Homily
for March 27, 2005
Liturgical Year A-Cycle I
Easter Sunday by
Fr. John Carney Topic:
The
Testimony of Easter + + +
There’s
a lot of life
in this church today and we are here
on a matter of life and death.Or I
should say, we are here on a matter of death and life.That’s what Easter is all about. That death
has lost its sting and life is promised forever.Although,
we are a
people of faith, and although, intellectually we believe we will live
forever
with Christ and those we love, still, we are afraid of death. Aren’t we?It’s an instinct, an instinct of
self-preservation.We are afraid of death.
We
also have a natural
curiosity about
death. I don’t mean a morbid
curiosity but a natural curiosity about death.As my mother got older, God rest her, she would say, “I
wonder what it’s like.I wonder what
we’ll look like, what our bodies will be like.I wonder who’s there and who’s not.And if there’s anything there at all.Ah, but I think there is.And I’m
not that curious.”Father Ray Hannigan
has been through a lot. You know, he lives in Montana. He’s
had open
heart surgery. He’s also had colon surgery.Last year, he told the Lord, “Lord, whenever you’re ready for
me, I’m
ready for you.”But then he started to
spend his winters in Phoenix.So, he amended his last request. His golf
game is improving. He's decided he doesn’t want to go quite yet.
I
love to
visit cemeteries.I said that in the last mass and I got some strange looks, as if
there’s
something wrong with me.Well, there is
something wrong with me.I’ve been here
long enough for you to know that.Do
some of you like to go to cemeteries?Isn’t
it interesting.Not only famous
cemeteries, like Arlington, but small cemeteries, in the country, where
you look
at people’s names, when they were born, when they died and the
relatives
that are buried around them.You wonder
what they did and who they loved, how they died, and what it was
like
then.You have these thoughts in
cemeteries.
There’s
some very
interesting tombstones.I googled up
tombstones the other day and found some very interesting tombstones.There’s one in Ruidoso,
New Mexico, that says, “Here
lies
Johnny Yeast.Pardon me for not
rising.”The guy was a joker, or his
wife was.This one in Nova
Scotia, “Here lies Ezekiel Akel, age 102 years.The good die young.”Probably
his wife put that on it.Here’s one in London,
“Anna Wallace.The children of Israel
wanted bread, and the Lord sent them manna. Old clerk Wallace wanted a
wife,
and the devil sent him Anna.”I
guarantee, the husband wrote that one.This
one in Boot Hill, Arizona,
“Here lies Lester Moore, took 4
slugs from a 44.No Les, No More.”And this in Nantucket,
“Under the sod and under the trees, lies the body of Jonathan Pease.He’s not here, ‘tis only the pod.Pease shelled out and went to God.”Really!And this one you’ve probably heard before, in Thurmont,
Maryland, “Here lies an atheist.All dressed up and no place to go.”
This
light
gallows humor can disguise our natural fear of
death.But in faith, intellectually at
least, we can laugh at death. We can laugh because
of
what happened on Easter Sunday.Jesus
Christ broke the bonds of death, and promised, for all those who
believe in
Him, to lead us to a place where there is no more pain, no more
suffering, and
certainly no more death.And that’s the
message of Easter.That’s why you’re
here today.That’s why churches
throughout our nation and throughout the world are filled on Easter
Sunday.Easter, the Resurrection, has
changed everything.Can you imagine
living with no hope?If this was all
there is?I’d want my money back, if
this is all there is.It’s sad.That’s why Easter gives us this message
of hope that you must take out of this church today and give to others.The old mass, the one that was in Latin, used
to end by the priest saying, “Ite, missa, est.”And that means, “Go, you are sent.”Now we say, “Go, the mass is ended.”And you say, “Thanks be to God!”We used to say, “Go, you are sent.You are sent to go out there and spread the good news of Jesus
Christ
and His resurrection.”
I
want to
talk about three aspects of Easter that help us
to live in peace and with hope.First,
Easter is a testimony to the force of love.Love conquers hatred.
There’s
a
famous story that some of you may have heard about a grave in Hanover,
Germany.A woman is buried there who did not believe
in the resurrection, a very wealthy woman.Strangely, she put in her will that she wanted her grave covered
with
large slabs of granite and marble, cemented together, and fastened and
kept
down with large metal straps.She said,
“If there is a resurrection, I don’t want to be a part of it.”On her tombstone it says, “This burial place
must never be opened.”Well, there was a
seed under one of those slabs of granite that began to grow. It grew and sprouted out, as seeds do,
and over the decades, a trunk of a tree developed.The trunk grew and eventually pushed back
the slabs of granite and marble and exposed the grave.Not surprising, we’ve all seen that
happen.But that’s the force of a seed,
the life force of a tiny seed without a brain.The life force of God, who is infinite, is much greater than
that
seed.If that seed could push back
marble and granite, then God can raise from the dead those creatures
which He
created.God who created all from nothing
can raise you from the dead.And He will
do
so.
Easter
also
promises that beauty and goodness will overcome
suffering and death. That good will overcome evil.Looking at the crucifix, you look at the
greatest sin ever committed.There is no
greater evil than what happened to Him.But yet, from that evil came the greatest good.Suffering will not endure. Beauty will
conquer.
You
are all familiar
with the
great French impressionist artist Renoir.I didn’t realize, until recently, that he was severely
handicapped with
arthritis, especially in the last 20 years of his life, when he did his
best
work.If you’ve ever seen any of his
paintings and I’m sure you have, even if you don’t recognize who
painted them,
Renoir actually had the ability to put life in his subjects.For some reason, I remember one painting, I
think its “A Girl with a Watering Can.”She
is just glowing, there’s life inside of her, so brilliant was the
artist.He was so handicapped that his
fingers were
gnarled, his wrists and his arms were malformed, his spine was curved.He could not stand up and paint.He had to paint from a chair. His
assistants would move him around anytime he wanted to put the brush in
a different
place.One of his students, the great
Matisse, said to him once, “Why do you go on and torture yourself like
this?”He said, “The pain passes, but
the beauty remains.”
That’s
the message
of Easter.It’s true in your life, if
you look back.The pain will pass and
the beauty remains.As a matter of fact,
the most beautiful lives have experienced great pain.Isn’t that true?Something we don’t
quite understand, but the
cross and the resurrection helps us to understand.I sign my e-mails, many of them, with an
anonymous quote, “All that gives us pain is passing.All that gives us pleasure is passing.That
which is important is that which is
eternal.”The message of Easter.
Finally,
Easter gives us hope.We live as a people
of hope.We’re blessed with this life, we
love this
life.We love this earth.We love God’s gift.We love each
other.But something better follows this
and that permits us to truly enjoy all of this.This
is not something we will lose.It is
something that will transition to
something much greater, much more beautiful, much more holy.
Malcolm
Muggeridge,
many of you have heard of
him, was a convert late in his life to Catholicism.He was inspired by the blessed Mother
Teresa.He was quite a satirist,
brilliant philosopher, and the editor of Punch magazine.Muggeridge’s conversion, especially to Catholicism,
gave England
a
shock and angered many of his peers. Yet,
the most happy time in Muggeridge’s life, was the final years of his
life.Let me quote to you what he wrote.You young people probably won’t understand
this but the older you are the more it will mean to you.Muggeridge wrote, “For myself, as I approach
my end, I find Jesus’ outrageous claim even more captivating and
meaningful.Quite often, waking up in the
night as I do, I feel myself to be half out of my body, hovering
between life
and death, with eternity rising in the distance.I
see my ancient carcass, prone between the
sheets, stained and worn like a scrap of paper dropped in the gutter.And hovering above it, myself, like a
butterfly released from its chrysalis stage and ready to fly away.Yet, in the limbo between living and dying,
as the night clock ticks remorselessly on, and the black sky implacably
shows
not one single streak or scratch of grey, I hear those words of Jesus,
my
Savior.‘I am the resurrection and the
life.’ And feel myself to be carried along on a great tide of joy and
peace.”
Easter.A testimony
of the power of love, the promise that goodness will conquer evil, and
the
promise that eternal life, with God and with each other, awaits us.
Let
me end
with one last tombstone epithet.“Remember, man, as you walk by.As you are now, so once was I.As
I am now, so shall you be.Remember this
and follow me.”To which someone wrote
on the tombstone, “To follow you, I’ll not consent until I know which
way you
went.”
We
know which way
we’re going,
don’t we?With God’s grace, every one of
us is headed to heaven to spend eternity with God and with each other.A place of pure peace and joy.A place that God promises He will share His
very divinity with each one of us.Angels
will wait on us.We’ll sit on a throne
composed of angels, of cherubim and seraphim.The promise of Easter.“Oh,
death, where is your victory?And death,
where is your sting?”