Thomas and the sacred heart

newsletter

The apostle Thomas went from doubting Jesus’ resurrection to professing his faith in Jesus and declaring Jesus’ divinity, “My Lord and my God.” What happened?
He encountered the love of Jesus. We could say he encountered the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus said, “…bring your hand and put it into my side…” In the Gospel of John life flows out of the side of Christ, flows out of his heart. Earlier in the Gospel, during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus said rivers of water would flow out of him to anyone who believes, and this life-giving water is the Holy Spirit. When the soldier pierced Jesus’ side on the cross, blood and water flowed out, which the Church has always seen as signifying the sacraments especially Baptism and the Eucharist.
Now when Thomas sees the wound in Christ’s side he is overcome. The physical wound which Thomas saw was only the gateway to the love of Jesus’ Sacred Heart. What Thomas really saw was the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for him, a heart that is wounded out of love for humanity, the Sacred Heart that took the sin of humanity upon itself. That is what love does, love suffers for the other and Thomas now sees this suffering wounded love before his eyes. He sees Divine Mercy in physical form… Divine Mercy forgives, heals and restores. Jesus invites Thomas, “…bring your hand and put it into my side…” Thomas is invited, as it were, to touch the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As Thomas encounters the Sacred Heart of Jesus he is forgiven, healed and restored. His heart is also changed into a heart of love. He can only respond, “My Lord and my God.”
Christ’s Sacred Heart which raised up Thomas from despair to faith is ready to raise up each of us from any despair we may have to Christian hope. Christ invites each of us, “…bring your hand and put it into my side…” Christ invites each of us to touch his Sacred Heart, to allow our hearts to become hearts of love. As we look on Christ’s Sacred Heart we too see that Christ’s love forgives us, heals us and restores us. In Christ’s Sacred Heart we too see the love of Jesus for us and with Thomas we respond, “My Lord and my God.”
Adapted from a 2013 homily by Fr Tommy Lane

Jerusalem of the heart

Holy Week

We come now, with Palm Sunday, to the beginning of Holy Week. I recently read of a very interesting approach to Holy Week. I like the idea that what was happening ‘out there’ and ‘back then’ as Christ entered Jerusalem, is also happening ‘in here’ and right now’. We can say that there is a “Jerusalem of the heart”. This inner life also has its temple and its palaces, its places of corruption, its gardens of rest, its seat of judgment.

Here Malcolm Guite invites us to walk with Christ. And let him walk with you on both an outer and an inner journey that leads to the cross and beyond. Read and reflect …

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing, And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades; Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.

From Sounding the Seasons, by Malcolm Guite, Canterbury Press 2012

Please make every effort to take part in our Holy Week services, especially the Sacred Triduum, of Maundy Thursday evening, Good Friday afternoon and Holy Saturday night.

Fr Matthew

Whatever happened to Lazarus?

lent

One of the worst bumps on the head I ever got was going down the steps into the tomb of Lazarus about 25 years ago. We were on our second September pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and were anxious to visit Bethany, where Lazarus lived with his sisters Martha and Mary. The modern village of al-Eizariya is believed to mark the spot, and there we find a church dedicated to the family, while the adjacent Tomb itself is on ground owned by Moslems. As I went down the 20 or so steps, at the bottom I banged my head on the low roof. Ouch!

So what happened to Lazarus after his raising by Jesus? He is mentioned a few times later in the Gospels, but for the time beyond that we have to rely on tradition (or legends). The Eastern tradition tells how he went with St Paul to Cyprus, becoming first bishop of present-day Larnaka. From there, as Islam advanced westwards, his relics were taken to Constantinople (Istanbul) and later to Marseille in Provence.

At this point this tradition joins another Western one, which has Lazarus and his sisters, along with the other Marys from the Crucifixion plus a maid, put out to sea by hostile Jews. They drift across the Mediterranean until they land in Provence. The beautiful town of Les-Saintes-Maries on the edge of the Camargue lies where the group traditionally landed. From here the group scatters across southern France, except for the other Marys, who stayed and gave their name to the town. Our September pilgrims also visited some of these sites in 1993 and again in 2011.

One of the strangest parts of the Eastern legends of Lazarus tells how Lazarus never smiled during the thirty years after his resurrection. He had been traumatized, we would say today, by the sight of unredeemed souls he had seen during his four-day stay in the underworld/Hades. Well I suppose being dead would have quite an effect on you, wouldn’t it? The only exception was, when he saw someone stealing a pot, he smilingly said: “the clay steals the clay.” But I’m sure Lazarus was raised again, this time not a resuscitation like in today’s Gospel, but a rising to eternal life, through Easter, which we will all celebrate in two weeks’ time.

Fr Matthew