Today is the
day of Easter joy. We proclaim the
centerpiece of our Catholic Christian faith:
Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Today we
celebrate the reason why we are a people of hope and new life. Today we cast off fear and make a leap of
faith. Liturgically we light the Easter
candle because we believe in the light that comes from the Risen Lord. Indeed, in the light that comes from the
Risen Lord, the darkness of fear and the darkness of sin is no more. This Easter candle needs to be lit in the
deep recesses of our hearts.
Though this
feast celebrates the centerpiece of our faith,
in today’s Easter Gospel, there is no Alleluia chorus or even angels
singing God’s praises as in the Nativity Gospel, the Gospel seems to pay more
attention to the sluggish growth of human faith than to God’s overwhelming
power – until we realize that the two are intimately connected.
Why is it
that the Gospels give so much attention to the sluggishness of the disciples’
faith journey? Today’s readings invite
us to assess where we are in the journey of faith. It is good to remember that there is no bad
place to be, and no place where it is impossible to be touched by God’s
unconditional love?
May we all
be aware of how we encounter the Lord on this Easter day -- as parents who bring their families to
this Easter Eucharist, as Catholics who have participated in the other
liturgies of Holy Week on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, as Catholics who may
have not been in Church since Christmas day, as Catholics who are very
distracted by the busyness of life, as Catholics who have recently experienced
the death of one you love or the pain of
some significant brokenness in life, or as pilgrims who seek to come to the
Lord more deeply in their lives.
My hunch is
that those of us who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual
landscape. Each one of us is unique. This is not by accident. It is by God’s design. We need to dispense with the myth that there
is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians. May there always be considerable diversity in
the ways each one of us encounters our loving God. We are a big Church. There is room for everyone.
In every way
possible to say it, the Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are
forgiven; all are invited to the Easter banquet. Does this mean that anything goes, that our
Church is a Church without rules or discipline? Of course not. It does mean that the Lord’s love and Risen
Life is to be shared by all. There is
nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.
Yes, we do need to open ourselves to the forgiveness and reconciliation
and love the Lord extends to us. And as
sure as the sun rises each day, when our hearts are touched by the love of
Jesus, we are motivated to share this love with one and all.
On this
Easter day, I am grateful for all the ways the Spirit of the Risen Lord abounds
in our parish community.
For me, I
sense the presence of the Risen Lord when I hear crying in our Church. This for me does not disturb my prayer, for I
think there is no future to the Church if there is no crying. Crying for me is a sign of family prayer as
moms and dads are passing on the gift of faith to their children. Thank you moms and dads for bringing your children to Church.
Another
beautiful sign of the Risen Lord in our parish life is when our teens led us in
prayer on the evening of Good Friday in the Seven Last Words Service. Our teens bring me to tears when they tell us
the story of the last days in the life of Jesus. In fact, I did learn something new from our
teens in this beautiful prayer service. Jesus was female. Anna Baumer played the part of Jesus in an
inspiring way. The only that matched
that for me in my memory when we had a Christmas pageant at St Louis Church and
Mary and Joseph had twins in the manger of Bethlehem.
Another
example of the presence of the Risen Lord: this past Tuesday, I participated in
an inspiring organ donation conversation.
I was touched by the story of an organ recipient. He begins each day giving thanks to his organ
donor for giving him the gift of life.
As a heart transplant recipient, he recognizes the incredible gift that
was given to him by the heart donor.
The
gratitude that he begins each day is also an Easter gratitude because he also
recognizes the gift of life given to him by Jesus – a sharing in the Risen Life of Jesus.
The
beautiful gift of an organ donation reminds us of the spiritual gift we have
been given by Jesus who has laid down his life so that we may share in His
risen Life.
The Gospel is not merely a story in which we
are offered the good example of a man who lived a life of love. It is much
more, for it shows us that God has renewed our life totally from within through
the Spirit of the Risen Christ who now lives in us.
When we know
Jesus in our hearts, there is nothing that we will rob us of Easter joy. Another example:
There is a single mom whom I will call Anne barely lives from pay check
to pay check. Anne has four young
children who are a handful to parent.
She receives no support from her former husband. Yet, quite simply and profoundly, Anne knows
Jesus and that makes all the difference.
Her heart is filled with an Easter joy and her future is full of
hope. She is an inspiration of a person
who knows the Lord.
The love of
the Risen Lord is meant for you, for the person sitting next to you, and for
everyone. What will it take for you to
be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His
love? What will take for us to believe
that God’s love will triumph over poverty, conflict, violence and war.
Whenever and
wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our
spiritual darkness fades away. As surely
as the dark of night gives way to the dawn, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy
awaits you. May you too be very much in
touch with how the spirit of the Risen Lord lives in your family and in our
parish family.
Have a
blessed day. Today is our day of Easter
joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment