2nd Sunday of Easter Homily

II Sunday of Easter / Divine Mercy Sunday (April 27, 2014)

Gospel reading: John 20: 19-31

Years ago, one of my spiritual mentors, Fr. Art Kinsella, O.P. used to say, “Sometimes to keep a friendship, you have to blaze a trail to your friend’s door.”  Friendships cannot be forced, but they need to be maintained. Friends need to be cared for.  Jesus knows that quite well.

To return, Jesus – the Risen Lord – had to cut a path, blaze a trail to the door, the door where the disciples were in hiding.

The first order of business of Jesus’ return was not to convince the disciples and us of him being raised from the dead, but to bring peace: reconciliation and healing with the Risen One. 

My former professor, Fr. Robert Barron writes, “The risen Christ returned to those who had denied and betrayed and run from him – and responded not with answering violence, but with a word of grace and forgiveness.”

His wounds were not incidental to that.  Recalling the prophet Isaiah, St. Peter writes in his first letter, “By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2: 24b).”  At the same time, they were the visible signs of what he suffered now transformed into living signs of his fidelity. 

Even though humanity had no reason to treat Jesus like he was treated, he came back to show that there was a reason why he did what he did, why he does what he does. 

Saint Padre Alberto Hurtado, a Jesuit priest from Chile, writes: “Jesus descended from heaven to earth to look for the only thing that could not be found in heaven: suffering – the consequence of sin; and he took it up without limits out of love for humanity.  …..He took on suffering in his soul, in his imagination, in his heart, in his spirit and in his body …..”

Some might look upon the Lord’s passion and resurrection and wonder what it’s all about.  However, before we can truly believe, we must be forgiven, reconciled …reconciled with Jesus who seeks to blaze a trail to each and every heart, reconciled with him who seeks to unite his wounds with ours. 

Jesus knows that he has to cut through the weeds and brush in our minds and hearts, where fear becomes overgrown, in order to rescue the friendship with us he had worked so hard to make firm. 

Jesus is not ashamed of his wounds.  Why?  For one, he’s not ashamed of us.  

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Easter Vigil 2014 Homily

Easter Vigil 2014

Primary readings: Romans 6: 3-11 / Matthew 28: 1-10

Good Friday in Guayaquil, Ecuador was usually the heaviest work-day for us Dominicans at the Iglesia Santo Domingo de Guzman.  The day kicked with the Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, up the winding street that snaked all over the big hill of Cerro del Carmen, with its expansive myriad of houses. 

                                                         

Our procession attracted a crowd, perhaps nearly 300 people walking along and many more watching from their front porches.   However, the big Via Crucis was in the southern part of the city, where thousands would make the pilgrimage –like procession every Good Friday. 

I always felt that there was too much emphasis on Good Friday, since by the time the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday came around, much, much smaller crowds would gather.  Many have studied the cultural and religious differences between our culture and theirs, but when you are in the thick of it, you see how it goes much deeper than intellectual analysis.  Did they focus too much on death and suffering, too much on the Passion of Christ and less on his Resurrection?

Shifting the focus, do we in the U.S. focus too little on the Passion of Christ and his death and too much on Resurrection?  There is little doubt, though, that one without the other makes little sense. 

In the Easter Vigil liturgy, nine primary texts from Sacred Scripture are proclaimed that range from the primordial origins of our humanity to the full flowering of our faith.  The readings speak of hope and promise.  However, they speak so loudly and eloquently because they all form a rousing chorus of life in the midst of death, of light shining forth in the darkness.

Notice the unflinching spirit of St. Paul in the reading from his letter to the Romans as he addresses head-on the reality of death:  “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  No mincing words there.  But, as he makes so clear, death is a back-drop that is there, but in Him who is life, we have the strength to overcome it.  “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” 

As I reflect on my father’s recent passing, I realize that in him, I saw death up close and personal. Still, beyond the sadness and bonds of affection, I will always be able to recognize how my father’s spirit seemed drawn to something that was beyond him and us. His final breaths had a purpose, but they ceased to be necessary.  Something or more truly, someone was at work beckoning him …. and us.  Life will prevail and in ways we might barely understand, but fully hope. 

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary ran with haste to the tomb of Jesus.  We can imagine their quick and sure steps were a way of shaking off any attacks of nervousness and doubt.  They were determined; they sensed, against all the physical evidence, that in Jesus, life could not be stifled.   

Were they afraid?  Absolutely.  Were they faithful to Christ even after death?  No question.   Death surrounded them, but they pressed on. 

They had seen love and life himself die on the cross and laid in the tomb.  They also sensed that love and life will never pass. Filled with an incredible array of human emotions they ran to the tomb, but those feelings were not the force that got them there.  The Lord promised, they trusted.

   Tulane Catholic Center 2014 Cookout, Benson Plaza, Tulane University

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