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In my opinion, one
of the funniest movies of the past decade has been “My Big
Fat Greek Wedding”. Yeah, it was kinda a “chick flick”
because there were no car chases and nobody got shot. But
it was a hilarious “chick flick”, and that made it cool for
everybody. Back in 2002, it wasn’t flashy, it didn’t have
any big stars in it, and promoted primarily by word of
mouth, the movie was in theaters for nearly a year and was a
huge success. The movie told the story of Toula Portokalos,
a single Greek-American woman, working in her parent’s Greek
restaurant. Wanting a change in her life, Toula goes back
to school, loses a bunch of weight, gets contacts, and takes
a new job in her aunt’s travel agency. The movie gets
really funny, though, when Toula meets Ian Miller, and has
to reconcile her new fiancée with her big Greek family and
her Greek heritage, all before they get married. The movie
was so funny because it could have been “My Big Fat German,
or Jewish, or Italian, or Mexican, or French, or Korean
Wedding”. Everybody with a big, ethnic family could
relate. And yet, it was fun to get the peek inside a Greek
family and Greek tradition.
I mention this today
because our Gospel starts out with these Greek visitors showing
up and wanting to see Jesus. And all I can picture in my head
is Toula’s parents from the movie showing up and talking to the
Apostles. Mr. and Mrs. Portokalos would have come bearing
roasted lamb, and cured olives, and waving the Greek flag. And
while that probably wasn’t exactly the way that it was, these
Greek visitors signal a change in the Gospel story. Jesus’
story has spread. Now, even these Greek foreigners are coming
to seek Him out. The worst fears of the Scribes and Pharisees,
that Jesus’ fame would spread outside of the Jewish world, have
now come true. The visit of these curious Greek seekers,
prompts Jesus to talk about His own death in life-giving terms.
And as He points out, what is true of Himself, the first seed,
will be true for all subsequent offspring. If Jesus must lose
His life to be glorified, then His followers must likewise lose
their lives in order to gain them. The story gets even more
interesting when a voice from Heaven is heard in verse 28. This
is the only such voice of God, testifying to His Son, in all of
St. John’s Gospel. While some mistook the voice for thunder,
Jesus was quick to point out that it was intended for the crowd,
as He did not need this kind of confirmation. Evidently, both
of these events, the arrival of the Greeks seeking Jesus, and
the voice from Heaven, make it clear to Jesus that the time of
fulfillment is at hand. He had spoken several times before of
“His hour”, but now it becomes clear that it is “the hour”.
Jesus’ coming glorification is completely tied to His being
lifted up. And while the crowd that day, as expected, fails to
understand what He means, St. John leaves no doubt for his
readers as to what Jesus meant by this: He meant His
crucifixion!
With this Gospel, St.
John and the Church get everything ready for next weekend and
Palm Sunday. All is in place. The seed is about to fall to the
ground and die, and what God has in store for that “seed”, is
unimaginable! Jesus is hinting at the new life that He is
prepared to offer us, and the eternal life that will be the
fruit of following Him.
We hear all of this, and
much like the Greek visitors, we too say “We want to see
Jesus”. The Lord reminds us this week that to do that we have
to see the whole picture. We can’t just see the miracle worker,
or the teacher, or the Good Shepherd, we’ve also got to see the
cross. We can’t just the parts of Jesus’ story that we want to,
we’ve got to see it all. We’ve got to live it all. May we
follow Him today and every day. Today we can’t imagine what He
has in store for us. It’s going to be great. I’d bet that it
is even going to be better than a Greek wedding!
May God bless us today, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit…AMEN !!!
St. Maria Goretti…Pray for us
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