Easter Homily

The Lord is risen, Alleluia! / He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

This has been as strange a Triduum as I have ever celebrated, but I have been so gratified by the participation at our parking lot Masses.  As I’ve said, there is a difference between watching Mass on tv and “being there”, even if that means from your car.  What has been even more gratifying has been the number of you who, having navigated the pandemic thus far, have confirmed that, “Yes”, there is a difference.

As I thought about what God is communicating to us on this Easter Day, in the context of the present pandemic, I kept coming back to the first words from the logia of St. Peter’s Basilica of our Holy Father of happy memory, Pope St. John Paul the Great, after his election: “Be not afraid!”

There seems to be not a few people who are either trying to frighten us into believing the world is on the brink of collapse or have bought into that world view so thoroughly that they themselves can no longer function.

Three days ago I saw an animation someone made and posted of how dangerous it is to go to the grocery store.  The animation showed the layout of a grocery store with a very few people in various aisles. One of the figures in the animation sneezed and the animation then followed the sneeze particles as they rose and ballooned and then spread through the store.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a cable news anchor break down in tears and declare that she couldn’t go on because she was so afraid.

Now, I get it.  The corona virus pandemic is real, and the danger to our health, not just those who are compromised health-wise, is real.  The more we are learning about how this virus works the more aware we become of the necessity for prudence in our social contacts.  As we heard in last evening’s first reading from the creation of the world (cf. Gen. 1-2), the life we have been given  is a life that is precious and we are to treat it with reverence, prudence, and wisdom; we don’t risk it willy-nilly, or without good reason.  However, we need not live in fear!

Fear comes of not taking deep into our hearts the message the Church gives witness to today: Christ is risen!  Hallelujah!  With the empty tomb we are made to understand that those who have died with Christ in Baptism need no longer fear the grave; for death no longer gets the final word.  We who have died with Christ will rise with Him!

What’s more, Christ is risen and is with us today!  In a few minutes, on this altar, the risen Christ will come to us again; not veiled in flesh but veiled under the appearance of bread and wine.  Christ is indeed with us and we need no longer fear.

But first we will renew our Baptismal promises whereby we renounced Satan, this fallen world, and all that draws us into fear.  We will again proclaim our faith in God the Father, God the risen Son, and God the Holy Spirit: We will proclaim our faith in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, given to us for the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of our own bodies on the last day: and as we rose with Him from the waters of Baptism, so we will rise to a new life where fear has no hold over us.

But, my brothers & sisters, there is one thing more yet: this is not a proclamation that we get to keep to ourselves.  Having received so great a gift we must then go out, as Peter does in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, and proclaim Christ’s resurrection and the salvation that it brings to us: not only a salvation that promises resurrection from the grave on the last day, but salvation here, now, as we rise from the depths of fear to a new and glorious day of resurrection in the here and now.

We have been told: “Be not afraid!”  We have been shown that neither death nor the corona virus has the last word.  It is now for us to live that resurrection; now, today, and until the day of our own bodily resurrection.

The Lord is risen, Alleluia! / He is risen indeed, Alleluia!