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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Fifth Sunday of Lent (B)
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Gospel text (Jn 12:20-33): Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.... And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself."...

The universal salvation, prophesized by Isaiah, is revealed in the Cross

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, a group of Greek pilgrims who had arrived in Jerusalem asked to "see" Jesus. He responds in a mysterious way (something common in John’s Gospel): with a prophecy of the Passion, in which He points to His imminent death as "glorification", glorification that is manifested in great fruitfulness.

It is not some brief, external encounter between Jesus and the Greeks that matters. There is to be another, far deeper encounter. The Greeks will indeed "see" Him: through the cross He goes toward them. He comes as the grain of wheat that has died, and He will bear fruit among them. They will see His "glory": in the crucified Jesus they will find the true God, the one they were seeking in their myths and their philosophy.

—The universality of which Isaiah’s prophecy speaks (cf. 56:7) is brought into the light of the Cross: the one God becomes visible to the nations; in the Son they will recognize the Father and, in this way, the one God, who revealed Himself in the burning bush.