Lent 5 B The grain of wheat
In today’s Gospel some Greeks went to Phillip and told him that they wanted to see Jesus. We too ask the same; we long to see his face. We follow the responsorial psalm: “Create a clean heart in me, O God.” We need a pure heart to be able to see him, clear eyes without any obstacles. How can we see Jesus? He tells us his secret today in the Gospel in three sentences: to die, to lose your life and to serve him. It goes against our culture, which recommends the opposite, trying to keep on living at any cost, to always win and not to serve anybody but ourselves.
The first sentence is very clear: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” How many grains normally produce an ear of wheat? I googled it: from 45 to 50. If we don’t die to ourselves we are only one; if we are buried in the ground we can multiple by fifty. This means that we need to bury our pride, our selfishness and our sensuality deep in the soil. It is the manure that fertilises the wheat, and eventually produces the flour that will be baked into the delicious warm bread we like. From our sinfulness God can bring about beautiful pastry. But for this we need to disappear into the dough mixed with the yeast.
The second sentence follows the same demanding tone: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” It is a paradox, that common sense has summarized in a proverb: no pain, no gain. If we want to win eternal life, we need to offer our lives to God. This is what the cross is all about. We don’t want to hear about the cross; we run away from it. We can look at what we call crosses in our lives and change our attitude. Three stages: accepting, looking for and loving. Just look at the things that upset you. If you change the way you react to difficulties, they won’t upset you anymore.
The third sentence from Jesus is a bit easier to follow: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” Saint Josemaria says that to follow Christ, “We must accompany him so closely that we come to live with him.” He distinguishes four stages in this identification with Christ: “Seeking him, finding him, getting to know him and loving him.” If we seek him, we will find him and we won’t have any problem of loving him.
How do we follow Jesus? Where do we find him? In the word and in the bread, in the Scriptures and the Eucharist. During the Mass, we have two parts, what we call the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. We come to be nourished at both tables. I knew a priest in New Zealand who had two tables in his church, but they looked a bit weird, like two altars. Certainly they emphasised these two ways of finding Jesus. We normally hear the Word of God from the lectern and we witness the coming of Jesus on the altar. Once we have nourished our intellect with his word, we can come to the table of the Lord to receive him in communion.
josephpich@gmail.com
Lent 5 B The grain of wheat
In today’s Gospel some Greeks went to Phillip and told him that they wanted to see Jesus. We too ask the same; we long to see his face. We follow the responsorial psalm: “Create a clean heart in me, O God.” We need a pure heart to be able to see him, clear eyes without any obstacles. How can we see Jesus? He tells us his secret today in the Gospel in three sentences: to die, to lose your life and to serve him. It goes against our culture, which recommends the opposite, trying to keep on living at any cost, to always win and not to serve anybody but ourselves.
The first sentence is very clear: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” How many grains normally produce an ear of wheat? I googled it: from 45 to 50. If we don’t die to ourselves we are only one; if we are buried in the ground we can multiple by fifty. This means that we need to bury our pride, our selfishness and our sensuality deep in the soil. It is the manure that fertilises the wheat, and eventually produces the flour that will be baked into the delicious warm bread we like. From our sinfulness God can bring about beautiful pastry. But for this we need to disappear into the dough mixed with the yeast.
The second sentence follows the same demanding tone: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” It is a paradox, that common sense has summarized in a proverb: no pain, no gain. If we want to win eternal life, we need to offer our lives to God. This is what the cross is all about. We don’t want to hear about the cross; we run away from it. We can look at what we call crosses in our lives and change our attitude. Three stages: accepting, looking for and loving. Just look at the things that upset you. If you change the way you react to difficulties, they won’t upset you anymore.
The third sentence from Jesus is a bit easier to follow: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” Saint Josemaria says that to follow Christ, “We must accompany him so closely that we come to live with him.” He distinguishes four stages in this identification with Christ: “Seeking him, finding him, getting to know him and loving him.” If we seek him, we will find him and we won’t have any problem of loving him.
How do we follow Jesus? Where do we find him? In the word and in the bread, in the Scriptures and the Eucharist. During the Mass, we have two parts, what we call the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. We come to be nourished at both tables. I knew a priest in New Zealand who had two tables in his church, but they looked a bit weird, like two altars. Certainly they emphasised these two ways of finding Jesus. We normally hear the Word of God from the lectern and we witness the coming of Jesus on the altar. Once we have nourished our intellect with his word, we can come to the table of the Lord to receive him in communion.
josephpich@gmail.com