2020 April Reflections

Homily of Thursday, April 23, 2020

Here are two thoughts from Saint Augustine of Hippo. The first from one of his sermons: “Our Lord came down from Life to suffer death. The Bread came down, to hunger; the Way came down, on the way to weariness; the Fountain came down, to thirst. Can you refuse to take the work upon yourself? You must not seek what is for yourself. Seek the truth. That is how you will come to eternity, and there find security.” And the other thought is: “Pray from God the gift to love one another. Love all people, even your enemies, not because they are your brothers and sisters, but that they may become such. Love them in order that you may be at all times on fire with love, whether toward those who have become your brothers and sisters, or toward your enemies, so that by being beloved they may become your brothers and sisters.”

Homily of Wednesday, April 22, 2020

In today’s gospel (john 3:16-21), we see some very important things. First, the absurd love of God for mankind. He so loved the world – that is us – He gave His only Son, His most precious reality – there is nothing higher than His Son. He elects to redeem us, to save us. We also see that it is up to us. He doesn’t condemn us: we condemn ourselves – by our lives, our lack of belief, our sin, our infidelity, and such. He gives all He can give. It is still up to us and our free choosing, for our destiny: free will, free will. And also we can be condemned. Condemnation can in fact happen. It is amazing how often in the gospels our Lord mentions hell, refers to hell. I forget the exact number, but it is a lot – I was surprised how often it is referred to or mentioned directly. In the lives of holy people, saints, there are often visions of the hell, and the spirits of hell. So, for example, in 1917 with Fatima, the children had a vision of hell, and they didn’t forget it. The famous Saint Teresa of Avila, 16th century Spanish Carmelite, she discusses in her autobiography her experiences of hell, and it was truly hellish. If you don’t believe our Lord in the gospels, or the lives of these holy people and saints, there is also something that is more recent, but very popular – these so-called “near death experiences.” Most of these are very, very, very, very positive – they meet their grandmother, their aunt, people they have loved and passed away. They meet God and are filled with an ecstatic joy that can transform them. But a few of these cases are not so happy. They have died, but it is not a very happy experience – it’s a very hellish experience. They still come back transformed, but in a very different way. So, we don’t like hell. Modernists don’t talk about it a great deal. But it’s there; it’s there significantly; it’s clearly in our tradition. So, it can happen to us and those we love. So we should worry about hell. Not because hell should be our destiny. God has done everything possible to make it happen: our salvation, our life, our transformation, our happiness. It is up to us to choose Him, to repent of our evils, to seek the truth. And all who seek the light will find the light. We know that from revelation; we know that from our own experience. If you seek the Light you will find the Light. This world will pass away. It is already passing away, as we see around us. It is fast disappearing. So let’s live in the true light, the true kingdom, the true world. Our Lord came into this world by His Incarnation, for our redemption. The world that is breaking in at every moment, and the one that transforms the world around us. Let us do this, let us pursue it with all intensity. Then we will find our eternal, and present, happiness.
 

Homily of Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Today we commemorate St Anselm, although Archbishop of Canterbury in England, he was an Italian who had become a monk at a monastery in France. He was a great philosopher and theologian. He famously argued that if you can understand the word God, that proves God exists. He answered the question why did God become man? So that man could become God. In light of this answer we might ask ourselves daily: how have I acted like God? In what loving and creative ways have I used the time and opportunities I have had? Do I recognize that the kingdom of God is here among us? How am I using the opportunities of social distancing to become more Godlike? St Anselm had great thoughts. We have a great destiny if we live up to it.

Homily of Monday, April 20, 2020

A common ice breaker is the question, “If you could have any super power, what would it be?”  You can even buy coffee mugs with absurd sayings like, “I teach math, what is your super power?” Math?!?! Generally speaking, Super Hero movies are top earners at the box office and among the highest-ranking TV shows. As a culture, we seemed obsessed with them, and it seems that the best of the best of the super heroes are not naturally gifted, rather they are like Spiderman, Captain Marvel, and Captain America, who are made super by undergoing some unique and life-altering encounter with something enigmatic and unique. Why are we so obsessed with being something more than we are? Why do long to be heroes, and why do we feel called to protect the world from evil? Because we are human and that is our vocation. St Augustine said that our hearts will always be restless until they rest in God. We have a calling to hold fast to Christ: a call to not only dispose oneself to hear a teaching and obediently accepting a commandment. More radically, it involves holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father. And this is what Nicodemus is asking of Jesus and can only be done through Baptism. Following Christ is not an outward imitation, since it touches man at the very depths of his being. Being a follower of Christ means becoming conformed to him who became a servant, even to giving himself on the Cross (cf. Phil 2:5-8). Christ dwells by faith in the heart of the believer (cf. Eph 3:17), and thus the disciple is conformed to the Lord. This is the effect of grace, of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in us. By the work of the Spirit, Baptism radically configures the faithful to Christ in the Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection; it "clothes him" in Christ. Baptism really and truly changes who and what we are. It raises us up to a new level of existing, and to be at a higher level, to be above, which in Latin is the word ‘Super” so we have actually become super men and women and according to the testimony handed on by Paul – Baptism commands us to commemorate in liturgy and in life. So, even though Covid19 makes it impossible for all the Baptized to receive the Eucharist, we all have the power to grow closer to God during this time of isolation.  Baptism has given us incredible abilities; may God give us the grace to develop them to their fullest.
 

Homily of Sunday, April 19, 2020

At the end of the Gospel last week, after Peter and John had seen the empty tomb and believed, the evangelist makes an interesting comment. He says that Peter and John “did not yet understand the Scripture that (Jesus Christ) had to rise from the dead.” Peter and John believed that Jesus Christ had risen, truly risen, but they did not immediately understand the implications of that. That evening, they were in a locked room along with most of the remaining Apostles when Jesus appeared to them for the first time after the resurrection. They rejoice, but there is still no indication that they have understood what the resurrection implies: that Jesus Christ, man and God, has conquered death and sin for us. They stay locked in their room: social distancing not to stop a disease but out of fear of what the people might do to the followers of a man they had just crucified.

A week later, they again meet in the same locked room. This time, there is one additional apostle with them, Thomas, who had demanded physical evidence that what they had seen was the same Jesus Christ who they had followed and who had been crucified when the other apostles told him about it. Jesus again appears. This time, He singles out Thomas and gives him the physical evidence he had wanted: he shows him his wounds. Oddly enough, doubting Thomas is then the first person to indicate a real understanding of the resurrection, of the heart of the Christian faith. He says, “My Lord and my God.” He feels the wounds of the crucified Christ, recognizes the physical nature of the risen Christ, and realizes what has happened: God has become man. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, has conquered sin and death. In a certain sense, we could say that St. Thomas in this moment is the first Christian, the first to see the crucifixion through the light of the resurrection, the first to recognize God’s death for the forgiveness of our sins, and the new Creation that Easter brings about. Jesus then invites us to enter into this new creation through His gift of faith: blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Liturgically, today’s feast, always accompanied by this Gospel, has had a number of names that each emphasize something different about the nature of our faith, but all point back to the Paschal mystery: the crucifixion and resurrection from the dead that is the heart of the Christian faith.

Regardless of the various informal and official names given throughout history, the one constant title that has been to call today the Octave Day of Easter. An octave is a way of celebrating an important feast by extending the celebration for 8 days, or one week. Today is the eighth day on which we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Christ, the most important feast in the liturgical year. That importance is emphasized by the octave. Throughout the octave, we add “Celebrating the most sacred day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh” to the Roman Canon, or Eucharistic Prayer I because all 8 days are a prolongation of the one annual celebration of Easter.
Another name related to this is “Low Sunday,” the informal name this feast has been known by in much of the English-speaking world. This name might have developed from a corruption of the word “laudes” from a chant used on this feast in Medieval England, but its modern use serves to further emphasize the continuity between today and Easter Sunday: the lower Sunday that comes after the high feast day celebrated a week ago. The Sunday that continues and completes the high feast of Easter.

Every Mass is a re-presentation of the paschal mystery, the death and resurrection of Christ that must be looked at as a single act. Every Sunday is a special commemoration of the resurrection of Christ and his victory over death and sin. Nevertheless, the Paschal Triduum followed by Easter Sunday is a special time because we are commemorating, and participating in a historical event that really happened in a particular place, and at a particular time in the year. This is emphasized by these names that point directly back to Easter. Jesus really did die. He really did rise from the dead. This is the one absolutely, definitive turning point in history. It allows us to separate everything into Before Christ, BC, and Anno Domini, year of the Lord, AD. By calling today the Octave day of Easter or Low Sunday, we are invited to rejoice with the Apostles as they saw their risen Lord, their Messiah and savior come back from the dead for the first time. We are invited to meditate on the physical, bodily but glorious risen man and risen God whose nature was recognized by St. Thomas. We are invited to take up St. Thomas’ words and exclaim “my Lord and my God.”

Another group of titles serves to emphasize the sacramental nature of the Christian life as it is lived by us. The official title of this Sunday until 1970, even though the practice it commemorated had long ended, was Dominica in albis depositis, or the Sunday to remove the white, the day when the white garments put on by those baptized at the Easter Vigil, symbolizing their rebirth and putting on Christ, would be removed. This would have been the end of the long initiation process, when those baptized would now be fully members of the Church, fully part of the body of Christ, celebrating their first Easter. Doing this on the Sunday after Easter would connect the celebration of the baptism done at the Easter Vigil to the entire 8-day celebration of Easter, further emphasizing the connection between the new life that is put on at baptism and the new life that was opened up when Jesus rose from the dead. The only remaining aspect of this is a special prayer added into Eucharistic Prayer 1 for those who have been baptized at the Easter Vigil.

 More recently, in 2000, St. John Paul II, following the visions of St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, gave today’s feast the title of Divine Mercy Sunday. Thus, it is a day to commemorate the forgiveness of our sins that was effected through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, and of special indulgence for going to the sacrament of Confession and receiving Holy Communion. This may seem unrelated to Easter, but it is directly tied into the mystery of the forgiveness of our sins. Through the devotional practice of the novena of the chaplet of Divine Mercy, starting on Good Friday, the day when Jesus Christ was crucified for our sins, we pray that God grant us his mercy over nine days, ending yesterday. As all things on Good Friday, it is Easter Sunday, the resurrection from the dead, that allows us to start to make sense of it, as happened with the Apostles.

In the sacraments, we see and directly access Christ Himself. We put him on, like the white robe at baptism. We participate with Him in his death and resurrection and receive individual forgiveness for our particular sins, especially those that have most separated us from Him through the sacrament of Confession. We become Him, and become more fully integrated into the body of Christ by receiving Him in the Eucharist. Like Peter and John at the empty tomb, and the Apostles in the locked room, we sometimes have to stand back in wonder and awe at what God has given us, at what Jesus Christ has done for us. Like what St. Thomas saw, in the sacraments, there is a physical presence behind which we are invited to recognize Christ - to say “my Lord and my God.”

This brings us to the last major, informal title for this day: Quasi modo Sunday. Like Laetare and Gaudete Sundays, this is a name given by the opening of the text for the introit. This introit, like the second reading, comes from the first letter of St. Peter. This introit translates as, “Like newborn infants, you must desire the rational milk without deceit, that you may grow to salvation in Him. Alleluia.” Especially through the sacraments of Baptism and Confession, we are given a renewed innocence that gives us an opportunity to live in a new way, the way of holiness: a way of life fitting for one who has put on Christ, and the way that leads to salvation. By living holy lives, nourished by prayer and the sacraments, not just our words, but our lives themselves can also say, “my Lord and my God.”

On a bit of an aside, at least for me the sacramental life is difficult to discuss during a time of social distancing; a time when many dioceses throughout the world have felt the need to limit access to the sacraments because of the Coronavirus pandemic; a time when spiritual communion and perfect contrition have often had to imperfectly substitute for the sacraments; a time when viewing the Mass on tv or a computer has had to substitute for the whole community participating in the sacrifice of the Mass together. It is important at this time to emphasize that God does not withhold from us the grace we need and that we pray for just because illness, or global pandemic as in our case, prevents us from directly accessing Him in the sacraments. Nevertheless, the normal form would be to approach Him within the context of Christ’s body, the Church, through the sacraments that He established for us. In the meantime, we must take this lack of an Ecclesiastical life, and the pandemic and social distancing, as some of the trials through which our faith is tested and proven genuine that St. Peter mentions in his first letter.

So, in summary, Happy Octave Day, Happy Low Sunday, Happy Dominica in Albis, Happy Quasi modo Sunday, Happy Divine Mercy Sunday, or, as they all point to and depend on: Happy Easter.
 

Homily of Saturday, April 18, 2020
Our Gospel today ends with Jesus telling the apostles, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15). Vatican II broke radical new ground with the teaching that the three Christian vocations: lay, clerical, and consecrated, are not exclusively ordered to the sanctification of the individuals who embrace them. Rather, all three vocations are to share in the task that the Church receives from the Lord, namely, the responsibility of transforming the entire world; of “proclaiming the Gospel to every creature”. According to the divine plan for the Church, consecrated persons, especially those of the monastic state, position themselves first and primarily by their centered devotion to the Gospel. Proceeding from this center, we monks, for whom monastic labora is education, proclaim the Gospel by our open witness to the primacy of Christ. Like Peter and John in today’s first reading it is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.  We accomplish this through both our teaching and by the witness of our clear and visible monastic presence in society. As Pope Paul VI famously put it back in 1975: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers at all, it is because they are witnesses.”  
 
Today we are being challenged to teach and witness to the Gospel through new approaches and technologies.  At moments like this it is good remind ourselves of our perennial orientation. Saint Benedict stands at the origin of the unique contribution that monastic life has made to the transformation of culture.  For more than 1,500 years, it has been the prerogative of Western monks, by their devotion to education, to witness that all learning is oriented beyond secular studies; that learning itself, in fact, allows one to approach God. This broke radical new ground when it was first embraced by monasteries in the 7^th century, like the teachings of Vatican II in the 60’s.  It has once again become radical ground in need of being broken today for the sake of an atrophied and secularized culture; societies bent on  discarding thier roots, and relentlessly declining toward a condition where the state remains the only principle of organization for human life. Monastic life imbued with an apostolic spirit and apostolic activity derived from Gospel values is what the world today most desperately needs, and is in many places crying for. We know that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (Jn 3:17) May the Lord remind us often that as monks who are educators, we still stand at the spiritual center of this most crucial work, and may he strengthen us for this arduous mission.

Homily of Friday, April 17, 2020

There is no salvation in anyone else. So spoke Saint Peter in today’s first reading (Acts 4:1-12). He has healed the cripple and is arrested by the Sanhedrin and brought before them. And he’s asked by what power, by what name, has he done these things, these healings, and so on. He says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Nazorean, he has done all of this. There’s no salvation in anyone else. What does it mean to be saved? It sort of means something in the future, that we will be with God for eternity in paradise. But it is also for the present, in our very concrete world. Peter says that the cripple has been saved, and he has been healed. Salvation therefore is not just for some future salvation for eternal life, but a present condition, of transformation, of healing, being made whole, being free from terror or set free from some other dangers or difficulties. And it’s that salvation you should remember in our day to day life. And the power of the Name, the power of the Name. When God saves, it is not just “pie in the sky when we die”: it’s here and now in our present difficulties. It is physical; it is spiritual; it is emotional; it is everything. Because God saves the whole person, body and soul, here and now. Only by the name of Jesus Christ can you truly be saved. Only through his Name can we truly be saved. No other means is sufficient, no other means will be complete, total, final. Let us every day hope on the Name of the Lord, Jesus Christ our Lord. And we will experience the power that comes from the Name – and by what power, by what Name to do this. The power in the Name is awesome. The power in the Name is very intense. The power in the Name is everything. Let us every day call upon the power of Jesus Christ, to heal us of our difficulties, free us from temptations and trials and dangers. To make us whole, to make us happy, to make us transformed. Heaven begins now, salvation begins now – body and soul, in this present world. And then to eternity.

Homily of Thursday, April 16, 2020.

This is from a discourse given by Pope Saint John XXIII, when he was Patriarch of Venice. “The Lord’s Passion and his Resurrection show us that there are two lives, one which we barely live, the other for which we long. Is not Jesus, who deemed to bear his poor earthly life for our sake, able to give us the life we desire? He wants us to believe this, to believe in his love for us, and in his eagerness to share with us his own riches, that once he chose to share our problems. It is because we all have to die that he chose to die too. We all know this already. Our end is our beginning, birth is death. This is common knowledge and clear for all to see in our own sphere. sphere is this earth; the sphere of the angels is heaven. Our Lord came from one sphere to the other: from the realm of life to the realm of death, from the land of bliss to the land of toil and sorrow. He came to bring us his gifts and to bear with patience our sufferings; to bring us his gift in secret, and publicly to bear our ancient lot. To show himself as a man and to conceal his divinity. To appear in the flesh while the divine word was hidden from our eyes. The word was hidden, but it was not silent. It taught us how to endure in patience."
 
 

Homily of Tuesday, April 14, 2020
 
            Our Gospel raises an interesting question: “Why didn’t Mary recognize Jesus?” There are two answers. The first one is quite practical; she remembers Jesus as she saw him, as he was being laid in the tomb, and that memory was horribly gruesome. His flogged body would have been half torn to shreds, the crown of thorns covered his face in blood, and he would have been covered in dirt and spittle from the mocking crowd. The blood loss would have turned him greyish white. The nails that pierced the nerves in his hands and feet inflicted such an incredible amount of agony that the Romans had to come up with a new word to describe the pain: excruciating (“out of the cross”). Mary would only have known or expected this Jesus in the tomb. The second reason Mary would not have recognized Jesus was because it was the dawn of a new age, foretold since the Fall of Adam and Eve. Man had entered into an era where reconciliation with God was now possible through the Glorified Christ, who had summarized the Law as love of God and neighbor, and through the inseparable unity of the love command attested by his very life: his mission culminates in the Cross of our Redemption (cf. Jn 3:14-15), the sign of his indivisible love for the Father and for humanity (cf. Jn 13:1). Mary was the first to see the perfection that real Love brings about and to which all can share. So now we must face the deeper question this Gospel raises: “Will we recognize Jesus?” Yes, we should, because He has called us by our names too. It is in the baptism Saint Peter calls us to in our first reading, and this is why during Easter Vigil or Easter Sunday Mass we renew our vows: because in this sacrament not only does the Holy Spirit begin to dwell within us, but we are infused with the theological virtues. Within us is Hope, so we do not despair at the empty tomb. Rather, we rejoice in knowing that Kingdom is now open to us. We have Faith, so we can more clearly see the Truth of Christ speaking to us in new forms that are unexpected. Charity, the most important of the virtues, helps us begin here on earth to share in the incredible Triune Love of God, and is the source of our evangelizing Jesus to others. Jesus has truly risen indeed. Alleluia, Alleluia.

Homily of Monday within the Octave of Easter, April 13, 2020
 
The Gospel accounts of the events surrounding the resurrection this week are just filled with people who don’t understand what the heck is going on. We too don’t understand a lot of the aspects of our own faith. And what can we do about it? Well, of course, first of all we can pray. We pray for the Lord to enlighten our minds, to show us things that we do not see at present. And we do this trying to remain alert at all times of His presence in our lives. This is the prayer without ceasing that the prophets and saints speak about, and prayer is always answered. The second thing we do, or can do, or should do, is we act.  It brings a very vital circle, a strong circle between understanding and action, in terms of doing something. Today’s account of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary hurrying to tell the apostles is a great example of exactly this. They most certainly did not understand what was going on, and in this account, as well as in at least one other account of Mary Magdalene running to tell the other apostles, we can certainly imagine this lady not just sashaying along at a fast walk, like in some Bible story picture book, but tearing the Dickens right out of that garden as fast as she could down that hill, back into the city to find the apostles, up and down the streets, where are they… And running at top speed as fast as she possibly could. And imagine this run, Mary Magdalene’s run after the resurrection, as being something worth imitating. That’s something where you kind of go fast: she tore out of there as fast as she could, and it must’ve been a very impressive sight to see as she was tearing along. In this case it’s a very great example of the fact, I think, that when we don’t understand, when our understanding is insufficient, we take action. We take action in faith, unlike what the scribes and Pharisees did by lying and paying people off, pretending it didn’t happen. Because something happened. I don’t get it, but I am going to move with this. This is what Mary Magdalene and the other Mary did – moved with it. And sure enough, there, on the path, was Jesus. Their understanding increased because they took action. I think if we put into practice in our daily lives what little of our faith we do understand, our comprehension does grow, precisely because of the action. Pope St. John Paul II wrote in his writings on the acting person of being people who act, and not being people who are simply acted upon; people who do things, take action. Mary Magdalene is a very, very good example of this today. Mary Magdalene remains a very good sample of this ascending cyclical relationship between understanding and acting – not just sitting and pretending things didn’t happen, but moving with the events.
 
 

Homily of Easter Morning, April 12, 2020 
 
Today we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and to mark this event the word “Alleluia” reappears in our liturgy. This word indicates to us today’s theme and the literally earthshaking event it celebrates: the theme is Joy.

You wouldn’t pick that up from the readings or the Gospel, especially not from the Gospel. That records the immediate reaction of the disciples to the news of the empty tomb. The first to see the empty tomb were the great women followers of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, those women who cared for the day to day needs of Jesus and his male followers as they traveled like a gypsy caravan from town to town while Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of God. The women were astonished and carried the news of the Resurrection to the apostles, who were in hiding, in fear for their own lives. The Apostles did not believe the women; their story seemed like nonsense. So Peter and John raced to the tomb to see for themselves. John, probably just a teenager, ran faster than the older Peter. Even though John got there first he waited for Peter, and let Peter be the first to enter the empty tomb. Peter, who even though he loved Jesus much, who was a hothead and who, out of fear, had denied he even knew Jesus …he was second to know, to see with his own eyes the empty tomb. And then John…the young man whose whole life was ahead of him, who didn’t know much, who hadn’t seen or experienced much, who only knew that he believed Jesus and loved him as his best friend. He was the third to know and to see. But all they could see was what wasn’t there, there was no body of Jesus in the tomb. Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb after Peter and John left, and Jesus then appeared to her (which perhaps tells us something about the spiritual acumen of women) only later that day did Jesus himself appear to the apostles,  to turn their astonishment into joy.

We can learn a lot from these three very imperfect, flawed first witnesses to the Resurrection. They are a lot like us. First we learn that for us to experience that same resurrection that Jesus did we don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to have led a sinless and saintly life and we don’t have to be rich and powerful and influential. We just have to have love … love for God in Jesus Christ, and love for our neighbor, because as that later in life quick teenager St. John tells us that … God is love, and whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him or her. Second we learn that we don’t have to be fast. God is not in a hurry. He waits for us always, like the father in the story of the Prodigal son. He watches and waits for us, He comes out to us when we are on our way, and He will make everything right when we arrive, or when he intervenes in our lives. Third, we don’t have to understand everything right now. Peter, John and Mary Magdalene went home confused. They had seen the evidence of the Resurrection with their own eyes, but did not understand. Later that day the Risen Jesus came to them to explain it to them.

God is so much bigger than us, so much better, so much wiser and merciful even to those we would condemn that it is impossible for us to understand all of how he works and why he does what he does. There’s an old Baptist hymn that tells us…We will understand it better by and by. For now, Joy is the message of Easter. Pope Francis spoke eloquently about this on Palm Sunday 2013: Our joy comes from having encountered the person of Jesus, from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us. This is our joy, and  this is the hope that we must bring to our world.
 
Every Christian is meant to radiate joy, because the Christian knows what has ultimate meaning, because the Christian knows that death, that thing which is the ultimate downer to the orgy of self satisfaction which so much of modern life has become, that death is NOT the end of it all, but is the beginning of a more perfect life of Justice, Tranquility, the Liberty of the Children of God, and above all of perfect love, unhindered by the material stuff to which our earthly lives are so attached. All this is made possible by Jesus Christ and is demonstrated to us by His Resurrection, which is God’s promise to us that we will share in His Resurrection to that life, eternal life. If we are not about love and joy, then we are really missing something important, and we do a disservice to the Gospel and Church. Christians and preachers who shout messages of fire and brimstone, of condemnation, anger and negativity, who induce fear and anxiety, who exude smugness and anticipation of vengeance, who make it seem all about sin, they are far from the Gospel mark of faith, hope, love and joy. Sin happens. Jesus cleaned it up for us.
 
If we know the risen Jesus Christ, no one and no thing can take that joy from us, no one and no thing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, not even death. So let us all exude joy. Let’s make this an Abbey, a community, of joy. May our joy be palpable in all our activities, all our work, worship, all our prayers. As we as individuals and as a society perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, may we perform them with joy. May we live our lives in such a way that our friends, relatives and neighbors want to know: “What religion do they belong to? Where do they go to Church? They are really happy.” Jesus Christ did not suffer and die for us, did not rise again for us so that we should be anxious, guilt ridden or downcast. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. It was all for love, to free us from fear and sadness so that we might love Christ in and through others. Today we celebrate the attainment of the pinnacle of that love.
 
When I was a child, at Easter my father would always get my brothers, sister and me new clothes. I was the youngest, so new clothes for me were usually new hand me downs from my older brothers. But I always got brand new shoes of my own. New shoes to walk in, to walk in during a new year of growth. This joyful Easter always comes in the Spring. The whole earth is getting new clothes…a new look as flowers have come up and the leaves are budding on the trees. We ourselves might not be getting new clothes, but we can get a new look on the inside…we can renovate up our faith and trust in God’s love for us, and walk joyfully in Jesus’ footsteps,  knowing what great things God has in store for us.
 
May we be a source of joy to each other and to our community. May we channel our joy to our Church and the world. May our joy in the full meaning of the Resurrection be our participation here and now in this life of the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells us: Look and see, the kingdom of God is all around you. Happy Easter !

Homily of the Easter Vigil, April 11, 2020
 
We just heard St Paul’s words to the Romans: If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him (Romans 6). St Paul also wrote to the Corinthians: If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all (1 Cor 15; 17-20). As I was googling around this week, I came across a statement: “Let’s just admit it. The Resurrection is unbelievable.” But of course we are here because we believe. This belief sets us apart from everyone else in the world. Everyone else in the world believes in the golden rule, in not killing-stealing-lying. Everyone wants peace and justice and something they define as salvation or liberation. We, however, believe that Jesus became a human being like us so we humans could become just like God. That is something of a higher order. His very real human death was followed by the resurrection of his glorious body. And this was to show us not only his divine nature but also what is in store for us. And nothing can prove this to the 21^st century. Only faith and trust can convince us.
 
We heard in this Gospel that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, and then the other disciples on the third day after his death. We are also told that later he appeared to 500 people at once. All this testimony was written down. There were no cameras, no video, none of the things we use today to document important events. But we have the reliable testimony of those honest people who say they saw the risen Jesus with their own eyes. Some skeptics think they lied, but why would they? There were in those times in Palestine other leaders, healers and false Messiahs that had more followers and more power than Jesus ever did during his life. And they met with death and failure just as Jesus appeared to on Good Friday. But none of their loyal followers attempted to prolong their liberation or religious movements with myths of the resurrection of their heroes. Jesus’ contemporaries were pretty fuzzy and even unsure about eternal life,  if they didn’t deny it altogether. So we stand out because we believe the otherwise unbelievable. The testimony of the truthful witnesses is true.
 
But perhaps the more convincing argument for the Resurrection is the experience of Jesus by the faithful in his Church.
So many saints, those canonized with a capital S, and others known only to God, have mystically experienced this risen Jesus. When I was a child it was a custom on Easter to wear new clothes to add to the festivity. That was probably never the case in monasteries. But there was that informal Easter Parade in New York. That custom has passed. But we can put on a new attitude, one of contagious joy. That is what knowing that Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead and is alive right now is meant to make us experience. Joy in the certain knowledge through our faith, our trust and our love; knowledge that despite all the personal Good Fridays we may endure in life, God IS with us, God is on our side in life’s struggles and that if we keep the faith, we too will rise. That joy and knowledge is what drew people to the church and caused it to grow from the small group of Jesus followers to 1.2 billion people today.
 
May the unbelievable joy of Easter permeate every part of our lives and overflow to all those around us. Thank you for the unbelievable joy you bring to my life. Jesus is alive in Portsmouth Abbey, on Aquidneck Island, in Rhode Island, in the United States of America, in all of our world. Jesus is Risen. Happy Easter !!!

An Ancient Homily on Holy Saturday

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image.Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.