Sick woman

We can imagine the scene. We have seen it on the tv news from the Middle East, a religious leader surrounded by men, people trying to touch him, to get some power from him. The apostles were shielding Jesus, pushing people away. They say that when people try to touch a person in this way, the arms and hands are scratched, specially by women with their fingernails. It must have been hard for her to touch Jesus. She was a weak person, losing blood all the time. The Fathers of the Church see this woman as the Gentiles, who through faith were saved. We are represented by this woman, sick and in need of healing, losing our blood through our sins.

We don’t know how many times she tried to touch Jesus. She persevered, over and over again, without getting discouraged. She knew that Jesus was her last hope. She had spent all her money on physicians and only got worse. It is a veiled criticism of doctors. The apostles pushed her away time after time. She tried from different angles, for the apostles not to recognise her. She gives us an example of perseverance, of stubbornness. We need to begin and begin again all the time. We need to try to touch Jesus through the Eucharist, through the sacrament of confession, through our prayer. We need to find the way, the button to push. He is there and we need more faith to reach his mantle.

Eventually she only managed to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. But this was enough; she was immediately healed. Jesus is so powerful that even his garments give away grace, energy and power. Imagine his flesh when we go to Communion. Many people were touching him, but only she was healed. Why? Because she touched him with real faith, knowing that Jesus was very holy. Saint Ambrose says that we should touch Jesus not with our fingers, but with our faith, knowing that he is the Son of God. If our faith is weak, we don’t have anything to touch him with. We need to ask him to increase our faith, so that we can be strong, so that we can reach the depths of his heart.

Blessed Bishop Alvaro used to bring this Gospel to his prayer just before Mass. She touched him, we eat him; she touched his garment, we eat his flesh; she was losing blood, we drink his blood. We need to approach him from behind, with fear and reverence. We only need to take what we need; don’t be greedy. We are touching the infinite power of God, be careful, we can blow up easily. It is a bit like touching an electric cable, or putting our hand into the lion’s mouth. Our sins are like insulators; they don’t allow us to experience his power.

Jesus stopped and asked: “Who has touched me?” The apostles were puzzled: “Everybody is touching you.” Jesus answered: “Power has gone out of me.” Why did he have this reaction if he knew what had happened? It was for us to know the miracle. If he hadn’t asked this question, we would never had known. A lot of things happened around Jesus that we don’t know. Most of the important things occur in the center of people’s souls. They will never appear on the news. All of us can talk about the little miracles that happened to us.

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Calming of the storm

I love this Gospel. We can see ourselves in the boat with Jesus, surrounded by a beautiful lake. It is still there; these natural elements don’t change. But it can become ugly. It is our experience of life. The sea in the Bible represents man depending on God’s mercy; anything could happen, we are not in control. We all have experienced good days and bad days. Why couldn’t life be good and beautiful? Because we are passing by; this is not our homeland. We are crossing the lake of life from one shore to the other, from the beginning to eternity. We don’t know how long it is going to take; we cannot see the other side. In any moment a storm can break out and we need to be ready. We cannot grow complacent and let the boat take its course. The devil is surrounding us like a roaring lion.

But we cannot forget that Jesus is in our boat. Or even better, we are with him. Even though many times he looks like he is asleep, he is always with us unless we push him out of our boat. We allow him to stay when the sun is shining and the birds are singing. But many times, when the storm comes, the wind blows and the waves beat against the hull of our boat, we push him away without thinking. No matter what happens, we cannot afford to sail without Jesus.

This scene in the Gospel of today is the only one where we see Jesus sleeping. He was so tired that he fell asleep and the storm didn’t wake him up. The apostles were so afraid that they woke him up. They didn’t allow him to rest. Saint Therese of Liseux has a beautiful quotation about letting Jesus keep resting: “Far from experiencing any consolation, complete aridity - desolation, almost - was my lot. Jesus was asleep in my little boat as usual. How rarely souls let Him sleep peacefully within them. Their agitation and all their requests have so tired out the Good Master that He is only too glad to enjoy the rest I offer Him. I do not suppose He will wake up until my eternal retreat, but instead of making me sad, it makes me very happy.” We are too quick to wake him up, to complain about what’s happening to us. Every storm in our lives has a meaning; we need to pray to find the clues. We either collapse mentally or we grow.

Jesus stood up and calmed the storm in one go. He complained about us, not letting him rest, and about our lack of faith, our lack of trust in him. With one word he can calm any storm in our lives. He knows what we are going through, and normally lets things happen. We need to trust in him, knowing that he is in our little boat with us. Once a man crossed the Niagara Falls walking on a cable pushing a wheel barrow. When he arrived at the other side people cheered him. He asked them if he should do it again. All encouraged him. He asked if anybody wanted to travel on the wheel barrow. You could hear a pin drop. We find it difficult to trust others.

The Gospel says that the apostles were very impressed with Jesus, saying: Who is this guy? Even the wind and the waves obey him. The four Gospels include this scene; it made a big impression on them. We know who he is and what he can do. We go to Mary our mother, Refuge of Sinners, Ark of the Covenant.

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The mustard seed

Today Jesus tries to explain the kingdom of heaven through two parables, using a comparison about seeds. He loves using natural images from the fields, from the human experience of farmers of that time. Unlike us, seeds were very important to them. We don’t normally buy seeds and plant them in the ground, unless you have a vegetable garden. But for those people seeds were the future. They had to plan how they were going to eat during the months ahead. We have supermarkets; all we need is money.

Seeds tell us about how things grow. It is a mysterious process that escapes our control. It shows us the power of nature; things grow in the most amazing places. It is the same with God’s things. He has his plans and has the power to produce fruit whenever he wants, wherever he wills. You learn a lot reading the history of the Church. How things are born small, grow to an amazing size and then they disappear. It is a circle that comes and goes. It is easy for us human beings to become proud of the achievements of God. We think that we are doing something, and all we do is to be a spanner in the works. Once pride comes in, God runs away. It is very important for us not to think that we are indispensable, that we are at the same level as God. We are just little children being more of a nuisance than any help.

Sometimes we doubt that God is in control. We can hardly notice the seeds sprouting, we don’t see the fruits, the actions of God in society. On the contrary, we touch more the machinations of the evil one, the hand of the devil clearly present among us. From our point of view we see only a flat terrain. John Paul II used to talk about the new evangelisation, a new spring in the Church. He could see it from his vantage point. We cannot see it with our large egos.

Pope Francis commenting on this parable says that “Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a small grain of mustard seed. It is a very small grain, but it grows to become the largest of all plants in the garden: unpredictable growth, surprising. It is not easy for us to enter into this logic of the unpredictable nature of God and to accept it in our own lives. But today the Lord exhorts us to have an attitude of faith that goes beyond our projects, our calculations, our forecasts. God is always the God of surprises, the Lord always surprises us. It is an invitation to open ourselves more generously to God’s plans.”

God normally works in this way, like the mustard seed. Things always begin small, with few people, sometimes with just a holy person, with a slow gradual process, quietly growing under the soil, with time to mature. God’s kingdom keeps growing. How did the Franciscans begin? Through a voice to a young man: rebuild my Church. It is something amazing, to look at the hand of God working through history. You cannot see it at a particular moment, but you notice it in the long run.

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Jesus’ relatives

It was very difficult for Jesus’ relatives to understand him, to figure out what had happened to him. For thirty years he had been the carpenter’s son, a good worker, a bit introverted, maybe shy, never married and liking going out on his own to pray in solitary places. Suddenly Jesus began his public life, preaching the Gospel, performing miracles and surrounding himself with twelve men, called apostles, going around villages and towns, with crowds following him. Why didn’t he show his talents before? Why didn’t he use them with his relatives and friends? They thought that either he had become mad, lost his mind, or an evil spirit had possessed him.

It happens to us when we take our faith seriously, when we have a conversion, when suddenly we find out what God wants from us. Our life takes on a new course, a bright star has been lighted and we see things with different eyes. People around us who haven’t seen our new light are left behind and don’t understand our new outlook. They think we have become fanatical, self-possessed or even a bit weird. They try to help us, to change our mind, to bring us back to reality. But we know where they are; we have been there before. And we know they cannot see what we see, they are not ready to experience what we are going through. We don’t want to change back and we would like them to discover what we see now. Sometimes by pushing our faith on them, we can make things worse. All we can do is give them a good example, to show them the strength of our faith, the promises of our hope and the warmth of our love.

Jesus’ relatives thought he was mad, and they were right; he was crazy for us. We cannot help being moved, realizing what Jesus did for love of us. Many saints, following Christ’s example, have been taken for madmen, because they were mad with love, mad with love for Jesus Christ. The Cure of Ars used to say: “To be holy, you need to be mad.” To follow Jesus you need to be out of your mind. Saint Francis was called the mad man of Assisi. Love is crazy and whoever is in love does crazy things. It is amazing what the saints have done for the love of God.

The other accusation against Jesus is that he was possessed by the devil. Jesus defends himself with a simple logic: if someone expels the devil this means that he is stronger than the devil. We are not to be afraid of the devil. Jesus uses his power to free us from the enslavement to Satan, which means “enemy”. His dominion has come to an end: the prince of this world is about to be cast out. Jesus’ victory over the power of darkness, shows that the light has already entered the world.

“Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Saint Thomas Aquinas says that by saying this, Jesus gave preference to the eternal generation over the temporal one. Our Lady has an outstanding position in both. She was his mother on earth by generation, and his mother in heaven by obeying her Son above everything else. But Jesus obeyed her first, by being the best Son ever.

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Corpus Christi

It took time for the early Christians to grow in their awareness of the real presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. At the beginning of Christianity they didn’t have tabernacles; they just celebrated the Mass normally in their own homes. They didn’t have churches because of the persecutions. After Mass sometimes they kept the Blessed Sacrament for the sick and the people who couldn’t come. Slowly they began to realise that Jesus was there and they began to keep it in a secure place. Eventually they gave the Lord the best room of the house. They started to acknowledge his presence and keep him company, spending time with him in prayer.

Saint Juliana of Liege, in what is now Belgium, had a great veneration for the Eucharist. When she was 16, she saw a vision of the Church as the moon in its full splendour, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe. She understood that the opaque line represented the absence of a liturgical feast in honour of the Body and Blood of Christ. At that time the only feast about the Eucharist was Holy Thursday, when the institution of the Mass was celebrated. It was wedged into Holy Week. The Bishop of her diocese was the first one to celebrate Corpus Christi in his diocese. Then a priest of that diocese became a Pope and he instituted the feast for the whole Church. It is good to have a friend who becomes Pope. Urban IV asked Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas to write the prayers for the Mass. When Saint Thomas read his work first, Saint Bonaventure wept and tore his manuscript into small pieces. These are the beautiful prayers of today’s Mass.

Benedict XVI says that the three pillars of Saint John Paul II were the Cross, Our Lady and the Eucharist. For a stool to stand up it needs at least three legs. What are the three legs, the three pillars of our spiritual life? Saint John Paul II explains his feelings about the Eucharist: “I have always been convinced that the chapel is a place of special inspiration. What a privilege to be able to live and work in the shadow of His Presence. It is not always necessary to enter physically into the chapel in order to enter spiritually into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.” What is the place of the Eucharist in my life? We can ask Saint John Paul II to help us to try to come here more often. We need more faith in his real presence.

If we believe that Jesus is in the tabernacle, we will spend more time with him, we will try to drop into our nearby church as often as we can. In the book The Hobbit, when Bilbo is lost in the caves, he meets Gollum, and Gollum tries to eat him. Bilbo proposes a game of riddles to save his life. When Bilbo couldn’t guess the last riddle, and Gollum was getting closer to eating him, Bilbo cries out in desperation: “Time, give me more time.” This was the answer to the riddle and saved his life. This is the answer to all our problems. Jesus is telling us the same thing: “Time, give me more time.” We need more time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

Saint John Paul II is buried in Saint Peter’s basilica between the chapel of the Pieta of Michael Angelo and the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, emphasising his two main loves: Mary and Jesus. We should bury ourselves too between these two pillars.

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Holy Trinity

When Jesus came, he revealed to us the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It was his most important secret, his gift to us, which had been guarded for many centuries. In the Old Testament God didn’t want to show us this truth about himself, because he was afraid the Israelites would worship multiple gods. They did it regardless. The first time we hear about the Trinity is in the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel mentioned the three persons. The second time was at the Baptism of Jesus, when we hear the voice of the Father and we see the white dove hovering over Jesus. The last time was when Jesus commanded us to baptise in the name of the Father, and on the Son and on the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to note that Jesus says in the name of the three persons as singular, not in the names as plural. One God, three persons.

They say that one is the symbol of unity. But to avoid uniformity, you need two. To avoid our modern pandemic of individualism and of selfishness, we need to be open to the other. Once you have two, you overcome these temptations, but other problems arise, fruit of relationships. The same happened with Adam and Eve, when the serpent managed to drive a wedge between them. With two, you can have trouble, opposition, war. You need two to fight. That’s why three is better, one can be a mediator and the struggle becomes more balanced, more diverse. Once we have three, we have a family. Two is a couple. When a baby arrives, it becomes a society. Our Lord says that when two or three are gathered in his name, he’ll be among us. Here we have the Trinity. All human relations are reflection of God’s inner life.

The Trinity shows us God as a family. He has opened his inner life to us, to be able to gaze into what’s happening within their trinitarian relationship. God has allowed our human nature to peep through a keyhole into his divinity. In the famous Rublev icon, we see the three angels who visited Abraham, representing the Holy Trinity, around a four- sided table. There is a place open for us at the front of this heavenly table, almost with our name on it. The figures are arranged in a way that the lines of their bodies form a full circle, waiting for us to sit, and close the circle. It is a relationship that flows inward and outward. We are called to participate in the trinitarian life, but only a few manage to do so. It is the most important task we can achieve in this life, the beginning of a heavenly life on earth.

We are very outward looking. We try to find happiness outside ourselves. In our secular culture is not easy to hear about God, to connect with him. Technology has brought us further and further from God. We can examine ourselves if we manage to find God on our smartphones. We are looking for him in the wrong places.

We forget that God is inside of us. “You must seek me in yourself”, Jesus told Saint Teresa. This is how Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity reminds us of this reality: “God in me, I in Him. Let that be our motto. How good is this presence of God within us, in the inner sanctuary of our souls. There we always find Him even though we may have no sensible feeling of His presence. But He is there, all the same. It is there that I love to seek Him. Let us try never to leave Him alone.”

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Pentecost

A young man was walking down the street and came across a shop with a sign that said: Happiness. He came in and saw that angels were serving the customers. He was very surprised and asked one of the angels: “What do you sell here?” He answered: “Anything that brings happiness to humans.” The young man got excited and began to ask a list of things: “Give me the end of wars, communication between husbands and wives, wealth for the poor, health to the sick, understanding between the in laws...” The angel stopped him very respectfully saying: “We don’t sell fruits here; we only have seeds.”

The fruits of the Holy Spirit grow from the seeds God placed in our souls when we were born. They are there ready to be planted at the right time. They began to grow when we were baptised. At Baptism those seeds were introduced to good soil and watered with living water. They developed in the soul of the baby, growing under the soil, without noise or exterior sign, like those bulbs that produce beautiful flowers every spring.

All we need to do is to look after them, to maintain them and make sure they grow and develop. We need to water them with the grace of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, fertilise them with our prayer life, and spray the bugs and get rid of the snails regularly through good confessions. We should build a fence to protect them from the wind, with a life of solitude and recollection, and keep the plants from being exposed to too much sun, from the social media and tv to avoid anything that can scorch them. Some of these fruits take a long time to grow. Some fruit trees takes seven years to begin to produce. They come during different seasons, some at the beginning of life, others in middle age, others at the end, especially when we need them.

We can compare our soul to the garden of Eden, where God used to take a stroll with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. If we look after our garden, God will be more keen to walk with us. Every year is getting better. The trees grow taller and the bushes develop. It is not easy to know when and how to prune them. They are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, given by him to fulfill our mission, unmerited. We also have an orchard where we grow fruit trees. There the Holy Spirit has planted twelve different trees, that produce his famous twelve fruits, each one of them different and specific. We need all of them, because together they can develop a balanced diet.

When we read the list of the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, we are immediately attracted to them and we want them to be part of our lives and the lives of the people we love. It is good for us to read this list, to foster our desire to acquire them: Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Generosity, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Modesty, Self Control and Chastity. They go against the bad tendencies we all have in our hearts, those twelve vices the devil tries to develop with cunning persistence. Inside of us two different kinds of plants grow, weeds and flowers. What we need to do is to uproot the weeds that choke the flowers. Hopefully we can pick a nice bouquet of them to give to our mother.

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The Ascension

The church that marks the place where tradition says Jesus left the earth flying up to heaven has an octogonal shape, with a circular dome. In the old days the roof was open and you could see the sky. On the floor there is a glass covering the rock where Jesus’ feet touched our ground for the last time. It is a reflection of how we should live our lives: with our feet firmly anchored on earth and our eyes constantly fixed on heaven. On the rock you can see the marks of Jesus’ feet, most likely carved by a pious Christian, who missed the figure of the man of God. The church sits on top of the Mount of Olives, close to the garden of Gethsemane, where everything began, when Jesus felt the agony during his prayer. When Jesus was lifted up towards heaven, he blessed his apostles as a last gesture: everything should begin and finish with prayer. We see the beginning and the end of Jesus passion: through the cross, we reach our resurrection.

What is Jesus telling us today before he goes up to heaven? What is his last will? “Now it is your turn. I’m going, but I’m leaving you here in charge. I gave you the Gospel, now you can pass it on to others. No worries, you are not going to be alone. I’ll be with you till the end of time.” This is what the angels reminded the apostles, when they were looking towards the sky, after Jesus flew away. Maybe they thought he was going to come back again, as he had done during these days after the resurrection. They were waiting for him, without knowing what to do, paralysed. Jesus had to send his angels to wake them up and to tell them: “Go back to Jerusalem and begin to work. Your days of glory with Jesus are finished. Now it is Mission Impossible.”

Saint Luke says that after Jesus left them, the apostles returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They knew Jesus wasn’t coming back, but they didn’t go back to the city discouraged, or downcast, because they trusted that Jesus was going to be with them for ever. They had only to wait for few years to be reunited with him again, and with the other apostles together in their glorious bodies. Meanwhile Jesus was going to walk with each one of them, while preaching the Gospel around the known world.

Our lives here on earth are never fulfilled. There is always something missing. There is a point of frustration when we experience the lack of perfection, an awareness of everything passing by, an impossibility of stopping our magic moments from disappearing. This is why God has placed in our hearts a longing for heaven, a timeless eternity, a desire for an infinite and definitive encounter. Jesus is gone, but he left us with a spark, a passing shooting star, a tiny thirst for him, because he wants to be with us for ever. Something we can never quash or delete completely.

Can you imagine the welcome Jesus received in heaven when he arrived there? It is impossible for us to imagine because heaven is not a place but a state. Nevertheless with our imperfect and earthly human intellect, we can try every year to go to heaven on this day to witness the big welcoming party, a countless multitude of angels and saints, all these people that have been waiting for him for centuries, with plenty of time to prepare an amazing feast.

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