When we speak about the ones in charge in Christian Churches, we use the word Father, Pastor or shepherd.   Beautiful words meaning to take care of.   With the passing of time though, the growing number of faithful, the building of huge churches and the administrative responsibilities attached to it, have transformed the Catholic Church into a big multinational organization in need of specialized management and bureaucracy; thus, taking those in charge further and further away from their people. 

But Jesus’ intention was wider than that and Pope Francis is very aware of it, as he shows in his speeches and deeds. Our Lord wanted pastors to be close to their sheep; He wanted them to take time to listen, to help, to support them- in one word- to be present, to be there- when needed. He wanted us, all of us and not only priests, to be close to one another. He was dreaming of a Church where mutual relationship was made of humility, patience, understanding and tenderness towards one another and towards outsiders. He wanted us to be people who believe more in forgiveness than in feeding grudges, who believe in the light more than in the darkness. “My sheep will never perish” says Jesus. This commitment of His does not apply only to the after life. But also, and mainly to our daily life, where we are invited to live in joy and peace, in trust and hope, and to do all that we can to establish a peaceful and respectful environment. Life was given to us as a gift to be nurtured carefully. Let us not destroy it with grudges and endless feuds. Amen.

The focus of Today’s Gospel is Peter.  An interesting character who, on the whole, had a rough time with Jesus.  A fiery tempered man, he was the first Apostle to answer Jesus’ call.  The first one also among the Apostles to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.  He was even ready to fight to defend Jesus against His opponents.  But things did not turn out as he thought.  Jesus was condemned and killed.  And then all hope disappeared.  The one he thought to be the leader of a nation, the one he witnessed curing so many people and even raising some from the dead, could not escape death for Himself.   What does one do when all one’s hopes are shattered and one’s dreams reduced to ashes?  You go back to work.  That is what Peter did.  He went back to fishing, which was the only trade that he knew.

This reaction of Peter we too know about.  Many times, in our own lives, dreams that we had, projects that we had carefully planned, people that we had put our trust in, failed us.  What did we do then?  We went back to our traditional routine, experiencing once more how hard real life can be, which destroys in one moment, the whole result of a whole life of hard and relentless work.

But and this is typical of Jesus, the Lord comes back.  He does not wait for Peter to come to Him, He does it Himself.  And to meet with Peter, He does not set an appointment, He comes to where Peter works, on his fishing boat.  And He does not ask for a table to be set for Him, He sets it Himself.  And with a thoughtfulness typical of Him, He asks Peter three times if He loves Him, alluding to Peter’s former triple denial before His death.

This is our Lord’s way.   He was with Peter and He  is with us.  He asks us to do as He did, to be with people.  So that our mission in today’s world as Christians, might be summarized with one short sentence, to be with people.  Be with those who arrive and with those who leave; with those who start in life and with those at the end of life; those who work and those who rest; those who rejoice and those who mourn.  And do not worry, says the Lord: “ I am with you until the end of time”.   Amen.

The focus of Today’s Gospel is undoubtably the Apostle Thomas who had the nerve to question the reality of our Lord’s resurrection.  When I was young, Thomas was viewed as the bad guy for daring to question a cornerstone of our religion.  Now he is viewed as the courageous one who dared to assert his unbelief.  This doubt has made him a popular figure in our era of widespread doubt about everything, including religion.  Keep in mind that Thomas, although he openly questioned the resurrection, was the only apostle to claim Jesus as “My Lord and my God!” Once he discovered the truth, he dedicated the rest of his life to God’s mission.

This is not the only example of doubt to be found in the Bible.  In the beginning, Abraham’s wife Sarah burst out laughing upon hearing the news of her upcoming pregnancy.  Later Gideon openly doubts that Israel can win the war and the prophet Jeremiah believes no more in his people’s conversion.  Mary, the mother of Jesus openly questions the angel about her pregnancy.   Thus, Thomas is far from being the only one who doubts, they all do, but they were afraid to voice it out.

These recurrent examples show an important aspect of our faith:  doubt.  Doubt is part of faith.  Hence, to doubt and question our faith is not bad.  On the contrary, it is recommended.  Questioning and seeking answers help us to not only better understand our faith but deepens it.  Blind faith is not a goal to reach, but a limit to exceed.  Faith is a gift that must be developed and nurtured.

If doubt is one side of faith, the other side of it is trust.  That is what Sarah, Gideon, Jeremiah, Mary and the Apostles were asked to develop.  This is why we come here every Sunday.  Because we trust in God and Jesus.  We trust that they will help us in their own way.  To Jesus, faith is not an insurance policy that we put away for safe keeping and forget about until we die.  It is a seed which is planted in the ground and needs to be nurtured.  This is our mission, to nurture our faith.   Amen.  

Christian faith can be summarized in two short sentences:  Christ is risen.  And we will rise too.  Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee of our own resurrection.  Jesus overcame death: with Him, we will too, so that after our own death, we will keep on living with God.

But in the meantime, for this is what is important for us now, what does it change in my daily life?   Nothing!  We still are born, grow up and die.  In between, we try to manage as best we can.  This is where the uniqueness of Christian faith appears.   We often say that hell is not so much out there, as it is here on earth.  But the Christian faith asserts that heaven can be here too.  Jesus says: “Today the Kingdom of God has come to you.”   Just as we can make of our planet a hellish place, so too we can make of it a heavenly place.

How can we do this then?  In doing like our Lord did: to live in solidarity with God, with other people and with ourselves.  For, deep in our hearts, what do we wish for the most, if not to live in peace and harmony?  That is the reason why we have Baptism, Confirmation, Penance and the Eucharist; to help us to live in harmony with God, with other people and with ourselves.   Now, this peace, this friendship, this love that we so frantically look for, is far from easy to establish.  It comes only as the result of daily and mostly invisible efforts of self involvement.  For we know, through our own experience, that nothing important is easy to do.  What is important in life always takes much time and self involvement.  

Years ago, in Paris, we witnessed thousands of people gathering and praying together when Notre Dame Cathedral was on fire.  And this, despite huge differences of religions, nations and political opinions.   A striking example of what God intended for humanity.  That such an event has happened once, shows that it can happen again.  For that is what Easter is all about.  Amen.

Today around the world, two billion Christians will remember the death of a man crucified about two thousand years ago on a hill in Palestine. Not that He was the only one. There were many crucified because crucifying the guilty was one of the regular tortures used by the Romans as a punishment. It was believed that the brutality of this means of repression would deter people from disobeying the laws. Jesus was therefore only one of many who were crucified in Roman antiquity. This crucified victim though had something special about Him. First because Jesus was innocent of the crimes He had been accused of, as the available documentation we have about it shows beyond a reasonable doubt, also because Jesus came back to life after His death. Which is what we Christians celebrate at Easter. But mostly because of the meaning He gave to His death. Most human beings think of their own death as something that happens to them from outside and that they can not avoid. In this sense, death has no meaning and neither does the suffering that precedes it. They are just a bad time to get through. But not for Jesus. For His sufferings are the cause of His resurrection. It is because of them that He is risen. Hence, the sufferings we undergo during our lifetime- physical suffering, chronic suffering and morale suffering- are not useless garbage we have to get rid of but rather are a road to life. (Phil 2:1-11) They carry a potential for unlimited growth if we want to consider them as such. This is what Jesus did and this gave Him life. So why wouldn’t it be the same for us? Amen.

Today’s Gospel invites us to give our lives for the service of others. On reading this, I could not but notice how such an ideal has become estranged from our actual ways of living. What we hear the most nowadays, is the opposite. I am invited to be happy with myself first, to place money at high interests, to retire early and stay away from problems. Of course, we admire volunteers who work here and abroad for the poor and the sick. But, instead of seeing in them wonderful examples of Christian brotherly love, we explain it by genetics: that is the way they are, we say, they like to keep busy. Very seldom do we see this interest for the poor as a conscious and deliberate choice of life. To give one’s life for others appears now too often as unnatural. And yet this is what Jesus proposes to us. He invites us to make of our lives a service to others. Which is what many of you have done with your children. Of course, you are obliged in some way to do this. They are your responsibility. But you did not do it because you were obliged but rather because you love them. And the most amazing thing about this is that, even if they occupy every second of your life, even if it is very hard at times, you do not regret it at all. All those years, your thoughts and deeds and life are entirely focused on them. And yet, you remember those years as the best ones of your lives. This is the life style when you did not count your time, when you were not self centered, a time when you had to put aside your own personal choices and privilege other people’s needs, namely those of your children. Was that inhuman? Was it dangerous to your mental health? It could have been, if you had not chosen it, if it had been imposed on you. But if you accepted it, if you chose freely to live that way, then your life has been filled with a joy nothing else could replace. To do service freely is the greatest gift one can give not only to others but to oneself. The Lord did not call us to suffering and slavery but to joy and happiness. And the deepest joy is life giving. Amen.

Jesus has been a mystery not only to people of his time but to people of all times.  All throughout history, many books have been written about Him, focusing on different aspects of His life and message.  Recently, the emphasis has been put upon His death.  Some novelists have developed the idea that Jesus did not die on the cross.  Just before His death, He would have been taken away from the cross by His disciples, hidden, cured by a powerful medicine and kept on living after.  The idea behind it seems to be that God can not die this way. God is too strong, too powerful, too important to have died on a cross as a vulgar criminal.  It is not worthy of  Him.  

These ideas are not new: we find them already expressed as far back as the first and second century of our era.  The Gospels though are clear about Jesus’ death.  Jesus was a real man who was crucified on a real wooden cross with two other real people.  This assertion is the more striking since it would have been much more acceptable to the people of the time, including the Apostles, that Jesus would not die on the cross.  How can you advertise a crucified God!  It is at the same time ridiculous and degrading! The Messiah that people were expecting was a strong and powerful king, certainly not that whipped, thorn crowned and spat at unknown preacher!  

The God that people were expecting was a winner who was presumed to end his life disappearing in the clouds on his way to heaven under the acclamation of the whole world. Such a God was much more attuned to the expectations of His disciples and would have been much easier to sell. But the crucified Jesus of Christian tradition is the real God. Our God is not a superman eager to assert His power over kneeling, trembling and frightened, worthless creatures; but rather a humble man full of mercy and compassion, who refuses to punish and likes to talk to his fellowmen as equals. If we had been asked to invent a God, we would probably have ended up with an incredible number of models. But one thing I am sure of: none of us would have thought of God as One whose sole purpose and program would have been to love, up to the point of dying on a cross for it! To me, this is the sign that our God is the true One. For isn’t love what we want the most? Amen

In Jesus time, adultery was liable for stoning.  That is what the authorities of the time are reminding Jesus about in today’s Gospel.   One can rightly wonder why the man involved in this adultery would not be subjected to the same treatment.  He should have and if this event had happened nowadays, he would have.  It will not be the first time in history that, under the cover of obeying the law, unfairness and partiality would prevail. Moreover, we have here another example of how often women were used by men for their own ends.  For the Pharisees are not so much preoccupied with the woman’s sin as with their desire to trap Jesus.  If He condemns the woman, He goes against His own teaching of unconditional mercy but if He does not, He disobeys the Law.  

We know the answer Jesus gave to his accusers: “Let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And not without a touch of irony, John adds “they left one by one, starting with the elders.” These introductory remarks were so to speak, only the preliminaries of Jesus’ teaching.  For the focus of the story is yet to come.  Jesus is left face to face with the woman.  At this point, the Gospel mentions that “Jesus straightened up”: a detail that implies that from now on, it is God who will speak.  “And said to her” which was not allowed by the law at the time for a man in public.  And He forgives her.

This parable leaves us with three lessons.  No one is allowed to use people for his own ends.  As children of God, man and woman are equal on all counts.  And finally, that God does not punish, He forgives and asks everyone to change his ways.  A thoughtful invitation to us to keep away from slanders, hasty judgments and condemnations.  An invitation to focus on truth and respect for everyone.  Amen

The parable we have in today’s Gospel is a classic of popular culture: it depicts a conflicting family situation- an easygoing father with two sons.  One who foolishly chooses to live as he pleases and the other one riveted to his work.  What had to happen, happens.   The first one sees his balloon burst and the second one gets sick with jealousy.

So far nothing special about this story.  Since the beginning of times there have always been good guys and bad guys like the two sons. Good guys like the father and bad guys like the two sons.   And then we come to the core of the parable, to his uniqueness.  When his son comes back, we would expect from the father some sort of reprimand.   Nothing of that, no blame, no reprimand, not even an allusion to his wrongdoings.  And the same with the oldest one, as if the father did not care at all as long as they both came back to him.  

Here lies the newness of the Gospel.   Our God does not punish and wants all of us to go back to Him but out of our own free will. Moreover, in God’s mind, nobody is right to despair about himself.  There is always a way out:  when all the roads are jammed, the doors locked and the curfew on, there still remains a way out:  the arms of God our Father.  Amen. 

This is what we have in Today’s Gospel.  Some people have questioned the government policy.  They were slaughtered although they had done nothing wrong.  A fig tree had been planted following all the instructions given on the packet.  Three years after, it is still fruitless.  And we could extend this questioning to many other aspects of our lives like this unexpected cancer which starts developing in my body at an alarming pace;  like that car accident caused by a drunken driver which left me limping for the rest of my life; like that flood that completely destroyed years of effort on my land. Those disasters and evildoings hurt thousands of people, the large majority of which are innocent.  Hence the question: How come innocent people would be at the wrong place at the wrong moment?  How come things I have been working at with the best of care, still do not work?  How come so many bad things happen to good people?   And ultimately, why would God allow this to happen? We have no answer to that kind of question and maybe there is none at all.  For they are part of the human condition.  Jesus Himself does not even answer them as we can see in Today’s Gospel.   But Jesus has two reflections about it which could be enlightening for our daily lives.  The first one deals with God:  sufferings, accidents, illnesses are not punishments from God, He says.  For God does not punish nor threaten.  As He makes it very clear in the Gospel:  “God, our Father” He says” makes His sun rise on the evil one as on the good one and sends His rain on the righteous as on the unrighteous”  (Mt 5:45) A second answer deals with our lives:  these bad events have to be seen as questions about the direction of our lives: Is my daily behaviour on the right track? Is what I am concerned with futile or worthwhile?  Is what I look for helpful for the one I know I should be?  Bad luck,  accidents, illnesses are not punishments but warnings.  An accident always questions my driving habits; an illness, my way out of eating and drinking and bad luck the direction that my life is headed to.  In the Gospel, Jesus says:  “unless you repent, you will all perish” a warning which at first sight may appear severe and uncalled for.  But the God who says it, is the same one as the gardener of the Gospel who says : give the fruitless tree another chance.  Our God is not only a loving God, He is also a very patient one.  Amen