THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

30 APRIL 2017

            Saint Luke structures his Gospel as a journey, with Jesus making his way to Jerusalem.  As he forms his disciples and walks with them, he explains to them that he is the Suffering Servant promised by the Prophet Isaiah.  He clearly tells them that he will be betrayed, that he will suffer, that he will be crucified, and that he will be raised from the dead.  Jerusalem is the location for his self-sacrificing and self-giving love. 

            In Luke’s Gospel today, two of his disciples are walking away from Jerusalem.  They are devastated by the humiliating death of their teacher.  With their hopes dashed, they are heading for Emmaus.  Scholars debate the significance of Emmaus.  Some argue that it was the site of a Roman garrison, making it a symbol of power, wealth, and influence.  However, no one knows where the ancient city of Emmaus was.  Several different sites seven miles from Jerusalem compete for money from pilgrims in claiming to be the ancient city.  But one thing is clear from Saint Luke’s account.  They are going the wrong way.  They are running away from the pain of self-sacrificing love and are seeking a reality that might appear to be much easier.

            On that first day of the week, the first day of a new creation created by the resurrection, Jesus himself joins them.  Even though they do not recognize him, they allow the stranger to walk with them.  He listens to them and seems to be amused when they ask if he is the only visitor to Jerusalem who knows what has taken place there.  In fact, he is the only visitor who truly knows what has taken place!  He also knows that they have all the information they need to believe what the women had told them.  They are unable to connect the dots.  So, he connects the dots for them.  He quotes the Scriptures which they know well and explains how God’s love has always involved a loving sacrifice.  By the time they reach Emmaus, he has connected the dots in such a way that their hearts are burning within them.  They beg the stranger to stay with them.  They recognize the risen Lord when he takes bread, says the blessing, breaks the bread, and gives it to them.  With the dots connected, they do something risky.  They leave immediately in the dark to return to Jerusalem, to that place of sacrificial love.  Nourished by the breaking of bread, they are willing to face the dangers of traveling in the dark and the danger of thieves to return to that place of sacrifice where they might be sacrificed.

            The risen Christ walks with us, even when we are going the wrong way.  He listens to our pain, even when we are running away from the sacrifices required by God’s love and are heading toward more familiar avenues of wealth or power or influence.  He never forces himself upon us.  But he speaks to us in a variety of ways, opening our eyes to his risen presence and helping us to connect the dots.  He walks with us when we are devastated by the loss of a loved one, or by any kind of disaster in our lives.  He speaks to us through the mouths of those who love us so much that they are willing to speak the truth with love.  He speaks to us even when we find ourselves devastated by our sins and really bad choices.

            The risen Lord has just spoken to us in the Word.  Just as Peter is able to connect the dots in his sermon from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus invites us to connect the dots of our lives and recognize his risen presence in our midst.  He also speaks to us in these First Communicants, whose hearts have been burning for some time as they prepare for this day.  He speaks to us when they renew their baptismal promises, reminding us to live the promises made at our baptisms.  He feeds us with his Body and Blood, as he feeds them for the first time.  Then he sends us out of this Mass, giving us the courage to walk away from whatever cannot satisfy and to take risks and walk toward the new and eternal Jerusalem, the way of self-giving love.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

23 APRIL 2017

            Saint Peter’s profession of faith is very upbeat.  He speaks very convincingly of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and its power to bring a profound peace and joy.  Peter knows this from his own experience.  Even though Peter had promised that he would die with Jesus if necessary at the Last Supper, he sat around the fire in the courtyard of the high priest’s house and denied knowing Jesus three times.  He had abandoned his mentor and teacher who had named him the “rock” of the church.  He was unable to make sense of the empty tomb on the first day of the week.  It was only when the risen Lord broke through the locked doors did Peter experience the peace of the risen Christ.  It was around the fire of the breakfast prepared for him by the risen Christ at the Sea of Galilee that he truly understood the depths of the Lord’s mercy.  The risen Christ asked him three times if he loved him, not to rub salt in his wounds, but to demonstrate that he had truly forgiven him.  Instead of telling Peter that he had “blown it” and that he would choose someone else to lead his Church, he reaffirmed his choice.  Because of his incredible mercy, Peter had learned from the damage done by his sins and became a better leader.

            This is the mercy which we celebrate on the last day of the Octave of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday).  Those responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ had used their power to deal with a rabbi who had been a thorn in their sides.  In their guilt and grief, the disciples of Jesus probably thought that the risen Christ would use that same type of power to deal with them.  That is why they locked the doors of the place where they had gathered.  They more than likely expected him to lecture them and berate them for their cowardice.  Instead, Jesus walks right through those locked doors on the first day of the week.  The one who had been present at the creation of the world creates a new reality for them.  He gives them the gift of peace and breathes on them, giving the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Only with the gift of the Holy Spirit will they be able to break out of their locked hearts and extend the gift of peace and mercy to others.

            It is easy to be critical of Thomas, whom we have named “doubting Thomas.”  To be honest, all the other disciples had been slow to believe in the miracle of the resurrection.  Thomas needed to connect the deep wounds of the risen Christ with those deep wounds of guilt and shame and grief which he carried.  In connecting those wounds on the body of the risen Christ with his own wounds, he experiences the incredible mercy and peace of the risen Christ and makes the most profound statement of faith in the Gospels:  “My Lord and my God.”

            We encounter that same risen Christ at this Mass.  We began this Mass by recalling the gift of Baptism, which has washed away our sins and given us the depths of God’s mercy.  He has just spoken to us in the Word, allowing us to listen to the teaching of those apostles who first experienced the mercy of the risen Christ.  Listening to that Word, we can connect the gift of mercy with all the times we have been forgiven.  We will be fed by his Body and Blood.  In sharing this Feast of the Lamb, we rededicate ourselves to being attentive to the common good of our parish.  The risen Christ will send us out to be Christ’s Body in our world today.

            Like Thomas, we all bear our share of wounds, both as individuals, and as the collective body of Christ.  Sometimes we fear that it is impossible to extend the mercy of the risen Christ, especially when we have been hurt so many times.  We are part of a new reality breathed on that first day of the week.  The Holy Spirit enlivens us to unlock the doors of our hearts.  The Holy Spirit melts the icy hardness of grudges and anger.  Jesus is talking about us when he tells Thomas that those who have not seen and believe are blessed.  We are truly blessed.  We are sent from this Mass to share that blessing.  

EASTER SUNDAY

16 APRIL 2017

            At the last Mass on Christmas Day, we heard the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John.  He announced that Jesus Christ, present at the creation of the world, took on human flesh and dwells among us. At this Mass on Easter Sunday, we hear the end of the Gospel of Saint John.  This same Jesus Christ, who suffered a cruel and humiliating death on a cross, has been raised from the dead. 

            When Mary of Magdala arrives at the tomb, the darkness is much more than the lack of physical darkness.  She comes with the terrible inner darkness of profound grief.  The one who had taught her, the one who had driven seven demons from her, the one who had shown so much kindness to her and to so many others had been brutally executed.  She is shocked to find the stone rolled away and the tomb.  In the darkness of her grief, she runs to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple that she has found an empty tomb.  When they arrive at the tomb, Peter cannot make sense of it.  But, the Beloved Disciple notices some important details.  No one has stolen the body, because the burial cloths remain in the tomb.  When he sees the cloth that had covered the head of Jesus, he thinks about the veil that Moses wore when he had encountered God on Mount Sinai.  His face shone so brilliantly that people could not look at it.  The Beloved Disciple connects that cloth with the glory which Jesus certainly now shares, and he believes.

            John says that they still do not understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.  It is only when they encounter the risen Lord that they begin to believe.  It will take time.  Because the Lord has been transformed through the resurrection, they do not recognize him.  Mary thinks that he is the gardener.  Peter, the Beloved Disciple, and the rest of the disciples are afraid when he breaks through the locked doors of their grief.  Once they recognize him, they also hear his words of forgiveness for running away from him in his hour of need.  Changed by their encounter with the risen Christ, they boldly proclaim his resurrection to everyone whom they encounter.

            That is certainly true of Peter.  He gives a great homily in the house of the gentile convert Cornelius.  He had baptized him and welcomed him into a new community of Jews and Gentiles.  He is no longer the fearful Peter who denies knowing Jesus three times before the cock crowed on the night of Jesus’ betrayal.  He no longer clings to the sins of his past.  He boldly proclaims the person of Jesus Christ and attests that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.  He knows this forgiveness, because he himself received it from the risen Christ.

            We do not encounter the risen Lord as those first witnesses did.  But the risen Lord is just as present to us through the sacramental life of the Church. Through our celebration of the Sacred Paschal Triduum, we have not been reenacting the historical events of the Lord’s passion and death.  In our Liturgical remembering, the mystery of these events has been made present to us.  But, it takes time for us to assimilate the Mystery of the Resurrection and apply it to our lives.  That is why we celebrate Easter every year.  At this Easter Mass, we renew our Baptismal promises and recommit ourselves to living them.  The risen Lord speaks to us in his Word.  He feeds us with his Body and Blood.  He gives us another Easter to as a gift to deepen our faith and reflect on our encounters with him.  He sends us out of this church to proclaim to all we meet that sin and death are not the end.  We celebrate the Victory of the Lamb, who dies no more.

HOLY SATURDAY

15 APRIL 2017

            In 1833, a young, homesick English priest finally got a chance to return home after convulsing in Sicily.  As soon as he recovered, he jumped on the first boat and headed north.  While on his way, he wrote a poem about his feelings at the time, “Lead Kindly Light.”  This priest was John Henry Newman, who eventually became a Cardinal and now beatified on his way to becoming a saint.  His poem was intensely popular to the people of his day:

            Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom,

                        Lead Thou me on!

            The night is dark, and I am far from home,

                        Lead Thou me on!

            At some level in our lives, especially when things go badly, this is our feeling.  Saint Augustine observed that, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”  Tonight, we gathered in darkness that spoke of the darkness of the tomb of Jesus Christ.  We blessed the fire and the Easter Candle and lit it, coming into a darkened church to hear the proclamation that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.  In keeping vigil and hearing the Word of God, telling us of the many ways God has led people along in their encircling gloom.  We have heard the fulfillment of all those actions when Saint Matthew describes the brilliant light of the resurrection: “his appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow.”

            There are 11 children, teens, and adults who have recognized this light of Christ shining in the gloom of their lives.   Like the Israelites who passed through the waters of the Red Sea, they are ready to pass through the waters of Baptism to be freed from their sins and share the light of the risen Christ and become one with his Church. 

We’ve heard enough words.  Stephen, get the candle.  Servers, light your tapers from the Easter Candle.  It is time to see what becoming one with Christ looks like. Everyone, pick up your candles. As we light our candles, we pray for these good people who are convinced that the risen Christ is the only true light in a world with lots of garish lights that can never satisfy.

            Newman completes his poem with these words:

            The night is gone,       

                        And with the morn those angel faces smile!

            That is where we are in celebrating the Sacraments of Initiation.  Happy Easter!

GOOD FRIDAY

14 APRIL 2017

            The Passion according to Saint John is profoundly moving. He does much more than give an account of the suffering and death of Jesus.  His Passion provides a remarkable theological reflection on the depth of God’s love for us at many levels.  At the very time that the priests are preparing the paschal lambs for Passover meals, the real Lamb of God is being sacrificed – not on a sacred altar in the Temple, but on a hill of execution outside the city walls.  The ancestors of Jesus had expressed their desire for reconciliation with God by sacrificing lambs for centuries.  Now, in the death of the Word Made Flesh, that reconciliation has occurred.  The real Passover has begun and has fulfilled the Passover from slavery to freedom.

            At the center of this mystery stands the cross.  For the first five centuries of the Christian era, disciples of Jesus Christ could not bring themselves to portray the cross in art.  It was a sign of horror, humiliation, pain, and Roman cruelty.  And yet, it is this cross which we will bring up the center aisle, proclaiming boldly “Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”  We will carry it over the mosaics of the Covenants embedded in the aisle.  Those mosaics provide insights into the ways in which God has used something as ordinary as wood to work out our salvation in time.

            The work of salvation began in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve failed God and themselves.  Instead of trusting that they had been made in the image of God as creatures, they wanted to become gods themselves.  They wanted to determine what is good and bad, what is right and wrong.  That grasping for divinity introduced sin and spelled disaster for the human race.  From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they took the forbidden fruit.  Sin began with the wood of a tree, and the wood of another tree on Golgotha would defeat sin.

            In the second mosaic, we see the ark that Noah built out of wood to save creation from destruction.  We also see the dove bringing back an olive branch, a piece of wood signifying peace.  The next mosaic pictures the promise God made to Abraham that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands on the sea.  When Abraham endured his test in faith, he had his son, Isaac carry on his back the wood for his own sacrifice.  The next mosaic reminds us of the Covenant made with Moses, who carried a wooden staff to part the Red Sea and provide water from the rock.  The Israelites constructed the Ark of the Covenant out of acacia wood and carried it with them as they journeyed to the Promised Land.  Pictured in the next mosaic, there is a crown over that ark, signifying God’s promise to bring from the House of King David a messiah.  The final mosaic is the New Covenant, sealed by David’s promised Messiah, who more than likely worked with wood alongside his stepfather.

            It is no coincidence that God has worked out our salvation through something as ordinary as wood.  God can and does use any part of his creation as means to save us.  Through the wood of the cross, God can even take the worst ways in which we pervert his creation for our own sinful uses and continue the work of salvation.  That is why we will come forward to venerate the cross after the solemn General Intercessions.  We venerate the cross to show our deep gratitude for the way in which Jesus Christ embraced that terrible wood of his cross to defeat the powers of sin and death.  We venerate the cross to reinforce our faith that whatever crosses we may be carrying will not ultimately destroy us, because the cross of Christ did not destroy him.  We venerate the cross to express our confidence that God can continue to use us, his ordinary but flawed creatures, to bring hope to a fallen world deeply in distress.  That is why we call this particular Friday “Good.”  “Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”  

PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION

9 APRIL 2017

          We have been hearing from the Gospel of Saint Matthew for many Sundays.  Repeatedly, Jesus has spoken words of forgiveness for sinners, and he has been accused of associating with sinners.  Today, Jesus himself ventures into the terrifying land of sin and death. 

Sin is on display at every turn in the Passion of Saint Matthew.  Judas has decided to sell his soul and betray his mentor and teacher and friend for thirty pieces of silver.  After the meal, Jesus asks three of his closest disciples to watch and pray with him.  He enters a garden to beg his Father to find some other way to save the human race rather than dying a humiliating and painful death.  In his agonizing prayer, he does what Adam and Eve had refused to do in another garden.  He trusts his Father’s plan.  As he does that, his closest disciples fall asleep.  They commit the sin of sloth, or spiritual laziness. 

Those who come to arrest Jesus do so in a violent way.  One of his disciples responds with violence, cutting off the ear of the high priest.  When we turn to violence to solve problems, we cannot hear any other perspective.  Despite their vows that they would stay with Jesus, most run away out of cowardice.  During his trial before the Sanhedrin, the witnesses are willing to tell lies to get their own way.  Meanwhile Peter denies knowing Jesus when he is encircled by a crowd of people from a different part of the country.  Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent.  But he gives in to the demands of the hostile crowd to protect his own interests.  The soldiers treat Jesus brutally and humiliate him by stripping him of his clothing.  Those passing by mock the Lamb of God who is dying for their sakes. 

Lent ends on Thursday evening when we enter into the Mass of the Lord’s Supper and begin the celebration of the Sacred Paschal Triduum.  In those three days, we will walk with Jesus Christ as he confronts sin and death.  In doing so, we can face our own sins and the prospect of our own death.  In becoming painfully aware of the terrible effects of our sins, we have a choice.  Both Judas and Peter bitterly regretted what they had done.  We can choose to be like Judas and despair of being freed from our sins.  Or, we can be like Peter and trust in the incredible mercy of Jesus Christ.  In squarely facing sin and death, Jesus is victorious.  In walking with him during the Triduum and facing our own sins, we can share in his victory.

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

2 APRIL 2017

          Saint Paul makes a distinction between those who are in the flesh and those who are in the spirit.  Those who are in the flesh have not turned toward Christ.  Those who are in the spirit are enlivened by the indwelling presence or “spirit” of the risen Christ.  If we understand Paul correctly, he is not telling us that our bodies are bad.  He is saying that belief in Jesus Christ reveals that there is much more to life than what we can perceive with our senses.  Living in the flesh brings death.  Living in the spirit brings life.

            For over a year now, the Elect have been turning toward Christ.  Participating in the Rite of Christian Initiation, some are children, others teens, and others adults.  As Catechumens, they have joined us for the Liturgy of the Word at Mass.  We have dismissed them to enter more deeply into the Mystery of God’s Word.  We have taught them the Mysteries of the faith.  We have prayed with them, shared with them, and welcomed them into our community.  Today at the 10:00 Mass, we prayed the third and final Scrutiny over them.  We prayed that they be freed of whatever might be dead in them, anything keeping them from turning more fully to Jesus Christ.  The priest laid hands on them as a gesture of support as they move to the Easter Vigil and emerge from the waters of baptism with all their sins forgiven.

            As we celebrate the third Scrutiny with them, today’s Scriptures challenge us to examine the quality of our own faith.  When we were baptized, the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwelled in us.  We began living in the spirit.  This Season of Lent has been calling us to evaluate the quality of that life in the spirit.  When we accepted ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, we admitted that we have sometimes slipped back into living in the flesh.  We were called to repent, to turn more fully to Jesus Christ, who dwells in our midst.

            We are constantly being tempted to live in the flesh.  When we live in the flesh, we turn inwardly toward ourselves and our own needs and ignore the needs of everyone else.  The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead gives us insight into our current spiritual state.  We might be like Martha and Mary, who begin to trust that Jesus will eventually work things out.  We might be like Thomas, loyal to Jesus Christ and proclaiming faith in him, without having any idea what that means.  Or we might even be like Lazarus, so immersed in our own self-interests that we are in fact dead to the reality of Jesus Christ in our lives.

            When we find ourselves living in the flesh, we can do nothing on our own to emerge from the tombs we have created for ourselves.  Only Jesus Christ can call us out of being absorbed with ourselves and live again in his light.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation is an excellent tool for allowing Jesus to do just that.  Come and check out our new Reconciliation Rooms and allow Jesus Christ to call us from darkness into light.  There will be plenty of opportunities during Holy Week and into the Sacred Paschal Triduum.

            Jesus does not tell Martha and Mary that he will be the resurrection and the life some distant day in the future.  He says that he IS the resurrection and the life.  Like Lazarus, all of us must die.  The strongest faith in the world will not save us from physical death.  But Jesus hates death.  He hates the death of his friend Lazarus, he hates the terrifying prospect of his own death, and he hates our death.  That is why he invites us to live in the spirit, to embrace our role as faithful disciples.  Living in the spirit not only gives us a share in Christ and his life now.  Living in the spirit involves sharing in an abundant life forever.