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Published on:

16th Apr 2020

Jesus is more human than us (Easter Thursday)

Today a momentous moment in human history occurs: Jesus eats some fish.  Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes.

Why is this so important?  Why so momentous for us?

Its firstly because it tells us this is a real man, a 100% human being standing in front of us.  Sometimes we can feel very distant from God. It’s OK for him - he’s God, I’m just a mere human on the earth.  And we can use this as an excuse for our wrongdoing: God doesn’t understand, it’s easy for him, he doesn’t have to go through what I go through.  That’s the sneaky almost unconscious thought which underlines some of our temptations. 

But my friends it’s not true!  It’s a complete lie! Jesus is so human he knows the joys of eating fresh, grilled fish.  He is so human he delights in being in the company of his friends. He is so human he gets immediately our human fear of the situation after death.  He is so human - he is more human than we are, and he gets being human infinitely better than we do, because he doesn’t share the falleness and internal division and conflict we each have in our own souls about who we are, what we should do, and what we are free to do.

This is why we look to Jesus, and abandon ourselves to his teaching: because it is he who reveals to us who we are, and what it means to be human.

Let us pray:

O God, who have united the many nations

in confessing your name,

grant that those reborn in the font of Baptism

may be one in the faith of their hearts

and the homage of their deeds.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

Show artwork for The Furnace

About the Podcast

The Furnace
The Furnace is a free brief daily homily podcast by a priest of the Emmanuel Community for the Archdiocese of Sydney. The aim of the podcast is to proclaim the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the "glowing furnace of love" (St Gertrude the Great).
Why The Furnace? Quite simply because most people in Australia, and the
world, can no longer get to Mass, or even into a church. The point of these
podcasts is to bring people a share of the Mass in the Word of God and prayer.
But why the name? Because the Heart of Jesus is a “Furnace of love”. This
is how St Gertrude the Great describes it. As she prays:

O Sacred Heart of Jesus,
fountain of eternal life,
Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love.
You are my refuge and my sanctuary.
O my adorable and loving Saviour,
consume my heart with the burning fire
with which Yours is aflamed.
Pour down on my soul those graces
which flow from Your love.
Let my heart be united with Yours.
Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things.
May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions.
Amen

The point of these homilies is first of all to share this with everyone - to
share the love of God’s heart with every human heart. There is nothing original
about that. This is, basically, all priests are ever trying to do. And it’s the only
real point of the Catholic Church: invented by Christ to share Christ, starting
from his pierced heart on the cross on Good Friday. It’s only fitting that at this
time each of us are being refitted with slightly larger crosses that our creator
comes to meet us from the cross with his own heart pierced and broken.

There is so much I could say about the Heart of Jesus - but I would have
to go on forever, because his Heart is infinite. So I’ll finish with the invitation of
another of the great saints of the Sacred Heart, St Claude la Colombiere:
May the Heart of Jesus Christ be our school! Let us make our abode there . . .

Let us study its movements and attempt to conform ours to them.
My friends, lets enter Jesus’ heart together.

It’s not just me recording it, or just you listening to a recording.

I rely on your prayers, and as I write and talk I am praying for each of you. And
in any case, there is no such thing as a Christian doing something by themselves:
like the Trinity, where one is, the others are. So let’s enter together, for Jesus is
standing in front of us now, with his heart wide open, to enter and experience
his love, his healing, his teaching, authentic freedom - and eternal life with him.