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On behalf of the staff, the Pastoral Council, and heads of ministries at Holy Family I want to convey a welcome to visitors. I pray you may feel at home here. To my parishioners I want to convey my prayers of appreciation for you; your faith and your love have been a tremendous blessing to me, for which I am very grateful. I always tell my priest friends how spoiled I am here because of you. Happy Easter!
For your prayer time, I want to offer a simple overview of the readings, a summary of the sacraments we celebrate this night for the members of our R.C.I.A. class, and a focus from the gospel.
The readings for the Easter Vigil Liturgy review the covenant promises of God in the Old Testament: the garden in Genesis, the Exodus journey to the Promised Land, and the message from the prophet Isaiah. “Why spend your life on what does not satisfy? I shall send forth my Word to do my will. It will not return to me void.” These writings speak of a hope that looks back to intimacy with God, which began in the garden. They look forward to an intimacy with God where He will be one with His people. The purpose of the covenants was at first to bring God’s people back to intimacy and relationship as it was in the garden. Over time the focus became to bring them back to the Promised Land. The bottom line of the message was “New Life.” The message is reduced to the words of the Letter to the Romans, “You have died to sin and now are alive for God in Christ.”
My second point of prayer is to meditate on how the sacraments give us this new life in Christ. You have your parents DNA in you. But God wants to put His life in you. How do you find that new life? That life comes to birth in Baptism. It finds its maturing, and acceptance of responsibility, in Confirmation. It receives its nourishment in the Eucharist. When our life in Christ falls morally sick it has the Sacrament of Penance. In physical illness, or by way of immediate preparation for the kingdom in dying, this life in Christ has the Anointing of the Sick. The Sacrament of Holy Orders nourishes and supports the priesthood of all believers. The Sacrament of Marriage sanctifies the family.
Do you ever read the obituaries; you know, the big ones? They list the things that were important to that person. Don’t you ask yourself, “What difference does that make?” When you find “New Life” you find significance, which is more valuable than even success!
My last prayer focus is the Gospel. Many of you know what it means to weep at a grave. We have been there! Unfortunately for some, there were no tears at the grave; it was instead a spirit of relief. If that was the case for you, (and I recognize it’s reality) please put it aside for a moment while we pray about this visit to the tomb.
I have no doubt that the women were weeping. Mary Magdalene may have been crying tears of regret and self-recrimination. She was probably chastising herself for not doing more than she did. "If only I had stayed by the tomb, they wouldn't have been able to steal His body. If only I had asked my brothers to stay here with me and guard the tomb. If only I hadn't let my friends talk me into going home and getting some sleep. Jesus did so much for me - He saved my life, He saved me from a life of prostitution, He redeemed me and restored my soul - why couldn't I have done just this one little thing for Him?”
We do this all the time, don't we, with the losses and sorrows of our lives: we take all the guilt upon ourselves, as if we are to blame in every instance for being less than perfect. "If only I had done such-and-such with my child; he wouldn't have turned out like he did. If only I had seen the signs of trouble sooner, I might have been able to warn so-and-so about her problem before it was too late. If only I hadn't asked my brother to drive over here and help me paint the house that weekend; he wouldn't have had that accident and would still be alive today."
I cannot say if we are right or wrong about such circumstances. I believe we usually judge ourselves more harshly and take more blame than we deserve. (Unless of course someone is a narcissist. In such case the person would never take blame! But I do not have time to explain that tonight.) We often try to make sense of tragedies and disappointments in life by holding ourselves totally responsible for them. Maybe this was also part of Mary's weeping in this “new” garden on that first Easter Sunday. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"
Suddenly her bottomless grief turned to heightening joy, as incredulity gave way to certainty. Her tears of being inconsolable became shouts of exultation. Suddenly everything was changed and nothing would ever be the same again, not for her! He was alive!
This Mary was blessed to be present at the moment of creation, as it were, the moment of the "new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17) when the kingdom of death was ended and the kingdom of eternal life was begun. But we are no less blessed today. We are no less blessed than Mary Magdalene, even after all these centuries. The Resurrection can be as present to us as it was to her. It’s a matter of belief, a matter of faith.
No, you're not perfect, and yes, you still have your share of difficulties and disappointments in the world, but when you believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, I pray you have a serenity and inner strength which gives you the long view of things - a long view which stretches all the way to eternity. It puts the pressure and problems of the moment in their proper perspective.
What is there to really defeat us, now that Christ is alive again? Surely life and death can hurt us, but now it can never destroy us. Surely life can challenge us, but now it can never consume us.
Compare the way we live to the way we read a novel. Most people start on page one and continue to the end, without having a clue as to where they are headed. (Ever read a Agatha Christi novel?) But in living with an Easter faith, it's as if we have read the final chapter first and then gone back to read the rest of the book.
As we read the story, we experience joys and sorrows, we are frightened and amused - we even shed tears as the plot twists and turns along the way. But because we have read the final chapter, we already know how the book turns out. We already know that in the end, we will live!
This is what Easter has done for us and what a difference this makes in life! What a difference it makes to bring to our present problems the perspective of eternity! "My son, my daughter, why are you weeping? Why do you act as if all hope is gone? Look up and see that they have not taken your Lord away - He is standing there before you alive as can be! You are here to do His will. Your life will not return to Him void.”