Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, 2021
Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me.“I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?
‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven,
“I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”
The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;
but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered and said,
“This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.
Now is the time of judgment on this world;
now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I will draw everyone to myself.”
He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.-John 12:20-33
Is this a dogma of our faith? Namely, that our deepest suffering, our worst humiliation, our keenest shame, our most painful loss, is and will be our highest pleasure, our best vindication, our clearest praise, our joyful victory?
Well, it undoubtedly is if we believe Our Lord’s words that his being lifted up on the cross is his glorification, and that we must share in his cross by taking up our own and following him: dying like the grain of wheat so that we may live, hating our life in this world so as to preserve it everlastingly, being a servant so as to be honored by the Father himself.
“The form or measure of the passion is that of an exaltation.” These are the words of St. Thomas commenting on this passage. Put more simply, since passion means “suffering,” we could translate this as “the form or measure of suffering is exaltation.”
The apostle tells us that our Blessed Lord endured the cross, despising the shame for the sake of the “joy that was set before him”; that he “humbled himself being obedient unto death, the death of the cross, and therefore God exalted him and gave him the Name above every other name.”
So it is that, for the Christian, all suffering—if borne in union with the suffering of Christ—will be for glory and happiness.
This does not mean that we enjoy suffering when it is upon us. That is practically impossible for human nature. As is says clearly in this Gospel lesson, the Lord says, “I am troubled now.” Later on in the garden of Gethsemane, he does ask to be spared, but he knows that he has come precisely to glorify the Father and himself and us for whom he died, by enduring this being exalted, lifted up on the cross.
And so his willed command chooses the “glory” of the cross. If the effect of suffering is glory and happiness, then it must have something of these great things in it already, since every effect is at least in some way like its cause.
All this is very hard to keep in mind when we are suffering, humiliated, shamed, and rejected. There are some things that are so contrary to our natural desire for happiness that not even our free will can make us desire them simply. This was as true for Our Lord as it is for us. That is why he understands our suffering with true compassion. Something has to be given us that only prayer and trust can obtain, as our Lord says today in response to the specter of his suffering to come: “Father, glorify your name.” Later in Gethsemane he says, “Not my will, but thine be done,” which is really and profoundly the same as praying for the glory of God, practically “Hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
This is why we should keep before our eyes in our homes and trace and carry on our bodies the sign of the crucified, glorious Savior. Meditation on the Passion was in a true sense Our Lord’s only prayer in this life, and he still shows his Father his glorious wounds as he intercedes for us as our High Priest lifted high in heavenly glory.
Yes, when we go to prayer before and with Christ Crucified, we fulfill in ourselves the dogma of our glorification in his cross. And the lower we feel ourselves to be, the higher we will be lifted up. His drawing is infinitely more powerful than the weight of the sufferings and sins that drag us down.
It is he who said, “I will draw everyone to myself.” And that means you and me right now in the depths of our sins and sorrows. That’s a dogma we can relate to. Glory to him who draws us up!