April 13 Monday: St. Martin I, Pope and Martyr: John 3:1-8:
The context: Today’s Gospel describes the night
visit Nicodemus made to Jesus. Nicodemus was a rich Jewish rabbi and one of the
seventy members of Sanhedrin. Later in his Gospel, John shows us how Nicodemus
argued for a fair trial for Jesus (7:51) and how he cooperated with Joseph of
Arimathea to bury Jesus (19:38). Nicodemus came to Jesus convinced that obeying
the Mosaic Law and offering the prescribed sacrifices were enough for one’s
eternal salvation.
Hence, Jesus plainly tells him that in order to be saved he
has to be born again of water and the Holy Spirit (through Baptism). Jesus
further explains that his disciples have two lives, namely natural and
supernatural, and two births, namely a physical birth from one’s mother as her
son or daughter, and a supernatural birth from God through Baptism as God’s
child, a member of His family in the Church and an heir of Heaven. The
supernatural birth is possible only when one is baptized into Christ and receives
the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Life message: 1) We need to remember that
rebirth by water and the Holy Spirit is a continuous process for Christians.
For that process of rebirth to take place, we need, every day, to repent of our
sins, try, with His grace, to renew our lives through prayer and our
sacramental life, do meditative reading of the Bible, accompanied by corporal
and spiritual works of mercy and ask for God’s guidance.
Fr. Tony(https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 14 Tuesday: Jn 3: 7-15:
The context: Today’s Gospel is the continuation
of the night visit of Nicodemus with Jesus. Nicodemus was a rich Jewish rabbi
and one of the seventy members of Sanhedrin. He wanted to clarify whether the
obeying of the Mosaic Law and the offering of prescribed sacrifices were enough
for one’s eternal salvation. But Jesus used the occasion as a teachable moment,
showing Nicodemus the necessity for a spiritual rebirth through the action of
the Holy Spirit by means of the water of Baptism as an essential condition for
one’s salvation.
Jesus showed Nicodemus the effects the Holy Spirit produces
in the souls of the baptized. We know the presence, force, and direction of
wind by its effects. It is so with the Holy Spirit, the Divine “Breath” (pneuma),
given us in Baptism. In Hebrew and Aramaic, the scholars tell us, the same
word, pneuma, means “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind.” We
do not know how the Holy Spirit comes to penetrate one’s
heart. But He makes His presence felt by the change in the conduct of one who
receives Him. Jesus further explains that he himself comes from Heaven, and,
hence, his teaching is credible. Then, by comparing how God saved the
snake-bitten Israelites through the symbol of the bronze serpent, Jesus tells
Nicodemus that “the Son of Man” is going to save mankind by
his death on the cross.
Life message: We need to adjust our ways of
living, recognizing and making full use of the presence of the Holy Spirit in
our lives: 1) We need to begin every day by asking for His Divine strength and
guidance and end every day by asking His pardon and forgiveness for our sins.
2) We need, as well, to pray for His daily anointing and for His gifts, fruits,
and charisms so that we may live as children of God. 3) We also need to throw
open the shutters and let the Spirit enter the narrow caves in which we bury ourselves.
Fr. Tony((https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 15 Wednesday: John 3: 16-21:
The context: Jesus explained God’s plan of
salvation to Nicodemus by declaring that the story of Moses and the brazen
serpent was a sign pointing to the Good News that God would show His love for
mankind by subjecting His own Son to suffering and death in order to save them
all: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn
3:16). This is the summary of the Gospel message of salvation through
Christ Jesus. This is the Good News in the Gospels.
Today’s Gospel passage teaches us that our salvation is the
free gift of a merciful God, given to us through Jesus, His Son. It explains
that Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, became the agent of God’s salvation, not
just for one sinful nation, but for the sins of the whole world from the
beginning through the end. Through Jn 3:16, the Gospel teaches us
that God has expressed His love, mercy, and compassion for us by giving His
only Son for our Salvation. This tells us that the initiative in all Salvation
is God’s love for man. St. Augustine of Hippo describes a dream message received
by his mother, Monica, who prayed and wept unceasingly, fearing Augustine would
be damned because of the life he was leading. This message convinced her that
she had to live with him, not cut him off as she had been doing, for God still
loved him even in his present condition. Augustine’s example also explains to
us the universality of the love of God. God’s motive is Love and God’s
objective is Salvation. Those who actually receive eternal life must believe in
the Son and express that love in deeds.
Life message: 1) We need to respond to God’s
love for us by loving and serving Him in others in whom He dwells. God’s love
for us is unconditional, universal, forgiving, and merciful. Let us make an
earnest attempt to include these qualities in sharing our love with others
during this Easter season. “In the evening of life you will be examined
on love,” said St. John of the Cross [Dichos, 64, note 595, CCC 1022;
Sayings of Light
and Love, #57 in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross,
trans. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodrigues, OCD Institute of Carmelite
Studies, (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1979, p,672).] — What
St. John of the Cross means by “love” is love expressed in deeds.
Fr. Tony((https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 16 Thursday; Jn 3:31-36: The context: In
today’s Gospel passage, Jesus explains his Divinity to Nicodemus and his
relationship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus’ Divinity
which gives authority and veracity to his teachings and credibility to his
promise of eternal life for his followers.
Jesus’ claims: 1) Jesus claims that, as Son of
God, he “comes from Heaven.” Hence, he can speak of God and
Heaven from his own experience and reliably about his town. 2) While the Jews
believed that prophets were given only a small share in God’s Spirit, Jesus, as
God’s only Son, shares the fullness of God’s Spirit and, hence, all his
teachings and promises are always reliable. 3) Further, Jesus gives eternal
life to his followers: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who
does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him”
(Jn 3:36).
Life messages: 1) We need to seek the daily
guidance and strengthening of the Holy Spirit living within us because it is He
Who reveals Divine truths to us and Who gives us a better and clearer
understanding of Scriptural truths taught by the Church.
2) Since our destiny depends on our own free daily choices,
we need to choose Christ and his teachings and stand for Christ’s ideas and
ideals.
3) We need to choose Jesus in order to choose Life. Before
his death, Moses challenged Israel: “See I have set before you this day
life and good, death and evil…. Therefore, choose life that you may live,
loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and cleaving to him” (Dt 30:15-20)
Joshua repeated the challenge in Jos 24:14-15. We face
that challenge every day. Fr. Tony
April 17 Friday: John 6:1-15:
The context: Today’s Gospel describes one occasion
when Jesus tried in vain to withdraw from the crowds at Capernaum. He went by
boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to a remote village called
Bethsaida Julius, where there was a small grassy plain. But when Jesus stepped
ashore, He was faced with a large crowd of people. This was the scene of the
miraculous feeding of the five thousand as described in today’s Gospel. This is
the only miracle, other than the Resurrection, that is told in all four
Gospels, a fact that speaks of its importance to the early Church. Today’s
Gospel passage invites us to become humble instruments in God’s hands by
sharing our blessings with our brothers and sisters. We may regard
the incident in which Jesus multiplied loaves and fish in order to feed his
hungry listeners, both as a miracle of Divine Providence and as a Messianic
sign. The lesson for every Christian is that, no matter how impossible one’s
assignment may seem, with Divine help it can be done: “For with God
nothing shall be impossible” (Lk 1:37). Jesus used as his starting
point for the miraculous meal a young boy’s generous gift of all the food he
had, perhaps to remind us that love is the prime requirement for salvation, and
selfishness blocks the life-giving action of the grace of God in us. The early
Christian community especially cherished this story because they saw this event
as anticipating the Eucharist.
Life message: 1) As Christians we need to commit
ourselves to share all we have and are, and to work with God in communicating
His compassion to all. God is a caring Father, but He wants our co-operation.
That’s what the early Christians did, generously sharing what they had with the
needy.
2) We, and others in our time, need to ask for the courage
to share, even when we think we have nothing to offer. Whatever we offer
through Jesus will have a life-giving effect in those who receive it.
3) We are shown two attitudes in the Gospel story: that of
Philip and that of Andrew (Jn 6:7-9). Philip said, in effect: “The
situation is hopeless; nothing can be done.” But Andrew’s attitude
was: “I’ll see what I can do; and I will trust Jesus to do the rest.” We
need to have Andrew’s attitude. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 18 Saturday: Jn 6:16-21:
The context: The event presented by today’s
Gospel is the scene immediately following Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the five
thousand with five small loaves of bread and two fish. Sensing the danger of
having the people seize him and make him leader of a revolt, Jesus promptly
instructed the apostles to leave the place by boat and, after dispersing the
crowd, went by himself to the mountain to pray.
A double miracle in the sea: When the apostles in the boat
were three to four miles away from the shore, they faced an unexpected storm,
caused by the hot wind of the desert rushing into the Sea of Galilee through
the gaps in the Golan Heights. Recognizing the danger, Jesus went to the boat,
walking on the stormy sea. Jesus calmed the frightened disciples as he
approached the boat, and as soon as he got into the boat it “reached land
they were heading for.”
Life messages: 1) We need to approach Jesus with
strong Faith in his ability and availability to calm the storms in our lives
and in the life of the Church. Church history shows us how Jesus saved his
Church from the storms of persecution in the first three centuries, from the
storms of heresies in the 5th and 6th centuries, from the storms of moral
degradation and the Protestant reformation movement in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and the storms of ongoing Clerical sex abuse scandals,
particularly those beginning in the twentieth century.
2) We need to ask Jesus to protect us when we face storms of
strong temptations, storms of doubts about our religious beliefs, and storms of
fear, anxiety, and worries in our personal lives.
3) Experiencing Jesus’ presence in our lives, we need to
confess our Faith in him and call out for his help and protection.
