A Homily for Quinquagesima Sunday

+ The Apostles did not understand what Our Lord said to them about the upcoming accomplishment of all that was written about Him by the prophets. Our Lord laid it out plainly before them, yet these things were hidden from them and they “understood not” what was said. The Evangelist is perfectly clear that it is not because they were stupid, but because the time for them to understand, as known by God, had not yet come. Christ’s warning nonetheless served its purpose: they were forewarned about what was to come.

How different this is to the day after the Resurrection when two disciples were departing Jerusalem for Emmaus, with their hope broken (Luke 24:13-35). He whom they had hoped to be the Saviour had been brutally killed, yet as they were walking a stranger came and explained the Law and the Prophets explaining how everything therein related to Jesus Christ. As He did so their hearts burnt within them as everything started to make sense. Suddenly, in Christ, they could understand all the Scriptures and that this must happen.

Fundamentally, the difference between the two incidents recounted in the Scriptures and how they relate to Christ is that through the Passion Death and Resurrection of Our Lord, the entire salvific nature of the Incarnation became known to them. God opened their eyes to the realities that are contained within the Scripture so they could understand them as He had inspired them. And so their hearts could not but burn as this became known to them, for the wonder, the majesty and the love that is contained therein is greater than any man can realise by himself.

When the Apostles and the Fathers spoke of the Scriptures they regularly mean only the Old Testament, which are but a preparation or a prophecy for the Gospel, whilst the Tradition from the Acts of the Apostles onwards was all looked towards as the definitive explanation of the Scripture in its relation to Jesus-Christ—also as determining the doctrine which pertains to His person. Hence in the Creed: “Christ has risen according to the Scriptures” is a statement that the Scriptures – the Law and Prophets – are about the Passion Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Without that realisation there can be no hope of understanding them at all.

We cannot therefore approach the Sacred Page as something simply to be read, something which is an interesting historical resource, even if it is also an historical resource. Exegesis is not a matter of understanding every historical detail about a passage, although it does help. It is a matter of uncovering how a passage relates to the mystery of the Trinity, and particularly the Incarnation. Scripture is given to us as a tool, unquestionably the best and most fundamental tool, to contemplate Christ under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. It is the latter who has spoken through the prophets and must also be Himself Who does the unpacking of it. It is the person of Christ whom we must know not merely the texts about Him. Yet we cannot know Christ if we do not know Scripture, as is so famously stated by St Jerome.

It may be difficult to see how many texts of the Law relate to Christ. Yet all of the injunctions contained therein are nonetheless a preparation for the reality for which the prophets were waiting. All of them must be considered as sacred. Not all of them have the same clarity of perspective as the Gospel accounts, yet there is nothing there that is said idly.

The text alone, however, does not suffice. God has opened the eyes of the Apostles. The Revelation given them has been explained by the Fathers and synthesised through the Church’s Magisterium. There is always more to which God can open our eyes to about Himself, without adding anything new, through the contemplation of what He has said through the prophets. +