POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 29 APRIL

"Today it does not seem easy to speak of marriage as a celebration that is renewed in time, in the different stages of the whole life of the spouses."

After having considered the two accounts of the book of Genesis, our reflection on God’s original design on the man-woman couple is now addressed directly to Jesus

At the beginning of his Gospel, the Evangelist John recounts the episode of the Wedding at Cana, in which the Virgin Mary and Jesus, with his first disciples, were present (Cf. John 2:1-11). Not only did Jesus participate in that marriage, but he “saved the celebration” with his miracle of the wine! Therefore, the first of his prodigious signs, with which he revealed his glory, he carried out in the context of a marriage, and it was a lovely gesture for that nascent family, solicited by Mary’s maternal concern. This makes us recall the Book of Genesis, when God finishes the work of creation and makes his masterpiece; the masterpiece is man and woman. And here, in fact, with this masterpiece is where Jesus begins his miracles, in a marriage, in a wedding feast: a man and a woman. Thus Jesus teaches us that the masterpiece of society is the family: man and woman who love one another! This is the masterpiece!

Since the time of the Wedding at Cana, so many things have changed, but that “sign” of Jesus contains a message that is always valid.

Today it does not seem easy to speak of marriage as a celebration that is renewed in time, in the different stages of the whole life of the spouses. It is a fact that persons who marry are always fewer; this is a fact: young people do not want to get married. Instead, in many countries the number of separations increases, while the number of children decreases. The difficulty to remain together – be it as a couple, be it as a family – leads to breaking the bonds with ever greater frequency and rapidity, and, in fact, it is the children that are the first to bear the consequences. But let us think that the first victims, the most important victims, the victims that suffer most in a separation are the children. If you experience from the time you are little that marriage is a bond for “a determined time,” it will be so for you unconsciously. In fact, many young people are led to renounce the project itself of an irrevocable bond and of a lasting family. I think we have to reflect very seriously on why so many young people “don’t feel like” getting married. There is this culture of the provisional ... everything is provisional, it seems there is nothing definitive.

This fact of young people not wanting to marry is one of the concerns that emerges today: why don’t young people marry? Why do they often prefer to live together and, so often, with “limited responsibility”? Why do many – also among the baptized – have little trust in marriage and the family? It is important to try to understand, if we want young people to be able to find the right way to follow. Why don’t they have confidence in the family?

The difficulties are not only of an economic character, although these are truly serious. Many hold that the change that has happened in these last decades has to do with the emancipation of woman. However, this argument is not valid either; it is a falsehood, it’s not true! It is a form of machismo that always wants to dominate woman. We make the bad figure that Adam made when God said to him: “Why have you eaten the fruit of the tree?” and he <answered>: “The woman gave it to me.” And the fault is the woman’s. Poor woman! We must defend women! In reality, almost all men and women would like affective stability, a solid marriage and a happy family. The family is at the top of all the indexes of satisfaction among young people; however, out of fear of making a mistake, many do not even want to think about it; although they are Christians, they do not think of sacramental marriage, unique and unrepeatable sign of the alliance, which becomes a testimony of faith. In fact, perhaps this fear of failing is the greatest obstacle to receiving the word of Christ, who promises his grace to the conjugal union and to the family. The most persuasive testimony of the blessing of Christian marriage is the good life of Christian spouses and of the family. There is no better way to describe the beauty of the Sacrament! Marriage consecrated by God  to safeguard that bond between man and woman that God has blessed since the creation of the world; and it is source of peace and of goodness for the whole of conjugal and family life. For instance, in the early times of Christianity, this great dignity of the bond between man and woman overcame an abuse held then to be altogether normal, that is, the right of husbands to repudiate their wives, even with the most pretentious and humiliating motives. The Gospel of the family, the Gospel that in fact announces this Sacrament has overcome this culture of habitual repudiation.

The Christian seed of the radical equality between spouses must bear new fruits today. The testimony of the social dignity of marriage will become persuasive in fact this way, the way of witness that attracts, the way of reciprocity between them, of the complementarity between them.

Therefore, as Christians, we must become more exacting in this regard. For instance: to support with determination the right of equal compensation for equal work, why is it taken for granted that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights. The disparity is a pure scandal! At the same time, to recognize the maternity of women and the paternity of men as an always valid richness, for the benefit especially of children. Likewise, the virtue of hospitality of Christian families is of crucial importance today, especially in situations of poverty, degradation and family violence.

Dear brothers and sisters, we are not afraid to invite Jesus to the marriage feast, to invite him to our home, so that he is with us and watches over the family. And we are not afraid to invite his Mother Mary also! When Christians marry “in the Lord,” they are transformed into an effective sign of the love of God. Christian do not marry only for themselves: they marry in the Lord in favor of the whole community, of the entire society.

I will speak of this beautiful vocation of marriage also in the next catechesis.

REFLECTION FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

On the day of Pentecost, Peter preaches the first Christian sermon. T a crowd of Jew from many different lands, gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover, he proves that Jesus, who was crucified and is risen from the dead, is the Messiah whom they all awaited. Their reaction is horror – Jesus is the Messiah, and we have killed him! For a Jew, the thought that he has killed the Messiah is about the worst of all thoughts. Peter’s hearers are, they believe condemned for it beyond hope of heaven. Desperately they ask Peter, “What can we do?”

Peter’s answer is one of the most consoling in the whole of Scripture. On Good Friday the crowds called down a curse upon themselves and their children. Jesus’ forgiveness has turned this curse into a blessing. Further, God does not hold the death of his son against them. Jesus had to die. But he died to bring everyone back to God. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross, his rising from the dead, has an enormous significance for Peter’s hearers. “You must repent, and believe in the Good News.” It is not the death of Jesus that brings down a curse upon them; it has, in fact, brought down the blessing of salvation. But only if they accept his saving love into our lives. To refuse to accept Jesus as Saviour, means that they have emptied the cross of meaning in their lives.

This is as true for us today as it was on that first Pentecost. Jesus has died and risen for us, to redeem us from our sins. Actor Mel Gibson, asked if his film The Passion of the Christ did not make the Jews out to be “Christ killers”, held out his own hands and said, “If I were to be asked whose hands killed the Christ, I’d first hold our my own ones and say, ‘These ones did’ ”. In the film, in fact, the hands hammering the nails into Jesus’ hands are Gibson’s. Our sins have indeed nailed Jesus to the cross. By his death on that same cross to which our sins have nailed him, our sins are forgiven. But only if we choose to follow him. And as with those first hearers of the Word, this will only happen if we turn to him, seek forgiveness for our sins and follow wherever he leads us, do whatever he tells us. Otherwise, we empty the cross of meaning in our lives. And it is that which is the worst sin of all. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 is thus both promise and warning. It promises us salvation from all our sins. But it warns us that the only path to salvation is through the saving acts of the Lord Jesus. Let us pray, today, that his saving death may become a reality in our lives, and that we might seek him and all that he has done for us, and love and obey him more than anything else, and above all else.

Fr. Phillip

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 22 APRIL

"The social devaluation of the stable and generative alliance of man and woman is certainly a loss for all"

In the previous catechesis on the family, I reflected on the first passage of the creation of the human being, in the first chapter of Genesis, where it is written: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Today I would like to complete the reflection with the second passage, which we find in the second chapter. Here we read that the Lord, after having created heaven and earth, “formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” He is the pinnacle of creation. Then God put man in a most beautiful garden so that he would till and keep it.

The Holy Spirit, who has inspired the whole Bible, suggests for a moment the image of man alone, and that he is lacking something without woman. And he suggests God’s thought, almost God’s sentiment, who looks at him, who sees Adam alone in the garden: he is free, he is lord ... but he is alone. And God sees that this “is not good,” it is as though communion is lacking, plenitude is lacking. “It is not good” – God says – and adds: “I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Then God presents all the animals to man; man gives each one of them its name – and this is another image of man’s lordship over creation -- however, he does not find in any animal one that is like him. Thus, man continues alone.

When, finally, God presents woman to him, exulting man recognizes that creature, and only that one, which is part of him: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Finally, there is a reflection of himself, a reciprocity.

And when a person – it is an example to understand this well – wants to shake hands with another, he must have another before him: if one puts out one’s hand and has nothing, the hand is there, but reciprocity is lacking. So was man, he was lacking something to reach his plenitude, he was lacking reciprocity.

Woman is not a “replica” of man; she comes directly from the creative gesture of God. The image of the “rib” does not express inferiority or subordination but, on the contrary, that man and woman are of the same substance and are complementary. And the fact that – still in the parable – God molded woman while man slept, stresses in fact that she is in no way creature of man, but of God. And it also suggests something else: To find woman, and we can say to find love in woman, to find woman, man must first dream about her and then he finds her.

God’s trust in man and woman, to whom he entrusts the earth, is generous, direct and full. However, it is here where the Evil One introduces in his mind suspicion, incredulity, mistrust and finally disobedience to the commandment that protected them. They fall into that delirium of omnipotence that contaminates everything and destroys harmony. We also feel it within ourselves, so many times, all of us.

Sin generates mistrust and division between man and woman. Their relationship is threatened by thousands of ways of prevarication and submission, of deceitful seduction and humiliating arrogance, even the most dramatic and violent. History bears the imprints. Let us think, for instance, of the negative excesses of patriarchal cultures. Let us think of the many forms of machismo, where woman is considered to be second class. Let us think of the instrumentalization and merchandising of the feminine body in the present media culture. However, let us also think of the recent epidemic of mistrust, skepticism and even hostility that is spreading in our culture – in particular beginning with a comprehensible mistrust of women – in relation to an alliance between man and woman that is capable at the same time of refining the intimacy of communion and of guarding the dignity of the difference.

If we do not find a wave of sympathy for this alliance, capable of establishing the new generations to repair the mistrust and the indifference, children will come into the world ever more uprooted from the maternal womb. The social devaluation of the stable and generative alliance of man and woman is certainly a loss for all. We must reassess marriage and the family! And the Bible says a beautiful thing: man finds woman, they find one another, and man must leave something to find her fully. And for this, man will leave his father and his mother to go with her. It is beautiful! This means to begin a journey. Man is all for woman and woman is all for man.

The care of this alliance of man and woman -- also if they are sinners and are wounded, confused or humiliated, mistrustful and uncertain -- is therefore for us believers a demanding and exciting vocation, in the present condition. The same passage of creation and of sin, at the end, gives us a most beautiful icon: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.” It is an image of tenderness to that sinful couple that leaves us with our mouth open: the tenderness of God for man and for woman. It is an image of paternal custody of the human couple. God himself takes care of and protects his masterpiece. 

FR JOHNSON INSTALLED AS ADMINISTRATOR OF THE CATHEDRAL

On Sunday the 19th of April, Archbishop Nxumalo OMI installed Fr Johnson as the administrator of the Sacred Heart Cathedral. As many already know, this is not the first Cathedral where he has held this position. 

After having converted to Catholicism, Fr Johnson had entered the Oblate novitiate but decided to complete his studies for the Archdiocese of Durban. He was ordained by the late Archbishop Dennis Hurley, and took up posts at the Montebello Mission and then as Chaplain to CATHSOC (the forerunner to ACTS). In the latter posting he had the largest university chaplaincy in the country. As a young priest, Frs Johnson and Nxumalo ran various courses together and went on preaching tours across Natal.

At that time, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate were running most of the major parishes in the city of Durban, but felt that the time was right to pull out of these and allow the diocese to begin taking charge of their own diocese. In doing so, the Oblates could return to the missions. Having had such success in the University Chaplaincy, Fr Johnson was appointed to the administration of Emmanuel Cathedral by Archbishop Hurley. 

In 1989 he resigned his post at the Cathedral and began work on the Afrikaans Apostolate. This entailed a transfer to Pretoria where he led the team who, among other things, were tasked with translating liturgical books into Afrikaans. 

Having had such success on the Afrikaans Apostolate, and having gathered a competent team around himself, he felt encouraged to act on a calling he had so often heard: the Oratorian vocation. He traveled through Europe and America to investigate the possibilities, and then gathered a team together in Oudtshoorn. At that time the St Saviour's Cathedral in the city was in need of care, and so Fr Johnson took charge of the Cathedral. The community in Oudtshoorn continued to grow. 

It was during this time that the St. Philip Neri Collegium was founded. This was established by the bishops of the old Cape province to raise the standard of candidates entering major seminary. At the Collegium, students would be given a sound education in theology, scripture, language, and social skills. Care of the Collegium was vested in Fr Johnson.

By 2002 the community had grown very large and the time was right for the establishment of a second community. The parish of St. Bernadette's in Port Elizabeth seemed to have all the facilities for a community and did not have a priest of its own. Once again, Fr Johnson would take charge of a team and begin the new foundation which was canonically established in 2008. 

Having served as priest in charge of St Bernadette's until 2008, and Provost until 2014, Fr Johnny settled in for semi-retirement (he would, and does, remain rector of the Collegium which had since moved to Port Elizabeth). The community had grown very quickly and most of the brothers had now been ordained to the priesthood, and were ready to assume leadership of the Oratory.

Unknown to the Oratorian community in Port Elizabeth, the Archbishop of Bloemfontein had a problem. The priests who had administered the Cathedral for so many years were due to retire and their superiors had asked for them to be relieved. His Grace was urgently searching for priests able to assume the responsibility of running the Cathedral (which serves the entire City of Bloemfontein). While visiting Port Elizabeth in July last year, the Archbishop proposed the idea of a Bloemfontein Oratory. Despite his advanced years (having turned 76 in March 2015), Fr Johnson answered the call with great enthusiasm, and once again gathered a team around himself, this time to take on the daunting task of running a large metropolitan Cathedral. 

And so on Sunday, Fr John Newton Johnson took the oaths and made his profession of faith in the Cathedral, witnessed by the Archbishop, who then conferred his blessing and led the celebration of Holy Mass. 

The small community of Oratorians have only been in Bloemfontein a little over three months, but already feel settled in the city and in the parish. All feel privileged to be able to work under the leadership of Fr Johnson, who strides the South African Catholic community as a colossus. 

Thanks must again go to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate - past and present - who built our beautiful Cathedral, and who ministered to the faithful in Bloemfontein for so many years. 

REFLECTION FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

On the Second Sunday of Easter we considered Doubting Thomas and the very real and important role played by faith in our encounter with the risen Lord Jesus. The key role of faith is seen even more clearly in the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, which is the focus of today’s gospel. “You believe because you have seen,” Jesus told his disciples on his first appearance in the Upper Room. Yet when Jesus, resurrected and no longer bound by time and space, appears alongside the two disciples on the road, they are unable to recognise him despite actually seeing him with their own eyes.

Why is this? Simply because they are without faith in his promise of the resurrection. There is a delicious irony in their words to him about his death on the cross: “You must be the only one who does not know…” How Jesus must have chuckled inwardly at this statement. But kindly, gently, he proceeds to explain the Scriptures’ prophecy of his Death and Resurrection to them. Arriving at the inn where they were to spend the night – remember, it was too dangerous to travel by night in those days – they see him about to continue on his journey. Something about this “stranger,” however, moves then to invite him to be their guest. Then follows that moving moment when they “recognise him in the breaking of the bread.” In that instant, he is no longer with them, but such is their conviction that they have encountered the Risen Lord, that they get up and travel through the perilous night, returning to Jerusalem to report to the Apostles the Good News.

So, in this story, seeing is not necessarily believing. The two disciples had first to understand  the meaning of his death. Their faith had to be awakened. Only then were they able to recognise the Risen Lord Jesus. And this reminds us that faith is the foundation of Christianity. It is not enough to know the facts about the Resurrection; but it is essential to believe in, and through this to encounter, the Risen Lord.

This story, if we read it carefully, should remind us of the central act of our worship; the Mass. First, Jesus quotes from Scripture, simultaneously preaching to them on its meaning. Is this not just what happens during the first half of the Mass? Then, as he says the blessing over the bread (“Blessed are you, O Lord, king of the universe…” the Jewish grace, prayers which we still use today at Mass), they “recognise him in the breaking of the bread.” – exactly what happens in the second part of the Mass. And the link? “Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us on the road?” Listening to the word of God and its explanation prepared them for the moment in which they recognised him.

We, too, are privileged to travel with Jesus to Emmaus every Sunday when we participate in worship at Mass. That is why we need to follow the Word of God attentively, to listen carefully to the explanation of its meaning in our lives, and to affirm our faith strongly in the words of the Creed. In this way we are prepared, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This is all part of a journey; our journey to encounter the living Lord Jesus face to face, and to know him in faith as surely as his disciples did. Let us enter this journey with joy and hope this Easter; and as did the two disciples, may we come to recognise him in the breaking of the bread and to know him personally as our Living Lord.

Fr. Phillip

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 15 APRIL

"God has entrusted the earth to the alliance of man and of woman: its failure makes the world arid of affections and darkens the sky of hope."

Today’s catechesis is dedicated to a central aspect of the subject of the family: that of the great gift that God made to humanity with the creation of man and woman and with the Sacrament of Marriage. This catechesis and the next are concerned with the difference and complementarity between man and woman, who are at the summit of the divine creation; the two following ones will be on Marriage.

We begin with a brief comment on the first account of Creation in the Book of Genesis. Here we read that God, after having created the universe and all living beings, created his masterpiece, namely, the human being, which he made in his own image: “in the image of God He created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

As we all know, sexual difference is present in so many forms of life, in the long scale of the living. However, only in man and in woman does it bear in itself the image and likeness of God: the biblical text repeats it a good three times in two verses (26-27): Man and woman are image and likeness of God! This tells us that not only man in himself is the image of God, not only woman in herself is the image of God, but also man and woman, as a couple, are the image of God. The difference between man and woman is not for opposition, or for subordination, but for communion and creation, always in the image and likeness of God.

Experience teaches it: to know himself well and to grow harmoniously, the human being is in need of reciprocity between man and woman. When this does not happen, the consequences are seen. We are made to listen to and to help one another. We can say that without the reciprocal enrichment in this relation – in thought and in action, in affections and in work, also in the faith – the two cannot understand in depth what it means to be a man and a woman.

Modern and contemporary culture has opened new areas, new freedoms and new depths for the enrichment of the understanding of this difference. However, it has also introduced many doubts and much skepticism. For instance, I wonder, for example, if the so-called gender theory is not also an expression of a frustration and of a resignation, which aims to cancel the sexual difference because it no longer knows how to address it. Yes, we risk taking a step backward. The removal of the difference, in fact, is the problem, not the solution. To resolve their problems of relation, man and woman must instead talk more to one another, listen more to one another, know one another more, love one another more. They must relate to one another with respect and cooperate with friendship. With these human bases, sustained by the grace of God, it is possible to plan the matrimonial and family union for the whole of life. The matrimonial and family bond is something serious, and it is for everyone, not only for believers. I would like to exhort the intellectuals not to abandon this topic, as if it had become secondary for the commitment in favor of a freer and more just society.

God has entrusted the earth to the alliance of man and of woman: its failure makes the world arid of affections and darkens the sky of hope. The signs are already worrying, and we see them. I would like to indicate, among many, two points that I believe must be attended with greater urgency.

The first. It is without doubt that we must do much more in favor of woman if we want to give back more strength to the reciprocity between men and women. In fact, it is necessary that women not only be more listened to, but that her voice has real weight, a recognized authoritativeness in the society and in the Church. The way itself with which Jesus considered women –we read it in the Gospel, it is so! -- in a context less favorable than ours, because in those times women were in fact in second place ... and Jesus considered her in a way which gives a powerful light, which enlightens a path that leads far, of which we have only followed a small piece. We have not yet understood in depth what things the feminine genius can give us, which woman can give to society and also to us. Perhaps to see things with other eyes that complements the thoughts of men. It is a path to follow with more creativity and more audacity.

A second reflection concerns the topic of man and woman created in the image of God. I wonder if the crisis of collective trust in God, which does us so much harm, and makes us become sick with resignation, incredulity and cynicism, is not also connected to the crisis of the alliance between man and woman. In fact the biblical account, with the great symbolic fresco on the earthly paradise and original sin, tells us in fact that the communion with God is reflected in the communion of the human couple and the loss of trust in the celestial Father generates division and conflict between man and woman.

From here comes the great responsibility of the Church, of all believers, and first of all of believing families, to rediscover the beauty of the creative design that inscribes the image of God also in the alliance between man and woman. The earth is filled with harmony and trust when the alliance between man and woman is lived well. And if man and woman seek it together between themselves and with God, without a doubt they will find it. Jesus encourages us explicitly to give witness to this beauty, which is the image of God. 

REFLECTION FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

It is a common accusation of non-believers that Christianity cannot prove the existence of God. But then, neither can non-believers disprove his existence. For the Christian, the argument goes much deeper that a mere disagreement between proof and non-proof. A Christian believes in the existence of God on the very solid basis of faith.

For example, there is no physical proof of the Resurrection of Jesus. There is the historical fact of the empty tomb. That is history! But it is only through faith that the risen Jesus presents himself to us. Reason can lead us so far: it is only when we step out in faith, beyond reason, placing our faith in the existence of God, that we discover He actually does exist.

The disciples accepted Jesus’ teaching that He would suffer and die and rise again on the third day. But they did not accept it literally. It was only when he actually appeared before them, that they saw the literalness of His prophesies. But they, nevertheless, actually saw the Risen Lord before them on that Easter Sunday. It was only Thomas who was not present. It is not surprising that Thomas, like the other disciples, refused to believe unless they were confronted with the evidence. But it is Jesus’ words to Thomas, “You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,” that are important. This he meant for us. We are presented with evidence of the Risen Jesus in so many ways: the sacraments, the scriptures, the 2 000 year continued existence of the Church, the Body of Christ. But all of these are pointers, even very strong ones, to the reality of the Resurrection. It is only when we take that step of faith: starting to live as though Jesus is Lord and had really risen from the dead, that He will  become a living presence in our lives. Faith, that wonderful gift of God, is what makes the whole story of Jesus and his revealing of the Father real for us. The Apostles saw and believed: even Doubting Thomas saw and believed: we too, if we begin by accepting the Gift of Faith which God gives us, can, by the gift of that same faith, see and believe. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” The Apostles started with seeing which led to believing: We, who begin with faith and end with believing, are specially blessed. Let us thank God today for the gift of Faith, which enables us to believe. May that faith grow ever stronger in us, that we might see Him more clearly every day, and that in turn, our faith may grow yet stronger in the Risen Lord and that He in turn, may become an ever more powerful presence in our lives.

Fr. Phillip

REFLECTION FOR EASTER SUNDAY

One of the most dramatic images of the Risen Jesus in the New Testament is to be found in the heavenly assembly in the Book of Revelation – also known as the Apocalypse of John. In it, John describes the risen Jesus as follows: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the centre of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” (Rev. 5,6). It is a striking, even terrifying image. The woolly lamb is, in our imagination, the weakest and most helplessly gentle of creatures. Yet here it becomes a divine creature with the fullness of power – seven horns – and the all-seeing vision of God – seven eyes.

Almost all of us would pass over the word “standing” as merely describing the Lamb’s physical position. Yet it is, perhaps, the most important word in the verse. In Greek, the word is hestekos, which comes from another Greek word, anhistemi, which means to “rise up.” In other words, the Lamb “standing” means the resurrected Lamb, and standing “as if it had been slain” is the crucified and resurrected Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The Afrikaans word “opstanding” translates it perfectly.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Resurrection of Jesus, because it is simply, without qualification or rival, the most important event in history. Resurrection is a Jewish idea, the basis for which we first encounter in the Bible as early as Genesis 2,7: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”. For a Hebrew, we are formed from those two most fragile of things; dust and breath. 

And yet, in this image, it is the breath, the Spirit, of God that gives us life. When God takes back his Spirit, life leaves us and we return “to the dust from which we came.” It is easy to see from where this imagery comes.

In other words, for the Hebrews, man is not a spirit trapped is a body; he is a living body. We are dependent upon God for our very existence. And for this reason, eternal life is impossible without a body. Therefore, without a resurrection, there can be no eternal life. And for a Christian, the Resurrection of Jesus makes possible our own resurrection; if he has not risen from the dead, then we cannot rise from the dead, and there is nothing beyond death for us. Paul puts this all exquisitely in 1 Corinthians 15.

And so, during this season of the Church, there is an explosion of joy in the Resurrection. “He is risen! He is risen! He is risen!” For in the Resurrection of Jesus is all our hope, and it is our only hope. It is strange, is it not, that all our hope should be placed in an empty tomb? Yet this is exactly the basis of all our hopes, our longings, our desires. May God grant us a blessed and happy Easter 2015, and may we all experience the life-giving power of his Resurrection in our lives.

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 1 APRIL

Tomorrow is Holy Thursday, with the Holy Mass that is called “the Lord’s Supper,” which begins the Easter Triduum of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, culmination of the whole Liturgical Year.

The Triduum opens with the commemoration of the Last Supper. On the eve of his Passion, Jesus offered the Father his Body and his Blood under the species of bread and wine and, giving it as nutriment to the Apostles, he commanded them to perpetuate the offer in his memory. Recalling the washing of the feet, the Gospel of this celebration expresses the same meaning of the Eucharist under another perspective. Jesus – as a servant – washes the feet of Simon Peter and the other eleven disciples (Cf. John 13:4-5). With this prophetic gesture, He expresses the meaning of his life and of his Passion, as service to God and to brothers: “For the Son of man has come not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45).

This happened also in our Baptism, when the grace of God washed us from sin and we were clothed in Christ (Cf. Colossians 3:10). This happens every time we do the memorial of the Lord in the Eucharist: we enter into communion with Christ the Servant to obey his commandment, to love one another as He has loved us (Cf. John 13:34; 15:12). If we approach Holy Communion without being sincerely disposed to wash one another’s feet, we do not recognize the Body of the Lord. It is Jesus’ service, giving himself totally.

Then, day after tomorrow, in the liturgy of Good Friday we meditate on the mystery of the Death of Christ and we adore the Cross. In the last moments of his life, before rendering his spirit to the Father, Jesus said: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). What does this word mean that Jesus says “It is finished”? It means that the work of salvation is finished, that all the Scriptures find their fulfilment in the love of Christ, immolated Lamb. With his sacrifice, Jesus transformed the greatest iniquity into the greatest love.

There have been men and women in the course of the centuries, who with the testimony of their life reflect a ray of this perfect, full, uncontaminated love. I like to remember a heroic witness of our days, Don Andrea Santoro, priest of the diocese of Rome and missionary in Turkey. A few days before being killed at Trabzon, he wrote: “I am here to dwell amid these people and enable Jesus to do so by lending him my flesh ... One becomes capable of salvation only by offering one’s flesh. The evil of the world is borne and the pain is shared, absorbing it in one’s flesh to the end, as Jesus did” (A. Polselli, Don Andrea Santoro, The legacy, Citta Nuova, Rome, 2008, p. 31)

This example of a man of our times, and so many others, sustain us in offering our life as gift of love to brothers, in imitation of Jesus. And there are also today so many men and women, true martyrs, who offer their life with Jesus to confess the faith; for that sole reason. It is a service: service of Christian witness to the point of blood. The service that Christ did for us, has redeemed us to the end. And this is the meaning of that word “It is finished.” How good it will be that at the end of our life, all of us, with our mistakes, our sins, also with our good works, with out love of neighbor, can say to the Father like Jesus ”It is finished!” However, not with the perfection that he said it, but to say: ‘But Lord, I did all that I could. It is finished’ Adoring the cross, looking at Jesus, we think of love, in service, in our life, in the Christian martyrs and also ... None of us knows when this will happen. However, we can ask for the grace to be able to say ‘But Father, I did what I could. It is finished!’

Holy Saturday is the day in which the Church contemplates Christ’s rest in the tomb after the victorious combat of the cross. On Holy Saturday the Church identifies herself, once again, with Mary: all her faith is gathered in Her, the first and perfect disciple, the first and perfect believer. In the darkness that enveloped Creation, She remains alone holding the flame of faith lighted, hoping against all hope (Cf. Romans 4:18).

And in the great Easter Vigil, in the late evening, in which the Alleluia resounds again, we celebrate the Risen Christ, center and end of the cosmos and of history; we watch full of hope while awaiting his return, when Easter will have its full manifestation.

Sometimes the darkness of night seems to penetrate the soul; sometimes we think: “now there is nothing to be done,” and the heart no longer finds the strength to love ... However, precisely in that darkness Christ lights the fire of the love of God: a flash breaks the darkness and announces a new beginning.  Something begins in the most profound darkness!

We know that the night is darkest before the day begins. However, precisely in the darkness, it is Christ that conquers and lights the fire of love. The stone of sorrow is overturned leaving space for hope. See the great mystery of Easter! On this holy night the Church gives us the light of the Risen One, so that in us there is not the lament of the one who says “now ...”, but the hope of one who opens himself to a present full of [promise for] future: Christ has conquered death, and we with Him. Our life does not end before the stone of the sepulcher! Our life goes beyond with the hope of Christ who has risen! – in fact, from that sepulcher. We are called as Christians to be watchmen of the morning, who are able to perceive the signs of the Risen One, as the women and the disciples did who went to the sepulcher at dawn on the first day of the week.

Dear brothers and sisters, in these days of the Holy Triduum, let us not limit ourselves to commemorating the Lord’s Passion, but let us enter in the mystery, let us make his sentiments are own, his attitudes, as the Apostle Paul invites us to do: ”Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Then ours will be a “good Easter.”