A Homily for Passion Sunday

+ In the midst of the dispute with the Jews that is today’s Holy Gospel, Our Blessed Lord makes this outrageous claim (amongst others): “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

One can understand the incredulity of the Jews. This is simply not possible. A man cannot assert that he can save people from death. Nor can he make the blasphemous claim that “Before Abraham was, I am.” Not, that is, unless they are true.

My brothers and sisters this dispute brings us to the heart of Christian faith, indeed to the heart of reality itself. In it we are confronted by Truth Himself.

Our age and even at times the Church is marked by a practical syncretism which either denies the existence of objective truth or is embarrassed by it. The definitive revelation of God in history in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ becomes simply one manifestation of God amongst many supposedly equal others. “We all worship the same God,” we hear from those who should know better. “It doesn’t matter how you worship God, or which god you worship,” others will say.

Whatever goods can be found elsewhere, and howsoever sincere in intention or act people may be in their differing religious beliefs or practices, those goods are at best partial. They are not complete. All people without exception are called to salvation through explicit faith in Jesus Christ, the unique mediator between God and man. All people are called to keep His word so that they will never see death. This Truth has been and must be the basis for all of the Church’s missionary, ecumenical and interreligious endeavours in any sphere. If it is not, we betray Christ.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

As Lent ends and Passiontide begins these words bear close examination in respect of ourselves also. The homily of Saint Gregory the Great at matins this morning puts it very clearly:

“Let each of you ask himself if this voice of God is heard in the ear of his heart, and if he knows already if he is of God. For there are some, whom it pleases not to hear the commandments of God even with their bodily ears. And there are some who receive the same with their bodily ears, but whose heart is far from them. And there are others who hear the words of God with joy, so that they are moved thereby even to tears; but when their fit of weeping is over they turn again to iniquity. They hear not the words of God, they who despise to do them. Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, call up your own life before your mind's eye, and then ponder with trembling those awful words which the mouth of the Truth spoke. Ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.”

Am I of God in reality and not just in sentiment? This is the call to further conversion that is very much the business of our penitential asceticism. It is at the heart of the monastic vocation.

If I wish never to see death then I must take this question seriously. I must amend what needs amending and do what needs to be done in the particular circumstances of my life. Sinful habits must be broken. Virtues must be cultivated. The Word of God, not my own, must rule my life. My activities must increasingly reflect its truth so that others, too, may come to believe and live.

The stakes are high. This is truly a matter of life or death – of our own eternal life or eternal death and of that of others. The frightening reality is that we can accept or reject eternal life according to our free will, just as some accepted Our Lord and others rejected Him.

​For the grace to accept Him fully and to live His Word fruitfully, let entreat God at His altar this morning. +

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