April 6, 2003 – 5th Sunday of Lent "B"

Jr 31,31-34; He 5,7-9; Jn 12,20-33

H O M I L Y

            It would be somewhat obscene and in any case un-Christian to read the last two texts of today's Mass, that speak of suffering and death, without putting them in relationship with the tragic events that are taking place in Iraq and more particularly in Bagdad at the very moment when we comfortably celebrate our Eucharist. -- Suffering and death that a culture of voyeurism daily brings upon our TV screens and on the front pages of our newspapers.

            Before death that he saw inexorably coming, Jesus experienced anguish and was troubled to the depths of his being.  Let us make every effort to render present to our own spirit and to present to God, transformed into prayer, the anguish that all the military personnel involved in those combats certainly experience -- on whatever side they may be -- and also the anguish of men, women and children upon whom fall the bombs and who are certainly asking themselves at every moment how long their are going to live.  Let us transform all that anguish in prayer and let us offer it to God.

            The mention of the Greeks, at the beginning of today's Gospel, is certainly a reminder of the difficulty that the primitive Church -- especially the Johannine Communities -- found in trying to open themselves up to non-Jews, but it reminds us also, at the same time, that Jesus accepted suffering and death for the salvation of all of us, whether we be Americans or Iraqis or Europeans; whether we be Christians or Muslims, or whether we may call ourselves "without religions".

            The Greeks that came to Philippe and who asked do "see" Jesus, did not receive a teaching from him and were not witnesses to any of his miracles.  The message they received was that "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified".  The use of the title "Son of Man" shows that this is not only about Jesus himself, but also about the whole humankind, which he assumed through His incarnation.  By accepting to lose his life and to give it up, Jesus showed how the total achievement of a human person can be realized only in a manifestation of love that knows no limit.

            Today, as in Jesus' time, those who sincerely seek God are not looking for teaching or ideologies.  They want to see God.  They want to see Jesus in those who bear His name, and, just like the Greeks of today's Gospel, they approach those whom they consider "closer" to Jesus.  If we want to be authentic witnesses of Jesus, it is more important to be as close as possible to Him and to let His teaching transpire through our lives, than to formulate nice theories about Him.

            What is sad more than anything else in today's bloody conflicts that disfigure humankind is that they are often fought, on every side, in the name of ideologies that have a varnish of religion.

            More than ever the message of Jeremiah (heard in our first reading) is of an immediate importance.  More than a "call" to conversion, it is an "offer" of conversion, since conversion can only be a pure free gift from God.  The use of human intelligence with the help of always more developed technical means, led to the elaboration of always more refined fighting plans and to the creation of more massively destructive weaponry.  The present conflict is probably not the last one of its type, but it already shows that humankind is on a bad course.

            There is only one possibility of salvation : conversion of the heart.  God must replace the heart of stone from each one of us' bosom and put in its place a heart of flesh.  Then only will we know the Lord and will we be able to make Him known.