Easter Sunday – March 31, 2024

Homilies

Easter Sunday – March 31, 2024

EastB24.  Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.  Peter is speaking to Cornelius the Roman centurion and other non-Jews.  He relates how the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was especially anointed by God, worked many miracles, was put to death and was resurrected from the dead by God.  Then Peter said, “Everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

John 20:1-9.  Mary of Magdala must have been grieving very much over the crucified Jesus when she went to the tomb well before dawn.  It seems that the sight of tomb stone having been rolled back startled her, so much that she assumed that Jesus’ body had been taken from the tomb without actually looking into the tomb.  The story of the apostle “whom Jesus loved,” waiting for Peter to arrive before entering the tomb, is quite touching.  The fact that the burial cloths were still remaining indicates that, not only had the body not been stolen, but that the Jesus, on arising, had taken the time to roll up “the cloth that had covered his head” and put it “in a separate place.”  The other disciple “who had arrived at the tomb first” “saw and believed” apparently, that Jesus was not there, but “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”

Colossians 3:1-4.  “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  In John 3:6-7, Jesus said, “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’” While still living on this earth in an earthly body, Jesus calls upon us to live spiritually with Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit into us as the source of our life.  There is no book to read that has steps to follow.  Christ who is the Way will lead us daily through each day.  What else could we expect if the source of life is spiritual and not physical or material?

Easter Sunday – 2021

EastB21.    Easter Vigil – Mark 16:1-7.  The three devoted women arrived at the tomb just as the sun had risen to anoint Jesus’ body to find that the very large stone at the entrance had been rolled back.  A young man dressed in white, traditionally understood to be an angel, said to them, “Do not be amazed!  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here.”  The angel tells them to tell Jesus’ disciples and Peter that the risen Jesus will go to see them in Galilee.

Easter Day – John 20:1-9.  Mary of Magdala tells Peter and John that it appears that some unknown people have taken Jesus’ body away to some unknown place.  Peter and John run to find that indeed the tomb was empty; however, “they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”  Only later when they see the glory of the risen Lord do they come to a full realization of what had happened.

Vigil Night – Romans 6:3-11.  “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” Easter time is the time to remember our baptism and renew our baptismal vows.  This image of baptism comes from the baptism of emersion where one is submerged beneath the waters as a symbol of death to then rise up from the waters as a symbol of resurrection.  “Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as being dead to sin and living to God in Christ Jesus.”  Easter Day – Colossians 3:1-4.   “Brothers and sisters:  If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” Our whole mindset and our inner emotional being is geared by the world we are immersed in and the material bodies that we live in, to act, think and be creatures of the natural world and not people who are on our way to heaven, our real and eternal home.  The Holy Spirit enables us to breathe a spiritual life, even while our material bodies breathe the life of this world.  God empowers those who choose to live spiritually in him to live heavenly, holy lives, even while we still live in a natural, material world.

Easter Day – Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43. The Apostles were loyal to Jesus but the crucifixion shook their faith to the core.  Jesus’ appearance after the resurrection and the inflowing of the Holy Spirit into their lives moved them from people of this world with one foot planted in this world and one foot planted in God’s world to being people with both feet  planted in God’s world.  By the Spirit’s grace they were moved to becoming God’s people for whom their lives were based on God living in them.  They belonged to nothing else but the Lord.  They became witnesses to the salvation God brings to all humanity.  May we be the same!

Easter Sunday – 2018

EastB18.   This Easter I would like to bring together ideas in the Vigil Epistle & Gospel and the ‘Mass During the Day’ readings.  In Romans 6:3-11, the immersion that occurs in adult baptism is understood to be symbolic of one’s going down into the grave as a sign of death to sin to rise out of the water as a sign of rising out of the grave to a new life in Christ.  In baptism we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection so that “we too might live in the newness of life,” that was given to Christ and also to us by the glorious power of God the Father.  “If, then, we have died with Christ,” that is to say that “our old self” that was enslaved to sin “was crucified with him,” “we believe that we shall also live with him,” as his holy people in heaven.  We no longer belong to a body that death will conquer and put into a grave or tomb forever.  The tomb with the stone covering the entrance or mouth of the tomb represents the jaws of this earth that has swallowed up our lives; whereas the tomb with the stone removed or rounded back represents the fact that the physical forces of this earth are not able to block or restrain the almighty force of the eternally living God.  “As to his death, he died to sin once and for all (people); as to his life, he lives for God.  Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as being dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”

In Colossians 3:1-4, Paul writes, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”  To be a people who seek holiness our whole way of thinking must change.  Our whole perspective must change.  We ought to live in this world as if we are already people in heaven, “hidden with Christ in God.” This world is no longer our life; Christ is our life. We belong to something entirely different from this world.  “When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”

In 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8, Paul writes, “Celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  We are the fresh batch of dough, unleavened, without the corruption or yeast of this world, made new in the newly risen Christ, recreated sinless and holy through his work of salvation in his sacrifice on the cross.

These Easter accounts do not agree or blend well together, not even within the same Gospel writer.  These remembrances were written much later after the fact, when the writers were much older.  However, the basic ideas agree.  He had arisen; he was no longer dead in the tomb.  Mary Magdalene, especially, had a great love and respect for Jesus, desiring to care for him even in death.  Through the gospels we have physical proof and heavenly proclamation that Jesus had arisen.  Jesus had often told his Apostles that he would die and three days later arise.  They did not get it.   Even after Peter and John were witnesses to the empty tomb, still “they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”  Jesus understands our human condition and never stops working with us on our way to heaven.

Palm Sunday – March 24, 2024

PalmB24.   Isaiah 50:4-7.  The Servant of the Lord delivered the message the Lord had given to him for the people but they rejected God’s message and reviled the prophet who delivered the message. The reality was that the shame of what he suffered belonged to the people who mistreated him.

Mark 14:1-15:47.  This is the Palm Sunday reading of the Passion or suffering of the Lord.  One drama in this reading is the contrast of the betrayal of Jesus by the apostle Judas Iscariot for earthly riches to the denial of Jesus by the apostle Peter out of fear of the Jewish authorities.  This was all done to Jesus by his own, suffering upon suffering.  John 2:24-25 says, “But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.  He himself understood it well.”  Yet another drama is how cruelly, contemptuously and evilly Jesus was treated by the Jewish and Roman authorities.  And again another drama is how terribly and excruciatingly the torture affected Jesus in his humanity.  He felt it as anyone of us would have felt it, if we had undergone the same thing.  The central drama is Jesus’ offering up himself: “This is my body;” This is my blood of the covenant which will be shed for many.” Jesus’ sacrifice of himself at the hands of evil people was solely for our benefit and not for himself.  “He indeed died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (Philippians 2:6-11)  God, out of love for us, became human so that, out of love for us, he could suffer and die for us to redeem us from our sins so that we could live eternally with him in his love for us.  See what humility God had out of love for us so that he could raise us up.  “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend,” “and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Palm Sunday – 2021

PalmB21.    Isaiah 50:4-7.   I have been given to understand that this excerpt from Isaiah is a selection from what are called the “Servant-of-the Lord” or Suffering Servant oracles.  Their purpose was to call the Hebrews enslaved in Babylonia to maintain a firm resolve and confidence in the Lord despite the abuses that they were suffering.  The Hebrews were living in a situation where they were subject to great humiliation and degradation.  This reading is given to us this Palm Sunday when the Passion of Jesus is read to invite us see Jesus as the Suffering Servant of the Father, as one called by his Father to endure his suffering and humiliation with a deep resolve and faith because in the end the victory would belong to God.

Mark 14:1-15:47.   This gospel reading is titled as the Passion of the Lord.  The word ‘Passion’ here is to be understood as to what had been done to the Jesus by others.  It is the noun that refers to the passive voice in grammar where the action is done by others to Jesus.  He was viciously humiliated, tortured and killed and yet maintained his resolve to fulfill his Father‘s will for him.  Jesus had surrendered himself to be the sacrifice that would redeem the human race from our sins: past, present and future.  His self-sacrifice or submitting himself to the Passion satisfied the debt we had accumulated and will accumulate by our sins.  1 John 4:10 reads: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”  The Old Testament Law required a continuous line of sacrificing animals or offering up cereal offerings.  With Jesus’ Passion all that was done away with once and for all. (Hebrews 10:1-10)

Love means many things in this world; however, for the followers of Christ, the crucifix is our definition of love.  Jesus went to Gethsemane with Peter, James and John.   He “began to be troubled and distressed.  Then he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful even to death.’”  Realizing the horror he was about to undergo, he was so extremely distraught that he thought he was going to die then.   Jesus “prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass by him; he said, ’Abba, Father, all things are possible to you.  Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.’”  The savagery of Jesus’ passion was real but so was his love for his Father and what his Father wanted of him.  The whole purpose of divinity taking on human presence in this world was to accomplish our redemption because of God’s love for us.  True love demands doing whatever it takes to be loving.   The old saying is that freedom isn’t free.  True love, more often than not, demands sacrifice, giving up what we want for ourselves so that others might have what they need.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Philippians 2:6-11.   Jesus humbled himself by rejecting any heavenly exemption from deprivation or suffering, “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  The love for us given to Jesus in his humanity by his divine Father enabled him to endure the horrific humiliation on his way to the cross and the cross itself.  “Because of this, God greatly exalted him” and so we adore him and worship him confessing “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

Palm Sunday – 2018

PalmB18.   This Sunday I do not want to go from reading to reading but to connected ideas from all the readings.  For me the basic theme is that God was obedient or a servant to his own love for us.  He could not and cannot help do but what his own infinite love calls him to do.  God the Father had his own Son, come into our midst as a helpless baby, totally dependent on his mother’s care for him so to eventually submit to unspeakable horrors as a sacrifice to open the gates of heaven to us, his loved ones.  God’s almighty power is humble so to invite us to be love as he is love, never coercing or overwhelming us; otherwise we would never be able to be love as he is love.  How can infinite power be humble?  Infinite love settles for nothing else!  “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave;” “He humbled himself, becoming obedient,” even to the point of death on the cross. John 3:16 reads: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was so “troubled and distressed,” praying “that if it were possible the hour” or time of horror “might pass by him that he said,” “Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.”

Although Jesus comes into a world that he himself has created, yet he now comes dependent on the love and generosity of others to accomplish his work.  As a baby he lived in someone else’s stable.  Though King of the universe, he must borrow someone’s donkey to ride into Jerusalem.  He was to be buried in a linen cloth and in a tomb that were all donations out of love for him and not belonging to him.  For his Passover supper he depends on someone else for the loan of an adequate room.  He chooses to depend on us to accept the gift of himself in Eucharist, to open up our hearts in love for him.

However, love can never be presumed.  Some choose to love; some do not.  Despite the fact that he came into this world to bring his love to the people he created so that they could live one day in the joy of heaven as the children of God the Father, they crucified him.  They rejected his love and in turn hated him.  He put his love, his very self, into the hands of those he loved and they murdered him for it.  In the end they destroyed themselves and not him.  Judas Iscariot, despite the fact that he saw all the miracles that Jesus generously worked for the good of people who so dearly needed them, blinded by his desire for material wealth, has no idea whom it is that he is betraying.  The Jewish authorities who so craftily engineer the crucifixion of Jesus to maintain their own position of authority over the Jews reject the authority of the God who established Judaism.  Pilate, despite the fact that he recognizes the innocence of Jesus, lets the threat of the mob overwhelm his sense of justice because it seems to him that Jesus is a ‘nobody’ who is not worth the threat of a riot to be worth saving.  Because love requires the call to lead others to love freely, without coercion, God’s love leads him to be vulnerable, to step back so that those who are loved might be filled with the love they have just received so they respond in love.  Those who love will quite often suffer because true love invites the one who receives the love to respond lovingly but cannot require that response forcibly.  It must be freely given.  That opens the one who initiates the love to suffer rejection, to receive or suffer a response that is not loving.  The response Jesus received after his many miracles to cure those who were in need and after coming into this world to bring all humanity to heaven was: The soldiers “clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him.  They began to salute him with, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him.  They knelt before him in homage.  And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him.”  He showed his love for them but they, in turn, showed their hate for him.

Jesus reflects outwardly the last temptation that he hears within himself from the devil, when he shouts out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In his deepest sufferings he rejects the devil’s temptation to despair, humbly dying obedient to the Father on the cross.  The victory was his!  The witness to that victory was the pagan Roman centurion, who stood facing Jesus and seeing “how he breathed his last,” said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”  When Jesus began his public ministry, he announced in Mark 1: 15, “This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the gospel.”  The choice is ours to live out.  Live in Christ’s love daily so to live in God’s love forever.

5th Sunday of Lent – March 17, 2024

5LB24.   Jeremiah 31:31-34.   “The days are coming, says the Lord,” “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the Lord.” The law that God will place within them is his very presence within them.  The law is God within us making known to us his Will.  Holiness is our love of God and his Will and being obedient to his Will.  Sinfulness is the reverse.

John 12:20-33.  The scene just before is the glorious but humble entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. (Palm Sunday – John 12:12-19) Instead of going to meet the Greek Jews, Jesus chooses the occasion to announce to the world, both Greek and Jewish, his willingness to be sacrificed for the redemption of all humanity.  He chooses to be the grain of wheat that dies and “produces much fruit.”  Jesus serves as a witness and example that willingness to hand over one’s life to God the Father “will preserve it for eternal life.”  To follow Jesus means to offer up one’s life to God as Jesus did.  God’s voice that came from heaven was God’s testimony that God was giving glory to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  God’s presence gloriously shone through in Jesus’s death and resurrection.

Hebrews 5:7-9.  Jesus, “in the reality of the Cross,” “showed himself the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of sacrifice.” (Preface V of Easter) “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, (in his humanity by being obedient to his Father’s Will) he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”  “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Because of this, God greatly exalted him” that “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  (Philippians 2:6-9, 11)

5th Sunday of Lent – 2021

5LB21.    Jeremiah 31:31-34.  God’s Chosen People had chosen not to keep their covenant with their God.  Because of their disobedience they were punished by being taken off as captives to Babylonia.  However, God promises a new covenant that is no longer written on stone or scrolls as it was with their ancestors but now written “upon their hearts.”  “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”  He shall be and is Lord and Master over us as a loving Father; and we, His obedient and devoted sons and daughters.

John 12:20-33.    Greeks come to speak to Jesus.  Without listening to what they have to say, Jesus speaks to them as though they were people who represented the entire world throughout all the ages to come.  Jesus says to them and us: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.  The Father will honor whoever serves me.”  To follow Jesus means to be obedient to the Father’s Will, as Jesus was obedient to the Father’s will.  We are to no longer possess our lives as something that belongs to us as but rather as lives that belong to God because by the Holy Spirit’s grace within us we daily give our lives over to God.

Jesus was both truly divine and truly human.  His divinity stood aside to the extent that it allowed his humanity to be truly human.  Jesus, realizing the horrific suffering that he was going to have to endure, was deeply troubled and upset.  God spoke to Jesus, as though in thunder, as a way of saying to all that, despite all that his Son must go through, God would be glorified.  Remain faithful to Jesus in spite of his death on the cross.  Jesus declares that “the ruler of this world” will be overwhelmed, since by his death on the cross, he says, “I will draw everyone to myself,” not just the Jews but all the people of the world.

Hebrew 5:7-9.  “In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death.”  In spite of his immense anguish at what he was to suffer, he was obedient to the Father.  “He learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”  Jesus surrendered himself to God’s will in spite of the fact that his human body and spirit was horrified by what it had to go through.  By his total acceptance of his Father’s will, “he was made perfect” in holiness.  That perfect holiness in his humanity enabled him to become “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

5th Sunday of Lent – 2018

5LB18.   Jeremiah 31:31-34.  “I will make a new covenant.”  “It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers.”  “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.”  “No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the Lord.  All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord.”  In this passage twice God uses the expression ‘to know him,’ the Lord.  I believe that the law that is placed within them and written upon their hearts, which they will have no need to teach one another, is the very presence of the Lord himself who, from within their hearts, will dictate to them the law, which is his will.    He announces to them that it is the internal presence of the Lord himself and not an external written document that is the law.  The Lord says to them, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people;” and not as so many of the Judaic leaders of the time of Jesus seem to have taken as their faith:  “The written law will be your god and you shall be the people of the written law.”

Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15.   The God, who dwells within us, enables us to be obedient to his will and so no longer be a sinful people.  His Holy Spirit guides us to follow his ways and leave our own behind us.

John 12:20-33.  The passage in this gospel: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life,” is reflective of Luke 14:26-7:  “If anyone comes to me without hating his father or mother, wife and children, brothers and sister, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  I understand that these passages mean to say that we must first love God and out of our love for God we must love what God loves, and wants us to love, which is a supernatural motivation and not a natural one that says that we love our own self, families and friends because that is what comes to us naturally as creatures of this earth.  To be a follower of Christ we must love God and anyone or anything else out of a love for God.  In Matthew 22: 37-38, Jesus answering a Pharisee said, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.”  In John 13:34, Jesus, replacing the Old Testament second of the two greatest commandments says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  The measure of loving your neighbor is not as you love yourself, as it was in the Old Testament, but as God loves us.  God is the measure of all things and God is the reason and motivation for all things.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

In today’s gospel, Jesus says, “Whoever serves me must follow me and where I am there also will my servant be.  The Father will honor whoever serves me.”  To serve God means to be a servant to his will.  Remembering now what Jesus said in Matthew 16:24b that we must think as God thinks and not as human beings do.  We must daily, throughout each day, ask the Holy Spirit to put to death our natural, worldly ways and give us a life of holy, heavenly ways.  In Matthew 16: 24, “Then Jesus said to disciples, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

This section that begins, “I am troubled now.” is reflective of Jesus’ agony in the garden in Luke 22:42-44.  The voice or thunder from heaven was to show to the surrounding crowd the glory that Jesus was giving to the Father by being obedient to the Father’s will. At the end Jesus says, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”  Not only did he say that to indicate that he would die on the cross but also he was answering the question that he knew the Greeks want to ask him.  ‘In drawing everyone to himself,’ the salvation he was bringing was not only for the Jews but also for the whole world.

Hebrews 5:7-9.   Jesus prays that he be spared from this cup of suffering and death on the cross but he wants to do not his will but the Father.  “He learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”  Jesus, in his divinity is perfect and all-knowing, but in his humanity he learned obedience and was made perfectly holy.  This line recalls the passage from the Gospel that calls us to follow him in his obedience and so in our obedience be honored by God.

4th Sunday of Lent – Mar. 10, 2024

4LB24.   2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23.   “In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity.   Because of their sins, “the anger of Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.  All Jerusalem was destroyed and they “were carried captive to Babylon.”  However, the Lord later had Jerusalem rebuilt by inspiring “Cyrus, king of Persia” to restore Jerusalem.  How glorious is the loving mercy of the Lord!

John 3:14-21.    “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  Whoever chooses not to believe in him as the only source of eternal life is condemned to die because they have cut themselves off from the only source of eternal life.  Living in Jesus is living in the light of the truth that all else is death that is not in God.

Ephesians 2:4-10.  “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ.” Being spiritually dead is the state of choosing to live physically without joining ourselves to the life of Christ.  On one level we keep going but on another we are inert, in rigor mortis, a cadaver.  When Paul writes “by grace you have been saved,” he means that God has given us an infusion of his divine life to raise us from a state of spiritual death to life in Christ.  “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that should live in them.” When we have received a share of God’s life-giving love, we live a life doing loving good works.