Homily for Saturday of the 5th Week of Lent
Theme: THE PLOT TO KILL JESUS….. “Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God”
By: Fr. Xavier ROMERO i Galdeano
(Cervera, Lleida, Spain)
Homily for Saturday April 9 2022
Today, while on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus is aware he is persecuted, harassed, sentenced, because the greatest and newest his revelation has been —the announcement of the Kingdom of God— the greatest and wider has been too the division and the opposition He has found amongst his audience (cf. Jn 11:45-46).
The negative words by Caiaphas, “it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” (Jn 11:50), will be positively assumed by Jesus in the redemption performed for us. Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, dies in the Cross for the love of all of us! He dies to make true the Father’s plan, that is, “but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (Jn 11:52).
And this is the wonder and the creativity of our God! Caiaphas, with his sentence (“It is better to have one man die…”) and out of his hate, does nothing else but to try to eliminate an idealist; God Father, instead, by sending his Son out of his love for us, does something wonderful: to transform that malevolent sentence into a work of redemptive love, because to God Father, each man is worth all the blood shed by Jesus Christ!
One week from today, we shall sing —in solemn vigil— the Easter Proclamation. With this wonderful prayer, the Church praises the original sin. And it does not do it because the Church ignores its gravity, but because God —in his infinite goodness— has done some deeds as a response to man’s sin. That is, in the face of the “original disgust”, He has replied with the Incarnation, with his personal immolation and institution of the Eucharist. This is why, next Saturday, our liturgy will sing: “O, admirable condescendence of your goodness! O, immeasurable predilection which you have loved us with! O, lucky guilt, that has deserved us so great a Redeemer!”
If only our sentences, words and actions could be no more a deterrent for the evangelization, since we, too, have been requested by Christ to gather the scattered children of God: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).
Fr. Xavier ROMERO i Galdeano
(Cervera, Lleida, Spain)
