The title of my homily is, “It Finally Dawned on
Me.”
It dawned on me yesterday: Easter is like Christmas. It’s
a moment of light.
At Christmas Jesus comes out of the womb into the light
of the world - and slowly becomes the light of the world. At Easter Jesus comes out of the tomb as the
light of the world. The darkness of death did not put out the Light of the
world.
NOTICE THE
GOSPEL FOR THIS MORNING
Notice the gospel for this morning from John. It begins, “On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark,
and she saw the stone removed from the tomb.
Remember the 3 word sentence from Holy Thursday
evening. Judas leaves the Eucharist -
the Last Supper. He goes to get his
money - the 30 pieces of silver - for betraying Jesus. Then he wants to bring
to the garden those who want to have Jesus arrested and killed. The 3 words: “It was night.”
We all fall asleep.
We are all in the dark at times.
Not everyone wakes up at
the same time. Not everyone wakes
up the same way. We’re on vacation - at the beach. Some people get up early -
like 5:46 AM - to head for the beach so they can stand at the water’s edge and
see the sun rise. Some get up at 10:30 AM.
Bacon - bacon - bacon - the scent of bacon sneaks and
slides into their nostrils around 10:29 A.M.
For others - the scent of God sneaks into and slides into
our brain at 5:15 A.M. God dawns on us early on some mornings.
It’s Easter Sunday Morning.
GOD IS A
TRINITY
Not everyone knows this, but God is a Trinity, the
Trinity.
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - are
3 Persons, 1 God.
Not everyone knows this…. Not every religion teaches
this. Not every Christian community proclaims
this the same way - as we Catholics do.
God is a Trinity - three persons.
It’s an amazing awareness - to know this. It’s a gift of
faith. It’s a teaching that some people pass onto other people - without
knowing that’s what they are doing. Did
your mom or dad bring you into a church - take your hand and put it in the Holy
Water - and then make the sign of the cross on you and say, “In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Amen.
God knows persons.
God knows people. God knows that
faith - light - dawns on people at different times. It all depends where we are and who we are.
God knows about people. God created us and gave us
freedom. God knows fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives,
free spirits and not so free spirits.
And God made us so free - as free as God is - well to a
degree - meaning that God doesn’t crush us if we don’t get this - or don’t accept
this - or grow with this - that is - till this finally dawns on us.
Hey, love and acceptance, awareness and connecting with
each other - would be nothing, would be horrible, would not have its joy and
it’s “pinchability” - if the other had to love us.
Think of a moment in our life when we felt and found out
that another likes us - another loves us.
They want to find time to be with us. Pinch me. I’m
recognized. I’m loved. I’m wanted to be with another. Woo… Woo…. Wow…. Wow.
So God is other and we are other and God wants us and
sometimes this dawns on us - that God knows us and wants to be in a
relationship with us.
Do we?
Hopefully, it dawns on us - that life is about mutual
love - love that is freely given - one to the other - not out of obligation -
but out of choice.
This is why I don’t like the term: “Sunday obligation” or
“Holy Day of Obligation”. I prefer,
“Holy Day of Opportunity” or “Sunday opportunity.”
This means we want to be on the dance floor with God.
We’re not dragged from our chair - but we get up. We take God’s hand saying, “Yeah - wow” to God. God wants this dance -
this moment with me.”
Life: Father and Son dancing - and the Spirit of love
between them dancing and hopefully, we want to join in this dance.
Amazing - amazing grace - amazing that God the creator of
this whole spinning - moving universe - is on the dance floor and wants to
dance with me - and all the people on this planet.
God is on the dance floor - dancing.
When does that dawn on us - that God is not alone - God
is there on the dance floor - spinning, and spinning, dancing and dancing, and is calling me and
all the people before and now, onto the dance floor called existence.
And so many people are just sitting there saying, “I
don’t dance!”
And the Lord of the dance - keeps dancing and laughing -
and switching hands with billions of people - hoping all of us will enter into
the dance.
God is Three - God is with billions - God is alive.
Oh, people might say they believe in God. People
might know with words that God is a
Trinity. People might even make the sign of the cross - especially when in
trouble, asking help or praising God “In
the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
But God is more than words - talk, talk, talk.
God is a relationship. God is forever calling us into this relationship in and
with God.
CHRISTIANITY
Christianity teaches that people were not getting this.
So God - in the fullness of time - went different.
God became one of us - so we can become one with God -
actually enter into the Trinity.
Has this dawned on us yet?
Jesus became one of us.
What happened next - is what many who have tried Marriage
dot.com - have discovered.
Sometimes the one we meet - is not the one we want.
People meet Jesus - but sometimes it’s a no go.
The gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the
Word; the Word was in God’s presence, and the Word was God.”
Then the Gospel of
John says, “And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us.” [That’s
Christmas.]
Then the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus did life as
an us. That’s the life of Jesus - as part of the Trinity.
Then the Gospel of John tells us that people rejected him
- but to those who accepted him - he gave them the power to become children of
God.
The others killed him.
The gospel of John and the other gospels tell us that
Jesus rose from the dead. [That’s Easter]
And for the past 2000 years Jesus has dawned on people -
and they became his followers.
CLOSING MESSAGE
Last night all kinds of people all around the world came
into the dance, the community, called God, called Christian.
They just spent months and months - perhaps years and
years - preparing for that moment.
Christ dawns on people at different times as we heard in
today’s gospel.
I love the line in the gospel for today that the beloved
is the faster in the run to the tomb - and he’s the first to believe - but he
lets Peter go in first. Most think this is John - he saw and believed.
I like to add: the power of the pen.
When you write your life - write down the moments - when
Christ - the Risen Lord - dawned on you. Amen.
April 1, 2018 -- Easter
SHAKING HANDS
Nervous when you came into my upper room and said, "Peace!"
I was still scared. I was hesitant.
My hands twitched for a moment. Then I itched my left wrist with
the nails of my right hand. Then you reached out your hand to mine. At that I knew all was okay with us.
“What reason have
atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? Which is more difficult, to be born, or to rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that
what has been, should be again? Is it
more difficult to come into being than to return to it?”
Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 1690
Saturday, March 31, 2018
HOLY
SATURDAY:
THE SILENCE OF
SOME SATURDAYS
The title of my reflection for this morning is, “Holy
Saturday: The Silence of Some Saturdays.”
Saturdays are interesting days!
Some Saturdays we just want space, quiet, no
interruptions.
Maybe to fix something - to get a part for something that is broken.
Maybe to just relax, catch up, just be.
Or to break the day up: to do some shopping, some
visiting, some different stuff. Then there are long weekends - likethe Saturdays on Memorial Day or Labor Day or
Presidents day weekends.
Then there is a Saturday with a wedding - or an
anniversary.Sometimes we look forward
to those Saturdays; sometimes we don’t - depending on who’s getting married or
whose celebrating their 25th
or 50th anniversary. Feelings about time and money and others can be
terribly subjective.
Then a funeral happens - and often it’s on a Saturday.
TITLE
The title of my reflection is, “Holy Saturday: The
Silence of Some Saturdays.”
This day - Holy Saturday - sort of mugs or dulls us - sort of like after
a death in the family.
Funerals often make us more silent and more quiet - and
often they are inconvenient - like a
funeral on a Saturday morning.
We do the whole funeral thing - with various types of
emotions - and then people get moving back home - sometimes a good distance - and
we’re all sort of alone - with post funeral feelings.
A funeral can be high energy, high maintenance, and then
there’s the low after the high.
We met up with cousins, aunts, uncles, friends of our mom
or dad or close friends of the one who died.
Or deaths remind us of other deaths - or selfie thoughts
about our life.
If we were very close to the person who died - it’s then
we need some private time, silence, space, to pull together what we just went
through with a funeral of a close family member
This day, Holy Saturday, is just sitting there between
Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
And we Christians are reflecting on Jesus’ death.
The whole world of the apostles and the disciples had caved in.
Their Lord, their savior, their Messiah, has just been
arrested - put on trial and then railroaded to death on the cross on Calvary.
They weren’t ready for this - anymore than any of us are
with a family death - especially when it’s too sudden, too quick, too much of a
surprise.
The disciples had guilt - that they panicked and ran. The
apostles had to deal not only with the death of Jesus - but also the death of
Judas.
What about Mary? Yes. And yes about the other Mary and
the other women who were much better about being present with Jesus - under the
cross - than the apostles.
What about us?The
apostles still feared, “Are they going to come after us?”
They hid in the locked Upper Room as the scriptures tell
us.
Thank God for Joseph of Arimathea. He was a secret
follower of Jesus as well as a member of the council who condemned him to
death: the Sanhedrin. Luke and Mark and Matthew tells us he went to Pilate and
asked for the body of Jesus. Good move. He got Jesus’ body and put the dead
body of Jesus in a tomb that was never used.
So thank God for Joseph andJohn and the Holy Women - they are like soft background
music on Calvary and the next day Saturday till Easter Sunday morning.
We need the rest of Friday P.M. - after Jesus’ death - and
then all day Saturday to get us to Easter and Resurrection.
John and his gospel tells us that John was pondering all
this - in this mulling time called Holy Saturday.
We need pausing time. We need space after tragedy. We
need silence after the noise.
We need the brief words from Hosea which we heard in this
morning’s short reading: He will revive us after two days; on the third day he
will raise us up to live in his presence.
We need cryptic Old Testament prophetic words like that -
to get us through post funeral type days when we’re quiet - when we need to
make great acts of faith in Jesus - the Risen One - who can get us through the
pain and the quiet - of Holy Saturday type days. Amen.
March 31, 2018
Thought for today:
“Do not leave my hand without light.”
Marc Chagall [1887-1985], Interview
[1977].
March 31, 2018
BEST PIECE OF ADVICE
Some admiral in giving a commencement
address said, “The best piece of advice
I can give you is to make your bed every
morning.” I
laughed to myself when
I heard that - because I never make
my bed. Why would I want to do that? Then again - I better challenge myself: "What would be my best piece of advice?"
My best piece of advice would be this: “When you sign your signature, your name, to anything, write it clearly, carefully and exactly." Hey, who sees our bed? But others see our work and what we're willing to put our name to. It might make life easier for the other person who is trying to figure out, "Whose name is this?" Don’t laugh now, it could become a collector's item some day. You never know.
