Homily for Wednesday, 2d Week of Easter

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.

St. Pius V

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.

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.