Homily for Wednesday, 8 April 2015– Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 3:1-10; Psalm 105:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9; Luke 24:13-35

How often do we pause and reflect on where Jesus Christ has been present in our lives during any particular day?

During one retreat I attended while in seminary in Toronto, the sister who led the retreat proposed that we retreatants reflect on two instances when God was present to us during that day. Now, a few years later, I still enjoy taking this short time to pray and reflect, every day, on when Jesus has been present in my life today. I think that this can even be a worthwhile examination of conscience, daily or for instance when we are preparing for the sacrament of reconciliation. Yes, to be mindful of our faults and even sins is important, especially when preparing for reconciliation, but it may be just as important and powerful to ask simply and prayerfully: When has Jesus; when has God been especially present to me today?

When have I immediately recognized Christ present in one of these events of this day? When have I had a moment like that of the man healed at “the Beautiful Gate” of the temple by Peter and John, when it is clear that somebody has acted in our favor “in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean”? These could be great instances of healing; of forgiveness; of comfort, or they could be (as often they are in my daily experience) small instances: The smile or laughter of a child; a kind greeting; somebody going out of her or his way to anticipate another’s need, and so forth.

And when have I not recognized Christ present in an event in my life, sometimes until much later? In these instances, what caused me to recognize Christ in that event when I finally did? When have we been like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus in today’s Gospel reading, conversing with Christ as though he were a stranger? Perhaps we have encountered Christ in this way when we have been grieving or upset, or even depressed.

The disciples on the Road to Emmaus met the risen Jesus as a stranger on this road. They had been grieving the horrible death of “the one” they had hoped would “redeem Israel”; the Christ; the Messiah. This stranger, Jesus, challenges the disciples sharply for being “foolish” and “slow of heart.”

But even more significantly the disciples invite Jesus to “stay with” them just long enough for them to recognize who he is. And how do the disciples recognize Jesus when finally they do? Luke says to us that Jesus “opened the Scriptures to” them and “was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

Jesus “was made known to them” in the same way he is made known to us: In the Word of God and in our Eucharist, which many of us are blessed to partake in almost daily. How is the risen Jesus made known to us in our everyday events? Jesus is made known to us in our prayer. Jesus is made known to us in our kindness toward one another. Jesus is made known to us by a simple moment of joy; a smile; acts of compassion. Jesus is made known to us here “in the breaking of the bread.”

Homily for Monday, 6 April 2015– Monday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 16:1-2a, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; Matthew 28:8-15

What would our first reaction be if we were among Jesus’ first disciples just after his resurrection? Would many of us picture ourselves perhaps huddled behind locked doors, fearful for our lives, or standing before an empty tomb, not yet ready to acknowledge that Christ had risen?

I admit that I am not sure I would have reacted any differently than most of Jesus’ first disciples after his resurrection. Jesus had died a horrible, torturous death. Resurrections from the dead are uncommon. Would most of us not have been deeply afraid if we had witnessed these events first-hand?

And yet our readings today do not speak of these first disciples running away or huddled in fear. No, we hear today of the tremendous courage of some of Jesus’ disciples as they realized the miracle that had taken place; as they encountered the risen Christ.

Fear is still present, Matthew says to us, as “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” leave the empty tomb. The women are “fearful but” also “overjoyed” when they realize that our Lord Jesus is risen. They meet and greet Jesus “on their way.” Jesus reinforces their bold courage, saying to them: “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” What bewildering joy “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” must have felt at hearing the voice of their Lord once again, perhaps after thinking that all was lost at his death!

The Acts of the Apostles gives us another scene of bold courage like that in Matthew’s Gospel, but this time involving Peter, speaking for the remaining Eleven Apostles. This scene is structured like a trial. Peter acts as the lead prosecutor, making his incisive opening arguments. He faces down those responsible for Jesus’ death: “This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.”

The people to whom Peter speaks are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And yet Peter, filled with the boldness and hope of the Holy Spirit, does something amazing here: He does not condemn those who had Jesus killed. Instead, Peter witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. He witnesses to the salvation that Jesus’ resurrection has opened up for all of us.

We stand guilty here. Jesus was put to death for our sin. And yet we are not condemned. Instead, Peter says: “God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear.”

“We are all witnesses” through the testimony handed on to us from the first Apostles; the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. We “both see and hear.” We have been given “the promise of the Holy Spirit.” And now we are sent forth to bear witness to this gift of redemption, our renewed chance at salvation. After Peter, “Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary,” now is our chance to speak and act with bold courage; kindness; mercy; justice, for Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Homily for Sunday, 5 April 2015– The Resurrection of the Lord, Mass of Easter Sunday

Readings of the day: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

Christ is risen! Alleluia! Who does the risen Christ invite us to be? The risen Christ invites us to be witnesses to him. As his witnesses, the risen Christ invites us to seek him. “We are witnesses to all that [Jesus] did,” we hear this Easter morning from the Acts of the Apostles. “If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,” we hear from the Letter to the Colossians.

But has anybody here ever heard this kind of objection to our Christian faith: “If Jesus really is God and, if Christianity really has the fullest access to truths revealed by God for our salvation, then why did Jesus only appear to a few of his disciples after his resurrection and not to everybody he wanted to believe in him”? The Apostle Peter, in Acts, speaks to this very problem. Peter says in our first reading today: “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance.”

Why would God have chosen a few, “not… all the people,” as first-hand witnesses to an event so central to our faith as Jesus’ resurrection? I think there are a few possible answers to this question. One of these answers is given to us in the same reading from Acts we have just heard: Jesus sent these first-hand witnesses to his resurrection “to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.” Many generations after these first-hand witnesses, Jesus’ first disciples, this is now our responsibility: “Preach… and testify.” Preach and, even more importantly, be witnesses to Christ’s resurrection by the way we live. This responsibility does not end here at the pulpit, or here in the church; it is ours to carry forth into the world; to live out.

How do we live this, our witness to Christ’s resurrection? We might ask: How did Jesus live? Jesus “went about doing good.” He went about healing the sick and “all those oppressed by the devil.” And so this is our witness to Christ’s resurrection: Doing good; deliberately and continually acting with small acts and words of kindness, expecting nothing in return; lifting the burdens of oppression; of poverty; building a world where nobody has need of basic necessities of life. In these ways we become witnesses to our world to the resurrection of Christ that we celebrate today. In these ways we “seek what is above.” We seek and we will encounter the risen Christ in our lives; in people we meet and serve.

But still, why were there not more first-hand witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ? If Jesus’ resurrection is so true; so central to our faith and to our salvation, why do not more people accept and believe in this truth? Perhaps the best answer to this question that I can give is that all this is a mystery. Now how many of us; how many people not of our Christian faith would find this answer somewhat underwhelming? “Really,” might some of us be thinking, “we ask why there were only a few first-hand witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, and why more people do not believe in Christ and the central truth of his resurrection today; why some outright reject this as truth, and the best you can say is that this is a mystery”?

This answer is underwhelming or not, depending on how we understand mystery. What do I mean by this? Mystery, I think, is not so much something we do not understand as something we do not fully understand now, in this moment. This is the sense of mystery captured in our Gospel reading this morning from John. Mary of Magdala arrives at Jesus’ tomb “while it [is] still dark”; with the day ahead still a mystery. She sees the empty tomb of Jesus and runs to Simon Peter and “the other disciple whom Jesus loved,” but not to tell them that she is certain that Jesus is risen. No, Mary Magdalene is caught up in the mystery of the moment: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they put him.”

How would Peter and the beloved disciple have felt upon hearing Mary Magdalene’s announcement: Perhaps extremely frightened? But this does not stop them from venturing out into the night, into an encounter with the mystery of Christ’s resurrection, to the empty tomb. And after seeing the empty tomb but not yet the risen Lord, John says to us that Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the beloved disciple “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”

“They did not yet understand”… But this did not stop Jesus’ first disciples at the empty tomb. We do not yet understand, but this has not and will not stop us, either. Why? Mystery is not something we cannot understand, nor is it primarily about understanding something. Mystery is about an encounter with somebody. The mystery of Christ’s resurrection, Pope Benedict XVI once said, is about an encounter not with a thing or “a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event; a person.”

So how are we to witness to this central event of our faith; to the person of the risen Christ; to this mystery of Christ’s resurrection? We do this by following the example of Mary of Magdala; of St. Peter; of “the other disciple whom Jesus loved.” We witness to this mystery; this event; this person, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, by going out and seeking him. We go out and seek the risen Christ in one another; through our acts of service; through our words and works of kindness, especially toward those most in need. We do “not yet understand,” and will not fully until we are in heaven, risen from the dead ourselves. But this need not stop us from witnessing to the mystery of the resurrection; from going out and seeking the risen Christ, so present in our world and in our relationships with one another; so present in this Eucharistic celebration.

St. John of the Cross, sixteenth-century Carmelite, wrote a poem about witnessing to mystery; seeking the risen Christ; seeking love in prayerful service. Imagining himself as a bird of prey on the hunt, he begins:

I went out seeking love

And with unfaltering hope

I flew so high, so high,

that I overtook the prey.

But St. John of the Cross, like the disciples at Jesus’ tomb and perhaps like us, soon realizes that to overtake “the prey”; to witness to mystery; to go out; to seek Christ risen; to seek the Beloved, takes a most profound act of humility and courage. It means continuing to fly; to “go out”; to “seek what is above” when we do “not yet understand”:

That I might take the prey

of this adventuring in God

I had to fly so high

that I was lost from sight;

and though in this adventure

I faltered in my flight,

yet love had already flown so high

that I took the prey.

My sisters and brothers in the risen Christ, we make two movements here, of which St. John of the Cross and the disciples at the empty tomb speak: We go “out seeking love” and we witness to the risen Christ by our deeds and words. We do “not yet understand”; we falter many times in our flight toward the Beloved, but this will not stop us. We are here to worship! And we will “go out” on our “adventuring in God”; our encounter not with a thing or idea but with a person.

I have all confidence in us, sisters and brothers: “We are witnesses to all that [Jesus] did” through the tradition of our Church handed on from the Apostles. Be not afraid of “not yet” understanding; of mystery. Go out and seek the risen Christ in prayer; in our world; in one another. Our Beloved has “already flown so high” and invites us to take “the prey.”

Homily for Thursday, 2 April 2015– Holy Thursday, Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper

Readings of the day: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; Psalm 116:1-13, 15-16bc, 17-18; 1 Corinthians 11:24-26; John 13:1-15

When have we ever felt vulnerable; at the mercy of one or more other people? How many of us, if we think for a moment, realize that we enter the world as vulnerable; at another’s mercy? We begin in our mother’s womb, and we are born weak and totally dependent on others’ care. Who here has held a newborn child, and so knows very well of what I speak? We grow from newborns to older children, and then we become… teenagers: Again, an extremely vulnerable time!

And then who here remembers their first love? Who here is married? When you were married, you made yourself vulnerable; put yourself at the mercy of a person you love, for life. Other sacraments and rituals of our Church also celebrate our making ourselves vulnerable to others; to God. At baptism, we were entrusted to a community of faith, the Church, and to our parents and godparents to be examples to us of the love of Jesus Christ for us. Who here has been confirmed, “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit” by sacred Chrism oil; made vulnerable to the love of the Holy Spirit? If we think of confirmation in this way, is this not almost scary? My sisters and brothers in religious life; my brother priests and deacon here tonight, who have received the sacrament of orders: Do we not all have stories of being made vulnerable; having to trust other members of our religious communities; priests; families; God at critical times?

Who here has been anointed with the oil of the sick? Illness and age again put us at the mercy of others; at the mercy of God. Who here has received the sacrament of reconciliation? We entrust our darkest moments; our suffering; our sins to a priest, a human being, standing in place of God and the Church, yes, but still a frail, vulnerable human being; a sinner. Is this not making ourselves deeply vulnerable? Are not the sacraments and rituals of our Church all profound acts of courage; of making ourselves vulnerable to another?

Tonight’s celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Holy Thursday, is a celebration of this most profound vulnerability. Only it is God; the Son of God, Jesus Christ, making himself vulnerable; entrusting himself completely to us. “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me… This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and our Gospel reading, from John, celebrate two different instances of Jesus Christ making himself completely vulnerable to us. First Corinthians speaks of Jesus giving himself to us under the form of bread and wine, now Christ’s body and blood, our “new covenant” in “remembrance of” him. And John speaks of Jesus’ washing the feet of his own Apostles and then asking us to do the same: Wash one another’s feet; make yourselves vulnerable to one another. Put yourselves completely at one another’s mercy, as I have done for you, Jesus says.

And so we will, in just a few moments, remember and follow Jesus’ “new model” for us, a “model” of action that makes us vulnerable; perhaps unsettles us. This was an act of humiliation for Jesus, even before his ultimate humiliation for us on the cross. The washing of the feet was so unbecoming of the Son of God; the Savior of the world, that Jesus’ first Apostles, led by Peter, the Church’s “rock,” protested: “You will never wash my feet”! And yet tonight we will witness the washing of feet of twelve people chosen from among us, in remembrance of that first act of complete vulnerability by our Lord.

But why would Peter and the Apostles have been so unsettled by Jesus’ washing of their feet? Why would Jesus, God’s Son, choose willingly to wash their feet, as a slave would do for a master? In short, Jesus did this out of love. And Jesus’ Apostles were unsettled at this act because they had never quite experienced this depth of love before.

Jesus “loved his own who were in the world, and he loved them to the end.” In the words of John’s Gospel, this is why Jesus chose to put himself at his Apostles’ and our mercy in this way. This is why Jesus gave himself to us the night before he suffered and died for us, saying, “This is my body… This… is the new covenant in my blood. Do this… in remembrance of me.”

“He loved his own who were in the world, and he loved them to the end.” Indeed, God has loved us, “his own… in the world,” from the very beginning. God has loved us into being. We are all here because of an act of God’s love for us. God’s chosen people were brought out of slavery in Egypt. They were assured safe passage that first Passover if they marked the doorposts of their houses with lamb’s blood, we hear tonight from the Book of Exodus. All this was made possible because God loves us. God loved us from the beginning and will love us “to the end.” Still, the first Passover was without doubt an unsettling experience for God’s people in the Egyptian desert under Moses, an encounter with God’s love deeper than they had ever experienced before.

And then Jesus washes our feet. And he places himself completely at our mercy in this Last Supper: “This is my body… This… is the new covenant in my blood.” This is no longer lamb’s blood, but the blood of Christ; the body and blood of God made every bit as human as we are.

This kind of love; this kind of intimacy with us is unsettling. Are we willing to let Jesus enter into every aspect of our lives: To share in our joys and sorrows; our wellness and our illness; our prosperity and also our poverty? Are we willing to let Jesus be the very source of “all that is good” in us, but also to take upon himself our sins and have them nailed to a cross? Are we willing to allow Jesus to be both meal and sacrifice in this celebration? Are we willing to let Jesus wash our feet: All the grit, sweat, and stink (since I do not believe pedicures were readily available in Jesus’ time)? Are we willing to be loved more deeply than we have ever been loved before?

If not, Jesus’ answer to us is stark: “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” But, if so, we are invited to do as Christ does: Put ourselves at one another’s mercy; make ourselves completely vulnerable to one another out of love; sacrifice ourselves in daily, small ways, out of love. Love one another “to the end”; love one another more deeply than we have ever been loved before.