Four minute homilies

The Ascension             The church that marks the place where tradition says Jesus left the earth flying up to heaven has an octogonal shape, with a circular dome. In the old days the roof was open and you could see the sky. On the floor there is a glass covering the rock where Jesus’ feet touched our ground for the last time. It is a reflection of how we should live our lives: with our feet firmly anchored on earth and our eyes constantly fixed on heaven. On the rock you can see the marks of Jesus’ feet, most likely carved by a pious Christian, who missed the figure of the man of God. The church sits on top of the Mount of Olives, close to the garden of Gethsemane, where everything began, when Jesus felt the agony during his prayer. When Jesus was lifted up towards heaven, he blessed his apostles as a last gesture: everything should begin and finish with prayer. We see the beginning and the end of Jesus passion: through the cross, we reach our resurrection.            What is Jesus telling us today before he goes up to heaven? What is his last will? “Now it is your turn. I’m going, but I’m leaving you here in charge. I gave you the Gospel, now you can pass it on to others. No worries, you are not going to be alone. I’ll be with you till the end of time.” This is what the angels reminded the apostles, when they were looking towards the sky, after Jesus flew away. Maybe they thought he was going to come back again, as he had done during these days after the resurrection. They were waiting for him, without knowing what to do, paralysed. Jesus had to send his angels to wake them up and to tell them: “Go back to Jerusalem and begin to work. Your days of glory with Jesus are finished. Now it is Mission Impossible.”            Saint Luke says that after Jesus left them, the apostles returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They knew Jesus wasn’t coming back, but they didn’t go back to the city discouraged, or downcast, because they trusted that Jesus was going to be with them for ever. They had only to wait for few years to be reunited with him again, and with the other apostles together in their glorious bodies. Meanwhile Jesus was going to walk with each one of them, while preaching the Gospel around the known world.            Our lives here on earth are never fulfilled. There is always something missing. There is a point of frustration when we experience the lack of perfection, an awareness of everything passing by, an impossibility of stopping our magic moments from disappearing. This is why God has placed in our hearts a longing for heaven, a timeless eternity, a desire for an infinite and definitive encounter. Jesus is gone, but he left us with a spark, a passing shooting star, a tiny thirst for him, because he wants to be with us for ever. Something we can never quash or delete completely.            Can you imagine the welcome Jesus received in heaven when he arrived there? It is impossible for us to imagine because heaven is not a place but a state. Nevertheless with our imperfect and earthly  human intellect, we can try every year to go to heaven on this day to witness the big welcoming party, a countless multitude of angels and saints, all these people that have been waiting for him for centuries, with plenty of time to prepare an amazing feast.josephpich@gmail.com

Love one another            Today in the Gospel Jesus lifts the level of his message to an impossible height: love one another as I have loved you. God loves us with divine love, without measure; his love is infinite. He even gave his life for us. But how can we love others with his love, if we are not God? Precisely, when we love God, he lends us his love. God is love and any love is a participation in his love. We cannot love others as he does, but we can love others with his love.            To love one another is the summary of the Christian message. They used to say of the early Christians: look how much they love each other. It is a sign of our love for God. Saint Augustine says that if we do not love our neighbor that we can see, how can we love God that we cannot see. All the saints show a special love for others. They are very attractive to us. We can love somebody out there, an imaginary friend, an actress that we will never see, a beautiful photoshop image, an Instagram character. But your brother, your sister, your boss, your spouse, your client, your colleague, they are the ones we need to love. And our love for God pushes us towards them, without excuses.            We normally love ourselves first, then others, normally for what they can do for us, and then we love God, just in case he exists. We need to turn things around, to turn our socks inside out. This is the Christian transformation. The love of God sets our priorities right, makes the pieces of the puzzle fit together, shows the full picture. After Peter’s denial, Jesus asked him: Do you love me more than these? Yes Lord. Then you can look after my sheep. Once you love me with your whole heart, then you can love others with true love.            But how can I love people I don’t like? Saint Therese has a beautiful story. There was a grumpy old nun in her convent that everybody tried to avoid. She, overcoming her natural antipathy, tried her best to love her. So much so that one day this nun approached her and asked her what did she find in her: “Whenever we meet you give me such a gracious smile.” Saint Therese said to herself: “What attracted me? It was Jesus hidden in the depths of her soul, Jesus who makes attractive even what is most bitter.” We are brothers and sisters, and love comes from the will: we can love whoever we want. At the beginning it is an attraction, we feel that we connect better with some people than others. but with time it is a choice.            Two practical things: try not to get upset and not to judge. Bring into your prayer the people or the things that make you angry. We normally don’t have our priorities right, or we put other things before God. We get upset because things go wrong, people let us down. When we let Jesus be the boss, we are normally more content with the outcome. If our expectations are very high, we are ready for a crash. When we try to control everything, something always will go wrong. Try not to judge. Pope Francis says: “Before you judge look at yourself in the mirror.” We don’t have the task of judging; nobody has appointed us a judge of others. The one who judges is the Lord who knows everything.josephpich@gmail.com

The Vine and the Branches             Jesus loves to talk in parables. He finds us a bit slow to grasp things and tries to find comparisons for us to understand better and deeper the things of God. It is not easy for him to talk about the other life. A vineyard was very precious in the ancient world. People risked their lives to possess them. For us it is just a business. But for them it was their livelihood. It produced wine, grapes and raisins, fruit and drink for the whole year, when many times water was scarce and polluted. A vineyard was an asset for life.            The Old Testament already used this image. Psalm 80 speaks of the uprooting of the vine in Egypt and its establishment in another land: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove away the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground; it took root and filled the land.” In the book of Isaiah God complains that despite the care he has lavished on it, his vineyard has yielded only wild grapes. Jesus uses this image of the vineyard in his parable of the murderous tenants to explain how the Jews rejected Jesus. Here the comparison is different, more personal. Jesus is the true vine, because the old vine, the chosen people, has been succeeded by the new vine, the Church.            This parable has to do with producing fruit, the fruit God wants us to produce. Two very simple questions we need to ask ourselves: Am I producing anything worthwhile? Am I producing the fruit God wants me to yield? We need to be sincere. It is easy to fool ourselves. Of course, we are doing something, working, earning some money, but maybe it is not what God wants from us. It could be just wild grapes. We all feel we are not producing enough, a small percentage of what we should. We need to examine ourselves to see how we can increase our output.            This parable tells us the secret of how to be fruitful. It is very simple: to be united to the vine, united to Jesus; the more we are in union, the more fruit. It all has to do with words synonymous of union: immersion, intimacy, identification, indwelling. Interesting, all these words begin with the word “in”, which gives the impression of us being introduced into Jesus Christ, centering ourselves around him. Saint Paul talks about becoming Jesus Christ, the same Christ, Ipse Christus. How can this happen? It has to do with letting Christ live in us, letting Jesus be our boss. Do we allow Jesus to come into our lives? It is a bit like letting Jesus into our own car. But we can just place him at the back, or in the passenger seat, or maybe even in the boot. We should let him be in control, actually driving our car.            Every winter the vines are pruned. You need to know how to do it. The next crop depends on a good pruning. The vines that are pruned look naked, devoid of any branches. It is a completely different sight, the vines in winter, bare and brown, and in full bloom during summer, lush and green. We too need to be pruned, to suffer our own cross, to experience obstacles and difficulties, to produce more. If we don’t allow Jesus to prune us, or if we rebel against his will, we are not going to produce what God wants from us.josephpich@gmail.com

The Good Shepherd             Today we look at Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is a beautiful image that comes from the Old Testament. King David was a shepherd before he became a king, and Jesus called himself the son of David, because he was a direct descendant. The Gospels give us plenty of details about who the Good Shepherd is. Jesus says of himself: “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.” We go to heaven through Jesus Christ. We cannot bypass him. He is the way, the gate and the sheepfold.            Jesus is the true gate. As long as we go in and out through him, we are safe. Life is like a big room with many doors to be opened, to be tried, to find happiness. We can choose any one, but we don’t know where they will lead. Some are better than others. We need to be careful not to go through a door that can lead us astray. Some of the doors are beautiful, even attractive, mysterious, but we know where they could lead us. We have learnt by experience, we have tried some and we have found them lacking. We Christians are lucky: we know which one is the only true gate: Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can lead us to green pastures. He knows where they are and he knows the good ones. We all want to be happy, but we look for happiness often in the wrong places. We need to be aware that some pastures are poisonous, some grasses are venomous like snakes, some food is not good for our spiritual health. Good pastures are difficult to find. Sometimes we have to cross deserts to reach them. We need to trust Jesus and follow him to come across those oasis that are difficult to find.            Jesus also says that we need to hear his voice. It is the best way not to go astray. It is so easy to get lost, to become the famous lost sheep of the parable. If we keep hearing his voice, we follow his footsteps, as we speed along, and this means we are on the right path. When we get distracted, when we are curious, or we want to play with fire, one of his whistles can bring us back to the path. It is normally a good confession, a timely book, a good movie, a deep conversation with a friend. Jesus has a beautiful voice, easy to hear.            He knows us one by one, by our names. For him we are not a number; we are unique, irreplaceable, one of a kind. When we look at the other sheep, we can think that we are all the same, that we cannot be distinguished from one another. Sheep always go together to defend themselves. But for Jesus we have a distinctive shape, our personality, our character. He is ready to leave the other ninety-nine and go out looking for us. He is calling us, shouting our name, trying to find us in the forest, and he keeps looking until he finds us. Then he places us on his shoulders and bring us back to the sheepfold. If we hide from his calls, then he cannot find us. It is up to us to go back to him.            Other shepherds are not interested in us. They look after the sheep for money. They are not going to defend us against the wolves. They are not going ahead of us, but behind, throwing stones at us. They don’t know our names, they don’t care about the green pastures, they sleep at night. If we get lost, they don’t come looking for us. Jesus is the opposite; he is the true good shepherd. He really wants us to reach the eternal sheepfold.josephpich@gmail.com

Serenity            The apostles were afraid and locked themselves into the upper room for fear of the Jews. Their leader had been killed and now his opponents were going for his minions. In spite of some news about Jesus’ resurrection, they were huddled in fear behind locked doors, all together not knowing what to do. We too are afraid of the future, worried about what could happen, insecure about our qualities, with fear of failure, self-centred in our sins, and we lock up ourselves just like an oyster. We become anxious and paralysed. And Jesus going through the walls appeared in the midst of them like a magic trick, with his glorious body. Maybe we cannot break away, but Jesus can, if we let him in. The power of God can break any wall, obstacle, or defence we place in front of him. He is the only one who can set us free.            The first thing Jesus says: “Peace be with you.” Be at peace, Shalom. Without peace we cannot pray, we cannot serve God. When we are too concerned about something, when there is something that occupies our mind, we cannot connect with God, we are not able to listen to his voice. When we are angry, when we feel insecure, we cannot see God as a Father. On the contrary: we can be upset with him. When we have lost control of ourselves, when we are all over the place, we need to go back to Jesus and allow him to come in and say: Peace be with you! Many times we are not ready for that.            Saint John XXIII wrote the Ten Commandments of Serenity. He begins each of them with these words: just for today. It is a reminder of how important is the present time. Forget about the past: we have gone to confession. No worries about the future: it is in God’s hands. Think about just for today. Focus your mind in the here and now. Children are the only ones who live in the present. Young people live in the future, looking forward about something; old people live in the past, regretting or blaming themselves for something. God has everything in his presence.            Saint John XXIII says that when he was elected Pope, at the beginning he couldn’t sleep because of the problems of the Church. One night he received an interior inspiration: “Who governs the Church? You or the Holy Spirit?” From then on he slept very well, so much so that he had to set an alarm to wake himself up from his afternoon nap. If we look after the things of God, He will look after us. We need to take it for granted that He is always in control.            Saints put all their attention into whatever they were doing at that moment, 100% focused in that particular task. That’s why when you were in the presence of John Paul II, you thought that time had stopped or at least slowed down, and you could explain two minutes in two hours. This time of Easter we need to look at Jesus as the Risen Christ, who comes to us with Easter Joy and says: be serene, be tranquil, no worries; sleep and be merry. I’ll worry for you. Look at the sleeping Saint Joseph. While he was sleeping peacefully, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him all he had to do. God tells us what we need to know in due time. We would like to know the future, but it is in God’s hands. Be patient; everything will be revealed if we are at peace.josephpich@gmail.com

Thomas             On Sunday morning the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came in through the wall. He stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his wounds, all opened in front of them. He didn’t want to hide them. There they were, naked without shame. They were healed, but still open, light shining through them. Jesus was smiling, proud of them, showing them like medals. His hands, palms first, and his feet, bare without shoes, for them to see the holes of the nails. He even opened his garments to show the big wound in his side. Once Saint Josemaria asked the sculptor who was carving an image of Jesus risen from the dead, to emphasised his wounds on the marble, saying: I need to see them. This is how we normally represent Jesus after the resurrection, coming to us with his full body on display.            Why did Jesus show his wounds to the apostles after the resurrection? Four reasons that I can think off. First to show them it was Jesus himself: it is me! I am the same, but different. They were also the proof of his crucifixion. He couldn’t come back to them with no marks; they would have thought he was a ghost. They say that martyrs keep the marks of their torture in their glorified bodies. This is how we represent them, Saint Lucy showing us her eyes on a platter, Saint Sebastian with arrows all through his body, Saint Lawrence holding his grill, Saint Catherine of Alexandria with her spiked wheel. When our Lord appeared to Saint Teresa of Avila as the risen Lord, she said he was the devil. They asked her: How did you know it? She said: He had no wounds.            Secondly, to show them how much he loved them: these are the proofs of my love for you, you can see the signs. They will be with me forever, as a permanent testimony of me being crazy about you. Like those mothers who have gone through a Caesarean section to have their babies, show their scars years later to their kids, a proof of how they came into the world.            Thirdly, please, don’t do it again. This is your doing; look at what you have done to me. Every time you sin you are widening my wounds. We feel bad when we see his wounds. We would have liked them to disappear: out of sight, out of mind. We prefer those sweet images of Jesus, peaceful and smiling. We don’t like to see his wounds, a reminder of all our iniquities.            Fourthly, he opened these wounds in his flesh for us to find refuge. He could have left the nails there, but he wanted them to be free, with open access. We have five doors, five entrances to his humanity. Five places, one specially very close to his heart, where we can find love, atonement and consolation. We have a long tradition of saints showing us how to heal our own scars, going through Jesus’ ones. If he went through his sufferings being innocent, what about us? We are the guilty ones. He became broken to repair our brokenness. As the prophet Isaiah says: “Through his wounds we have been healed.” Going through his wounds, our ones become a source of pride, medals that show a bit of own sufferings for him, a way to give something back.josephpich@gmail.com

Easter Sunday             Saint John arrived first at the tomb because he was younger and could run faster. Saint Jerome says that the wings of celibacy allowed John arrive first. But he did not go in, out of deference to Peter. This is an indication that Peter was already regarded as the leader of the Apostles. “He saw and believed.” What did he see? The linen on the ground. John knew Jesus well and he could say his body wasn’t stolen. You can go to a room in your house and say: I know who’s been here. The dishes are all on the sink, her clothes are all over her room, he’s been in the kitchen because all the chocolate is gone.            “The linen clothes lying there.” The Greek participle translated as ‘lying there’ seems to indicate that the clothes were flattened, deflated, as if they were emptied when the body of Jesus rose and disappeared, as if it had come out of the clothes and bandages without their being unrolled, passing right through them, just as later he entered the Cenacle or upper room when the doors where shut. This would explain the clothes being ‘fallen’, ‘flat’, ‘lying’, which is how the Greek literally translates them, after Jesus’ body, which had filled them, left them. One can readily understand how this would amaze a withness, how unforgettable the scene would be. You don’t steal a body and leave what’s around him there.            “The napkin rolled up in a place by itself.” The first point to note is that the napkin, which had been wrapped round the head, was not on top of the clothes, but placed on one side. The second, even more surprising thing is that, like the clothes, it was still rolled up but, unlike the clothes, it still had a certain volume, like a container, possibly due to the stiffness given it by the ointments: this is what the Greek participle, here translated as ‘rolled’, seems to indicate. From these details concerning the empty tomb one deduces that Jesus’ body must have risen in a heavenly manner, that is, in a way which transcended the laws of nature. It was not only a matter of the body being reanimated as happened, for example, in the case of Lazarus, who had to be unbound before he could walk.            We remember now the Holy Shroud, the famous relic in Turin. John Paul II said that  “the Shroud is a mirror of the Gospel.” Benedict XVI had a lot of devotion to Holy Saturday because he was baptised on this day: “this sacred Cloth can nourish and foster faith and reinvigorate Christian devotion because it spurs us to go to the Face of Christ, to the Body of the Crucified and Risen Christ, to contemplate the Paschal Mystery, the heart of the Christian message.” People go to see the shroud to contemplate Jesus’ face. To see God, to contemplate the face of Jesus Christ, to be eternally happy through the vision of the divine glory, is the human being’s deepest desire, although millions of people are unaware of this aspiration.             The evangelists talk about the empty tomb. It means that Jesus is alive. It is very important for our faith. It is the icon of the resurrection. Tradition says that Jesus appeared first to His Mother. It was so obvious that the evangelists didn’t even to bother to mention it. josephpich@gmail.com

Holy Thursday             Today is an important day for the Church. We priests celebrate two Masses. In the morning all priests of the Diocese go to the Cathedral to concelebrate with the bishop what we call the Chrism Mass. Two things happen during this Mass. First we priests renew our commitments, to place Jesus first in our lives, to obey our bishop, and to look after the People of God. Secondly during this Mass the bishop consecrates the three oils we use for Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders and Anointing of the sick. It is called the Chrism Mass because Chrism is the name of one of the holy oils. At the end of the Mass we collect our oils to keep them in the parish. Every year we burn the old ones and we replace them with the new oils. It is like what happens to us during these days of Holy Week: we die to ourselves and we rise again with Christ.            In the evening we have the Mass of Holy Thursday, the beginning of the Easter Triduum, where we commemorate three things that happened at the Last Supper: the washing of the feet, the institution of the Eucharist and the institution of the priesthood. The Eucharist is the important one. Jesus had to go to heaven, but he wanted to stay with us, because he loves us and we need him. He could do it because he is God. Therefore he left us this sacrament, for the priest to be able to consecrate the bread and the wine, for us to be nourished by his body and blood, and for Jesus to be able to remain with us in the tabernacle. If all the sacraments are important, this one is the most important one; in the others we receive grace from Jesus, in the Mass we receive Jesus himself.            In the washing of the feet we remember Jesus washing his apostles feet. We normally wash twelve men’s feet, easier for us to identify them with the twelve apostles. But what we truly remember is how Jesus lowered himself to the form of a servant to wash our feet. The washing of the feet was reserved to slaves. God is coming down to us to the point of performing a menial task. Our feet need plenty of washing, because when we walk we get dirty. Peter said to Jesus when he came to wash him: Master, wash my hands and head as well. We too are like Saint Peter: we need a thorough washing. Jesus even washed Judas’ feet. He is ready to wash any sinners’ feet, ours too.            The last thing we commemorate today is the beginning of the priesthood. Jesus established priests for his Church to renew the sacrifice of Calvary throughout the centuries. The main reason for our priesthood is the Mass. We also need priests for the other sacraments, specially Confession, to become better, holier and closer to Jesus. Today is a special day when we pray for priests, specially the ones in our own parish. The more we pray for our priests, the holier they become. It is a good selfish prayer. We get the priests we deserve. When we complain about our priests, we should blame ourselves: we don’t pray enough for them.            At the end of the Mass we reserve the Blessed Sacrament on the altar of repose. We keep enough hosts to give Communion on Good Friday because it is a day when we won’t have Mass, because Jesus is dead. The tradition is to spend a bit of time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We keep Jesus company on this night, when he was alone in the garden of Gethsemane.josephpich@gmail.com

Palm Sunday            Today we begin Holy Week. Palm Sunday is the gate. We enter into the most holy week of the year. We need to walk slowly; we are on Holy ground. Put off your shoes and walk on tiptoes. Hit the brakes and try to follow Jesus’ footsteps. We should try to keep to Jesus’ pace, not too slow, and not too fast, not to miss him, not to overtake him; just the right speed. Once a year the Church gives us an opportunity to become closer to Jesus and touch in a special way his humanity, that brings us closer to his divinity. Every year is like a spiral that brings us closer to the centre, one day sucked in by God.            We have covered all the crucifixes with purple cloths. Why? It is not to avoid seeing Jesus on the Cross, but to lift our senses to spiritual things and build within us a longing for Easter Sunday. Even though these are beautiful pieces of art that help us to become closer to Jesus, they are not the real thing, just sparks of God. There is much more up in heaven. No worries, on Good Friday we are going to uncover them.            Today is a day of joy. Jesus enters his holy city amid the shouts of the crowd. In every Mass we use the words the people shouted today when they acclaimed him: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna means “save us”. It was used like the expression: Long live the King. Jesus comes as a king. Today we let Jesus to enter our hearts and we allow him to be the king of our lives. We are shouting for joy, acclaiming him. He is knocking on our door. The handle to open the door of our hearts is always on the side of the door.            Today’s feast is a paradox. What is a paradox? A paradox is something contradictory. It looks one way, but also goes in the opposite direction. Today is a day of joy, but it opens to us the Passion and death of Jesus Christ. It’s the beginning of a horrible week. But no worries. It has a happy ending. Eventually Jesus will rise from the dead. Today the people acclaim him; tomorrow they will condemn him to death. Today they shout Hosanna; tomorrow they shout crucify him. Today they call him King of Israel; tomorrow: We have no King but Caesar. Today they use palms; tomorrow they are going to scourge him. Today they are waving olive branches; tomorrow they are going to place thorns on his head. Today they are placing garments on the floor as a carpet; tomorrow they are going to strip off his garments. Today they give him a donkey to ride; tomorrow the wood of the Cross. We do the same with Jesus. Today we tell him that we love him; tomorrow we leave him alone. Today we promise him many things; tomorrow all our promises remain unfulfilled.            Let us not be afraid and begin the road to Calvary, where so many people stay behind, starting with most of the apostles, some running away, denying him, or betraying him. It is a long and winding road, full of surprises and treacherous potholes. This is why we need to go hand in hand with Mary, not to get lost, not to run backwards, but to manage to go around the landmines that the devil places in our path.josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 5 B The grain of wheat            In today’s Gospel some Greeks went to Phillip and told him that they wanted to see Jesus. We too ask the same; we long to see his face. We follow the responsorial psalm: “Create a clean heart in me, O God.” We need a pure heart to be able to see him, clear eyes without any obstacles. How can we see Jesus? He tells us his secret today in the Gospel in three sentences: to die, to lose your life and to serve him. It goes against our culture, which recommends the opposite, trying to keep on living at any cost, to always win and not to serve anybody but ourselves.            The first sentence is very clear: “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.” How many grains normally produce an ear of wheat? I googled it: from 45 to 50. If we don’t die to ourselves we are only one; if we are buried in the ground we can multiple by fifty. This means that we need to bury our pride, our selfishness and our sensuality deep in the soil. It is the manure that fertilises the wheat, and eventually produces the flour that will be baked into the delicious warm bread we like. From our sinfulness God can bring about beautiful pastry. But for this we need to disappear into the dough mixed with the yeast.            The second sentence follows the same demanding tone: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” It is a paradox, that common sense has summarized in a proverb: no pain, no gain. If we want to win eternal life, we need to offer our lives to God. This is what the cross is all about. We don’t want to hear about the cross; we run away from it. We can look at what we call crosses in our lives and change our attitude. Three stages: accepting, looking for and loving. Just look at the things that upset you. If you change the way you react to difficulties, they won’t upset you anymore.            The third sentence from Jesus is a bit easier to follow: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” Saint Josemaria says that to follow Christ, “We must accompany him so closely that we come to live with him.” He distinguishes four stages in this identification with Christ: “Seeking him, finding him, getting to know him and loving him.” If we seek him, we will find him and we won’t have any problem of loving him.            How do we follow Jesus? Where do we find him? In the word and in the bread, in the Scriptures and the Eucharist. During the Mass, we have two parts, what we call the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. We come to be nourished at both tables. I knew a priest in New Zealand who had two tables in his church, but they looked a bit weird, like two altars. Certainly they emphasised these two ways of finding Jesus. We normally hear the Word of God from the lectern and we witness the coming of Jesus on the altar. Once we have nourished our intellect with his word, we can come to the table of the Lord to receive him in communion.josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 4 B Nicodemus            Today in the Gospel we see Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, the upper class of the political elite, a teacher of Israel, an intellectual, an educated man, a ruler of the Jews. He was a lover of truth, searching for what is right, humble, and, unlike others, he acknowledged that Jesus performed miracles, therefore God was with him. We too should be like him trying to find the truth in our lives, knowing that Jesus is the Way. It is so easy in our society to be biased, to spread half truths, to foster misinformation, to cloud the net with false news. Nevertheless the truth always wins, always comes out, eventually it manages to find the light. That is why we should fight for what is right and acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers.            Nicodemus went to see Jesus by night for fear of the Jews. He spent the whole night with Jesus. We too would like to spend hours with Jesus, talking to him, but we don’t need to go at night. We can go any time we want; he is waiting for us 24/7. We too have human concerns and we are worry what people will think about us. We forget that all of us are going to die and we are going to face God. A man who recovered from an almost certain death, commented: “Before I had human respect. Now I have lost it. Now I talk about God to everyone. I saw judgment so close that I am not ashamed of anything.” Let us get rid of the silly fear of spreading the good news to other people.            Saint John in his Gospel only gives us a summary of that long conversation. We would like to know more, but the Gospels can only give us a few ideas. The main one is the declaration of God’s love for us: “God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.” We have heard many times that God is love, but it is not easy to live it, or experienced it personally. God not only gave us his most precious treasure, but he let him be with us in the Eucharist. The deeper we go in our spiritual life, the more we experience God’s love. Somebody said that the devil knows our name but he calls us by our sins; God knows our sins but he calls us by our name. We are his children and for him we are like his only begotten Son, a unique child.            The second idea of that conversation is also very important: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Moses showed the serpent to the Jews to cure the ones who were bitten by the snakes God sent to punish their unbelief. God gave us his Son and all we did was to kill him. We lifted him up on to the cross, not to be healed of our physical ailments, but to have life eternal. Therefore we need to do the same, lifting him up to the pinnacle of our lives, making him our centre and summit, root and source.            After the crucifixion, when everybody had run away, Nicodemus was there, asking Pilate for the body of Jesus to bury him. He had the courage and the honour to be close to Jesus in his last moments. We too must follow Nicodemus to be with Jesus till the last moments of our lives.josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 3 B Cleansing of the Temple             In today’s Gospel Jesus is going to the Temple to pray, but he is going to do something completely different. It was the feast of the Passover, the most important day for the Jews and the temple was overflowing with people. They had to offer a sacrifice of an ox or a sheep, if they were wealthy, or two pigeons if they were not. Also they had to pay a half shekel, the Temple money. Other coins in circulation were considered impure because they bore the image of pagan rulers. There was a lot of business activity, the of selling of animals and the changing money. The priests of the Temple benefited from these commercial transactions. Jesus couldn’t bear the sight of his Father’s house converted into a shopping mall. He made a whip with cords and drove them out of the Temple all by himself. It must have been an amazing scene. Try to do the same in your shopping center; in no time you’ll be tackled by the security guards.            They couldn’t stop him. He was filled with holy anger. Oxen and sheep running around, pigeons flying away happily to be free, coins dropping everywhere. Men running away from the famous prophet, afraid of his miraculous powers. The authorities of the Temple looked at the pandemonium without doing anything; they couldn’t stop him because he was right. They only asked him about his authority to do so. Jesus told them about the temple of his body, the future place for all of us to worship. They didn’t understand what he was talking about.            Jesus gives us an example of how to react when confronted by sin, that separates us from God. We could think his actions are over the top, that there is no need to take such extreme measures. It depends of how we look at our salvation, of how keen are we to reach heaven. We are normally more concerned about our body than our soul. Jesus didn’t care much about what people thought about him and did what he had to do. He helps us to open our eyes and follow his example.            We can look at ourselves and discover how many oxen, sheep and pigeons we have in our soul, too many money changers. What would Jesus do if we let him in, into the temple of our soul? We are afraid of him, hiding our vices under all sort of excuses. This time of Lent is an opportunity to open our soul and discover our lust, pride, envy, greed, anger, gluttony or sloth, what we call the seven deadly sins, those sins that are present in our soul in one form or another. If we fail to identify them, Jesus won’t be able to drive them away. We can also go through the Ten Commandments or the Seven Works of Mercy.            The Gospel says that when his disciples saw Jesus driving everyone away from the temple, they remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” We ask the Lord to have the same zeal, the same holy anger, to drive away what separates us from God, not only for us, but also for others. Not to be afraid to help others to see what oxen and sheep they have in their souls, whatever is there that Jesus doesn’t like. We cannot forget that Jesus is coming, and we don’t want him to find anything in our soul that is not pleasing to him. And if we ask what right does he have to enter into our souls, he would tell us that he has created them in his image and likeness.josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 2 Transfiguration of Jesus            The transfiguration is an Icon of contemplation. We need to climb the mountain to become part of this body of elite souls who are contemplatives. Not many people are ready to climb up through the path of sacrifice and docility to God’s will. You need to leave many things behind and travel light. Most of us carry too much baggage, and we are constantly bogged down, pushed backwards by the heavy weight. Our struggle is to let things go, to shed whatever is not helping us to become closer to God. Once you reach the summit, you see things differently. It is an amazing panorama. You can contemplate Jesus in his glory. Contemplation is a gift from God. If we don’t pray, Jesus cannot show us his divinity.            The three beloved apostles fell sleep. They were tired after the climb. They too are going to fall asleep at the agony of Gethsemane. Waking up they found Jesus transfigured in front of them. Jesus lifted the veil that hid his divinity and showed himself as he is. He is always like this. When we talk about a sunset, we talk in a figurative way: the sun never sets. We are the ones rotating. If the sun were always up, we would die of heat exposure. It is the same with Jesus’ divinity. Jesus doesn’t want to dazzle us. Otherwise we will have to veil our faces like Moses after talking to God. The Israelites couldn’t stand looking at him.            The three apostles never forgot this experience. It was an amazing mystical experience. Talking to people, I come across many spiritual experiences, ways of God showing his face, even though normally He is silent. Some people are always looking for miracles. We don’t need them. We have enough proofs of the existence of God to keep us going. If God showed us his face, we could lose our freedom.            The experience is full of light, whiteness and purity. White expels all the colours; black keeps them in. We need to expel all our impurities. This is how our soul should look, pure and clean, white and transparent, for us to be able to see God. A painter was looking for a beautiful girl as a model to paint Our Lady. When he found one she said she would come back tomorrow: she wanted to go to confession first. We need to keep going for reconciliation, to wash our soul many times. I had a friend who had a machine to polish stones. It took a long time for the sand to grind them and make them shine. It was a beautiful change, from the boring, grey, dull image of the river stones, to the bright, polished, smooth surface of many different colours.            Peter couldn’t contain himself and declared: “It is well that we are here.” He wanted to stop time and stay there forever. We too would like to be there, but we need to wait for eternity. We climb up to meet God and bring him to others. We need to go up and down all the time. We cannot stay up there. We climb up through prayer. Once we get the power of God, we can come down to bring it to others. Peter, you cannot stay up here. We cannot stop time. We need to keep going up and down. Begin and begin again every day. Our love of God has to be lived every day. Once you stop climbing, you begin to fall down. josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 1 Temptations of Jesus            Every Lent we try to accompany Jesus into the desert. We don’t like it, but it is the best way for us to return to God, to have a small conversion. We go down from Jerusalem towards the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, below sea level. Jesus wanted to stoop down to our human level, surrounded by a very rough terrain. It is a place of open spaces, silence, constant blowing of the wind, harsh conditions and a brown landscape. We are going there to spend time with Jesus alone, without anything that could distract us from him. He spent forty days of penance to prepare himself for his public life. We need to prepare ourselves for the temptations we are going to face this year. Close to Jesus, strengthened by our penance, we can overcome any temptation.            After forty days of fasting, Jesus was weak. The devil took advantage of this moment to tempt him, to discover who he was. He does the same with us. He knows our weaknesses and always comes in the same way. We need to be sincere and learn from our mistakes. God allows us to be tempted, for us to show him that we love him more than ourselves, to become stronger in our virtue and to be humble. It helps us to realise that we, like little children, need his power, and we cannot do it alone. We are in the desert with Jesus, and we need to be very close to him.            The first temptation is to convert stones into bread, to fix our problems, to make our lives more comfortable and smooth, with no obstacles and traumas. God is not a butler in our service or a plumber to fix our leaks. It is the other way around; we are at his service. It is the temptation of pleasures, food and entertainment. The Roman Caesars used to give people bread and circuses, to keep them entertained. The devil does the same with our soul, to lull us to asleep and suppress our desire for God. The desert, fasting and abstinence, rekindle our thirst for God. The internet could be a technological drug that keeps us stoned, addicted to screens. Silence, solitude and recollection, will bring us back to life.            The second temptation is to jump from the pinnacle of the temple and let the angels save us. It is the allure of fame, prestige and glory. Vanity makes us think that one day we’ll be famous. If I get a million hits when I upload my silly video on YouTube, I’ll be very happy. I’m counting very carefully my likes and dislikes in my Facebook page. I have so many people following me, so many groups in WhatsApp; I’m an influencer. My moods change depending on what’s happening on my smartphone. Lent is a good time to take a break from whatever is trying to feed our pride. Maybe it is a time to delete the app that’s taking too much time in our lives, or put some order into our use of our little gadgets.            The third temptation is to worship the rulers of this world. We think that money and power are going to make us happy. We like to control people, to have a job that make us somebody, to look at our bank account and be pleased by what we see. We forget that we come from God and that we go back to him, sooner than we think. We cannot take anything with us when we go. This is what the Church reminds us at the beginning of Lent, when the priest places the ashes on our forehead saying: “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”josephpich@gmail.com

Ash WednesdayToday we begin Lent, a special time to grow, a time for a small conversion. Our Mother the Church opens the flood gates of its abundant graces, to shower what we need in our parched soul. It is a time to look towards how we are growing in our love of God. Maybe we have been slowing down, stopped or even went backwards. It happens in the lives of saints too; sometimes it looks like they are growing fast, and other times they are not moving. Why is that? Is it God’s will or our lack of struggle? Saint Teresa of Avila talks about the four things that slowed her down, from when she became a nun at twenty years old, till she was almost forty and decided to take her holiness seriously. A statue of Jesus suffering his passion moved her to tears.The first one is carelessness about sin. It is a complacency or complicity with sin, finding easy excuses for our imperfections. We even look towards other people to reassure us in our lack of struggle. We reduce the gravity of sin. It is impossible not to sin, but at least we should be aware of the sins we can recognise, the sins we consent to. Making a decision never to commit even a small sin, is a turning point in our spiritual life.The second one is not avoiding the near occasions of sin. It is a sadness of not being allowed to play with certain things. If we play with fire, we are going to get burned. It means avoiding peoples, places or situations we know are not good for us. The devil always goes the same way. He knows how to get at us. We need to be sincere and recognise that we are weak and we need the power of God. At the end of the day it is a matter of choosing between the love of God and our self love.The third is self-reliance. We begin our spiritual life with a strong determination, but sooner or later we become discouraged. We fall down over and over again, and either we abandon our way or we conform with an easy pace. Relying only on ourselves we go nowhere. Voluntarism hides our pride. Thinking that we can do it deceives us. We forgot that we cannot go alone. We need God. Only He can make us saints. We should trust more in his love and mercy than in our own efforts. Humility and simplicity are essential to follow the right path. God uses our docility in spiritual direction, to destroy our self assurance.And the fourth is not valuing the graces we have received from God. We complain a lot about God not helping us, but we waste a lot of the graces we receive from him. We think we know what we need, and we forget that God knows better. Therefore we should be more aware of the help God is sending us constantly. Saints have a sixth sense to notice the graces from God. We, on the contrary, are rough, and we fail to sense God’s help. Babies have a tender skin and can sense the mosquito straight away. We don’t notice the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in our soul. Saints develop a quick promptness to answer the call from God to prayer or to action. josephpich@gmail.com

The curing of a leper            The first reading of the Mass tells us about Jewish customs and leprosy. Because it was a contagious disease, the Law declared that lepers were impure and they had to leave society. They lived together and had to show that they were lepers, sounding a bell or shouting “unclean.” Leprosy was seen as a punishment from God. The healing of the disease was regarded as one of the blessings of the coming of the Messiah. More than the physical suffering, the hardest thing was the social exclusion. You can suffer as long as you have people around you. When they were cured they had to present themselves to the priests to certify their healing. Nowadays coronavirus is seen a bit like leprosy. You don’t need to sound a bell, but you must isolate yourself. It is sad that we have left old people die alone.            We are all lepers; we are all sinners. You cannot hide leprosy; it is in your face. Slowly it disfigures your body making it a horrible image of your former self. The same happens with our soul in the state of sin, a much more radical reality, because our soul is the dwelling place of God and it is immortal. If people could see our sins we would go to confession every day, in the same way we look at ourselves into the mirror every morning, have a shower and spend a lot of time and money grooming our bodies. We are ashamed of our sins, but we find difficult to bring them to the priest, to Jesus, to heal them.            In the Gospel we see a leper coming up to Jesus and kneeling down in front of him. It was illegal for him to be there, in a town full of people. He recognised who Jesus was and forced himself to get closer to Jesus even though it was forbidden. He had such a strong desire to be healed that he despised social regulations. We too need that determination; nothing can stop us in our quest to clean our sinful nature. The devil is going to suggest all sort of excuses for us not to go to Jesus.            The leper told Jesus: “If you wish, you can make me clean.” What a great line! With these words the leper won over Jesus. He is telling him that he is there to do his will. We need to learn how to touch Jesus’ heart. The more we know him the better we can get through. Every person has a button that can be pushed to open his or her heart. We learn these lessons in our personal prayer, in our encounter with the Lord.            Jesus moved with pity, stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” Jesus did the forbidden thing: to touch leprosy. Jesus is ready to touch our wounds. We are ashamed of them, but we should allow Jesus to gently dress them. It reminds me of Saint Francis of Assisi who was very afraid of lepers. Once he came across a leper in the bush who begged him for alms, with what was left of his hand outstretched. Francis was just going to drop a coin, with a disgusting face, but he controlled his feelings, and took his hand and kissed it. The leper disappeared: it was Jesus Christ. When Jesus touched the leper, he was cured immediately. In the Gospel other miracles occur gradually. But here all his limbs were instantly restored. It must have been an amazing scene, a bit magical. He even got back his beautiful blue eyes and could see Jesus’ face, just in front of him, smiling, all the people around them amazed.josephpich@gmail.com

Peter’s mother in law            After leaving the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus went to Peter’s house with Andrew, James and John, to dine together. We can imagine those meals with Jesus. Peter’s mother in law was sick and she couldn’t wait on them. Maybe she was upset with her son in law for joining Jesus and leaving his wife behind. Jesus healed her, won her over and convinced her to serve them. The news spread quickly and people began to bring their sick ones, their friends, maybe their mothers in law, for Jesus to heal them. The Gospel says that the whole town gathered at his door. It was a big throng. Jesus began his public ministry healing at the sick and casting out demons. It is a good sign of a real prophet.            We too need Jesus healing. We should recognise that we are sick and in need of help. Some are physical illnesses, but more frequently our problems are spiritual ones. We are blind, deaf, lame, paralysed and crippled in our spiritual life. Two things are important to be able to be healed. First to be well diagnosed, to recognise our true sickness, and secondly, to get the proper treatment. We find it difficult to acknowledge that we are gravely ill and sometimes we wait until it is too late. Also many times we lack the faith to go to the divine doctor. Jesus is the only one who can solve our problems and many times we go to him as the last resort.            After a full day’s work, Jesus rose very early before dawn and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. He needed to spend time with his Father God, to be alone with the Alone. It is not just an example for us, but Jesus as a man felt the need to charge his spiritual batteries. We too need to do the same, even though we don’t feel the same urge. Somehow we are more incline to seek after material things and we forget about the needs of our soul. That is why we become anxious, upset, depressed, unsettled; we become addicted to things or we lose the perspective of what it is important. Precisely our prayer life helps us to focus our priorities and to feed the famine of our soul. We don’t normally realise how important it is because our spiritual hunger is not self evident.            When Simon and those who were with him woke up, they couldn’t find Jesus. They looked for him everywhere. They weren’t used to his early routine. When at last they found him they complained: “Everyone is looking for you.” It is a great statement. It is true for all of us, even though many times we don’t recognise this truth. We are all looking for happiness, and only in Jesus we can find true joy. We are created for God, we need God; it is inscribed in our DNA.            Jesus replied to them: “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” We can be selfish wanting to keep Jesus for ourselves. We can live in a bubble, isolating ourselves from the dangers outside. Pope Francis reminds us that we need to get out, mix with others and smell like the sheep as the shepherds do. Jesus has come to save every human being, to heal us from our inclination to sin, and he counts on all of us. Let us follow Jesus wherever he goes.josephpich@gmail.com

The unclean spirit            Today we see Jesus teaching at the synagogue in Capernaum. Jesus centred his public ministry in this town, at the shores of the lake of Gennesaret. He didn’t want to stay in Nazareth; a prophet is not well liked in his home town. Apart from Jerusalem, there is no other place like Capernaum that contains more memories of Jesus in the Gospels. The ruins are well preserved because the place was deserted until the Franciscans bought the land at the beginning of the twentieth century and spent almost 100 years excavaiting it. You can see now the ruins of the synagogue and a church built over the house of Saint Peter.            Even though he wasn’t a rabbi, they allowed him to teach in the synagogue. He was becoming a famous prophet and everybody wanted to hear him. The Gospel says that “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” Rabbis taught based on the authority of famous rabbis, and you could trace their lineage back to Moses; and of course, Moses got it directly from God. But Jesus spoke with his own authority, without the need to quote anybody else to bolster what he said. He defended the truth with his own testimony.            There was a man in the synagogue possessed with a demon. We don’t know if he was allowed to enter or they placed him there to cause trouble. We priests know of lunatics coming to churches and causing havoc. You need to be very careful not to upset them and try to be gentle but firm to get them out. Somehow mad people are attracted to sacred places. It is the first time that Jesus faced an unclean spirit, in Hebrew, Beelzebub. The man cried out: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” It was a tense situation, all eyes are fixed on Jesus, to see how he was going to react. His power was tested. The possessed man recognised him: “I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” On the contrary most contemporaries of Jesus missed who he was. It wasn’t easy for them. It is not easy for us either. How can we recognise Jesus passing by? He is coming to us every day, many times hidden in unforeseen situations.            Jesus knew how to deal with him and treated him with authority: “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit didn’t go out without a fight: he convulsed the man with a loud cry. It must have been very dramatic. Exorcists learn from Jesus how to expel demons. They study the scriptures to follow Jesus’ practice and try to use his power. People are fascinated with exorcists. It is a good theme for a horror movie. We shouldn’t be afraid of the devil. Once I heard an exorcist saying that the best exorcism is a good confession.            Devils have easy control of people. They try to slave them through sin. We too are possessed by sin. It is a kind of slavery, that we need to be free off. Even though we are prone to evil, sin doesn’t make us happy. Jesus has the power and the authority to help us. We need to recognise our addictions and let Jesus to free us from them. With our will and his power, we can become holy.josephpich@gmail.com

The calling of the first apostles            In the Gospels of these first Sundays we are at the beginning of Jesus’ public life, when he calls the apostles. Today we see Jesus calling the first four, Simon and Andrew, John and James. Last Sunday we saw the first meeting of Jesus with John and Andrew. Today Jesus is formally calling them, together with their brothers to follow him. He found them where they were, working as fishermen, in their own natural habitat, among boats and nets. Jesus is also calling us where we are, in the midst of society, among our relatives and friends, working to make our environment a better place.            Why is Jesus calling them? He doesn’t need people, he is God and he can do whatever he wants. But he prefers to work with us; he thinks that is better for us to give him a hand, for us to feel we are cooperating with him. We are fulfilled when we see that we are making a difference. Saint Josemaria give us a nice comparison, to explain our desire to help God, one he witnessed himself: “We saw a boat approaching the shore. Some men jumped out. They began to haul in the net that trailed behind the boat. It was laden with fishes, all shining like silver. Their feet sank into the sand as they pulled away with amazing strength. Then all of a sudden a little boy appeared. He came up to the rope, seized it with his tiny hands and began to tug away with evident clumsiness. The tough fishermen must have felt their hearts soften, for they allowed the child to join in, without chasing him away, even though he was more of a hindrance than a help. I thought of you and of myself.” God does the same thing with us. We are more of a nuisance, but God’s heart is moved when we try to pull the rope with him.            Why isn’t Jesus calling more people? He is, but some people don’t want to give him a hand, others don’t listen to his voice, and others begin to help him, but they get discouraged or disappointed, and abandon the task. He tells us to pray more: “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers to his harvest.” But don’t worry; God normally uses a few people for us to see that it is him doing the job. We should be very grateful to see that he is working with us, that he allows us to give him a hand.            Why did Jesus call mainly fishermen? He centred his ministry around the lake of Gennesaret, but there were other people around there with different professions. He must have found that fishermen have virtues suitable for fishing men: patience, constancy, perseverance, endurance and hard working habits. Maybe he wanted his 12 apostles to come from the same place, to know each other prior to their calling, to have a group already bonded. We don’t know; all we can do is to beat around the bush, but at the end of the day God does what he wants, and he knows what he is doing.            All the apostles left everything to be able to follow Jesus. Today we see John and Andrew leaving the boat and their father behind. I imagine Zebedee, their father, looking at them from the boat, not agreeing with the decision of his sons. This is the condition of a true apostle. It is not the matter of how much we have or what we have, but if we want to follow Jesus closer, we need to leave things behind. To increase our speed we need to travel light.josephpich@gmail.com

Two disciples of John            Today, our second Sunday of ordinary time, we begin another year with the Gospel of John telling us how he met Jesus for the first time. In the first reading of the Mass, God is calling Samuel, but he doesn’t know what to do. Eli tells him how to answer: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” This should be our response to discover what God wants us to do this year. The Responsorial Psalm has the same attitude of generosity: “Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.” We try to begin this year with the desire to do God’s will. We realised that last year we were a bit selfish, too centred on ourselves, doing our own thing, and we now renew our resolution to be more docile to what God wants us to do.            John the Baptist was sitting down on the shores of the River Jordan with his two best disciples, John and Andrew. Looking at Jesus passing by, he pointed him out to them with these words: “Behold the Lamb of God.” This expression was very familiar to the Jews: He is the chosen one, the Messiah. The priest repeats these words every Mass before Communion, lifting up the host for us to see him, reminding us who he is we are going to receive. Both disciples understood John’s intention and followed Jesus. John offered to God his two most beloved followers. He knew Jesus had to grow and he had to diminish. It is not easy to give away our prestige, to fade away in history when are very famous. We should offer to God our best, doing things just for him. Many times we are stingy, we give God left overs, just in case. Remember the sacrifice of Cain and Abel. God was pleased with Abel, who gave him the prime of his flock. The smoke of Cain’s fire didn’t go up to the sky.            John and Andrew were following Jesus from a distance, a bit embarrassed to bother the Lord. Suddenly he turned around and said: “What do you seek?” What do I seek? Happiness. We all seek happiness. “Come and see.” Jesus is inviting all of us to an intimate, personal relationship with him. Come and see. Pope Benedict XVI used to tell us: Christianity is not just a set of rules, a lofty idea, but a relationship with a person who changes our lives. Jesus is an experience, an encounter, a person; there is nobody like Jesus. How can you explain love, beauty, inner joy or peace? You have to experience them to know what they are. It is the same with Jesus.            John says that they stayed with Jesus the rest of the day. He even remembers the time of his encounter with Jesus many years later: the tenth hour, around four o’clock in the afternoon. We all remember moments when we have experienced the supernatural, when we have touch somehow the divine. We would like these moments to happen more often, or for longer periods. But we all have had enough proofs of his existence to keep us going, to know that Jesus is walking with us.            Afterwards Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus. We cannot keep a treasure hidden in the ground. Jesus uses other people to bring us to him. Once we experienced his countenance, his gentle touch, we want people around us, the people we love, to share the same feelings. Thanks to Andrew, Simon became Peter, the rock.josephpich@gmail.com