Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Just a note: with lots of projects occurring now at our parish and with Bishop’s Appeal coming up, I’m taking April off from posting on the blog…will return with vigor in May!

Blessings & Peace, Fr. David

My dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! Happy Easter! What a joy it is for me to announce this message: Christ is risen! This is the new and glorious news that eagerly goes out to every house and every family, especially where suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons, to our homebound, and to those who lack faith or hope…

Most of all, this message longs to enter into every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for us, we are no longer in the power of sin, of evil!

Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious…for the mercy of God always triumphs! We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means. What does it mean that Jesus is risen?

Quite simply, it means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom. The love of God can do this!

This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, even down to hell – to the abyss of separation from God – this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus, has transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus didn’t return to his former life, to earthly life, but he entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, thus opening for us a future full of hope.

This is what Easter is: it is the exodus, the passage of human beings from slavery to sin and evil, to the freedom of love and goodness.

Dear brothers and sisters, Christ died and rose once for all, and for everyone, but the power of the Resurrection, this passover from slavery to evil to the freedom of goodness, must be accomplished in every age, in our concrete existence, in our everyday lives. How many deserts there are, even today, that human beings need to cross! Above all, the desert within, when we have no love for God or neighbor, when we fail to realize that we are guardians of all that the Creator has given us and continues to give us. God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones.

So this is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s Resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, and make justice and peace flourish.

So let us ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, envy into admiration… war into peace.

As the Psalmist writes: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.”

Bear in your families and in your schools and places of work…bear to the townsfolk and the stranger the message of joy, hope and peace which every year, on this day, is powerfully renewed.

May the risen Lord, the conqueror of sin and death, be a support to you all, especially to the weakest and neediest.

Finally thank you for your presence today and for the witness of your faith. To all of you I affectionately say again: may the risen Christ guide all of us and the whole of humanity on the paths of justice, love and peace.

“Christus vincit, Christus resurrexit! Alleluia!”

God never overpowers, never twists arms, never pushes our face into something so as to take away our freedom. God respects our freedom and is never a coercive force.

And nowhere is this more true than in what is revealed in the resurrection of Jesus. The Gospels assure us that, the resurrection was physical, real, not just some alteration inside the minds or imaginations of believers or followers. No, after the resurrection, we are assured, Jesus’ tomb was empty, people could touch him, he ate food with them, he was not a ghost.

But his rising from the dead was not a brute slap in the face to his critics, was not a non-negotiable fact that left skeptics speechless. The resurrection didn’t make a big news splash or headline: After he rose from the dead, Jesus was seen by some, but not by others; understood by some, but not by others. Some got his meaning and it changed their lives, others were indifferent to him, and still others who, while they understood what had happened, they still hardened their hearts against it, and tried to destroy its truth.

We even see this continuing today, so why the difference? What makes some see the resurrection while others do not? What lets some understand the mystery and embrace it, while others are left in indifference or hatred?

Here might be the difference…Hugo of St. Victor used to say: Love is the eye!

When we look at anything through the eyes of love, we see correctly, understand, and properly appropriate its mystery. The reverse is also true. When we look at anything through eyes that are jaded, cynical, jealous, or bitter, we will not see correctly, will not understand, and will not properly appropriate its mystery.

That is why, after the resurrection, some saw Jesus but others did not. Some understood the resurrection while others did not. Those with the eyes of love saw and understood. Those without the eyes of love either didn’t see anything or were perplexed or upset by what they did see.

It’s been exciting for usas Catholicsto witness the words, the actions, the gestures…and even the heart of our new Holy Father, Pope Francis.  I’ve been especially excited to get to know him through news and media outlets.  In his first days, the world was lit up: all was new and fresh and exciting.

But as the days have progressed into weeks, that fullness of our joy about Francis has been battered a bit by criticisms and cynicism.  From some who have written ghastly comments about a man they do not even know to others who have posited a deep-seated wickedness within this man they haven’t even met or a Church they don’t even understand, much less appreciate and embrace…warts and all.  Some have been so cruel as to attempt to tear down the Church and even “faith in any God” by slandering this simple, humble laborer who is alongside us in the vineyard.

And yet, even in the midst of this, there have been those blessed some who are willing to open their hearts of hope and faith, ready to see the works of Christ Jesus again done in our midst through Francis.  There are some whose hearts have grown weary and afraid, but who are finding now in “Nostro Papa Francesco” a simple, humble response to God’s invitation to be holy, to follow the master, to allow God to hold us again…and encourage us to return His sweet embrace.

So, maybe it is true that love is the eye, that our availability is the key to receiving the news “Christ is Risen”, and believe it!  Maybe our disposition to “be open” to the great gift of faith is what is first needed to enter into faith.

But…of course it’s true!  We have four witnesses who come before us this night to profess this truth, to be captured by it!  Tonight, Rickour Electfinds the answer to his seeking and searching, and he discovers & is embraced by the One who has always sought after him!  Tonight, Brian comes forward to accept a faith that has been ever close to him, encouraging, inviting, gently holding him and allowing him to find a freedom in acceptance of the One who invites him into His unity.  Tonight, Shakir and Jessica join these men as they freely embrace a new kind of discipleship: that flowing from the anointing with the Holy Spirit, they are sent with us to proclaim by word and deedin season and out of seasonthat “Christ is Lord and He reigns forever!”

Sure, there are lots of ways to be closed to faith. But there are also ways for us to be open to the gift of faith, the gift of God, the gift of Christ, His resurrection and His gospel.  Remember: the miraculous doesn’t force itself on us. It’s there, there to be seen, but whether we see or not, and what precisely we do see, depends mainly upon what’s going on inside our own hearts.

May the message of the Gospel permeate each of us in profound ways, in various ways, in unique waysparticular to each oneso that we might be renewed in God’s life and profess faith, to the glory of God the Father.

“Christus vincit; Christus resurrexit!  Alleluia!”