In a letter sent from Jeremiah to the Jerusalem exiles in Babylon, we hear the Lord encouraging the exiles to remain faithful, to remember his promise to bring them back to Jerusalem, and meanwhile, to live a wholesome and productive life. And to encourage them further the Lord says:

I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare, not for your woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you..... (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

This message is for each of us, especially during this season when we celebrate in a solemn way the Paschal Mystery: the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus tell us, “I came that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) We might say this is Jesus’ Mission Statement, his reason to come and dwell among us; his coming to assure for us that “... promise full of hope.”

We know that even the apostles, those closest to Jesus in the three years of his public life, had difficulty understanding and accepting his suffering and death. Indeed, they rejected the idea, and in the end, all ran away. It is only after the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit that they were able to understand the message of Jesus concerning his suffering, death, and resurrection. Before the gospels were written, St Paul writes to the Romans: “I am not ashamed of the gospel" And later in that same letter: “Through his blood God made Jesus the expiation for all who believe.” Paul seems to be telling us that he is not ashamed of what happened to Jesus; not ashamed that he was crucified as a common criminal. No! Jesus is risen, and that has made all the difference.

We who have the gospels as our guides, know that the message was given at the announcement of the birth of Jesus. In the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke we read that Jesus, the Word who became flesh, came to save us. The angel tells Joseph that he is to name the Child Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. And later, in the Temple, after presenting the Child, Simeon tells Mary that the Child will be opposed, and that she herself will suffer, that thoughts of other hearts may be “laid bare”. Jesus came for us, for our salvation, for the salvation or the whole world. And this salvation is costly!

In the letter to the Hebrews we learn that Jesus was like us in all things except sin. It may sometimes be difficult for us to accept the fact that Jesus is truly divine, and truly human. It is a doctrine of our faith: Jesus is TRUE GOD and TRUE MAN. As he walked the roads and pathways of Galilee, of Samaria, and Jerusalem, we find him in human encounters: we see him at a wedding, we hear his concern for the hungry, we witness his own physical hunger. He defends his disciples who plucked grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry. He provides additional wine of the finest vintage because his mother told him the bridal family needed it. We know he was often tired, and he went aside to rest. We know he needed time to pray alone, to get away from the crowd, arid to prepare for important ministries. He wept over Jerusalem, that city he loved so well. He wept over the death of his friend Lazarus. All these are human experiences in the life or Jesus the God-Man. And let us remember, he is the One the Father has sent: to bring us life: "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."

 In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul tells the pagan Athenians that God "... is not really far from anyone of us.” What hope we have in celebrating this holy season, to remember that God is not very far from anyone of us! Indeed, we are made in the image of this God who is not far from us, and we are called to follow him, to continue the work he began here among us. And how are we to remember this God who is with us always? St. Augustine, after searching for God in all the wrong places, finally wrote: “You were within me and I without, but without I sought you.” When Augustine came to the realization that the Lord was indeed within him, his response was: Late have I loved you, 0 beauty ever ancient, ever new! Late have I loved you!

It is possible to miss that Presence, to miss what we already have. To allow that Presence to be felt in our lives, we make ourselves available to it, we make space. We open ourselves to the sacramental life of the Church, especially the Eucharist, and know that the sacramental life within us is our sharing in God’s life, that life that Jesus came to give to us, that life in its fullness. We open ourselves each day to God’s Presence, knowing that we will find God in the persons and events of our daily lives. A good analogy is the presence of the sun in our lives, in the lives of all living things. We all need the sun, and the sun is there for those needs. But if we fail to put ourselves In the presence of the sun, we will not be available for its benefits. The sun abides. Or we might consider the power of electricity: it’s there in our buildings coming through wires. But for our appliances to use it, we have to plug them in.

So it is with us, and the life of God within us. If we wish to grow, if we wish to be mindful of that life within us, if we wish to deepen our relationship with Jesus who suffered, died, and rose from the dead that we might have life in its fullness, and experience that “future full of hope” that the Lord plans for us, then let us he available, let us “draw near to God... .“

If we draw near to God and seek to follow him, we will find that our journey includes our participation in his suffering. “Whoever wishes to be my follower, must deny his very self, take up his cross EACH DAY, and follow in my steps.” (Luke 9:23) But we are not without hope in this journey. Jesus tells us that our hearts will rejoice, with a joy no one can take from us. He tells us we should ask for anything in his name. “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

We are called to continue the work of Jesus on earth; we are called to be a part of the Paschal Mystery: the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord. But we do all of this through the fullness of life that Jesus came to bring, that fullness of life that is part of that ‘future full of hope”. That fullness of life comes to us in our life of prayer, in our sharing in the sacramental life of the Church, In the love we share with one another. “...as my love has been for you, so must your love be for each other” (John 13:34)

 In our faithfulness to God’s presence within us, in our loving service to our sisters and brothers, in our concern for God’s Kingdom here on earth, and our unwavering hope in the promise of Jesus that he came to bring us fullness of life, in all of this we will know that we are, even now, experiencing some of that “future full of hope “

CHRIST IS RISEN! ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA!

Sr Anita Sherwood,OSB

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