Seeing the Risen Jesus

Solemnity of Easter

The entrance to the aediculum

   [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  One of the most memorable things that I experienced when I went to the Holy Land for the first time in 2007 as a seminarian was attending Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus died and rose from the dead.  At the place where the tomb was, there is a small building inside the church called the aediculum, and inside that aediculum is where a slab of stone rests that held the dead body of our Lord.  The Franciscans gave us permission to have Mass there one day.  The way Mass works in that space is that the Liturgy of the Word/Mass of Catechumens happens outside the aediculum.  For the Liturgy of the Eucharist/Mass of the Faithful, the priest enters the aediculum and says the Eucharist Prayer inside there, which you can hear, but not see, because of how small it is inside.
    The great moment is when the priest gets to the point where he says, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” because the priest leaves the aediculum, and, holding the Body of the Lord above the chalice says, while showing the Eucharist to the people.  Part of the power is that this is the same risen Lord, coming from His tomb, alive for us to see, though of course under sacramental signs.
    As we celebrate Easter today, we remember the event that changed the course of human history.  While the Prophet Elisha had raised a person from the dead in the Old Testament, and our Lord had raised the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus from the dead, the resurrection was altogether different.  Our Lord’s Body no longer suffered under the restrictions of the physical world, as we will hear next Sunday when we hear about Him entering a locked room through the door.  While the Body was certainly His, and bore the marks of His crucifixion, in a glorified state there was something different about it.  I often imagine it as having a slight glow to it, though maybe that was not the case.  It was different enough that the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Christ as He walked with them, until He broke bread in a room with them.  
    But that event that changed everything, starting really with Good Friday and culminating with Easter Sunday, we celebrate and enter into each Sunday in particular, and each time we come to Mass more generally.  At the Mass, we begin by acknowledging that we are sinners and that Christ suffered for us and because of us.  We stand at the foot of the Cross and nail our sins there with Christ so that they can be forgiven.  We offer our lives–the joys and sorrows, pain and comforts, work and leisure–since the last time we attended Mass united to the perfect offering of Christ to His heavenly Father on Calvary.  We stand there at Calvary and hear God’s word proclaimed to help us understand what work God does in our lives.  And then, during the Eucharist Prayer/Canon of the Mass, we enter into Christ’s offering of Himself on the cross, and His burial in the tomb.  In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church references how the altar, besides being symbol of Christ Himself and the Cross, also symbolizes the tomb.
    And that is perhaps a bit clearer as we celebrate Mass facing the Lord together, or ad Dominum.  During the three days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Christ’s Body laid in the tomb, unseen by all others.  After the elevations which follow the words of institution, the words that Christ Himself spoke (“This is my Body”; “This is my Blood), Christ is not seen by the faithful in the pews until the priest shows the Body of Christ while saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.”  This is, as it were, Christ breaking forth from the tomb, and appearing before His disciples after the Resurrection.  The same experience I had in Jerusalem, of seeing Christ in the Eucharist come forth from His tomb you can experience as I remove the Body of Christ from the tomb of the altar and He rises so that you all can see Him and His glorified Body, which is not limited in the way our bodies are limited.
    And the Lord does not just show Himself from afar as I show Him to you.  At the time for the reception of Holy Communion, He comes near to you, as He came near to Mary Magdalene at the tomb or as He came near the Blessed Mother, the Apostles, and the disciples in the Upper Room.  He stands right before you, and then even enters in to you to bring that power of the Resurrection into your individual lives.
    And what is our response, then?  The same as the disciples who realized that Christ was risen: they had to tell other disciples, and, after Pentecost, everyone.  Knowing that Christ had died, but that He was truly risen, they could not remain silent, but shared that joy and the transformation of their lives that the Resurrection made.  Death no longer had the last say.  Sin no longer could hold them in slavery.  They could not contain the joy of that revelation, but had to tell others.  And so should we.  The joy of this day should cast away all sorrow and fear and lead us to greater holiness of life.

Inside the aediculum

    Christ has risen from the dead.  It is not just a past event, but a reality that we get to join every Sunday, which the Church calls a “little Easter.”  May we recognize the Risen Christ as we see and receive Him in the Eucharist, the Lamb of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.

You're [a] Witness

Easter Sunday

            I remember it like it was yesterday.  I left the crowded streets and the hot air and went into the cold building.  I walked straight to the middle and got in line.  I went in to a smaller edifice in the middle.  It was then that I became an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus.  You see, I was in Jerusalem on pilgrimage with the first-year seminarians from Sacred Heart, and we were able to enter into not only the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the place where Jesus died, was buried, and rose, but we were also able to enter into the aediculum, the building erected inside the Church over the spot of the tomb that housed Jesus’ body until the resurrection.

The empty Tomb of Christ

            Now, I’m not bringing this up simply because I’m leading a pilgrimage in November 2012.  But it truly was an awesome, and experience filled with the wonder and awe in God’s presence, to go to that very place and, while not running like Sts. Peter and John from our Gospel account today, still becoming someone who can personally testify that Jesus’ body is not there!  He has risen from the dead as He promised!

            But, even though I’d love to have a full pilgrimage, the great news is that you don’t have to travel to Israel to draw into the events which we have just celebrated over this Sacred Triduum.  You don’t have to go to the physical Upper Room, walk to the Garden of Gethsemane outside the old city walls, or walk to the Church of Holy Sepulcher to re-live those powerful events of the Last Supper, Agony in the Garden, Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ.  We live out those three days each Sunday as we gather as the Body of Christ in the Church.  We gather in this room with Jesus who, present in the priest, says to us, “Take and eat; this is my body; take and drink; this is my blood.”  We kneel with Jesus as we prepare for his agonizing death, which then took place on the altar of the cross, and is re-presented for us on this altar as He once more hands over His Body and pours our His Blood for us in the Eucharist.  We see His Body, the same Body which is “seated at the right hand of God,” as St. Paul tells us in the second reading, present to us truly and sacramentally in the Eucharist we receive. 

We become witnesses of the resurrection through these mysteries we celebrate today, and every Sunday, the 8^th day of the week, as we celebrate Easter every time Sunday.  This is why the Church asks, invites, and, yes, requires us to attend every Sunday: because we need to remember the Paschal Mystery each week as it defines who we are as a Church, as a people.  We need that grace of the Eucharist to help us to be faithful disciples, to love others, even the ones who do us wrong, just as Jesus loved those who put Him to death.

            And, as witnesses of the resurrection and the great deeds that God has accomplished in Jesus, we should not be able to keep that Good News, the Gospel, to ourselves.  Knowing how much God loves us, and to what extent that love goes, the message that St. Peter preached in the first reading.  How “God raised [Jesus] on the third day…He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.”  Like any good news that we receive: a new child conceived, a new job, a new car, a good grade on an exam or paper, and any of the earthly news that we can’t wait to tell others, we should want to tell our friends, our roommates, our neighbors, and anyone about the great news of the resurrection and what that means for us: that we can rise with Christ if we are baptized into His death.

            Whether we have seen the empty tomb in Jerusalem or whether we see Jesus among us in His people, in His Word, and in the Eucharist, we are all witnesses of the resurrection.  I hope we share that most joyful of news with others that they may also find new life in their relationship with Christ.