Homily
for Wednesday
2d
Week of Easter
St.
Pius V
April 30,
2024
John
3: 16-21
Collect
Christian
Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, N.R.
Jesus Teaching (Rembrandt)
Today’s gospel continues Jesus’
discourse that began with his dialog with Nicodemus. In the passage we read yesterday, however, specifically
in v. 11, Jesus shifted from addressing Nicodemus in the singular, “thou” in
older English, to the plural “you.” Thus
he and the evangelist are now speaking to a wider audience of those who believe
and those who don’t.
The belief Jesus speaks of concerns
God’s love, eternal life, light, and truth—main themes in John’s Gospel. Jesus is among us and speaks to us to reveal
God’s encompassing love, a love meant to bring men and women into God’s eternal
life. This is our choice to make, to
believe or not to believe, to choose divine light or infernal darkness, to
choose divine truth or Satan’s lies.
We’re celebrating today the memorial of
St. Pius V. The saint’s collect notes
his safeguarding of the faith, which he did in 2 ways: organizing the military defense of Christian
Europe against Turkish invasion, successfully accomplished with the totally unexpected
victory at Lepanto, and the publication of a catechism that presented Catholic
doctrine reaffirmed by the Council of Trent—light and truth.
St. Pius V
The collect refers further to “more
fitting worship” and our participation in the divine mysteries, an allusion to
St. Pius’s promulgation of Trent’s liturgical reforms with the Roman Missal and
the breviary. Enlightened by divine
truth and responding to God’s encompassing love, we worship him in the
Eucharist and the Divine Office, which in turn reinforce and safeguard our
faith; for in them we encounter Christ personally and profoundly.
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