4/5/2015 – Easter Sunday – John 20:1-9 -

      Our masses this weekend are a very important moment in our Church’s liturgical year and in our journey as Christians.  We have been preparing for many weeks all during the Holy Season of Lent for this day – that long period of preparation shows how important this day is to us.  We celebrate the risen Lord today – we celebrate Christ as our Savior and Redeemer.

       I always enjoy looking at the history of words and traditions that we have in our faith, so I wondered: Where does the word “Easter” come from?  The word “Easter” comes from an Old English word that means the “East”. Think of the sun that rises from the East, bringing us light, warmth, hope, and a new day.  The sun rising in the East is a symbol of the Risen Christ – Christ who is the light of our world, the light of our lives.  Last night, at the Easter Vigil mass, we lit the Paschal candle in the darkness of the night from the Easter fire.  The light of the Paschal candle, the light of Jesus, entered the darkness of the church, the darkness of the tomb.  The Paschal candle will be kept by the altar area during the 50 days of the Easter season.   Christ the light is indeed with us in a special way during this time of the liturgical year.

       When we were reading the Passion of the Lord from the Gospel of John in our Good Friday liturgy, I was drawn to the words that recounted how the Virgin Mary, Mary of Clopas, Mary of Magdala, and the beloved disciple John all were there at the cross as Jesus was crucified.  In our Easter Gospel message, it is the same Mary Magdala who comes to the tomb early in the morning, presumably to anoint Jesus’ body.  When she finds the tomb empty, she runs off to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple about what she had just found.  Were these disciples afraid of what they had seen?  They had witnessed the death of Jesus – their friend, their Savior, their great teacher.  They had witnessed his violent death on the cross.  Did they think about the heavy stone that would block them entry into the tomb? Did they think of the other obstacles they would encounter?  Of the Roman soldiers who might arrest them or put them to death?  The answer is probably yes.  They were probably very frightened by what they had just seen.  They were probably very aware of the obstacles and dangers they themselves would face.  They could have fled into hiding.   But they chose not to.  And while we, as modern day Christians, have an understanding both in our hearts and our minds what the resurrection of Jesus is about, Mary of Magdala and the beloved disciple were just getting a glimpse of what the resurrection might be about.  Yet, their fears and obstacles did not prevent them from believing in Jesus.  They did not prevent them from being loyal to him even as he lay in the tomb.  The beloved disciple still had not taken everything in, still had not understood what had happened, but Gospel reports that “he saw and believed”.

       Sometimes our actions say a lot.  I was very edified by what I saw in our parish this Lenten season.  I saw many of you taking your Lenten promises very seriously.  We had great attendance at our daily masses and Stations of the Cross and other Lenten devotions.  Beyond that, I feel a really good energy in our parish right now. At the end of this month, we will mark the one year anniversary of the tornado that tore through our city and that did a lot of damage to our church and to many of our parishioners.  So many parishioners have worked so hard to make the needed repairs and to get our church back on track.  The two weeks leading up to Holy Week, there was a big effort to refresh our church with paint and cleaning and new floor, and the results have been amazing.  It shows the great love and dedication so many people have for our parish.  Living out our faith, living out the joy of the resurrection, and being a part of the community – that is a big part of the Easter message.  The first thing Mary Magdala did when she encountered the empty tomb was to go out and to and tell the other members of the community.   Our Catholic faith has never been about living it out individually or in isolation – it is about being a part of the community.  Think about how the resurrection message of Easter is calling out to you today, how it is calling out to you to be a more involved part of our community.  Pope Francis wants us to be a warm, inviting, diverse and joy-filled Church where all are welcome to be disciples of Christ, where we in turn go out and make disciples, where we proclaim the kingdom of God to all.  And that is what we want to be here at St James.  This Easter morning, Christ has conquered death, he grants us new life, he grants us his peace.   Let us be a part of this Easter message of joy!

4/20/2014 – Easter Sunday – John 20:1-9

        Our Gospel today tells us that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark.   Her Lord and Savior had just been crucified.  It was still dark outside in the early morning hours when she visited the tomb.  The darkness of the early morning hours was probably overshadowed by the spiritual darkness that consumed her that morning.  Full of remorse and pain, anger and frustration, Mary Magdalene believed that our Lord’s body had been stolen from the tomb.  He had been put to death in the most violent way possible, but now his body cannot even be anointed in the Jewish burial tradition.   This is a first sign for Mary Magdalene, for Peter and the beloved disciple, of knowing that something very special and very unique was happening.  But they still no idea what all of this was about, about the full implications that the resurrection would have on their lives and their faith.

          Last night, we celebrated the Easter Vigil mass.  The symbolism of that mass is so striking.  In the rehearsal for that mass, we were explaining to the members of the RCIA class and their sponsors that the beginning of the liturgy starts in the darkness of the night.  The Easter fire starts out in front of the church, symbolizing the light of Christ that is brought into our world and into our lives in a very special way through his death and resurrection.  We have our candles lit by the light of Christ, symbolizing the source of the true light for us in our lives.

        During the holy season of Lent, we have been talking about how we search for God in all things.    We search for God in moment of tragedy and challenge.  We search for him not only in the quiet, prayerful moments in our lives, but also in the busy schedules of our modern lives, in those moments that change us and transform us in very profound ways.  We search for God in the questions that we have and in the things that bind us and restrict us in life. During Lent, we journeyed with Jesus on his way to the cross.  We meditated upon his sufferings and his passion.  We knew that he would die on a cross on Good Friday.  That is a big part of what we believe as Catholics.  However, also with the cross is the resurrection.   We believe in the joy, the new life, the liberation that comes from the resurrection.

        Traditionally, in the Early Church, the Easter Vigil mass was the time when adults would enter the faith.   Last night at our Easter Vigil mass at St James, we had three adults come into the Church as catechumens – they were baptized last night, as well as five children from those families and a high school student of our parish who had not been baptized before.   We had one other adult come into full communion in the Catholic Church from another Christian denomination.  They underwent a year-long process that culminated into their entry into the Church last night.  The joy those neophytes and their families experienced is a great witness to all of us.

      But, look at what today’s Gospel says carefully.  The beloved disciple saw the empty tomb – he saw all that was happening – and he believed.  Yet, it also said that this group still did not understand all that the Scriptures said.   The members of the Early Church believed, but they spent a lot time figuring out what Jesus was all about, figuring out what relevance he had in their lives and in what they believed.  We, too, are called to believe.  We, too, are called to be witnesses.  This Easter season that we are now entering is a wonderful time for us to examine our faith, to recommit ourselves to what we believe.   Perhaps we have not been attending mass regularly or are thinking about how we can become more engaged in our parish.  Now is a good time to put some of that into action.  For these next weeks during the Easter season, the Church invites us to ponder what the resurrection of Jesus really means to us, to ponder what it really means to live the resurrection in our lives.  Let us all accept that invitation.  

3/31/2013 – Easter Morning – Juan 20:1-9; Acts 10:34a, 37-43

         Today is the morning we have been anticipating throughout our Lenten journey.  Lent has been a very special time of preparation for us as Catholics.  We have been kneeling at the beginning and ending of mass during Lent, signifying for us the penitential nature of this season, of the need to repent, to seek forgive, and to change our lives. The Church asks us to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation during Lent, and to practice the Lenten disciplines of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.

         We knew that this Lenten time of preparation would lead us to this joyful celebration of Easter.  But it is interesting for us to see the reactions of those in our Gospel today as they come to the empty tomb.  Mary Magdalene is worried and anxious, wondering what they have done with our Lord’s body.  Peter and the other beloved disciple ran to the tomb to see what was going on, trying to figure out why the stone had been rolled away and why the burial cloths were sitting there in a pile.  There is not a lot of joy in their responses, but rather anxiety, worry, and activity.

         Sometimes it takes us a long time to realize the significance of an event, for it to penetrate our hearts and our lives, to reflect on its meaning and to ponder it.  We have talking about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela – the Way of St James – all during the Lenten season.  Being a pilgrim is a spiritual journey, but sometime it takes a while to really have that journey make sense.  In the pilgrimage group that I accompanied to Spain back in April, one of the members of that group was an 80-year-old parishioner from St Richard parish in Jackson named Lyons.  I cannot even imagine what I would be like to go on that pilgrimage at 80 years old, walking about 200 miles over the course of 2 weeks.  While we were walking on the pilgrimage route, Lyons kept on remaking to me – “Father Lincoln – I just don’t feel like a pilgrim.  I don’t feel the Spirit on this journey.”  When a pilgrim is hiking 15 or 16 miles a day in rough terrain and through whatever weather there is – through snow, sleet, rain, and hail that we had throughout our journey – it is tough not concentrating on what is going on physically during the pilgrimage.  The spirituality of the pilgrimage is there, but a lot of times it is not until the pilgrim has some time to pray and reflect upon what has gone on, then the real profound spiritual lessons hit home.  When we finally arrived at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compestela, when we hugged the statue of St. James and went to mass and did all the other pilgrimage rituals upon arriving at our destination, the spirituality of the pilgrimage took hold a bit more.  And when the pilgrims arrive back home, the spirituality of the pilgrimage starts to resonate more and more with each passing day.  I still have insights and reflections about my pilgrimage experiences as the days and weeks and months go by.

         The Passion of Christ, our salvation through his death and Resurrection, his real presence in the Eucharist – these are all mysteries of our faith.  And by the word “mystery”, we mean that its fully meaning can never by fully absorbed or understood by us, that on our faith journey, we will always grow in our understanding and comprehension of God and the divine presence in our lives.  I always think about what St Augustine once said – that when we think we fully understand God and know what he is all about, then we know we really don’t understand God at all.  Think again about Mary Magdalene and the disciples that found the empty tomb that morning.  Their first reaction was not initially “Alleluia!  Praise the Lord!  Christ has risen!”  They had not expected the resurrection, and it took them a long time to figure it out.  But even on that morning, our Gospel says that the “other disciple,”  the one who first arrived at the tomb, “he saw and believed.”  Our belief will help us grow in our understanding, and our understanding will help us in our belief. 

         During Lent, many of us took on disciplines that helped up in our preparation during this Holy Season.  When I was visiting one of the CCD classrooms, one of the teachers was remarking to the students that those Lenten disciplines should not end with Easter, but should influence our life of discipleship throughout the year.  I recall one young man from St Richard parish in Jackson who started praying the rosary and offering support to the women at the abortion clinic in Jackson as part of his Lenten observance one year.  Many years later, he now is one of the most active Christians in the pro-life movement in the Jackson area.  As a new priest, this young man often came to me and tried to get me more involved in my pro-life efforts.  I started going out to the abortion clinic myself during Lent my first year as a priest to pray the rosary with a group of parishioners, and that group still continue that practice to this day. 

         So, as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ today and the salvation we have in him, may we ponder its significance in our lives as we now journey through the Easter season, and may we live out the reality of the resurrection in our lives each day.  

4/8/2012 – Easter Sunday – John 20:1-9

     While Christmas seems to be the Christian holy day that gets all of our attention in our modern world, especially the message of Christmas that our commercial, secular world want to tell, it is Easter that is really at the heart of what we believe as Catholics.  The Triduum of masses, of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday, are called the culmination of our Church’s liturgical year.  Holy week and our celebration of Easter morning mass today connects the cross of Jesus to his resurrection, a connection that we need to make in order to truly understand what our faith is all about.

         Last night we had our Easter Vigil mass.  The symbol of that mass is so striking.  Diane, Mary Sue, and Helen were remarking to me how especially for children, sitting in the dark church with the lights from the candles penetrating the darkness around us is such a strong message that will stay in the memory bank of a child throughout his lifetime.  The Easter fire starts out in front of the church, symbolizing the light of Christ that is brought into our world and into our lives in our very special way through his death and resurrection.  We have our candles lit by the light of Christ, symbolizing the source of the true light for us in our lives.

         Mary Magdalene was still in the darkness of night when she came to the tomb that morning.  You can just imagine the spiritual darkness that consumed her that morning that overshadowed the darkness of the night.  Full of remorse and pain, anger and frustration, she now believes that our Lord’s body had been stolen from the tomb.  It was bad enough that he was put to death; now his body could not even be anointed.  This is a first sign for Mary Magdalene, for Peter and the beloved disciple, of knowing that something very special and very unique was going on .  But they still no idea what all of this was about, about the full implications that the resurrection would have on their lives and their faith.

         There is a lot for us to figure out as well, isn’t there.  I think a lot of us have taken our faith for granted, we have taken for granted the religious freedom we have in our country to practice our faith.  Maybe what is going on in the world and in our country should be a wake up call for us.  And even though it is Easter when we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection, we can never forget that it is intrinsically tied to the cross, to the sufferings that Jesus endured on the way to his death and resurrection.  And although we will have 50 days of the Easter season up until the celebration of Pentecost on May 27, it looks like we as Catholics will still have our crosses to bear as we need to stand up for our faith and for the freedom to practice our faith in the world.  Indeed, in order for us to truly understand the light of the resurrection, we in turn must be lights shining in the darkness of our world.  For these next weeks during the Easter, we will ponder what the resurrection of Jesus really means to us, we will ponder what it really means to live the resurrection in our lives.