Easter 2008. A   Print print this page                 
CLOSE THIS             Back to Homilies

Jesus told his disciples exactly what would happen to him
but they could neither understand it nor believe it.
It was not that surprising because the Passion of Jesus did not make sense from the human point of view.
We say that if you want to win and get to the top you must use all you have to get there.
Jesus had shown them how powerful he was in his healing miracles and when commanding the sea and the wind.
So they would have presumed that if he could cure a blind man
he could also strike someone blind or dumb or paralysed;
that. he could have given his followers extraordinary strength
and they could have taken control of the city administration.
However, there is no report of Jesus using his powers to harm anyone,
not even his enemies. Instead he went forward and downward.
He willingly walked into events that meant pain, suffering, humiliation and death for him.
This is so difficult to imitate.

There are times in everyone’s life when moving forward
means moving downward; becoming less rather than more.
When we should not buy our way out of a situation with our cash
or use emotional blackmail or masculine anger or feminine tears.
We should endure what comes for the sake of peace or truth or humility or simplicity or love or the gospel.

Why did Jesus endure it all?
Why did his Passion make sense from the divine point of view when it made no sense from the human point of view?
In the story of the prodigal son, the cheeky young boy declares himself independent of his father,
demands his inheritance and pushes off.
He comes back penniless and confesses that he had wronged his father, accepts that he had lost his filial rights and applies for a job.
For humbling himself his loving father restores him to his place in the famfly.

Adam and Eve tried to be independent of God and lost their position in Paradise.
We have no record in the Bibie of the human race coming’to its senses, as the prodigal son did.
The human race never confessed its wrong doing to God and tried to return to him.
The distance between God and the human race grew so wide that God was forgotten.
So he decided to save us from ourselves
by making reparation, paying all debts and declaring his forgiveness and love.
Inviting us to accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.

If the prodigal son had not returned home and his father had learned of his plight
he would have gone after him and saved him.

There is no escape from the love of God, nothing can ever separate us from it.

Print print this page                                   CLOSE THIS             Back to Homilies