Easter Homily by Dom Francis Michael
03.29.05 (4:18 am) [edit]I welcome our guests. Many of you are retreatants but a few of you have braved coming out on a rainy night with thunder and lightning. We gather to celebrate Resurrection—a new creation. You and I, that is.
& nbsp; Last year, I remember pointing out that it is much easier for us to celebrate Lent than Easter. Sin and suffering we know about. We’re very intimate with sin and suffering. But resurrection, new life, and new creation… that’s a different story. How do we live a resurrected life? What does that look like? What does it feel like? It’s what we’re called to.
& nbsp; I’d like to share a little story which my brothers have heard several times and maybe some of you have, too. But I think it can be applied at Easter just as well.
& nbsp; Long ago in a faraway land, a great hoard of an army arose and came pillaging across the countryside. They came to a monastery which they destroyed. One old monk was found and brought out to the general. He asked the old monk, “Do you know who I am?”
& nbsp; The monk said, “No.”
& nbsp; The general said, “I am the great Yau who can stand before you, look straight into your eye, and without blinking, take your head off with a single stroke.”
& nbsp; The monk bowed and said, “Your Excellency, I am the one who can stand before you, look straight into your eyes, and without blinking, allow you to take my head off with a single stroke.”
& nbsp; It’s a beautiful little story, but it’s a parable. Think of the general as death, as the devil, as the sum of all our fears, all our worries, all of our concerns, all the things we dread most. Jesus today offers us the power to stand before that with peace, with contentment, with love, with a very gentle, quiet power.
& nbsp; How do we get to that place?
& nbsp; It’s a place of faith. A place of love that Saint John says “casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18). And, again, that’s something we all know about. We, who Saint Paul says, “out of fear death we have been slaves of sin our whole life long” (Heb 2:15). We fear and so we choose wrongly in our fear. Jesus comes into that and tells us our sins are forgiven—taken away. Instead, he brings us grace. He brings us life—fullness of life.
& nbsp; It seems to me that resurrection is a little like spring, especially here in the South. It comes slowly in starts and stops. Flowers appear. Freezes come. Sometimes we can have spring for six weeks. The trees are in bloom, then another freeze comes. Spring is coming, brothers and sisters, and the resurrection is coming in us as well. Little by little.
& nbsp; Now the resurrection, like the kingdom of God, is not here or there. The kingdom of God is within us (Lk 17:21)—each one of us—and so is the resurrection. It can only come in us by our choices—by our day-to-day small choices to put aside fear and to love. Sometimes those are big choices.
& nbsp; Just a few days ago, we celebrated the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero (d. 3/24/80) who, in the face of real physical death, continued to speak the truth with love until he was gunned down celebrating Eucharist. Most of us don’t have to face that kind of threat. Most of us have smaller fears (like my preaching to you tonight). And lots of things in between. We get to make choices, and the choices are about love.
& nbsp; I printed out before me here 1 Corinthians chapter 13—the beautiful hymn to love which is what a resurrected life is about. Paul starts out by saying: Don’t be confused by the externals. He says you can have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries (know everything about God) and have all knowledge (know scripture inside and out). You can have faith to even move mountains. You can even do great asceticism (give everything you own to the poor) and even be willing to lay down your life. All of those are external things. But if you don’t have love, those things are useless.
& nbsp; And there’s many people doing those things in our world without love. People willing, for instance, to blow themselves up to hurt other people. I don’t judge their souls. They may in their hearts think they are bringing about a great good. We, as Catholics, know that you can’t use an evil act to bring about a greater good [1]. Not everyone knows that, but we do.
& nbsp; Paul goes onto say what love is: patient, kind, not jealous, not proud or arrogant, not seeking its own, not easily provoked, not taking wounds against us and blowing them up, not rejoicing in unrighteousness but in the truth. Each of those are choices stepping into the resurrection. When we’re faced with a situation, we can be patient, or we can be upset and angry. When we see our brothers and sisters before us doing something, we can be compassionate or judgmental. And the list goes on.
& nbsp; Jesus comes and says, “Your sins are forgiven you. Peace” (Lk 7:48-50). Even to his own who just denied him and fled, he doesn’t come into the room and castigate them (Jn 20:19). He doesn’t come in and say, “Where were you? Where in God’s name were you? How could you have denied me?” No. “Peace. Do not be afraid. It has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12:32). But as I say over and over again in my homilies, it’s not magic. Not that kind of gift. It’s a gift that we have to receive and give ourselves to and say yes to.
& nbsp; We are about to renew our baptismal promises [2]. I suggest that as we do that to listen to the words that we are saying. To promise, once again, to open our hearts to this grace so that we can love this way. So that we can step into and live this love which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7).