We are sometimes confused and unsure of ourselves on our journey of faith, aren’t we? Sometimes, we look at reality, and we can’t make sense of what is going on. We’re afraid of what we see. That is what Mary of Magdala is experiencing on Easter morning. She goes to the tomb early in the morning before sunrise. She is astounded to find the stone moved from the entrance and the tomb empty. She wonders: what is going on? What has happened to our Lord? Has someone stolen his body? Mary of Magdala tells some of the other disciples about what she witnessed. When they see the the empty tomb and the burial cloths scattered about, they are confused and perplexed, but, the beloved disciple starts to make sense of the situation; he sees, and from there, he starts to believe. It is significant that in today's Gospel, belief in the resurrection does not stem from the actual appearance of the resurrected Jesus, but rather such belief developed from what the believers first reported, from the way they interpreted their experience of the empty tomb. This is significant to us and to the way we are called to be evangelizers as well. We are called to share our faith experiences with others, to evangelize our family, our friends, our co-workers, our classmates, our neighbors, and our community. It is not enough for us go to Mass and to grow in the faith ourselves. Like the example of the disciples in our Gospel today, we witness, we believe, and we share. From the witness of Mary of Magdala, from the witness of Peter and the beloved apostle, the witness of the faith spread to the other apostles, to the men on the road to Emmaus, and to the apostles and disciples who spread the Good News of the Gospel throughout the world. We are descendants of those first followers of Christ that witnessed the empty tomb that morning. As they made sense of the empty tomb, as Easter joy filled their hearts, they continued to spread the Good News of Christ to others. What started with a small numbers of believers in this obscure part of the Roman empire, it spread by word of mouth and by the witness of acts of love. We are called to this same joyful spirit of Evangelization, to have the same sense of courage and urgency that Mary of Magdala had that morning.
We have heard about the importance of being witnesses and evangelizers of the Gospel, but perhaps we don’t know where to start. Well, I have three suggestions on how to get started. First, in order to evangelize others, we ourselves need to be constantly growing and learning in our faith. We have the Formed website here at our parish with access to books, videos, audio programs - all kinds of things to help you grow in the faith. Some of you may be logged into Formed already. There is a special login for our parish that gets you free access through our subscription - details on how to do that is in our bulletin this week. You also may have heard that we have a new improved parish library in the office area. We have books arranged by subject area so they are easy to find. Reading and studying your faith is another great way to prepare for evangelization. Most of you know that I have been in a Masters degree program at Catholic University in Washington DC. One of the classes was about parish communication and evangelization in the digital world. We are working on our digital media at St Jude. We invite you to look at our Facebook page and our website, some of which has been updated. It is not only for you to receive information, but also for you to share posts and to be an evangelizer with your family and friends. Finally, I want to mention our ALPHA program which we had this past semester for the first time at St Jude. ALPHA is a faith sharing program, a space to explore life's big questions, to say what you think and to hear other people's points of view. It is one evening a week and lasts about 10 weeks. You can come to ALPHA on any point on the faith journey, whether you are a devout believer or whether you are just exploring at the moment. We will have another adult ALPHA program in the fall and our first youth ALPHA in the fall too. We welcome any of you to think about joining us for ALPHA this fall.
As we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord today and hear about the disciples spreading the Good News of this event, may we all hear this call to witness and evangelize, because, indeed, as disciples of Christ, it is something we are all called to do.
As we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord today and hear about the disciples spreading the Good News of this event, may we all hear this call to witness and evangelize, because, indeed, as disciples of Christ, it is something we are all called to do.
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