Reflecting on the Triduum

RELATED: Intro to Holy Week 101

Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

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Easter: Our Sequestered Gifts

Knowledge. Piety, Fear of God, Fortitude, Counsel, Understanding, Wisdom. In the murder trial of George Floyd the judge said the jury would be sequestered. He then gave them wise advice… Pack for the long and hope for the short. What a beautiful proclamation for our Easter season…

“Pack for the long and hope for the short.” We pack tightly our Spiritual suitcases with the seven wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit they are packed tightly in our heart and soul so no matter what trials or tribulations occur in our lives in the months and years ahead. We’ve sequestered ourselves in those timeless, divinely given gifts.

We can then quickly and reverently open our spiritual suitcase and pull out as many gifts as we need. All set to handle the “long” as best we can but with always a hopeful eye to the “short.” This sums up Easter for me. Not only as a yearly season but as a way of life. How about you?

What is So Good About Easter?

It is Easter. But it seems like we were celebrating Christmas only yesterday. Now I know that Easter comes early this year, but I don’t think that the early date is the whole of the explanation. The truth is that Christmas remains in our minds because it is easier to celebrate Christmas than Easter. Look at the Christmas story. It is clear; it is peaceful; it is well defined. In the Christmas story, you know where Jesus is—he is in the manger. You can say, “Look, there is where to find him. See him, touch him, love him.” Easter is more elusive, more nebulous. There is very little of serenity and peace in the Easter stories. Instead we find people scurrying about, frightened, conflicted, confused.

Easter: Killed So We Can Live

The world could not kill God. Nor can it kill those who luxuriate in the Life of God. The Good Thief’s act of faith, his act of kindness in what he said to the Crucified Christ, resulted in his sharing the eternal life of that God whom the world tried to destroy.

We, who have received the eternal life of the Lord at our Baptism, have been told that as long as we hold onto this Easter Life, He will raise us up when our lives come to an end.

Nearly all of the resurrection accounts in the Gospels present the apostles and disciples on a journey to deeper faith. In stages they come out of this world and the darkness of despair into the light of faith. Matthew’s account, which is read at the Easter Vigil and can also be read at Masses during the day, is no exception.

Let’s observe their journey in four stages.

SOURCE: LifeIssues.net Homily Archive

The Joke’s On Satan

Bottom line: The joke’s on Satan. The empty tomb indicates the turning point of human history

RELATED HOMILIES:

2015: Disciple Makers Week 1: Totally Fixable
2012: To Get Rid of My Sins
2009: Eternal Life Begins Now
2006: Peering into the Tomb
2003: Something To Live For
2000: Born Again!

Jesus Continues in the Church

There is a new way to live when we have Jesus in our lives. There is a way to live that is incompatible with having Jesus in our lives and there is a way to live that reflects having Jesus in our lives. But there is something troubling happening today. Those who now live with Jesus in their lives are more and more being misunderstood; their freedom to live with Jesus in their lives is being more and more hindered, so much so that we are beginning to enter into a time of persecution of Christians. The early Christians were persecuted in Rome and martyred. If our society continues in its present direction, how much longer before Christians will be martyred in this country for no other reason than that they have experienced the risen Jesus in their lives and live their lives in a way to reflects that? But it is better to have experienced the risen Jesus and lived with his life before dying, than not.

Rising

Light and Goodness. Let it be. Heavens and earth, day and night. Movements of moon and stars that would never have been, had they not been willed into existence. Water, sky, and earth. The great parade of natural kinds, nurtured by earth, fills the horizons. Waters teem and trees flower. Fertility. Multiplicity. Creeping creatures, urgent and easy, wild and gentle, small and great. God is the original environmentalist, the first cause of all our species, the eternal lover of diversity. Good. Yes.

God loves you more than your love yourself

So much about Easter reminds us of our childhoods. We are all here today because of family members who sacrificed so much for us, loved us with an irrational love, and shared with us their faith in Jesus. It is also true to say that some of us might also be here today with hurts and wounds. The good news is, no matter what memories we carry with us through life, no matter how many hurts that haunt us, the scars we carry, or the spiritual sores that have trouble healing, we remember today that the tomb was empty. Jesus rose from the dead like he said he would and promises to raise us from the dead as well. Today we celebrate that the power of death does not have the final say in our world because God loves us more than we love ourselves. As Christians, we are called to remember this on Easter and to share this kind of
irrational and generous love with others through Christ our Lord.

The Risen Church — Easter, 2020

Christ always goes before us – into the fullness of this new day and he calls us to follow after him in hope. This hope was planted by God in the heart of creation on the very first day – that the creator will not abandon his creation. This hope grew and was foretold by the people of Israel in their being brought from slavery to freedom with the waters of the Red Sea being a prefiguring of the waters of baptism which bring us into the new day of Christ and the promise us freedom from death itself. Paul recognizes this truth when he writes in his letter to the Romans, “Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”