Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy C
After
receiving the proofs,
he
stormed back into the photographer’s studio screaming:
“These
pictures don’t do me justice!”
To
which the photographer replied:
“Sir,
with a face like yours, what you need isn’t justice, but mercy.”
Most
of the time, finding something empty
isn’t
cause for very much celebration.
An
empty refrigerator, or empty gas tank, or empty wallet
bring
us down, not lift us up.
But
the paradoxically good news of Easter
is
news of an empty tomb.
Most
historians—and not just those who are believers—
will
concede that a tomb was indeed found empty
on
that first Easter morning.
But
nobody ever claimed to have seen
exactly
what happened before dawn
on
that first day of the week:
nobody
took a picture with their iPhone;
nobody
wrote a story for the Jerusalem Times.
And
so, over the centuries,
a
number of theories have developed
which
explain that empty tomb,
but
which also deny that it had anything to do
with
resurrection.
There’s
the conspiracy theory
(and
don’t we all just love one of those!),
which
claims that some of Jesus’ disciples hid his body
and
concocted the accounts of seeing him alive again.
There’s
the theory that the women got confused
and
mistakenly went to the wrong tomb.
There’s
the theory that Jesus
wasn’t
actually dead when he was buried,
but
just appeared to have died.
There’s
the theory that the whole thing
was
nothing more than wishful thinking:
a
massive shared hallucination. (cf. W. L. Crag, America, 4/1/13)
Now,
none of these theories
are
anywhere near as convincing as the gospel account:
that
Jesus’ tomb was empty
because
he had been raised from the dead.
Based
on what evidence?
On
the changed lives of Jesus’ disciples.
The
men and women
who
had followed Jesus before his crucifixion
are
positively transformed after his tomb goes empty.
Those
who had been hiding behind locked doors
are
now found preaching and healing openly among the crowds.
They
will go on to travel
to the four corners of the earth.
(Thomas
himself,
infamous for his initial doubts,
is
believed to have taken the gospel
all the way to India.)
Of
the eleven remaining Apostles,
ten
of them would later
willingly die as martyrs.
People
won’t generally go to such extremes
for
a fake, or a mistake,
or a figment of their imaginations!
The
best evidence, then,
of why Jesus’ tomb is empty
is
that men and women
who had experienced Divine Mercy
then
went out as witnesses and agents
of
the same Divine Mercy for others.
Those
who had—by-and-large—
abandoned
Jesus on his way to the Cross,
clearly
experienced something
which
causes them to believe that Jesus
will
never abandon them.
For
their infidelity,
they
knew that justice
demanded punishment;
instead,
Jesus—raised up from the grave—
returns
to give them peace.
The
wounds of his Passion—
in
Christ’s hands, feet, and side—
which
could have been used
as proof against them,
have
become, rather, the sign
of the greatest love
this
world has ever known.
When
Luis Montesano—
once a lawyer and a professor of law—
entered
the seminary four years ago
in Buenos Aires,
Cardinal
Jorge Bergoglio was his Archbishop.
(He’s
now better known, of course,
as Pope Francis.)
Luis
recalls taking part in
the “Night of Charity,”
during
which Catholic parishes
of the Archdiocese
go
out one night each week
to
bring food to those who live on the streets.
Cardinal
Bergoglio was always perfectly clear
on
how the nights should unfold:
first,
there would be Eucharistic Adoration,
and
only then going out to the poor—
giving
them something to eat
and
engaging in conversation with them.
The
Archbishop informed his people:
“Don’t
be hasty. This isn’t fast food.
The
order is, Christ first, then Christ,
and Christ last of all.”
First,
meet Christ in the Eucharist;
then
seek Christ in the poor;
and
finally bring Christ to the poor.
(cf. Zenit, 4/5/13)
Is
that not the pattern we see
among
the Apostles and first disciples?
To
first experience, to receive, the Divine Mercy,
and
then to go and put it into practice?
And
is that not what’s expected
of
disciples still today—of you and me?
Today,
on this Divine Mercy Sunday,
we
begin our 40 Hours Eucharistic devotions.
For
40 hours over the course of three days
we
are called to come and sit at the feet of him
who
once was dead, but is now alive forever:
to
plead and adore before the risen Christ,
really
and truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist.
(You
can find the full schedule of liturgies and devotions—
and
a beautiful note of personal encouragement from Bishop LaValley—
inserted
in the bulletin.)
But
we cannot—we must not—stop there!
Which
is why the 40 Hours will conclude
with
a procession through the streets of Malone.
Having
experienced mercy ourselves,
we will
go out as its witnesses and agents
in
our own spiritual “night of charity.”
Both
you and I are all-too-aware
of
the many people here in the North Country who
are materially poor.
And
we do well to make every effort to meet their bodily needs
through
the Corporal Works of Mercy:
feeding
the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty,
clothing
the naked, sheltering the homeless,
visiting
the sick and the imprisoned, and burying the dead.
I’m
moved by the generosity with which parishioners
strive
regularly to accomplish these charitable works.
But
there are even more folks across our region
who
are spiritually poor—destitute, in fact.
And
what are we doing for them?
During
this Year of Faith in particular,
we
are being challenged by the Church
to
recommit ourselves to the Spiritual Works of Mercy—
to
meeting the deep needs of the soul:
by
admonishing the sinner, by instructing the ignorant,
by
counseling the doubtful, by comforting the afflicted,
by
bearing wrongs patiently, by forgiving offences willingly,
and
by praying for the living and the dead.
My
friends,
in
the way we worship,
in the way we live each day,
in the way we reach out to needy neighbors,
we
ought to be saying before the world, “We have seen the Lord!”
We
must be the convincing evidence today
that
Jesus is in fact risen from the dead;
that
Jesus has entrusted to his Church and her priests the
power to forgive sins;
that
Jesus remains very much alive and present among us in
the Sacrament of his Body and Blood;
that
Divine Mercy is flowing freely and desires to fill every soul.
But
if we aren’t willing to be those witnesses,
if
we aren’t able to give that testimony,
then
more than Christ’s tomb will remain empty.
So come—come
to 40 Hours!
And
then, go—go to announce the good news.
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