06/04/2003 - 5th. Sunday. Lenten Season - Year B 

The way we are following with Jesus is the way to the cross. Today He shows it in a clear way. The occasion is very simple: some Greeks want to see Him! If they are Greek, they are pagans, belonging to a people who is not the People of God! The way it is referred to the Lord, shows that it was not a normal thing: the Greeks ask Philip, Philip tells Andrew, and then, both of them refer to Jesus the demand of the Greeks! He had expressed a difficulty in meeting with a Cananean woman, who know how He shall react!

The answer given to the two disciples, an answer that certainly surprised them, shows us that Jesus reads the facts always as signs of times, in the light of the Father’s plan! If the pagans now also look for Him, it is a clear sign that "the hour has come"! Which hour? The one He awaited since the wedding in Cana, the hour of the glory of God that passes through His manifestation to the whole world as the Son, as the Sufferring Servant, as the Lamb of God!

With a short parable Jesus explains the need of what was to happen: a grain of wheat, to produce fruit, needs to fall into the earth and dies. In such manner, His life, to bring fruit to the whole world, needs to die. The same way is also for the disciples, but also for everyone. The rule of the grain of wheat is for all: who wants to save his life for life eternal need not to think to preserve it at all cost. Who wants life eternal needs to stay with the One who has it: perhaps one looses his life in this world, but of him the Father Himself shall be responsible, even so, he shall receive honor from the Father!

We see the fulfillment of this Word in the life of the Saints that the Church proposes for our attention: they have followed Jesus, have offered their lives to Him. They didn’t think for themselves, but thought to love and serve the Lord with all their heart, serving those who are in pain, forgotten, little, those in whom He hides His identity, and make Him known and loved to those who don’t know Him yet. These receive honor from all the Church united to the Father!

Thinking of His own death, Jesus didn’t rejoice: He feels the pain of it like everybody else. He doesn’t even hide His pain, and don’t refuse it. If His death is necessary for the glory of God, that is, so that God can manifest His love for all of every people, race and religion, He does not refuse it, on the contrary, He knows that’s why He came!

At this point, the evangelist records a voice from heaven, a voice that was read as a thunder by the crowd around, but clearly understood by the Lord: "I have glorified Him and I will glorify Him again"! Jesus was already glorified, shown as the Son of God, several times, every time He worked a miracle, and then on mount Tabor! The new glorification shall be that one which complete, full, with His death and ressurection.

Jesus, to those who heard it, makes present that that voice was for them. We are the ones infact that need to know that, if He dies, its not a defeat, but a victory! We need to know that the death of Jesus is the victory over the Malignant, that prowls every where men want to save their lives. The death of Jesus is such a victory over the Malignant, that all shall look at Him to be saved! We shall all receive the true life in loving His passion and His death. He is perfected by His passion and death, such a strong love, that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews call it obedience!

We are to adhere to such an obedience to receive salvation and be ready to renew the baptisimal promises when our catechumens, mystically, are immersed in the death of Jesus. With them we are to enjoy the new covenant, signed by the blood of Calvary. We are happy to have the same wise and strong love of God in our hearts, that love that keeps un in communion with one another because we belong to the same people, the same family, the same body!

Home Page