Fifth Sunday of Lent

Link to today's readings
Jeremiah 31:31-34 + Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15 + Hebrews 5:7-9 + John 12:20-33

Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma
by Deacon Paul Lewis

This past Monday my wife and I were at the home of some friends. There was something different about this visit. It was the first time we had been there in daylight. Before the time change, we always arrived at their house after the sun had set. More times than not, I missed the turn for their driveway. But this time, I saw the driveway. And as I sat in their kitchen I noticed something different. Again, it was sunlight coming in through the windows. It cast, quite literally, a different light on this home, a home that I had become familiar with in the dark.
 
“Sir, we want to see Jesus.”
 
It seems like such a simple request. When Philip and Andrew approached Jesus,
I suspect that his response is not what they expected. You see, seeing Jesus challenges us. It’s not easy, at least the kind of “easy” as the world would define. All of a sudden, the conversation becomes about death and life. But not just life...eternal life! What does it mean to “see” Jesus? Did those Greeks understand what they were asking? Did Philip and Andrew understand? Do we?
Seeing Jesus and death are intimately connected. One needs to go no further than the Crucifix to understand that.
 
To truly “see” Jesus, one must form one’s mind around that of Jesus. St Paul tells us in his Letter to the Philippians… Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 

To have the mind of Jesus means to have no regard for ourselves. That which keeps us from love, love for God and love for others, must be rooted out of our lives. To see Jesus, we must not merely think he is a nice guy. To encounter Jesus, sitting back and listening to his words, and accepting the message on an intellectual level is not enough. To see Jesus, to have the “mind” of Jesus, means to have an encounter of the hearts… our hearts and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
 
This kind of encounter calls us to be participants in the life of Christ, not spectators. If we want to see Jesus, if we want to know light, the light that changes everything, we must put aside those things in our lives that get in the way. We must die to ourselves. We must become that grain of wheat, fall to the ground and die so that we too might become fruit. It is only in dying that we can rise. Seeing Jesus means dying to all the parts of our life that blind us: fear; the need to be right or to be in control anger and resentment; the guilt and disappointments of our past; attachment to power, wealth, and reputation; attachment to “stuff”; the ways in which we separate ourselves from one another and from God; our obsessions, compulsions, and emotional agendas; the ways in which we hurt one another and damage relationships.
 
Ultimately, it means dying to our own self-sufficiency. It means rising to trust in Jesus. We let go of our life to receive God’s life. This business of letting go, of dying to our old self, is tough stuff. Jesus knows that it is. That’s why we have the scriptures, prayer, and the Eucharist.
 
Jesus longs for each of us to have a personal encounter with him. In that encounter, we come to know the Lord more intimately in our lives. As Matthew Kelly says, this encounter will make us a better version of ourselves. How do scriptures and prayer work in this encounter with Jesus? Come to the parish mission Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings, 7:00-8:30. Dr Carole Brown will have much to say about that.
 
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian life. All that we do points to this reality. We don’t gather each week to hear the scriptures, or to hear the homily, or to hear the music, or to see those children take up the collection for the new church. All of those things are good, but if they don’t have their inspiration (source) in the Eucharist, if they don’t point us to our need for the Eucharist, if these actions don’t lead us (summit) to see Jesus in the Eucharist, then we have missed the point.
 
You’ll notice a few weeks ago, Father Jacobi began saying the prayer after communion directly after communion, before the children’s collection or announcements. That prayer is intended to close the part of the mass that is called the “Communion Rite.” Holy Communion is not completed until that prayer is prayed. Subtle as is may be, it is a reminder that seeing, and receiving, Jesus in the Eucharist is the most sacred action we participate in… bar none! The Eucharist is not simply a meal. It is a sacrifice. We reverence the altar to remind us that it is there that we see Jesus in that Upper Room. What we do is not a re-enactment. Time and space is transcended. We participate in that Last Supper each time we celebrate the Eucharist.
 
The Eucharist reminds us that we must die to ourselves. When we do, everything changes. We see Jesus as he truly is, and we see Jesus as we truly are… I know from experience, that even though I think I see things clearly,
sometimes I see things from the perspective of darkness, or perhaps cloudiness is more accurate. Perhaps you have the same experience. Just as my perspective of that friend’s house changed with the presence of light, when we encounter the light of Jesus, everything changes When we see things in the light of Jesus, our perspective changes. Our needs, our wants, are no longer important.
 
Trusting in the words of Jesus, we can have the courage to die to those things in our life that keep us from that which we all long for… to be see and be with Jesus and to live a Spirit-filled life with the Father.

Deacon Paul Lewis