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Easter Sunday, 2005: People of the Resurrection
Just imagine. Your mom has just died. You go through the crucifixion of
the funeral and burial. The closing of the casket is like a knife in your heart, thrust more deeply still when it is lowered
into the grave. After it is all over, you make your way back to visit the grave, your heart and your body heaving with sorrow.
“Where will she be?”, you ask yourself. “I wonder if she is in pain or in joy?” Arriving at the grave,
you see the stone broken. You panic in your confusion. Your heart thumps faster. You demand an explanation, your anger and
outrage on the rise. You look with fear inside the grave. The casket has been smashed open, you see the shroud, but your beloved
mother is gone. “What monstrous cruelty is this?”, you cry. Beside yourself with uncontrollable anguish you cry
for help. Your grief has been as desecrated as your mother’s grave. It defies description. And then … you see
her. She stands before you, alive, radiant with health, all pain of body, mind and heart gone, cleansed of the defilement
of mortality, smiling and with arms outstretched. You rub your eyes, unable to believe. “Is this yet another cruel hoax?
An impostor?” And then she says your name, as only she could. Although your mind refuses to understand what is happening,
your eyes, your heart and your ears do not lie. You go to her, the tears of joy now drowning out those of sorrow. With your
eyes locked into hers, you cry, “mami”, and she responds with joyful serenity, “my son, I am risen and will
live for ever.”
I imitate somewhat the Gospel reading of the Resurrection. I admit that
I am appealing to your emotions. But should not the Resurrection of Jesus also do that, and not remain at some abstruse distance
from our reality? Like the Gospel, this story will, I most sincerely hope, one day be true - only your mother will most likely
say to you: “we have been raised”, because you too will have burst
forth from your grave. And you will find before you, not only your mother, but also your father, family and friends. Indeed,
all you have ever known and loved will stand with you. The love you will then experience will be multiplied infinitely; were
you not raised, you would die of the joy that awaits you. At the command of the Risen Lord, at the end of human history, we
shall all be raised, either to eternal life, if we have loved as he taught us, or to eternal damnation if we have not. There
is no alternative, and we must choose now, by the decisions we make each day, which it is to be.
At the end of his film, “The Passion of the Christ”, Mel Gibson
shows only the fact of the Resurrection, a fact which no-one actually did see, according to the Gospel. When I see that scene,
I feel like grabbing some microphone that would allow me to be heard all over the earth, in all ages of history: “There
is a man, Jesus, who has truly risen from the dead! What greater thing can any man do? In the face of it, how can anyone else
claim any kind of victory or power? What achievement can be greater? What doubt or worry can any more claim to enslave us
to fear? What sickness can vanquish us now? What greater hope or dream or desire can any man have? Terrible though our sufferings
be, unspeakable though our crimes be to one another oft in the name of justice, death -our greatest fear, our greatest enemy-
has now been conquered! Begone all you who claim victory over God, over his Church! Away with you who subject the truth to
your self-serving illusions! The One who is holy, immortal and strong will scatter you and you will see where power, victory
and glory belong!”
Brothers and sisters, we are the people of the Resurrection! If we would
rouse our faith to believe it, there is ultimately nothing to fear. Our fear, however understandable, shows that we lay greater
stock by death than by the Risen Jesus. Today is the day for faith to be strengthened, never again to be weakened. Today is
the day to allow the reality of Christ’s victory to smash the tombstones we erect around our ways of thinking, feeling
and loving. The last place Christ wants us to be today is in the caves of our false values and priorities, of our small-minded
and petty attitudes. Our moral graves will be burst open only if we listen to the powerful voice of Jesus speaking the life-giving
word of forgiveness. He challenges us to have great desires for good and holiness, to entrust to him without fear or reserve
all that is in us. What use will our worldly trappings be in the face of death and judgment? “What use would life have
been to us if Christ had not risen from the dead?” What, indeed, is the glory of the world in comparison with the glory
of the Resurrection? Yet, we are not to abandon the world, but to bring it to Christ, to be purified of death, sin and sickness!
As Easter day passes, then, do not fall asleep again in spiritual and moral
mediocrity. Because the truth is that Easter never passes. Victory over all and any shadow of death in your life is possible
every day, because every day of human history has been swallowed up by the eternal day of Christ’s victory. So, take
great courage, and be resolved! Pray with all your might, believe with all your heart! Even if man could eliminate all sickness,
all sin and all death by some global panacea, his life can never be fulfilled until it is invaded by the Spirit of the Risen
Jesus. Death, disappointment, failure and decay, painful though they may be, are but stepping stones to the empty tomb, your
empty tomb. Live now in the certain knowledge that the Resurrection is your destiny, and be forever comforted and exultant
with joy in proclaiming: the Lord is truly risen, alleluia!
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, March 27th, 2005: St. Andrew Apostle, Silver Spring, 10.00 am
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