Car, Cash, or Caribbean

Easter Sunday

           

What if I told you that if you sat in the front row, on the aisle seat, you won a car valued at $4 million, no strings attached, no taxes, no nothing.  Or that if you sat in pews to my right, you won $300 million?  Or that just by coming today you had each won your own island in the Caribbean with white, sandy beaches, a fully furnished house, and a private jet to get you there?  I’m willing to bet you would be pretty excited!  I know I would be.  After this winter, what I wouldn’t give for my own Caribbean island just to relax in the sun!!

            Now, the bad news is that I’m not actually giving those things away (no surprise there!).  The good news is that we have received something better, something upon which no price can be put.  And that, of course, is eternal salvation.  What we celebrate today, along with every Sunday, is that sin and death, which had ruled ever since Adam, was defeated by Jesus Christ.  How on God’s green earth is that better news than cars, millions of dollars or our own tropical paradise?  All those things will pass away.  But life after death is forever, one way or another.

            How do we live so as to show that we treasure this gift of new life?  How does Easter make us different?  If I had a $4 million dollar car, there are things I would do differently in my life: I’d probably spend more time caring for my car than I do now; I would certainly never drive it in the snow, which means that in Michigan, I wouldn’t drive it from November until May, it seems like.  If I had $300 million dollars, my life would be radically different, too.  Besides friends I haven’t talked to since high school coming out of the woodwork to hit me up for a little financial help, I’d have to spend a lot of time trying to decide how best to use my new fortune to take care of my own needs, and to share it with others.  If I had my own Caribbean island with private jet, you can bet that I would spend my time there…a lot…especially in the winter!!  Having those things changes the way we live our life.  So sharing in the great gift of the Resurrection should change the way we live our life.

            Part of that change is celebrating the Resurrection.  In the earliest days of the Church, Christians, who were mostly Jews, celebrated two days: Saturday (the Sabbath) and Sunday (the Day of the Resurrection).  They rested on the Sabbaths and early on went to the synagogue, because that’s what they were used to, and then on Sundays they gathered to celebrate that Jesus was risen from the dead, and would read from the prophets and celebrate the Eucharist.  They were so appreciative for the gift of eternal salvation that they wanted to celebrate, each 1^st day of the week, what happened on that momentous 1^st day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead.  As Christianity split from Judaism, they stopped observing the Sabbath.  But they still held on to Sundays as a day of rejoicing in the Lord and fulfilling the Lord’s command at the Last Supper, to “do this in memory of me.”  Just as the first day in the first creation story was the beginning of creation, so the first day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead, was the beginning of a new creation.

            I am overjoyed that we have a full church today!!  It is so much easier, and so much more invigorating to preach to a full church, even an overflowing church!!  With as many Catholics as there are in East Lansing, including the MSU students, each Mass should be full with Catholics celebrating the Resurrection!  I’m glad that you’re here with us to celebrate today.  Come back next week when we celebrate the Resurrection again.  And then a week after that we’ll celebrate it again!  And so on for each Sunday.  And even if you don’t quite have the same enthusiasm that you do today, I can promise that we’ll do all we can to help you, each week, to delve deeper and deeper into the great gift that we received from Jesus.

            But, of course, being a Catholic does not stop at these doors.  St. Paul, in our second reading, invites us to be a leaven for our world, not with the “old yeast of malice and wickedness, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  Having come to the empty tomb like Mary Magdalene and Peter and John, we are then called to spread that news to others.  We do that by how we live our life in our actions.  We do that by telling people about Jesus, so that they come to join us.  If you had a $4 million car, or won $300 million dollars, or a Caribbean island, even if you were guarded with whom you told so as not to be taken advantage of, you would want to tell others.  Again, our gift is greater than all of those, and yet you’d think we’d just received the worst news ever, so bad that we don’t even want to acknowledge it to others and try not to let it affect us.  Tell people about Jesus.  Live according to the Gospel.  Those are signs that you are glad in the gift Jesus gave you.  And people need it, because they’re hungry for God and Good News and new life, and we’ve got it!  They are as hungry now as when St. Peter preached, what we heard in our first reading.  And thousands of people were baptized at the preaching of St. Peter!  God has given us the greatest gift in the Resurrection of Jesus.  This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad it in!!

What Love Looks Like

Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Good Friday)

            In a few moments we will have the opportunity to venerate the cross, a chance to come and give some sign of honor and respect—a genuflection, a bow, a kiss, a touch—to the instrument of our salvation.

            But right now, I want all of you to look at the crucifix hanging above our altar.  It’s been there since 1968 when the church was completed.  Perhaps many of us don’t even notice it any more, even with how large it is, because it has been there since the beginning.  But really take a good look at it.  What do you see?

            Of course, the easiest answer is Jesus.  We see Jesus crucified on the cross.  But go deeper.  Maybe we see a horrible way to die, cleaned up, though, for public piety.  Maybe we see the different types of wood.  Maybe we see the inscription INRI, which stands for “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum,” “Jesus the Nazarean, King of the Jews.” 

           

An Armenian mural from the
Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem

Those things are all there.  But when we look at the crucifix we should see love.  What we celebrate today on Good Friday is love: Love that was willing to be destroyed so that we could live.  Maybe when we think of love we think of a heart, or we think of an old couple holding hands together on a bench, or we think of a a young man, down on one knee, proposing to his girlfriend.  But love is the crucifixion.

            True love is when the Lover is willing to be beat up instead of or even for the Beloved.  True love is having the skin of your back ripped out by scourging so that the Beloved can remain whole.  True love is when the Lover’s head is pierced with thorns placed in a mocking way to represent a crown so that the Beloved can wear a true crown in paradise.  True love is when the Lover walks with a heavy burden so that the Beloved does not have to carry it or travel that awful road.  True love is when the Lover is willing to die so that the Beloved can live. 

            Whom do you love?  For whom are you willing to suffer?  For whom are you willing to die?  Love always means giving all of who you are, even your very life, for the good of the other, so that the other can go to heaven.  Love means horrible suffering, taken willingly so that the other does not have to suffer.  What we celebrate today is love, a love so pure, so true, that Lover was willing to die an agonizing death at the very hands of the Beloved.  That is love.  And if we come back just a day or so more, we will see that love, though it is death, is also new life.

            God loves you.  He shows us that love means being willing to die for the one we love.  How much do we love God?

Be With Jesus

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

           

On the occasions when I am called to the hospital or to a house, to administer the sacraments to a person who is dying, there is, 99% of the time, at least one other person there to keep the dying person company.  There is, perhaps, nothing worse than going through a terminal illness and preparing for death alone, and we seem to instinctively know this, as people will do all they can (take time off work, travel far distances, spend large amounts of money) to be with someone in their last days.

            Brothers and sisters, during this Holy Week, we remember the days leading up to Jesus’ suffering and death.  He was not stricken by a terminal illness, but as He took the full weight of sin upon Himself, fewer and fewer stood by Him, and no one quite understood the pain He was undergoing as He freely offered His life, the full gift of Himself, to the Father.  You may not have to take time off work, or travel long distances, but will you be with Jesus this week?  Will you challenge yourself to stand with Jesus at Mass as He undergoes His passion?  Whether it’s the 6:30 a.m. Mass Monday through Wednesday at St. Thomas, or the 12:15 p.m. Mass Monday and Wednesday, or the 9:15 p.m. Mass Tuesday at St. John, will you accompany Jesus?  Will you stay with Jesus on Monday as Mary, the sister of Martha, takes the costly perfumed oil and anoints Jesus’ feet?  Will you stay with Jesus on Tuesday in the Upper Room as the Betrayer is announced and Judas leaves the twelve?  Will you stay with Jesus on Spy Wednesday, as Judas goes to the Chief Priests and offers to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver?

            Will you walk with Jesus through the Sacred Triduum?  The Mass of the Lord’s Supper begins this commemoration at 7 p.m. at St. John, and at 7:30 p.m. at St. Thomas.  Will you walk with Jesus to the Upper Room as He institutes the Priesthood and the Eucharist on Holy Thursday?  Will you walk with Jesus through the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane as we process with Jesus’ true presence in the Eucharist from St. John to St. Thomas, and then we all walk around St. Thomas to the Chapel of Repose?  Will you walk with Jesus on the way of the cross as we celebrate Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord?  Will you stand at the foot of the cross with Mary, the Mother of God, Mary, the wife of Clopas, Mary of Magdala, and St. John, the Beloved Disciple?   Will you wait on Holy Saturday, and then go to the tomb on Saturday night or Sunday morning?  Will you be there for Jesus?

            As He died on the cross, Jesus prayed the words of Psalm 22—“‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?’” “‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’”—as He felt the full weight of sin and its punishment fall upon Him.  Let us not give Jesus reason to ask why we have abandoned Him in the hour He desires us to be with Him the most.