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.