Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Can’t you just wait to get back to normal?  I wish I had a dime for every time I have heard this over the last few weeks.  But, do we really want to get back to “normal”?  Did Mary of Magdala and the apostles go back to normal?  Absolutely not. The reality is that there will be a new normal; our world is forever changed.

Over the last few weeks, I realized that we as a church cannot go back to “normal”.  The Easter mystery is not static nor can the Church settle for the status quo.  If we are to be the living and Risen Body of Jesus, then we need to be growing and changing.  Jesus can breath new life into our world through us if we allow him to.  It is a real possibility that the new life of the empty tomb is the new life that the Church can bring into the world.  We will indeed rise from the issues of this world; but our resurrection cannot be to the old way of doing things.

Over the last 20 or more years, we have talked about the new evangelization: a new way to preach the Gospel.   Over the last three weeks, we have jumped into the new evangelization and I think more people are hearing the Good News of the Resurrection than before.  We have seen a restoration to faith formation happening at home where it really needs to be.  The reality of the domestic church where God is worshiped at home as well as in church is reinforced.

The role of the Church is exemplified in Mary of Magadala.  She went to the tomb and found Jesus.  How did she know him?  She knew him because she had a relationship with him.  He was not a doctrine learned in a book to get a sacrament or cultural ritual; Mary knew him as friend, as Master and as Lord.  As we have all been forced to slow down, now is the time to get to know the Lord. Mary went looking for him; so must we.  The Church is to proclaim the message to all that Jesus is risen.  However, to really know the Risen Lord in our lives, to meet him in  the sacraments, or see Him in our mission is to have a relationship with Him.  Mary of Magdala was filled with joy at meeting her Lord; the Church must also be the vehicle of joy and hope to the world.   To be an Easter people, we each must know and accept Jesus as Lord and Master, just like Mary.

Do I miss seeing you all every week? Of course.  However, I am taking this crisis as a wake up call for you and me.  Today’s Easter moment is rising from the apathy we have fallen into regarding faith and God. Every time I receive the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, my prayer is that the hunger for him in your hearts grows.  I am hoping that the reality that the fact we had to postpone weddings and funeral Masses, postpone baptisms, observe concrete restrictions for Confession and the Anointing has made everyone realize what the world would have been like if Mary and the other women just went home and didn’t tell anyone about the Risen One.  The Church is not a connivence; it is a way of life!

Personally, I don’t want the old “normal” back.  I don’t think it was all that great.  If we really believe in the Easter feast and that Jesus rose from the dead, then you won’t want to go back either.  The Risen Christ will transform our Church and  I would rather be transformed and go forward with him, then remain in what was.  If Jesus could take a group of scared men and women and transform them into fearless preachers of the Gospel, then think about what he could do with us, a group of scared men and women, today.  Easter is about new life; not the old “normal”.  Easter is about being a new Church, truly reborn of water and the Spirit.  Easter is about having a mission: to tell everyone about Jesus who we know so well.   My prayer is that this will be the community we grow into now; there is no need to wait.

Christ is risen….let our Church rise to a new life and not look back.  Let us rise from the dead of what was and be reborn into who we truly are today:  the wounded and risen Body of Christ

On a hill far away, stood an old rugged Cross, the emblem of suffering and shame

As people walked through Jerusalem that first Good Friday, all they saw was another Jewish guy being led by two others to Calvary….no one liked to look at that place. They probably lost count of how many dies there.  The crowd either ignored him or joined in the jeering. A woman, obviously his mother, broke down when she saw him.  A cry came from the very depths of her being.  We cannot help think of all the people who live today ignoring the Cross that others carry. This emblem of suffering and shame is now for us who believe the emblem of hope and life

And I love that old cross where the dearest and best,

For a world of lost sinners was slain

Love was never destroyed by that horrible scene.  In fact, on that Cross was not another political criminal, but Love incarnate.  From that pulpit, the greatest sermon of love was preached.  Give everything you have to others.  Hold nothing back.  Stripped of everything and even giving his mother away, he give his life so we would know God’s love.  In a very real way today, we have been stripped of a lot of things.  Were they or are they really important in the shadow of the Cross?    Isn’t Love the most important thing that flowed from that Cross?

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross Till my trophies at last I lay down

And I will cling to the old rugged cross And exchange it some day for a crown

So many people for 2000 years have found hope in that Cross even if on that hill 2000 years ago it seemed hopeless.  In the midst of a world pandemic, in the midst of people suffering in hospitals, in the midst of tired people on the front lines and scared people, that Cross is all we have. At no other time in our history, the Holy Church must cherish this Cross and hold it up to the world as the only source of hope.  All death and illness; all hopelessness and pain are not the end; the end is in the power of the empty tomb.  We cannot have one without the other

To the old rugged cross I will ever be true It’s shame and reproach gladly bear

Then he’ll call me someday to my home far away Where his glory forever I’ll share

No one would have thought  that this poor man hanging outside the city of Jerusalem would  transformed the world and you and me by the blood that dripped on the ground that Friday. No one would have thought that this horrible instrument of torture would be the sign of hope in the midst of pain.  As Christians, we need to ask ourselves: have we sanitized the Cross and therefore Christianity.?  Do we cherish the Cross not as a piece of jewelry but as the standard that leads our lives?  The reality is that the Cross sets us apart and opens us up to ridicule, being ostracized, seen as old fashioned or out of date, just the man who carried it through the streets of Jerusalem to that horrible hill.  As we venerate the Holy Cross this night, let it be for us ever true the man who hung on that Cross and to a way of life that embraces the Cross, knowing that it leads not to a tomb, but to eternal life with Him.

 

Jesus left us the greatest gift that a person can ever give another:  the gift of knowing who we are.  People spend a lifetime trying to figure this out.  They go on retreats, read self help books, go to therapy, attend workshops etc but may never figure out who they truly are.  As important as some of those things are, they  only point us to the path of how to discover who we are.  Jesus, on the other hand, shows us by his own example.  He gives us His very Self in the Eucharist to show us that we are His brothers and sisters. Jesus never counted the cost of His love or made it conditional.  Jesus didn’t limit His love to one group of people only; His love was for all.  As His disciples, we are called to do the same.  We are called to love others unselfishly and not make our love conditioned on something else.  Like Jesus who loved freely with no conditions, so must we.  We are called to embrace all humanity as brothers and sisters just as He did.  God’s love doesn’t play favorites.  God’s love embraces everyone; even those who do not believe in him..The Eucharist is what enables us to love others as Jesus did.

In John’s gospel,  the gift of the Eucharist shows us that we are servants.  All through the Gospels, we are told that the poor and the sinner will have the higher place.  We are told that the greatest among us are the ones who serve the rest.  Jesus shows us in the gift of the Eucharist that the core identity of a Christian is to serve the rest and not count the cost. 

This is the priestly identity of the Christian.  The life of the Christian is not to be one of power and control; but one of service and humility.  In baptism, we are brought into the life of Christ who is priest, prophet and king.  The Eucharist teaches each one of us that the priestly dignity is found in offering ourselves in service to all.   We are to be the signs of contradiction in the world by putting people ahead of profit, peace ahead of revenge, service ahead of power and control, and to put God ahead of all other things. 

This is who we are as Christians.  Like the ancient people of Israel, who celebrate their freedom from the slavery of Egypt in the Passover, we celebrate who we are at the Lord’s Table: the redeemed children of God.   We are no longer enslaved to sin and death; we are a freed people by the blood of the Lamb that flowed on the Cross. We are servants to the world; our greatest role in the world is to serve the most needy and vulnerable. We are to be the Body of Christ in the world.

As we celebrate this night, the greatest gift that we have ever been given: the very gift of Jesus himself, may the words of St Augustine ring in our hearts: “Believe what you see, see what you believe and become what you are: the Body of Christ.” When we say “Amen”, we are saying “Yes! I believe this is the Body and Blood of Christ and that I will be the Body of Christ to others.”.

  Let us be who we truly are:  the Body of Christ.