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FAITH
ON THE FIRST DAY
OF THE WEEK
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Faith On the First Day of the Week.”
Today’s gospel from John for this Easter Sunday begins this way, “On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.”
Not only had Jesus died, was buried, but now the stone that closed his tomb was rolled back.
Imagine going through a family death – going through the whole process – the death bed moment when a loved one dies – getting an undertaker – the phone calls, the planning, the wake, the funeral, the graveyard, the luncheon afterwards – the saying good bye to close friends – coming back to the house with family – the difficult sleep that night – and getting up very early the next morning and driving to the cemetery. You’re all alone. You walk to the grave site. You stop. There is a big empty hole in the ground. You saw the back hoes off to the side the day before. You figured the grave was filled with dirt. No! Down below the casket is open and there is no body. You panic. There is nobody around. You drive back to the house and you grab two other members from your family and you say, “I just went to the cemetery. Something’s wrong! There’s just a hole in the ground. The casket is empty.” And the three of you quickly get in a car and head to the cemetery. Sure enough, there is a hole in the ground. The casket is open. There is no body.
What would that be like?
The Gospels have various accounts of that first Easter. It went something like that with regards the stone and the tomb and the missing body. Then the gospels present some rather powerful scenes when Jesus comes back in his resurrected body.
DEATH DEMANDS FAITH
When it comes to whether there is life after death – resurrection – faith is necessary. If you’ve hit 50 and you haven’t thought about whether there is life after this life or not, then you aren’t thinking. By 50 you should have had doubts – wonderings – questions – and felt the need for faith.
After 50: death, doubts, fears, faith, and lots more. After 60 it’s having to get up to go to the bathroom in the night – and sometimes you can’t back to sleep – and after 70 questions can keep us awake.
The title of my homily is, “Faith On The First Day of the Week.”
Notice I added to the opening words of today’s gospel, the word “faith”: “Faith on the First day of the Week” – because I want to get into the issue of faith in this homily – because that’s why we’re here today – this Sunday – this first day of the week – this first day of Jesus’ New Life after his death.
Christians believe only one person came back from the dead for sure: Jesus Christ. **
This is a primary faith issue.
In this homily I’d like to present four things about faith:
1. Faith is a Relationship
2. Faith Takes Time,
3. Faith Is A Gift
4. Faith Needs Witnesses
1) FAITH IS A RELATIONSHIP
Faith is a relationship. Faith is a relationship with God – the invisible God. For the Christian, it’s faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - all three – and all three as one.
When you pray, when you take time to be in relationship with God, do you pray, “Father” or “Jesus” or “Spirit”.
Like any lover, what’s that inner name you have for the one you love?
2) FAITH TAKES TIME
Faith takes time.
Notice in today’s gospel that the faithful disciple – many think it’s John – is the first to believe – and Peter doesn’t get it at first.
Faith takes time – as in any relationship.
John sees the cloths – and without even putting together all that the scriptures has said – he believes.
Peter is not as quick – in running or believing.
Mary of Magdala waits outside – and in the next section of the gospel of John we find out she meets Jesus – thinks he’s the gardener – and then realizes – this is Jesus – Rabbi, Teacher, Master, The One Who Loved her when various others didn’t – and labeled her as one of life’s losers.
Faith takes time.
Thomas will have doubts – as we’ll hear in next Sunday’s gospel – called for centuries, “Doubting Thomas Sunday” – and we thank Thomas for teaching Jesus’ followers, it’s okay to have doubts.
But don’t forget Thomas prayer: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
This Easter as reported in the Baltimore Sun last Sunday, this Easter the Archdiocese of Baltimore has the largest class of converts in the past decade. 984 local adults prepared this eight months in R.C.I.A. programs to become Catholics last night. This was a third more than joined the church locally in 2008. We had 39 in this parish. I looked at them last night – a wonderful mix of folks – the majority of them looked like plus 25 young middle aged adults.
Last Sunday’s article in the Baltimore Sun by Matthew Hay Brown began this way, “A police officer assigned to watch over a church nursery during Mass overhears the homily and becomes intrigued. A retail manager struggling with the loss of hours at work is inspired by the faith of his fiancée. A married mother of two looks for answers after two siblings are stricken with cancer.” **
Faith takes time. Some are born Catholic Christians. Some become Catholics in God’s good time. Not everyone enters the vineyard at the same hour. Some leave and come back from time to time.
What time period of your faith are you in now?
I discovered something very interesting in talking with couples getting married. They take a long questionnaire. One section is entitled “Religion and Philosophy”. There are some questions on church attendance. The hope is to get folks talking about the state of their faith – because it will be part of the state of their union.
I discovered that some people went to Mass because their parents made them go – and then dropped out. Then when talking about going to church, couples would say, “We see ourselves going to go to Mass when we have kids to give them good example.”
After about ten times it dawned on me to say: “Imagine going to church to please one’s parents for years and then imagine going to church to give good example to one’s kids, but never going to church because I want to go to church?”
Then sometimes I compare a relationship with God with their relationship with each other. Both take faith. Every relationship has its ups and downs – doubts and wonderings – did I make the right choice? Then sometimes I add, “Here is where covenant comes in. By getting married in church you are asking God to come into the picture – into your relationship.” Hopefully, a couple are not getting married in church just to make parents happy.
Adult faith takes time. It’s a process. I always remember reading an article by a religious brother years ago. The title and theme was: “The reasons why I entered are different from the reasons I’m staying.”
God, is that true of being a priest, being married, being a Christian!
Hopefully we grow and develop. Faith takes time. There’s a lot more for this second point – there are plenty more Sundays.
3) FAITH IS A GIFT
Having done tons of high school retreats and this and that with kids, faith as a gift is often not seen that way. Having listened to lots and lots of adults in the second half of life, let me tell you that something happens along the way that gets folks to see faith is a gift.
And gifts can be lost.
Before the horrible priest scandal in the Catholic Church, the worst thing I experienced was seeing priests who lost the gift of faith. Some left the priesthood. Some left the faith. I was ordained in the 60’s – 1965 – and a lot of things happened in the late 60s and early 70’s. I could see a priest leaving to get married and have a family, but to see a priest lose his faith. Tough stuff.
Faith is a gift and gifts can be lost.
Faith as a gift came home to me one morning – standing at my brother’s grave with his best buddy – who was Jewish. Marty believes in God, but he told me standing there that he doesn’t believe in an afterlife. Talk about a roadside bomb. Boom. I told him some Jews believe in a resurrection.
I remember asking my brother when he heard he had 18 months to live, “How are you going to deal with this?” He paused and said, “I’ll let you know.” And he let me know just before he died – when he said, “Thank God for mom and dad giving us the gift of faith.”
4) FAITH NEEDS WITNESSES
Faith needs moms and dads, brothers and sisters, who are living the Christian faith.
I remember a man named Willie Lukianski – who wanted to talk about God. He had never been baptized or gone to church. We met over a period of months. This was before the R.C.I.A. program. He couldn’t believe in God. Nothing convinced him – but eventually he made an act of faith – not in God – but in the people of God. All these people going to church every Sunday can’t be wrong. So with that he was baptized – and he died of brain cancer about three years later.
Faith needs witnesses. We give witness to each other every time we come to church – and every time we live the Christian faith.
Faith needs people at work who give a full day’s work, who don’t cheat – who give quality work.
I’m not talking about “mouthy” faith – I’m talking about action – witness – living the gospel.
Don’t you love the quote that is attributed to St. Francis, “Preach the gospel. Sometimes use words.”
In today's second reading, from Paul's First Letter to the Corinthinans, he's telling us that we are called to be yeast that leavens all the dough - the whole loaf of Bread, the whole Body of Christ, the whole Community. Yeast has no mouth - just growing action.
I became a priest because we had a fun family life – prayed and played cards and listened to the radio together. I became a priest because I grew up in a great parish. I saw good nuns and Redemptorist priests and brothers in our parish when growing up. I stayed a priest because I saw wonderful Catholics – some of whom were priests – who were real, authentic, joyful, human beings – and doing life this way made sense.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily was: Faith On the First Day of the Week.
For starters faith expressed by coming to church each Sunday with family - with a Christian community helps increases our faith – and then helps us live it during the week.
Faith on the first day of the week helps us bring Christ and his love, insights, challenges to the other 6 days of the week – helping us make each day sweeter and better for each other.
O O O O O O O O O
* Painting on top: St. Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre, by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, c. 1530-1539, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
** Monday morning quarterbacking .... Second thoughts .... There is an old saying for preaching, "You're allowed one heresy in every sermon." Obviously, I don't want to preach heresy - in fact, I try to avoid "bumps" in a sermon or in writing. By "bumps" I mean something that hits the listener or reader and they get out of sync at that point. While driving to my niece's for Easter Dinner yesterday, after preaching at two Easter Sunday morning Masses, I found myself a tiny bit out of sync. I was wondering about a comment in this homily, "Christians believe only one person came back from the dead for sure: Jesus Christ." What about the Catholic teaching about Mary in the Dogma of the Assumption? What about the Saints? What about the Communion of All Saints? What about everyone who dies and is lifted into God - invited into the Eternal Banquet? What about the 15th Chapter of First Corinthians? These are thoughts for another day - as well as my hope for reality in eternity in the Trinity. How's that for a way to avoid heresy and the Great Unknown - the Great Question - the Great Hope - Life after death?
*** Matthew Hay Brown, "Surge In Converts to Catholicism," Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2009, pages 1, 14
