Born Anew by the Holy Spirit by Being Lifted Up with Jesus, Second Tuesday of Easter, April 13, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter
Feast Day of Blessed Margaret of Castello
April 13, 2021
Acts 4:32-37, Ps 93, Jn 3:7-15

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

• Today in the Gospel, Jesus continues his dialogue with Nicodemus, the “reluctant disciple,” who came to Jesus by night because even though he knew that God was working through Jesus, he wasn’t courageous enough to make a commitment and risk being seen with him during the day, something that might compromise his prestige and status among the members of the Sanhedrin. In yesterday’s excerpt of their conversation, Jesus told him that unless one is “born from above” he cannot see the Kingdom of God. But rather than trying to assimilate what Jesus was indicating with images and how the analogy of physical birth related to the mystery of spiritual regeneration, Nicodemus responded by trying to treat the mystery of rebirth as an absurdity: “How can a man once grown old be born again?,” he asked. “Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” Nicodemus was too smart not to grasp that that was not what Jesus was implying.
• So Jesus tried to help him to accept the fact of the need for rebirth from above without the necessity of understanding how by means of another analogy, the one that begins today’s reading. “Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above,’” Jesus said. “The wind blows where it wills and you can hear the sound it makes but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” When we feel a cool breeze outside, we don’t spend time wondering whether it originated in Chicago or Philadelphia or whether it’s on its way to Connecticut or to New Jersey. We just accept acknowledge the breeze and are grateful for it. Jesus says we should approach the way the Holy Spirit blows with the same acceptance and not get distracted by how the Holy Spirit is bringing about our spiritual rebirth or where he wants to blow us later. We’re called to acknowledge what he’s doing with trust.
• But Nicodemus doesn’t buy that either. “How can this happen?,” he retorts. That’s where Jesus seeks to humble him, because it was his pride that was preventing him from being a true disciple in the light. “You are the teacher of Israel,” a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, “and you do not understand this?” … If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” He wasn’t really even buying what Jesus was saying about the wind; how could he accept what Jesus was saying about the divine Ruah (Holy Spirit)? Jesus indicated the reason why he wasn’t understanding: because he wasn’t accepting Jesus as a witness who spoke the truth. “Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.” Because he wasn’t humbly accepting Jesus as a divinely sent witness to these things, he wasn’t accepting what Jesus said. Jesus would point to a similar truth elsewhere in the Gospel with regard to his teaching by parables. He taught spiritual truths by using images of mustard seeds, yeast, soil, and wedding banquets so some may understand but others may “hear but not understand [and] look but never see” because their heart was “fat” and didn’t want to convert (Mt 13:10-17). Jesus used images as spiritual litmus tests to expose people’s hearts and see whether people would put in the time to search for the truth the images contained, whether they really wanted to convert or just to have a “dialogue” or “learn a thing or two.” That was Nicodemus’ essential problem. He didn’t want to convert. He was fascinated. He was drawn. He didn’t really want a new life to the extent of willing the means. His lack of comprehension began in his heart, not his head.
• Jesus finishes the dialogue by describing to Nicodemus and us how we will be born again from above. One wouldn’t have to re-enter his mother’s womb, but rather the Lord’s tomb. “No one has gone up to heaven,” Jesus said, “except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” In order to be born from above, we need to be lifted up with Jesus and that happens, as Jesus alluded, when he would be lifted up on the Cross. It’s from Jesus on the Cross that we see our need to convert like the Jews in the desert who had been bitten by saraph serpents since they had been following and worshiping the “serpent” instead of God. It’s from Jesus on the Cross that we learn how to unite all our sufferings, hardships, contradictions and difficulties to God. It’s from Jesus on the Cross, ultimately, that we learn how to live with love, because the Cross is not principally a sign of pain and suffering but of the self-giving love that made even that much pain bearable. We’re born anew from his pierced side from which flowed the water and blood that is the source of the Sacramental life of the Church, the water of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist. That points to the reality that it’s not merely about being “born” again from above through the Cross but “living” from above, living by the Holy Spirit who helps us to be buried with Christ so that we may have a newness of life, as St. Paul tells us at the Easter Vigil (Rom 6). After we’re reborn, the Holy Spirit helps us to grow from above. Since we have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above and set their mind on the things of the Spirit (Col 3, Rom 8).
• Once the Holy Spirit leads us to birth and life from above, once he helps us to learn how to love like Christ, everything changes. We see a glimpse of that change in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. St. Luke tells us, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. … There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the Apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.” Once they were willing, like Christ, to die out of love for God and others, selling and distributing their property was easy. Moreover, because of their rebirth by the Holy Spirit they related to each other differently. They looked at each other as spiritual brothers and sisters, as beloved family members, for whom sacrificing for them in their need was as natural as a parent or sibling’s sacrificing for a beloved family member by blood. We see three characteristics of life from above. First, we see that they were of “one heart and mind,” because the Holy Spirit brings about unity. Second, we see generosity. And third we see the trust that encourages that generosity: they were laying the proceeds at the feet of the apostles, trusting that they would distribute as good stewards for the sake of the whole family like any good father of a big poor family would. The Church is meant to be in every age the type of loving, sacrificial family we see among the early Christians and to the extent that’s not what we find in a particular community or religious institute, parish, diocese or the Church universal, it’s a sign that not everyone has allowed the Holy Spirit to help them grow and live in accordance with the rebirth they’ve received.
• We see both of these behaviors — the timidity of Nicodemus and the bold charity of the spirit-filled Christians — in the life of the holy one the Church celebrates today on, Blessed Margaret of Castello, who died 701 years ago today and who, I’m told, will soon be canonized by equipollent canonization as soon as today [it actually happened by papal decree on April 24]. St. Margaret was born to noble parents who wanted a boy, not a girl at all, and certainly not one born blind, with dwarfism and with severe spinal curvature. They were ashamed of her and hid her from civilization for many years, building her a cell attached to a chapel where she would spend the entirety of her days. Eventually when they heard about a prayer service in the Franciscan Church in nearby Città di Castello, they took her there. After two days without a miracle, however, they just abandoned her there. Like Nicodemus, they were not capable of living with Christians in the light. Their shame consumed them. But the poor of Castello took her in, showing her how to beg, helping her to sleep in door ways, eventually caring for her in different houses as their means allowed. Eventually she was accepted to come and live with a religious community, but their laxity resented her piety and they put her out anew. But the poor Christian people of Castello once again took her in and treated her with love. They were willing to share the little they had with her and have her, with all her disabilities, in common with them. In gratitude she used to teach the young poor children the Catechism and the Psalms, many of which she had memorized, and served as a de facto babysitter for those parents who needed to work. Eventually she met some Dominican friars who admitted her as a third-Order member and she prayed for the success of their preaching and herself powerfully preached about what it means to be lifted up with Christ on the Cross. In spite of her physical difficulties, she visited prisoners, cared for the sick and comforted those who were suffering. She is the patron saint of people with disabilities, the blind and pro-life movements.
• As we begin our day at Mass, we ask through her intercession that we may correspond as fully to the work of the Holy Spirit as she did, as the first Christians did. We ask the Holy Spirit seeks to lift us up to be with Christ on the Cross, so that we may live from the blood and water flowing from his side, so that we may unite our whole lives to him including our sufferings, so that we may receive and imitate his self-giving love, sacrifice our things generously and with trust in him working through the Church, and come to be one mind and one heart with Him and with each other in this world so that we may be united with St. Margaret in the communion of saints forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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