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April 21 - June 14, 2019
April 2, 2018
First comes the exclamation “Hosanna!” Originally this was a word of urgent supplication, meaning something like: Come to our aid!
the cry for help turned more and more into a shout of jubilation (cf. Lohse, TDNT IX, p. 682).
“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (Mk 9:33-37). Jesus identifies himself with the child—he himself has become small. As Son he does nothing of himself, but he acts wholly from the Father and for the Father.
The Benedictus also entered the liturgy at a very early stage. For the infant Church, “Palm Sunday” was not a thing of the past. Just as the Lord entered the Holy City that day on a donkey, so too the Church saw him coming again and again in the humble form of bread and wine.
Let us now consider the interpretation that Jesus himself gives to the act of cleansing the Temple.
To be vigilant is to know that one is under God’s watchful eye and to act accordingly.
The Cross is and remains the sign of “the Son of Man”: ultimately, in the battle against lies and violence, truth and love have no other weapon than the witness of suffering.
The real “event” is the person in whom, despite the passage of time, the present truly remains. In this person the future is already here. When all is said and done, the future will not place us in any other situation than the one to which our encounter with Jesus has already brought us.
The cosmic elements pass away; the word of Jesus is the true “firmament” beneath which we can stand and remain.
Jesus’ apocalyptic words have nothing to do with clairvoyance. Indeed, they are intended to deter us from mere superficial curiosity about observable phenomena (cf. Lk 17:20) and to lead us toward the essential: toward life built upon the word of God that Jesus gives us; toward an encounter with him, the living Word; toward responsibility before the Judge of the living and the dead.
With the Last Supper, Jesus’ “hour” has arrived, the goal to which his ministry has been directed from the beginning (2:4). The essence of this hour is described by John with two key words: it is the hour of his “departing” (metabaínein / metábasis); it is the hour of the love that reaches to the end (agápē).
Faith cleanses the heart. It is the result of God’s initiative toward man. It is not simply a choice that men make for themselves. Faith comes about because men are touched deep within by God’s
Spirit, who opens and purifies their hearts.
“Sanctify them in the truth”—Jesus here gives us to understand that the truth is now the “bath” that makes men fit for God.
In this regard, we must remember that the truth John has in mind here is no abstract concept: he knows that Jesus himself is the truth.
In place of ritual purity, what we have now is not merely morality, but the gift of encounter with God in Jesus Christ.
The newness can come only from the gift of being-with and being-in Christ.
We must let ourselves be immersed in the Lord’s mercy, then our “hearts”, too, will discover the right path.
This spiritual experience of the truly new element in Christianity was what Augustine succinctly expressed in the famous formula: “Da quod iubes et iube quod vis” (give what you command and command what you will; Conf. X, 29, 40).
two different human responses to this gift,
Judas and Peter.
‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’ ” (cf. Ps 41:9; Ps 55:13).
he chooses the verb trōgein, the word used by Jesus in the great “bread of life” discourse for “eating” his flesh and blood, that is, receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist
Judas’ betrayal was not the last breach of fidelity that Jesus would suffer.
“Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me”
Judas
has come under the dominion of another.
True, the light shed by Jesus into Judas’ soul was not completely extinguished. He does take a step toward conversion: “I have sinned”, he says to those who commissioned him. He tries to save Jesus, and he gives the money back
His second tragedy—after the betrayal—is that he can no longer believe in forgiveness. His remorse turns into despair.
Genuine remorse is marked by the certainty of hope born of faith in the superior power of the light that was
made flesh in Jesus.
he moves out of light into darkness:
In the case of Judas, we encountered the perennial danger that even those “who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Heb 6:4) can perish spiritually through a series of seemingly small infidelities, ultimately passing from the light into the night, where they are no longer capable of conversion.
“You shall never wash my feet”
you must not lower yourself or practice humility!
“Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? ” (7:35). And the second time: “Will he kill himself?”
he transforms his violent death into the free offering of his life
Peter
wants to emphasize his radical fidelity even unto death: “Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you”
on the Mount of Olives, he rushes in w...
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But he must learn that even martyrdom is no heroic achievement: rather, it is a grace to b...
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His desire to rush in—his heroism—leads ...
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He must learn to await his hour.
He must learn the way of the disciple in order to be led, when his hour comes, to the place where he does not want to go (cf. Jn 21:18) and to receive the grace of martyrdom.
not telling God what to do, but learning to accept him as he reveals himself to us;
In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again and prepares us for table fellowship with him.
The hour of the Cross is the hour of the Father’s true glory, the hour of Jesus’ true glory.
the High-Priestly Prayer
can be understood only against the background of the liturgy of the Jewish Feast of Atonement (Yom ha-Kippurim). The ritual of the feast, with its rich
