are looking for Him! If they are Greeks, they are pagans, they belong to one of those peoples that are not the people of God! The fact that the event does not look common is clearly deducible from the way in which the quest is reported to the Lord: those Greeks speak with Philip, Philip goes to Andrew (it is no accident that both have a Greek name!) and afterwards both of them go together to tell Jesus the news! Are they feeling uneasy? As a matter of fact, in the past, Jesus Himself has opposed some difficulty in meeting a Canaanitic woman speaking Greek; who knows how He is going to react at the request of the Greeks that intend to meet Him! The answer given to the two disciples, an answer that surely surprises them, shows us how Jesus could read every happening as a sign that the time has come, in the light of the Father’s plan! If now the pagans are looking for Him, this must be the sign that “the hour has come”! Which “hour”? The one He was waiting for since the wedding at Cana, the hour of God’s glory, that comes through His revelation to the entire world as the Son of God, as the suffering Servant, as the Lamb of God, as the one who is pierced!

With a short parable Jesus explains the necessity of what it is to come, that is to say His passion: the grain, in order to yield fruit, has to fall on the ground and die, and so His life, in order to yield fruit for the whole world, needs to die as well. The same path is prepared for the disciples, but for every man is just the same. The rule of the seed of grain is universally valid: who wants to maintain his life does not have to protect it at all costs. Who wants the eternal life has to stay with whom owns it: he will maybe loose the life on this earth, but the Father Himself will take care of him, nay, he will receive honor from the Father!

We can see fulfilled this word, in particular, in the life of the Saints that the Church brings to our attention: they followed Jesus perfectly, they knew how to offer Him their life, they did not think of it, but of loving the Lord with all their heart and serve Him taking care of those who suffer, of the little, of whom in which he hides His own presence, and in particular, making Him known and loved by those who do not know Him yet! Now they are receiving honor from the entire Church, united to the Father!

Thinking of His death, Jesus is not happy: He can feel pain, just like everyone else. He is not even trying to hide this pain, and he does not reject it. If his death is necessary for the glory of God, in order for the Father to show His love to men from all peoples, races and religions, He does not reject it, on the contrary: He knows to be here exactly for that reason!

The evangelist records at this point a voice coming from the sky, a voice that is interpreted as thunder by the confused crowd, but clearly understood by the Lord: “I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it”! Jesus had been already glorified, shown as Son of God, many times, every time he performed a miracle, and then on the Tabor! The new glorification will be the perfect, full one, with the death and resurrection.

To whom listens to Him, Jesus explains that that voice was for them. We are the ones, in fact, that need to know that His death is not a defeat, but a victory!

We need to be sure that Jesus’ death is the victory over the evil one; the latter instead bosses the show in every place in which men are trying to save their life. Jesus’ death is a victory so great over the evil one, that every man will look at Him in order to be saved! All of us will receive true life sharing His suffering and His death. Trough suffering and death he became perfect in love, a strong love, that the author of the letter to the Hebrews calls obedience!

It is the obedience which we take part in in order to get salvation and to be ready to renew the baptismal promises when our catechumens will mystically immerse themselves in Jesus’ death. With them we will enjoy the new covenant, promised, made true and sealed with blood on the Calvary. We will enjoy the fact that we will have in the heart God’s love itself, the strong and wise love, the one that keeps us in communion with one another as members of the same people, of the same family, of one single body!