Easter Sunday, Cycle B

On behalf of Msgr. Callahan, Fr. Post, the deacons, the parish staff, and myself, let me wish you all a very holy and happy Easter. I hope that all of you will experience joy with family and friends on this day where we celebrate the Lord Jesus’ victory over sin and death!

As some of you may remember from earlier homilies, I have a strong love for tools: power tools, hand tools, yard tools, it doesn’t really matter, I enjoy them all. This fascination with tools started at a young age. It was fostered by a kind retiree who lived next door to us growing up. This man had nearly every tool you could think of for every sort of repair. They were all perfectly cared for and organized on several workbenches in his basement and he was always happy to show me how to use them properly. He would teach me how to care for each tool and use it safely, supervising my projects from beginning to end. As time went on and he realized that my interest in woodworking and home-repair was genuine, he would “lend” me a tool or two for projects that I was working on. After several years and many visits to his workbench, he honored me a great deal by giving me some of the tools that he had used over the years. 

Even as a young person, the gift of these tools was very meaningful to me. I knew how special his tools were to him, the time and sacrifice he had spent in acquiring them and the fact that he actually gave some of them to me was no small sacrifice. I also knew that it was a statement of trust that he was making in me; something precious was now handed on to me to care for and use properly. As I continued to use these tools many years later, I was always reminded of this man’s generosity and tried to honor him by caring for them properly. I tried to emulate the skills and techniques that he himself had spent time refining over many years. 

While I know it is a somewhat weak analogy, I feel this experience resonates in a small way with what we celebrate today with Easter. God our Father, infinitely wise and loving, shares with us what is most precious to him. He shares, not some material object, but his very own life. Even when we treated this gift poorly and lost it through sin, he did not give up on us. Instead of pulling away from us, as we deserved, what does he do? How does he love us? He sends his own beloved Son, to become man, and to suffer and die for the sins of the human race. I think it is important for us to remember that God did not do this for his own benefit. He did it so that you and I might be set free from the slavery of sin and death. This divine sharing, which St. Athanasius beautifully described as God becoming man so man might become divine, well, this gift is a mystery that can never be exhausted. 

On this Easter Sunday, where we get together with family and friends and enjoy good food, beautiful weather and the joyful turning of a new season, it might be easy to stay simply on the natural, sentimental level and not go any deeper. But we ought to remember the more important reason that unites us all. It is because of the resurrection that we are here today. If Christ had not risen from the dead, the disciples would not have had the courage or boldness to say another word about Jesus in public, let alone to claim that He rose and is Lord of the living and the dead.

Brother and Sisters in faith - The resurrection is the pinnacle of what we believe in as Christians. It is the center of our faith, it is the foundation of our Christian experience, 

and it is the goal towards which we direct our lives. The resurrection should be of first importance to us, not because it is a nice ending to the story of Jesus, but because it is the beginning of our story, a story in which our faith can triumph over death just as did the faith of Jesus.

As Christians we are urged over and over again to trust in and accept the reality of the resurrection and to make it a part of our lives through faith in the one who rose from the dead. We are a people who are called to believe in the power and the love that it shows -- to believe in the power and love of God to bring goodness out of evil; life out of death; and hope out of despair.

As Christians we are called to trust and believe in this way. Our Lord makes a promise to us that when we believe in the power and love of God, a power and love so deep it can raise the dead to life, then our lives will be blest, and we in turn will become a blessing to others.

We are promised that what we believe will make a difference to us and it certainly does. If we put the resurrection at the center of our lives of faith, we can trust that we will participate in the glory of Christ’s victory over death. If we allow the resurrection to be a part of our daily prayer, especially in the next 50 days, and not just an event that occurs once a year, we can be sure that we will enjoy a new power over sin and death. Easter Sunday reminds us that we have been given a gift beyond all price, the privilege of participating in the very life of God himself.  During this joyful season we ought to ask ourselves how well we are using that gift.

Today is Easter Sunday; rejoice and be glad, fellow Christians, our savior is risen. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad! 

Good Friday Reflection

There is great wisdom in the practices of our Mother, the Church during Holy Week. The Church knows that we can easily forget things as time goes along, even things which are incredibly important. Today is no exception as we contemplate the passion and death of Christ in our liturgy. In the last five days, we have heard two different accounts of the Lord’s passion: one from Mark and today, the perspective of St. John. Each of them offers different details, variations for us to reflect on and to remember, the greatest act of love our world has ever known. The Church gives us these accounts of the Lord’s passion and death on Calvary so that we do not forget, so  that we do not grow numb to the price that was paid for our sins on that first Good Friday, two millennia ago.

With this in mind, let us contemplate the wounds of Christ while the words of John’s gospel are still fresh in our minds. Let us meditate on the depth of his love, the extent of his suffering, so that we may not take for granted, the price of salvation. As we move through this meditation, I invite you to either close your eyes and picture Christ crucified or gaze upon our own crucifix, hanging here above the altar.

Look first at his feet. These are the feet that walked countless miles to spread the saving gospel. These were the feet that Isaiah described when he wrote: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings.” These are the feet that were lovingly cleansed by the sinful women with costly perfume and her own tears and dried with her hair. But now, these saving feet, the feet of God, they are shattered, swollen, bloody. They have been punctured by the rough iron nails carelessly driven through by Roman soldiers to support the weight of Christ’s body so that he won’t die too quickly on the cross. Sense the pain endured by the Savior for you and me and never doubt the evil of sin.

Look next at his knees; knees that spent so many hours in prayer to the Father. Prayer that gave him strength and insight and courage. Prayer that moved him to choose the twelve apostles and to carry on his compassionate mission with endless patience and love. Prayer that asked for mercy for us and for the whole world. Prayer that helped him accept the fatal mission to die for our sins as he spoke to His heavenly Father: “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but your will be done.” Now those prayerful knees, look how they are gashed and torn from the weight of our sins as he fallen three times on the way to Calvary. Look at the knees of Jesus and never underestimate the heaviness of sin.

Imagine now his back; it scarcely resembles human flesh anymore after being pulverized by the whips and scourges of mocking soldiers. As if this wasn’t enough punishment, the cross has made those wounds even worse, even deeper as its weight digs into strong back of the Son of God and the Son of Mary. How destructive the effects of sin, which have completely disfigured the back and shoulders of Jesus! See how much pain they cause the One who has given every ounce of his strength to the human race! How humbling for us to notice that he has spared nothing, not single piece of his flesh to rescue us from the condemnation of our sins. Can there be any doubt in our minds as to how far evil will go to try and destroy goodness and virtue? 

Our eyes would naturally turn to the head of Jesus and his precious face. Those who would have seen him day in and out would hardly recognize him now. He has been punched, slapped, and beaten. His eyes which looked with love on so many who sought him are swollen shut. Blood gushes from the crown of sharp thorns that are embedded in his sacred head in mockery of the king of kings. His appearance, as the prophet foretold, is so disfigured that we might wonder if we are looking at a human at all. And yet we are looking at the most perfect human who ever existed, perfect God and man. If we ever thought our sins were harmless or only affected us, now is the time to look at the face of Christ, so broken and bloody, and realize that sin hates what is good and beautiful and true.

We might then look up and see the hands of Jesus, outstretched on the cross. These are the beautiful hands that healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, raised the dead and cast out demons. These are the hands that spared the women caught in adultery, saved St. Peter when he began to sink in the sea of Galilee, and which celebrated that first Eucharist on Holy Thursday. For all their kindness, how has Mankind repaid the hands of God? They are pierced with nails and crushed under the weight of Christ hanging on the cross! On Good Friday, could we ever explain away our evil choices, seeing what they did to the gentle hands of our Savior?

Finally, to end our meditation, let us gaze upon the side of Jesus, pierced for our sins. When the centurion thrusts his spear through the side of our Lord, blood and water flow forth, symbolizing redemption and new life. Here, we see the heart of Christ, which has literally poured out every drop of blood for love of us. The heart of Christ longed for each and every soul that would ever live on this earth. And that Sacred Heart beat every moment of every day to bring salvation to you and me.

Had another person died for us, we would never forget it. But how often a day goes by where we don’t thank Jesus for laying his life down for our sins!  Every wound, every drop of blood, was worth it to Christ crucified so that we might be prisoners no longer! On this Good Friday, let us thank God for sparing nothing to break us out of our slavery to sin and death. May we never doubt the evil of sin nor the price that had to be paid for them. But above else, let us never doubt the infinite love of our savior displayed for all time in the wounds he bore as he hung upon the cross. Amen.