This Is the Day

It happened early in the morning on the first day of the week.

Every morning is, in a sense, a new beginning, a chance to start over. Even so, in the normal course of events, the Sabbath day of rest would have been followed on the first day of the week by business as usual – both for the living, returning to their regular daily work, and for the dead, decaying in their graves, who (then as now) were expected to stay dead. Those who went to visit Jesus’ tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week presumably shared those same general expectations. The Gospel we just heard simply says that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning. The other Gospel writers tell us that Mary was accompanied other women, and that their purpose in visiting the tomb was to anoint Jesus’ body. However many they were and whatever they expected to do, it seems safe to suggest that their expectations that morning were well within the range of the normal.

Instead, however, they found something surprising and unexpected. Mark’s Gospel, which we heard last night at the Vigil Mass, tells us about their surprising experience at the tomb and how they were told to tell Peter and the other disciples about it, which this morning’s Gospel informs us that they did. For this morning, this 1st day of the week, this Super-Sunday, the world awakens not to business as usual, but to something totally new – to, of all the things that God has ever done, the greatest of them all. And so we say today: This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!

Jesus’ resurrection was a historical event of the most monumental importance – more important even than the latest presidential tweet or the latest person to leave his or her White House job – the most important event in all of human history. And yet, however hard it may be for us to imagine (in this age of omnipresent media and the 24-hour news cycle), the resurrection was hardly even noticed at first.

Really important things are remembered for their long-term impact, not for the short-term noise they make. Maybe that is why none of the gospels give us an actual description of the event itself. Artists have tried to picture it, of course, but that’s art - highly imaginative art at that. We have nothing either visual or verbal that depicts the actual event of Jesus’ resurrection. What we do have, however, both visually and verbally, are the resurrection’s effects – first of all on the disciples, and then on the world, and finally on us.

The resurrection’s effects on the disciples are what we read and hear in the gospel stories of the visits to an empty tomb and then later of the appearances of the risen Lord – and still later in the preaching of Saint Peter and others in the Acts of the Apostles and in the amazing response of those who heard their preaching, and finally in the testimony and letters of Saint Paul, who wasn’t there at all at Easter, but who eventually experienced the risen Lord himself and was forever changed as a result.

Its effects on the world were soon evident in the enthusiastic response of Jews and pagans alike to the amazing story the apostles told. In the long term, its effects have been equally dramatic in how the story has spread and the Church has grown as a result, in the dynamism that is at the heart of the Church’s existence in the world and that has propelled it outward in almost 2000 years of world-transforming activity.

Finally, its effects are evident in us, transformed in mind and changed in heart, by the unique power of this utterly unexpected event, which has glorified (almost beyond recognition) the humanity Jesus shares with each of us, and which has brought us together in a way in which nothing else could have, empowering us not so much with new knowledge as with a new hope. 

It is the resurrection’s long-term effects which we actually experience and which bring us here today – as Jesus’ body that lived and died and still forever bears the marks of his passion emerges from the tomb to transform our world, starting right here, right now, with us.

Even so, as we just heard, the first few to be made aware of this momentous news left the empty tomb more confused than elated: For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Nor would we, if that were all we had of the story.

In a world which seems so permanently stuck in the dark, pre-dawn position, where death always seems to have the final say, the disciples needed to experience the kind of change that could only come from the Risen Lord’s living presence among them. And so do we, which is why we are here, where the Risen Lord brings us together as no one else can.

So, instead of the 1st day of the week condemning the world back to business as usual, this 1st day after the Sabbath is starting something new – not just a new week, but a new world, where death no longer has the final say. The resurrection is God’s powerful alternative to business as usual.  None of us were there that first Easter Sunday – and, had we been, we would surely have been as amazed and uncomprehending as the disciples themselves. But without yet understanding it, the world awoke on Easter to something totally new. We are here today, because God did not stop on the 7th day, because there is now a new day, on which God has, so to speak, re-created the world in his Son, Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, and buried, but now risen from the dead. That new day is today – and every day from now on, until we too will appear with him in glory [Colossians 3:4].

That is why we have to come back, Sunday after Sunday, to be filled in on what happened next and thus experience the effects of the resurrection ourselves. Like the disciples in the Gospel, some of us run fast. Others, beset perhaps by doubts or daily difficulties, run much more slowly. What matters most, however, is where we finally end up. So whether we are runners or walkers, we must accompany the disciples to the tomb, which in a business-as-usual world would have remained dark, but from which the stone has been removed – so we can see and believe.

Easter invites us put ourselves in the position of the disciples – and allow ourselves to experience something wonderfully and completely new in a world which seems so ordinary and old. Easter invites us to start living in the present that new and different future to which the Risen Lord is leading us.

Easter Sunday Homily, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, April 1, 2018.

This Is the Night

This is the night, when once you led our forefathers, Israel’s children from slavery in Egypt and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.

So sang our deacon a short while ago, beginning our Vigil with the stirring words of the ancient Easter Proclamation, commonly called the Exsultet (its opening word in the original Latin). 

America’s most famous, 20th-century monk, Thomas Merton, once called the Exsultet "the key to the whole business.” When it was his turn to sing it, he wrote, “I am going to sing the whole of theology. It is marvelous. … And the people who hear it are learning all theology, and the Holy Ghost, Who operates what is signified, throws light in darkness upon the whole meaning of Christianity.” [April 6, 1947, & April 15, 1949]

Merton wasn’t alone in his praise. The great 20th-century liturgical scholar Pius Parsch once called the Exsultet "a hymn that never ceases to touch the heart and mind." But now just how does it do that? It does so, I believe, by bringing us back to the very heart of the ancient Passover story, which we recall tonight with this Vigil, just as the Jewish People have for so many centuries celebrated the Passover night’s annual return each spring. In the Book of Exodus we are told: This was a night of vigil for the Lord, as he led them out of the land of Egypt; so on this same night all the Israelites must keep a vigil for the Lord throughout their generations. This they have done, generation after generation, in both good times and bad; and so also must we on this our own annual Christian Passover night.

On this night, when once God led Israel from slavery and brought them safely through the waters of the Red Sea, we too follow our own pillar of fire, our Easter candle marked with 5 grains of incense to signify the holy and glorious wounds of Christ’s passion, to relive that night when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld.

Throughout the entire Easter season, this Easter Candle, the symbol of the Risen Christ and visible reminder of his great victory, will stand in its place of honor in the sanctuary.

Also prominently displayed in our church throughout this Easter season is the icon of the Resurrection. This famous image portrays the Risen Christ standing over the broken gates of hell, lifting up Adam and Eve from their coffins – while, on one side, Moses, Isaiah and Elijah, and, on the other, the Old Testament kings and John the Baptist look on. 

In the centuries-old Passover ritual, it is said that “in every generation” every person should view him or herself as having personally come out of Egypt. Passover isn’t just some historical anniversary. It is something that happens in the lives of God’s People here and now. And so it is for us on this Passover feast of the Church. For, as the Exsultet says, this is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.

Tonight, having heard again the ancient Passover story - its full meaning now unlocked for us by Jesus’ triumph over death - the Church simply cannot contain her joy. Sadly silent these past two days, the bells now ring again with all the clamor they can muster. As far back as I can remember, the ringing of the bells has been my favorite moment of the Easter Vigil – a moment of sheer joy to be remembered throughout the year, and beyond. And no wonder! For what bigger news has there ever been? What better news has there ever been?

But before we got to ring the bells, we began this Vigil following the way led by that single candle - the symbol and expression of our community’s prayer, a community created by that candle’s glowing fired ignited for the honor of God. Now a candle, of course, is just a candle. The night is still dark, despite all our efforts to the contrary. Life is like that. Hence, the deacon’s prayer on our behalf: Therefore, O Lord, we pray you that this candle, hallowed to the honor of your name, may persevere undimmed, to overcome the darkness of this night.

Just as God once led his Chosen People through the threatening sea and the frightening desert by the light of a pillar of fire, so he continues today to lead his Church through the dangerous darkness of our world by the amazing brightness of the Risen Christ.

In centuries past, the faithful of Rome assembled at nightfall at tonight’s Stational Church, the Basilica of St. John in the Lateran, the Mother Church of both the City and the world, for an all-night vigil, while out of sight, next-door in the Baptistery, the newest members of the Church, solemnly renouncing Satan and all his works and all his empty show, passed through the saving waters of baptism - an experience meant to be every bit as transformative for them as passing through the Red Sea was for the Israelites. The Exsultet expresses how they undoubtedly would have experienced their emergence from that Baptistery in the dawning light of Easter morning: The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness.

And so again it must be for all of us, for whom this night is not an end but a beginning. Ritually this night is our entry to tomorrow’s solemn celebration of Easter Sunday - the Solemnity of Solemnities, as Augustine famously called it. More than that, it is our entry to an Easter life. Thanks to the fact that Christ has risen from the dead, the Christian faith offers an alternative to business as usual, offering instead an invitation to hope. It is the power of that faith and hope that has brought us, whether here and now or a long time ago, to the water of baptism, and that brings us back Sunday after Sunday to hear the rest of the story, to experience the presence of the risen Christ in the gift of his Holy Spirit and in the breaking of the bread, and to experience the presence of the risen Christ in the new people he is transforming us into and the amazingly wonderful things that we can now do with one another and for the world as a result.

As at the Passover, so on this most holy Easter night, we each of us experience coming out of Egypt. We each of us experience Christ breaking the prison-bars of death and rising victorious from the underworld. And, as his Church on this most holy Easter night, together we will each of us solemnly renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty show. Then, indeed, this night shall be as bright as day, dazzling and full of gladness.

Easter Vigil Homily, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, March 31, 2018.

The Passover of the Lord

It is Good Friday evening. All over the world, from the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica to the smallest rural mission church, solemn ceremonies are bringing to a close this 1st of 3 days (beginning at sunset yesterday and ending at sunset on Sunday) when, united with Christians of every time and place, we contemplate Christ crucified, buried, and risen. It is the Passover of the Lord.

The Passover of the Lord! The whole story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection is intimately wrapped up with the story of the Passover, which, by happy coincidence this year, begins tonight – just as it did then. Jesus died (as we just heard) on the afternoon before the Passover, even as the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple, and was hastily buried because the festival was about to begin. His accusers would not enter Pilate’s headquarters in order not to be defiled so that they could eat the Passover.

Passover celebrates the most important event in Israel’s history – not just as something interesting that happened, once upon a time, a long time ago, but as something powerfully real and meaningful in the present, and a sign of hope for the future. In the words of the Passover ritual: In every generation let all look on themselves as having personally come forth from Egypt. … It was not only our ancestors, blessed be He, that the Holy One redeemed, but us as well did he redeem along with them. … In every generation they stand up against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand.

Being saved! That’s what this is all about! To prepare us, we heard last night how, at the exodus, the blood of the lamb marked the doors of the houses of God’s People. Later in history, the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the altar of the Temple. Now, in Jesus, the great high priest who has passed through the heavens, the blood of the lamb has been shed, once and for all, on the altar of the cross – our doorway to salvation. Marked by the blood that saves us all, the cross has thus become the Church’s door.  A dreaded instrument of disgraceful death, the cross is now, thanks to this day, our gateway to freedom and new life, a triumphant sign of glory.

Of course, in our postmodern popular culture (so like Pontius Pilate in the caustic skepticism that simply dismisses the disconcerting possibility of something so serious and restricting as truth), the cross must seem a nonsensical failure. But the paradoxical power of the cross is that Christ’s true triumph lay precisely in his not dramatically descending from the cross (like some silly celebrity), but in ascending the cross as a condemned criminal – a paradox succinctly summarized by the prophet Isaiah: he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people … But … the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him … and he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.

It was this mysterious and strangely paradoxical text that an ancient Ethiopian court official was reading, when he met the evangelist Philip in chapter 8 of the Acts of the Apostles. I beg you, he asked, about whom is the prophet saying this? Philip, we are told, opened his mouth and, beginning with this scripture passage, he proclaimed Jesus to him. With Philip, the unanimous witness of Christian tradition has recognized - in Jesus crucified, buried, and risen - the one who perfectly fulfills the prophet’s paradoxical words.

As the thrust of the soldier’s lance into Jesus’ side certified, Jesus really died on the cross. Then, bound with burial cloths according to the custom, his body was buried – all of which should then have been the end of the story.

And yet this is not some sort of funeral service. We are not here today to mourn. If Jesus had in fact remained dead, if his body had indeed decayed in the tomb, then none of us would be here today at all. Nor are we acting in a play, pretending he’s dead until we see what (if anything) happens on Sunday. We are here, rather, because he really did die, but really isn’t dead anymore. And that is why we celebrate the cross of Christ.

As St. John Chrysostom expressed it, some 16 centuries ago:

Before, the cross was synonymous with condemnation; now it is an object of honor. Before, a symbol of death; now the means of salvation. It has been the source of countless blessings for us: it has delivered us from error, it has shone on us when we were in darkness. We were vanquished, yet it reconciles us with God. We were foes, yet it has regained God’s friendship for us. We were estranged, yet it has brought us back to him.

In a short while, we will solemnly salute the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world. In every generation, each one must personally look upon the cross of Christ and embrace it for oneself. That is what we acknowledge when we come forward to venerate the cross. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find help in our time of need.

We will venerate the cross, approaching it individually (imitating Mary, his mother standing by the cross) - for each one of us is challenged as a disciple to realign his or her life, to model one’s life on the mystery of Christ’s cross - despite the difficulties life puts in the way, despite the obstacles each individual sinner personally puts in the way. We will venerate the cross, approaching it together as the community of Christ’s holy Catholic Church - born on the cross in the blood and water which flowed out from Jesus’ side as a sign of the Church’s sacramental life and mission - because it is together as Christ’s Church (united with Mary, the Mother of the Church) that we continue Christ’s life and mission, effectively extending the reach of his cross into the whole world. That is why, momentarily, following one of the most ancient Church traditions of this day, we will pray for that whole world – for the Church, for its leaders, for those joining the Church, for those outside, for the Jews, for unbelievers, for our political leaders, and for all in any kind of need – for  the whole world without exception.

Passing through life this way, standing by the cross of Jesus and reborn as his Church in his blood and water, we will ourselves become Passover doorways, through which the Easter promise of salvation will flow, in a torrent, from his side to fill our entire world.

Homily for Good Friday, Liturgy of the Lord's Passion, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, March 30, 2018.

Photo: The 13.5 ft. Belgian granite and bronze corpus, 1897 "Hewit Crucifix," Church of Saint Paul the Apostle, NY, used in some years for the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday. 

3 Cheers for John Paul Stevens!

Some time ago I watched a Netflix series on Prohibition. I was struck by the confidence felt by the Prohibitionists once they had succeeded in getting the 18th Amendment passed. No constitutional amendment had ever before been repealed. So it was believed that once enacted prohibition was here to stay. History, however, did not quite work out that way, and if fact Prohibition became in fact the first - and so far the only - constitutional amendment to be repealed 

That said, amending the constitution is at best a legally difficult and politically challenging process. To succeed, most amendments have required considerable consensus to make it through the constitutional obstacle course that is the amending process. Even so, although the country remained quite polarized around Prohibition, repeal of the 18th Amendment proved possible in the end. The same might in time prove true of other harmful constitutional provisions - most notably the notorious Second Amendment, which (especially since its distortion into an individual "right" by the Supreme Court a decade ago) has become a major political and cultural obstacle to sanity and morality when it comes to the private possession of weapons of mass destruction (i.e., guns).

So three cheers for Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' op-ed in today's New York Times calling for an outright repeal of the Second Amendment! To read it, go to:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html?emc=edit_th_180328&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=383939230328

Appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975, Stevens became the third longest-serving US Supreme Court Justice, retiring in 2010.  He was among the four dissenters in the infamous District of Columbia v. Heller decision, which, he reminds us in his article, overturned  the "long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment’s limited reach by ruling... that there was an individual right to bear arms." Stevens continues:

That decision — which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly was debatable — has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power. Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.

Of course, as Stevens surely understands, repealing the Second Amendment would be far from "simple." Still, especially given the catastrophic consequences of the wrongly decided Heller case, what other course of action is there? As with Prohibition, which also pitted rural America versus urban America and the past versus the future, the obvious course - however difficult and challenging - is actually hiding in plain sight. Justice Stevens has done his country a great service by simply saying so!

Holy Excess

Counting forward from today, it is six days until Easter. Presumably that accounts for the choice of today’s Gospel (John 12:1-11) which begins: Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany.

Today's Gospel for this Monday of Holy Week does more than establish a chronology, however. It also sets a certain mood for this week. Famously, it describes how Mary of Bethany (the sister of Lazarus and Martha) anointed Jesus with expensive perfume. When her extravagance was criticized, Jesus defended her action by referring it to his upcoming burial. To me, this has always been a great introduction to what we do during Holy Week. Like Mary, the Church this week holds nothing back, so to speak. Instead she employs all the rich symbols of the liturgy to invite and enable us to enter as fully as humanly possible into the drama of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, so that we may more fully participate in its benefits. 

Ritual, by its nature, is inherently somewhat extravagant. The great ceremonies of Holy Week are, however, even more so. They are intensely dramatic, emotionally affecting, over-the-top. They are extravagant in the best sense of the word. Not unlike Mary with her expensive perfumed oil, the Church practices a sort of holy excess. In this case, however, it is we who are the beneficiaries.

I am just old enough to remember the 1955 Decree Maxima Redemptionis Nostrae Mysteria, which initiated the modern reform of Holy Week - and the initial effect which that reform had in making the ceremonies of Holy Week so much more accessible. For ordinary churchgoers, the most significant change was the rescheduling of the principal Holy Week services to the afternoon and evening. For centuries, with the single exception of the Mass at Midnight on Christmas, Mass was always - and only - celebrated in the morning. Thus, prior to the Holy Week reform of 1955, the services of the Easter Triduum were all “anticipated” in the morning hours of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Changing the hours at which those services could be celebrated gave them a new kind of authenticity, but even more importantly it made attendance more widely possible on what were then otherwise ordinary secular workdays. 

For a few years at least, attendance notably increased at those services. As with all the 20th-century liturgical reforms, a lively debate continues in the Church about their intended benefits and their unintended consequences, whether for better or for worse. Other than changing the times, none of the other alterations in the ancient services added to their accessibility and so need to be judged by other criteria. But making the principal liturgical celebrations of the entire year more accessible for many more people to be able to attend was, I believe, in itself an evident benefit. While the liturgical enthusiasm of the late 1950s has long ago dissipated and can probably never be recovered, we would all still do well to take advantage as much as possible of the opportunity to participate in these extravagant sacred rites that are so filled with ritual power and symbolic meaning.