“We Wish to See Jesus”
Piety
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,
to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
To announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God,
to comfort all who mourn;
To place on those who mourn in Zion
a diadem instead of ashes,
To give them the oil of gladness in place of mourning,
a glorious mantle instead of a listless spirit. (Is 61:1-3a, 6a)
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
Study
As the sun sets on Lent, it rises on the Triduum. What is the Lenten goal? The readings from the Fifth Sunday of Lent summed up the liturgical season. That day, we listened to the scripture when several Greeks approached Phillip and express the desire that everyone may feel during Lent.
“We wish to see Jesus.”
The desire for this encounter is why we have spent the last forty days giving up chocolate and wine and beer and Twinkies. It’s why we are sending money to charity and doing volunteer projects. If we wish to see Jesus, we have to see Him in the faces and lives of those around us.
For when the hour of this encounter arrives, it changes us forever.
Did we want to see Jesus throughout Lent?
Pope Francis addressed this dilemma in his March 21 Angelus:
Today too, many people, often without saying so, implicitly would like to “see Jesus,” to meet him, to know him. This is how we understand the great responsibility we Christians and of our communities have. We, too, must respond with the witness of a life we give to service, a life that takes upon itself the style of God – closeness, compassion, and tenderness – and a life we share in service. It means sowing seeds of love, not with fleeting words but through concrete, simple and courageous examples, not with theoretical condemnations, but with gestures of love. Then the Lord, with His grace, makes us bear fruit, even when the soil is dry due to misunderstandings, difficulty or persecution, or claims of legalism or clerical moralism. This is barren soil. Precisely then, in trials and solitude, while the seed is dying, that is the moment in which life blossoms, to bear ripe fruit in due time. It is in this intertwining of death and life that we can experience the joy and true fruitfulness of love, which constantly is given in God’s style: closeness, compassion, tenderness.
Reading the Good News for this Holy Thursday, I am reminded of the other part of that reading two Sunday’s ago: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:23-24). Precisely then, in trials and solitude, while the seed is dying, that is the moment in which life blossoms, to bear ripe fruit in due time.”
As Dorothy Day asked: Do we have the faith to see Christ in the poor? Do we have the confident faith to go to Him (like those Greeks asking Philip at Passover), or do we run away like Peter and pretend we don’t know him?
Our old self must die for us to have a new self. In the Nazareth Manifesto, Jesus tells us our mission once we have that encounter and the spirit of the Lord is upon us.
Action
May God help us to fulfill that wish to see Jesus -- but not only to see him but also to be changed by Him. As the Spirit of the Lord falls upon us this Holy Day, may He help us to walk, strong and joyful, on the path of service. Moving onward, may the love of Christ shine in our every attitude and become -- more and more -- the style of our daily life through our closeness, compassion, and tenderness to all whom we encounter.
We start by loving the poor around us because we see Christ when we see their hands and feet.
When Jesus grants us that encounter, then the Spirit of the Lord is upon us as well.
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