Easter Sunday
April 9, 2023
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
The Aching Desire for More
In a medical center, located in a large American city, a patient passes away. To all appearances, he has died, cut off from the life he once knew. Yet, through medical science, that person, apparently dead, is brought back to life. What was once thought impossible, while not routine, can and does happen. We are rightly amazed at the resuscitation of those once regarded as lost to death.
Amazed, perhaps, no less than the people of Jesus’ time who witnessed him raise up the daughter of a synagogue official, or the son of the widow of Naim, or his friend Lazarus at Bethany. This Jesus did by the creative power of God within him, he, the Word made flesh.
Astonishing as Jesus’ miracles were and the marvels of medical science are, they are not the last word about our humanity, about our life on this earth. Whether one is rescued from death by faith or science, the enigma of death and the fragility of life are not resolved. We are looking for something more, and not merely in the hereafter. In a world of deception, we are seeking truth. In a world of appearances, we are seeking something real. In a world fraught with death, we are seeking new life.
Our Situation
Let us dwell for a minute more on our experience, the experience of daily life we have brought with us to this cathedral church. We may be reasonably happy, prosperous, and satisfied with life… but find there to be a hole in the middle, a gnawing emptiness. Or we may be coping with tragedy, loneliness, confusion, weariness, disappointment, a loss of faith – not only faith in God but faith in others and faith in the future. What is going on? Perhaps three things.
First, we seem to be swimming (and sinking) in a sea of ideology. Whether we are on the right or the left, we are surrounded by ideology, by opinions based not on fact, but rather on personal preference and even prejudice. Something in us cries out for deliverance, for an exodus from the cacophony, something or someone other than ourselves to take us beyond opinion and prejudice to what is real, to what has permanent value. Second, we seem to be living a world where poetry has been flattened into prose, where the signs of creation’s beauty and the dignity of human life have disappeared, the signs of God’s genius, the signs of a world “charged with the grandeur of God.” In place of these signs which can spark our imaginations and give joy to our hearts, there are only appearances, a one-dimensional world of sham and disappointment. Third, we are living in a world where emotion is no longer yoked to reason, where the rage predominates, and sentimentality leads to blind alleys.
And we propose solutions to all this, some good and wise, others bad and foolish. Important as it is to work relentlessly for a better world – for peace and justice – even our best efforts leave us still wanting, still in need – like the resuscitated corpse that lives for a time but dies again. We are looking for More. We are looking for Another.
The Risen One
Paradoxically, we find the One we are looking for in an empty tomb. As Peter and John peer into the tomb and see the wrappings, they are amazed. While they do not yet understand the reality of the Resurrection, the empty tomb is a sign that Jesus is Risen. When in Galilee they encounter the Risen Lord, he is more than a resuscitated corpse. It is the same Jesus, for as Peter attests, the Apostles ate and drank with Jesus after his resurrection. But he is also different, very different, with a newness beyond description. In the Risen Lord, we meet our humanity, rescued from death, made whole, and transformed by the glory of God.
In the flesh of the Risen Lord, the truth about human life and destiny is revealed, a truth that goes beyond every philosophy and every ideology. In the flesh of the Risen One, we see the beauty of human life and of all creation, indeed, the poetic Word that created the world and then redeemed it. On the face of the Risen One there shines the glory of God that definitively separates appearance from reality, and deception from truth. Gazing at Risen Lord, we discover in the midst of our rapidly changing world that which is permanent, that which has value, that on which we can rely.
This is what hundreds of people throughout the Archdiocese have discovered those, who at the Easter Vigil, were born again of water and the Holy Spirit in baptism, and others who were received into the Church through Confirmation and First Eucharist.
This is what those parents whose children will be baptized at this Mass have found. And this is what we, gathered here and in other parishes can rediscover, as we renew our baptismal promises and profess our faith anew in the Risen Lord.
The Mission of the Church
The Church exists, as St. Paul VI reminded us, to proclaim the Risen Lord. Standing in the light of Christ, we proclaim: Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. This is why the Church exists, not as a mere human organization, but as the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, the Sacrament of the Risen One. Yet, every day, every year, and in every epoch, we who are members and representatives of the Church must pledge anew our allegiance to the Risen Lord, our acceptance of his gift, our resolve to follow him.
Sadly, in the past, representatives of the Church have betrayed the Lord’s gift of self, especially in deceiving and harming the young and the innocent. We cannot undo the past, but we can lay our failings at the feet of the Risen Lord, beg him for forgiveness, and beseech him to heal those who were harmed, and indeed, to heal the wound which such betrayals have inflicted on the Body of Christ.
Let us take heart! It is in the darkness that light shines most brightly. It is in the night of sin that the new life of grace appears in its splendor. Wherever we may be in our journey of life and faith, let us walk together, as we open our hearts to re-encounter the Risen Lord, standing in our midst. It is the Risen Lord whose death destroyed our sins and whose rising restored our life, the Risen Lord, in whose Body and Blood we are about to share. Let us, then, allow ourselves to be made new: new with the newness of the Risen Christ, burning with the new fire of his love.
May the Risen Christ fill your hearts with hope and joy!