Yes, The Risen Lord is present to us in the struggles of life.

 

Third Sunday of Easter  B  2024

 

Year after year, Easter Sunday celebrates the reality of Jesus’ resurrection as the foundation of our Christian identity.  As St. Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, they vain is our preaching, and vain  is your faith.”

 

And yet, in the resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples, failure to recognize Jesus is a hallmark of his resurrection appearances.  So rather than Jesus they see a ghost, and rather than joy they experience fear.  The evangelist Luke  says:  “the disciples were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost.  Before the disciples were going to become fearless evangelizers, they needed a deep spiritual learning curve.  The meaning of resurrection faith was that Jesus was going to change the disciples “slowness of heart” and fearful misunderstanding into “opened minds” and joyful recognition.

 

Fast forward to our lives and our failures to recognize the presence of the Risen Christ in our midst, the question for us is how will Jesus appear to us in this day and age?  Will we be any better able to recognize him than those first disciples?  Jesus showed his first disciples his wounded hands and feet and spoke “peace” to them.  Could it be that Jesus is showing us his wounded body in the sick and the homeless who need our care, in the immigrants or prisoners who need to be rekindled by our Easter zeal?

In the Gospel account, Jesus stood in their midst and said to them:  “Peace be with you.”  As Jesus noticed the disciples the disciples were startled and terrified, he asked:  “Why are you troubled?”

In wishing us peace, Jesus also asks us why are we anxious, why are we fearful, why is your life shaped by our worries in our economy, why are we dominated by the possessions of our life, why do we give to another person so much power over our lives when it is not life-giving?

The question why are you troubled is often asked in the Gospel of Luke.  Recall the annunciation when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary she was going to be the mother of the savior, and Mary was confused as to what this meant.  Then the angel asked Mary:  Why are you troubled?  Be assured the Lord goes with you.

These words are spoken to us as well in the midst of the questions and fears of our lives:  “Why are you fearful?”  The Lord is with you and the Lord’s gift to you is an inner peace and joy that no one nor any situation can take from you.

 

As we know, what often keeps us from a resurrection faith and hope in the presence of the Risen Lord are the struggles and the messiness of life.  The questions of life often lead to more questions than faith.  Sometimes, we do not experience inner peace as we wrestle with the struggles of brokenness in relationship, with our health, and the disillusionment we experience with failed leadership in the Church, on Wall Street, and in our nation’s leaders.

 

Yet, the mystery of the faith journey of each of us is that we need to look at the messiness and the questions and the disappointments of life; we need to look at this life experiences with faith-filled eyes.  Yes. God accompanies in the struggles of life.  For us to encounter the joy of the Risen Lord, we first need to encounter the crucified Lord in the struggles.

It is the law of spiritual gravity that we need to experience and to trust in Jesus in the wounds of our life so that we may be reborn in trusting and hoping in new life that is God’s Easter promise to us.

Yes, we all struggle in one way or another.  All of us are confronted with touching the wounds of Christ in the struggles of our lives.  In the midst of these struggles, the Risen Jesus speaks these words to us: “Peace be with you.”  Can we experience the love of the Risen Lord in the midst of the struggles of life? 

Will we be any better able to recognize him than those first disciples?  Jesus showed his first disciples his wounded hands and feet and spoke “peace” to them.  Could it be that Jesus is showing us his wounded body in the sick and the homeless who need our care, in the immigrants or prisoners who need to be rekindled by our Easter zeal?

As we reflect on the Gospel, I would highlight two other components of the Gospel story that are also two movements in our spiritual journey.

1.     We are a Eucharistic people.  “While they were still incredulous, Jesus asked them: “have you anything here to eat?”  As for those first disciples, and so too for us, our own privileged encounter with the Risen Jesus is at table on the Lord’s day, in the context of the community’s meal.

As it was true for the disciples on the way to Emmaus, the Risen Lord is made known in the breaking of the bread.  And so, we gather for the Eucharistic Breaking of the Bread.  We gather to give thanks to the Lord our God for what God has done for us.  We gather to give thanks for the longing that is within us to experience the presence of the Risen Lord in the Eucharist and in the people of our lives

 

2.     The first disciples were to be a missionary people.  Jesus commissioned them “to be witnesses of these things.”  Jesus sends forth the disciples to bear witness.  How often Pope Francis reminds us that we “touch the flesh of Christ” in the wounds of our suffering brothers and sisters to whom we are sent forth from every Eucharist as witnesses of Jesus’ self-sacrificing love.

We seek the grace to be a Eucharistic people who glorify the Lord by the way we witness to God’s love in all that we say and do in the service of one another.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

 

Easter 2024

 

 

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.  This Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

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.  

More than ever on this beautiful Easter day, 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.

 

On this Easter day the Risen Lord wishes to identify with us and to enter into the experience of the people he loves.  Today God is sending this Easter message to us that the Risen Lord showers upon us the joy and peace that accompanies us as an Easter people.

May we embrace our Easter faith in which we look at life from a transformed perspective.  May we not be focused solely on the challenges we face in these  days; may we be enlivened by the love and the joy of the Risen Lord.  We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

Now on the first Easter day, the first disciples did not exactly experience the Resurrection event with the magnificence of Easter music and Easter flowers and a wonderful sense of celebration.  The first disciples did not immediately proclaim:  We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

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.

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.

 

 

 

May our Easter faith in the presence of the Risen Christ within our hearts fill us with an Easter joy.   Allow yourself to be loved by the God who goes with us in this pandemic crisis.   Be assured that with the eyes of faith the vaccine we most need is found in our solidarity with the Risen Lord and in our solidarity with each other as a community of faith.

We are an Easter people.  This means that are not buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits, dangerous addictions or this pandemic crisis.  Our Resurrection faith gives us the Good News that no tomb can hold us down anymore -- not the tomb of despair, discouragement or doubt, not that of death.  Instead, the joy of the Risen Lord fills our spirit.

May we listen as the Risen Lord calls us by name and welcomes us into the joy of sharing in His Risen life. 

Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.   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.

We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we will not come to faith in one Mass.  AS God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a life time.  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 of day, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy awaits you.

Have a blessed day.  Today is our day of Easter joy.