We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song!

The first disciples did not exactly experience the Resurrection event with the magnificence of the Easter music coming from our new organ.  Our Easter Alleluia’s resonate that we are an Easter people.  We are celebrating the victory of life – the Risen Life of Christ – that conquers death.

For the first disciples, their Easter faith was much more gradual.  The first disciples encountered the empty tomb before experiencing the Risen Lord.  The Easter Gospel speaks of the empty tomb experiences of Mary  Magdalene and the apostles Peter and John.  They only gradually came to an Easter faith.

We have much to learn from the gradual growth in faith of the foundational disciples, Peter and John and Mary Magdalene.  We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we cannot come to faith in one Mass.  Together, as a community of faith, as God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a lifetime.

An important truth of our lives is that we discover important things about our lives at the empty tomb.  Just as the first disciples experienced the empty tomb before they came to a resurrection faith, we need to encounter the empty tombs of our own lives.

As with the first disciples, our empty tomb experiences are the moments of darkness and confusion in life.  As we peer into the empty tombs of the ups and downs of everyday life, we are challenged to see and believe as the apostle John did as he stared into the empty tomb.

It is an empty tomb experience when Gospel values cannot be recognized in the way we live our lives.  Plain and simple, we need to walk our talk as the followers of Jesus.  Yes, self-centeredness, greed, lust, power and control, fears, anxieties are demons most of us are familiar with but we need to trust and embrace the grace Jesus offers.  The risen Jesus calls us by name and offers us the grace to walk away from the empty tombs of the fears and the demons of our lives so that we live with Easter joy and an Easter peace.  This indeed is our journey to an Easter faith.

It is the experience of an empty tomb when we do not recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives.  The Risen Lord is present to us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  But our empty tomb experiences of suffering and loss cloud our resurrection faith.   Are we able to stay with the experience of loss and grief as did the first disciples and gradually recognize how the Risen Lord does call us by name and invites to walk away from our demons and live with an Easter joy.  There is Easter joy with each sunrise and in the simple sharing with one that you love.  We ask for the grace of spiritual sightedness to recognize that the Risen Lord is indeed in our midst.

Yes, it’s at the tomb that we can make sense of the questions that have followed us on our Lenten journey.  The life issue we all face at the empty tomb is that without trusting in the grace of God, we will never get away from the empty tombs of our life that can too easily enslave us.  As we try to make sense of the horrific terrorists’ attacks in Brussels upon so many innocent people, we wonder what is happening in our world.  In the negativity and the mean-spiritedness in the process of choosing our next president, we would like to think that we are better than this.  In the random acts of violence that happen too often on our streets, we wonder what it takes for us to love one another and to get along with one another.  Does it have to be that difficult?

We are a long ways from the message of Jesus at the Last Supper when he gave us an example of how we are to transform the world.  Jesus got down on his knees and washed the feet of His disciples, and said we are to do likewise:  that is to say, we are to wash the feet of God’s poor.  Jesus did not ask to die for one another.  He asked us to live for one another.

We receive the Eucharist at Mass so that we can witness of the love of Jesus by the way we live our lives.   The Easter grace we seek to make more connections between the presence of Jesus that we receive in the Eucharistic body and blood of the Lord, and the Jesus we experience in our love and service of one another.  On this Easter day, we pledge to use our hands and feet for the work of forgiveness, for the work of loving one another.

Acts of violence always gather the headlines.  But, following the example of Jesus, may we engage simple acts of service with great love.

For myself, I am easily touched by little things that are done with great love.  I received this past week a birthday card from one of our precious students at St. Joseph’s School.  In her card, she simply said: “I have asked God to watch over you on your special day.  Be happy and eat a lot of birthday cake.”  These words touched the innermost part of my heart.  Her simple prayer for me is more meaningful that any possible gift that I could receive.  The Risen Lord is present to us in the love we experience from one another.

 What does it mean for us to allow ourselves to be touched by the person of the Risen Jesus?  What will it take for us to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill with this world with His love?  What will it take for us to believe that God’s love will triumph over   poverty, conflict, violence and war?  What will it take for us to believe that God will never abandon us?

When we look at life with the eyes of our heart, with the awareness of the deep spiritual center of our lives, we will experience Easter joy in many, many life experiences.  Easter is about Jesus.  Easter is about real life.  Easter is about how we experience the risen Jesus in our lives.  The real Easter mystery is when you experience the presence of the Risen Lord in the beauty of sunrise, in the simple sharing with people you love, in the ways you wash the feet of God’s poor, and in this mystery of the Eucharist we are fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord.  In this jubilee year of mercy, may the Risen Savior shower you with His merciful love.