Friday 9 October 2020

ST. JOHN 12:12-20

 

                                                           

In his Apostolic Letter on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Jerome Pope Francis writes:  Devotion to Scared Scripture, a “living and tender love” for the written word of God; this is the legacy that St. Jerome bequeathed to the Church by his life and labours……How can we not heed, in our day, the advice Jerome unceasingly gave his cotemporaries: “Read the divine Scriptures constantly; never let the sacred volume fall from your hand.” [1a]

Pope Francis concludes his letter with this invitation: Let us, then, entrust ourselves to Our Lady who, more than anyone, can teach us how to read, meditate, contemplate, and pray to God, who tirelessly makes Himself present in our lives. [1b]

Returning to our reflections on the Holy Gospel according to St. John the spontaneous exaltation of Jesus by the crowds, as St. John takes us into the holiest week of every liturgical year, brings to mind the words of Jesus uttered with love and sheer joy: “I give praise to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned You have revealed them to the childlike. [Mt. 11:25].

On the next day, when the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The king of Israel.” [vs.12,13]

Some commentaries equate this great crowd with the mob that would howl for Christ to be crucified.

Such an equation is suspect as in the latter case the mob was whipped up and virtually controlled by religious leaders. While perhaps a few people from among the crowd honouring Jesus may have gone the route of dishonour, this gathering of the people was spontaneous, so the greater probability is if they were present during Christ’s Passion it would have been with confused and broken hearts.

Jesus found a donkey and sat upon it, as is written: “Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king comes, seated upon a donkey’s colt.” [vs. 14:15]

St. Matthew: 21:1-11; St. Mark: 11:1-10; St. Luke 19:29-40 all have longer and more detail of this extraordinary event, noting along with St. Matthew that the whole city of Jerusalem was shaken.

Writing about this event Pope Benedict XVI quotes from St. Matthew’s account about the impact on the city and how when people asked of the crowd who this was the people replied: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee, the Holy Father says: The parallel with the story of the wise men from the East is unmistakable.” [2]

His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done this for Him. [v.16]

On more than one occasion during their time with Jesus events occur, or Jesus teaches things, which remain mysterious until after His glorious Resurrection. It is part of the divine delicacy of Jesus’ love for His apostles that He patiently prepares them for the unexpected wonder of understanding of all He has done and taught when they encounter Him whom they love once He is Risen and they are gifted with the Holy Spirit.

So the crowd that was with Him when He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised Him from death continued to testify. This was also why the crowd went to meet Him, because they heard that He had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after Him.” [vs.17-19]

First St. John refers  to an anonymous crowd come to Jerusalem for the great feast of Passover and now here he specifically states these were the people present when Jesus restored life to Lazarus and by implication even those who had only heard about the miracle also came to meet Jesus.

So we have before us those who spontaneously cried out recognition of Jesus as Saviour with all the gestures and Hosannas, those who perhaps not yet totally convinced Jesus is the Messiah at least recognize His power of miracles and finally, like living phantoms of some Jungian play about the shadow side of people, the lurking Pharisees who, with their hyperbole arrogance admit their failure because: the whole world has gone after Him.

Commenting on the entrance into Jerusalem, Archbishop Sheen notes that the only ones not sharing in the people’s acclaim of Jesus were the Pharisees who went to Jesus insisting He silence the crowd: It was unusual that they should have appealed to Our Lord, since they were disgusted with Him for having accepted homage from the crowds. With awful majesty Our Lord retorted: I tell you, if My disciples keep silence the stones will shout aloud. Luke 19:40. If men were silent, nature itself would cry out and proclaim His Divinity. Stones are hard, but if they would cry out, then how much harder must be the hearts of men who would not recognize God’s mercy before them. [3]

In the Office of Readings for the Sunday of the first week of Ordinary Time the Church takes up the great hymn of Daniel and his companions: Then these three in the furnace with one voice sang, glorifying and blessing God: “Blessed are You, O Lord, the God of our ancestors, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever…..” [Daniel 3:51-90] The three go on to call upon those in heaven and on earth, human beings as children of God, and all animate creatures and inanimate things from the sun and moon to frost and cold, rivers and seas, etc. to cry out to the Lord, the Holy Trinity with exaltation.

Closer to our time St. Francis of Assisi composed the poem CANTICLE OF THE SUN, which various composers over the centuries since, to our own day have set to music. We may not see the wind, but we can hear the wind singing in the trees; birds sing, all creation sings, shines, shimmers with the sheer exuberance of existence and gratitude to Love who creates and sustains us.

1a] SCRIPTURAE SACRAE AFFECTUS, opening

1b] ibid, conclusion

2] JESUS OF NAZARETH, Holy Week from the entrance into Jerusalem to the resurrection; Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict xvi; p.8; Ignatius Press, 2011 [italics are mine]

3] LIFE OF CHRIST, Fulton J. Sheen; p. 263; Image Classic, 1990

© 2020 Fr. Arthur Joseph

 

 

 

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