Jesus wants to stay with me and you at our homes
Today's Gospel prepares us to enter into the mystery of Holy Week. Perhaps questions arise in our head, how will it be? What will Easter 2023 be like? Perhaps many of us in these days ask ourselves exactly the same question as the Jews who come to Jerusalem for the Passover feasts: "So they sought Jesus, and when they stood in the temple they said to one another: "What do you think? That he will not come to the feast? " (Jn 11:56).
This next week will be special, for many reasons. A lot of difficult things will have to happen this week. Jesus prepared us for this, overloaded us in the Gospels, he told us about it three times. Jesus foretold that He would be rejected, that He would have to suffer and die, and that He would rise again after three days.
The story told to us today by Saint John the Evangelist is an account of what happened after the last, greatest and at the same time the most known of all the miracles (signs) of Jesus. Signs that confirmed the teaching and mission of Jesus; They aroused a full range of emotions in the crowds: from delight, through admiration, to negation and rejection.
The miraculous raising from the death of Lazarus gained Jesus many followers. Many people have been talking about Jesus these days. They spoke louder and bolder about Him in the streets of Jerusalem and in other Judean and Galilean villages and cities.. Many Jews began to believe that He was indeed the messiah, anointed and sent by God. Jesus was becoming more and more popular. This fact, in turn, arouses fear and evil thoughts in others (cf. Jn 11:45-48).
The Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council of 72 members, met to determine what to do next with Jesus. This tribunal was convened to settle court cases related to the observance of the laws contained in the Torah and theTradition. Now the Sanhedrin is gathering, and the motivation for this meeting is fear of Jesus. The fear that many people will follow him, which will cause riots in the city and provoke a reaction from the Roman invader who will come and destroy the temple of Israel.
Today in Israel there is a unique place that is visited every year by a mass of tourists and pilgrims from all over the world. This unique "cultural monument" is the western wall of the Temple of Jerusalem, and actually it is the only remnant of the so-called Second Temple – rebuilt after the return from Babylonian captivity by Zerubbabel and destroyed in the year 70 by the Roman army. This unique wall - called the "Wailing Wall" is a place of pilgrimage for generations of pious Jews, who for the last nineteenth centuries have shed tears in this place, because they wanted to do everything themselves, because they lost trust in God and believed too much in their own abilities. Jews were lost because of their own conviction that they must act by themselves - forgetting what God wants.
Similarly, our societies, which proudly trust in their own strength, which say that they do not need God or religion, that they can handle everything on their own, because they have technology and what counts above all is development: science, knowledge, physical strength – forgetting about what really matters in life.
John's account of these events reveals to the attentive reader of the Gospel one very important issue. Jesus at the moment when His teaching and miracles reach the climax, when He has become popular as never before, when everyone is waiting anxiously for what will happen and whether He is really the one who was to come or whether they are to expect another. He is doing something completely unpredictable. Jesus no longer appears in public - He speaks openly to the Jews no more. He walks away, moves aside. He moves away from this hustle and bustle to a land near the desert where he can find some peace. Together with his disciples, he goes to a city called Ephraim and stays with them there. He knows perfectly well what will happen in the coming days. He wants to enjoy the presence of his disciples, he wants to be with them. He pushes aside all others to spend the time he still has left with the apostles. He reserves it, just for them. Jesus desperately needs their presence.
These days, Jesus wants to stay with me and you at our homes. He wants to experience this special time with us. He hopes that in these days we will be able to calm down a bit and devote some time to Him, that perhaps we will reach for the Holy Scriptures – maybe first we will have to find it on the shelf with other books – that we will open them to the description of the last days of Jesus and celebrate the mystery of the Paschal Feast with him.
Thoughts from Saint Faustina: I fell at Jesus' feet and, with a grief-stricken heart, apologized for everything. Then Jesus lifted me up from the ground and sat me beside Him and let me put my head on His breast, so that I could better understand and feel the desires of His most sweet Heart. Then he spoke these words to me, My daughter, have fear of nothing; I am always with you. All your adversaries will harm you only to the degree that I permit them to do so. You are my dwelling place and my constant repose. For your sake I will withhold the hand which punishes; for your sake I bless the earth. (Diary 431)
At that very moment, I felt some kind of fire in my heart. I feel my senses deadening and have no idea of what is going on around me. I feel the Lord's gaze piercing me through and through. I am very much aware of His greatness and my misery. An extraordinary suffering pervades my soul, together with a joy I cannot compare to anything. If feel powerless in the embrace of God. I feel that I am in Him and that I am dissolved in Him like a drop of water in the ocean. I cannot express what takes place within me; after such interior prayer, I feel strength and power to practice the most difficult virtues. I feel dislike for all things that the world holds in esteem. With all my soul I desire silence and solitude. (Diary 432)
fr. george