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Easter Sunday - 2007
Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord
Col. 3:1-4 or 1 Cor. 5:6-8
Jn. 20:1-18 or Lk. 24:13-35
Jesus is the Lord of all.
"Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole
batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may
be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our
paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore,
let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast,
the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth." [1 Cor. 5:6-8]
"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still
dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the
stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and
went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom
Jesus loved, and said to them, 'They have taken the Lord
out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid
him.'
Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went
toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the
other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings
lying there but he did not go in.
Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the
tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the
cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the
linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then
the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also
went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did
not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the
dead.
Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary
Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept,
she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two
angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had
been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.
They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said
to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not
know where they have laid him.'
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus
standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are
you looking for?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she
said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me
where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'
Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' She turned and said to him in
Hebrew, 'Rabbouni!' which means Teacher. Jesus said to
her, 'Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet
ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to
them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to
my God and your God.'
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 'I
have seen the Lord,' and she told them that he had said
these things to her." [Jn. 20:1-18]
Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is a sign of spring in
our life. We can never taste spring without experiencing
a bitter winter. Jesus could not rise to life without
being in the tomb for three days. Well, that tomb
experience was preceded by the experience of agony,
torture, and death on the Cross. We often experience
that the Resurrected life is a true mystery to all of
us. Some could even put a question to themselves: Is
there life after death? But some images in nature can
explain that mystery.
Caterpillar to Butterfly
A
butterfly, of course, is simply a transformed
caterpillar. But for those who believe in the
resurrected life, it is an image that can speak
powerfully of what happens to them through death and
resurrection. Caterpillars appear to have a fairly
pleasant life. Their major challenge is to remain
undetectable to their predators, and from the
proliferation of transformed caterpillars, it seems that
many of them do. The caterpillar feasts on an almost
inexhaustible salad bar available right under its feet.
There’s plenty to eat, and plenty of time simply to bask
in the sunshine, an experience that we ourselves
probably long for at times. The caterpillar never gets
very far or sees very much, but nature generally takes
good care of it. To a caterpillar who escapes the beak
of the bird or the sting of a wasp, life may not seem
bad at all.
One
day, however, the caterpillar begins to spin a series of
threads around itself. When it finishes the spinning, it
is enclosed in a cocoon, a structure that almost seems
to resemble a miniature tomb. Initially, as it
experiences the darkness, the former caterpillar might
ask itself, ‘Is this all there is?’ After a pleasant
life of eating and basking in the sunshine, is this all
that remains – nothingness and darkness? But slowly a
change begins to take place, and one day the tomb-like
cocoon opens to reveal a creature that has been totally
transformed, something that has been made quite
beautiful. If this newly-transformed butterfly could
think as humans do, it might say something like this: “I
look so different. Everything around me looks so
different. I can see plants and flowers that I never saw
before. This is tremendous and gorgeous! And what are
these two shiny membranes attached to my body? They are
beautiful. Look at those colours. But what are these
things for?” The butterfly moves its two shiny wings and
immediately it soars into the air. Where the caterpillar
noticed only the surfaces of leaves, the butterfly sees
the entire garden. Where the caterpillar chewed on
plants, the butterfly unfolds its proboscis and feasts
on nectar. Its way of being is completely transformed.
And yet if you forget about the wings and look closely
at the butterfly’s body, you can see a faint vestige of
the caterpillar.
Message of Peace
Jesus after he resurrected, spoke only of peace to his
followers. There was not a word of lamentation or
remorse. Resurrection leads us to that kind of
experience when we will be free of all our previous
life.
I Give
Up My Life…
Valeria and Francis happily married couple since 5
years. The only sad experience they were undergoing is
that they had no child. They went on pilgrimages to ask
for this favour. They spent a lot of money after doctors
to find out what was wrong. Nothing helped. Well, they
joined a prayer group in their parish and surrendered
themselves in the hands of the Lord. Exactly after two
years they came to know that a child is on the way.
Valeria and Francis were ecstatic. The Lord heard their
prayers. Just one month before the delivery the doctor
gives them a sad piece of news, that both mother and
child could not be saved. It is going to be a very
complicated delivery and in this process either one or
the other should lose life. Excruciatingly a painful
experience once again. Valeria a true mother, virtuous,
God fearing and full of faith opts for dying in the
place of the child. Francis does not allow her to do so.
Only Valeria had the option and only she could decide
about herself and about the child. Before going to the
operation theatre she had to give her consent either to
lose her life or lose her child’s life on a paper she
had to sign. Valeria boldly opts for dying in order to
save her child’s life. Her prophetic words were printed
on 17th March 1992 in of the world’s
prestigious Catholic papers L’Osservatore Romano
in Rome “I have seen enough of this world and
let my daughter see the rest. I give up my life so
that she may continue what I started. Let her life fill
with love, joy, peace and happiness. My life will
continue in hers and she will fulfill what I had to”.
What
is Resurrection?
It is first of all a change, change in one’s attitude
towards life, towards acceptance and towards the
material things of this world. Jesus often spoke of
resurrection, immediately after speaking about the
Cross, suffering and death. Hence, he was pretty sure of
things that would have taken place after his death. Tomb
is not going to be something permanent for Christians.
It is just a time of transformation into glory.
In our
daily life, resurrection can be viewed as a moment of
change, like our static mindset can be changed, and if
we are too much into the world, it’s a time to think
that we are just here to make this world a beautiful
place than we found it.
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these
things and enter into his glory? Lk. 24, 26
Think
of some of the painful events in your life. For how many
of them are you grateful today, because thanks to them
you changed and grew. Here is a simple truth of life
that most people never discover. Happy events make life
delightful but they do not lead to self-discovery and
growth and freedom. That privilege is reserved to the
things and persons and situations that cause us pain.
Pain to Glory
Every painful event contains in itself a seed of growth
and liberation. In the light of this truth return to
your life now and take a look at one or another of the
events that you are not grateful for, and see if you can
discover the potential for growth that they contain
which you were unaware of and therefore failed to
benefit from. Now think of some recent event that caused
you pain, that produced negative feelings in you.
Whoever or whatever caused those feelings was your
Teacher, because they revealed so much to you about
yourself that you probably did not know. And they
offered you an Invitation and a challenge to
self-understanding, self-discovery, and therefore to
growth and life and freedom.
Find the Pain, the Seed of Glory
Try it out now. Identify the negative feeling that this
event aroused in you. Was it anxiety or Insecurity,
Jealousy or anger or guilt. What does that emotion say
to you about yourself, your values, your way of
perceiving the world and life and above all your
programming and conditioning? If you succeed in
discovering this, you will drop some Illusion you have
clung lo till now or you will change a distorted
perception or correct a false belief or learn to
distance yourself from your suffering, as you realize
that It was caused by your programming and not by
reality; and you will suddenly find that you are full of
gratitude for those negative feelings and to that person
or event that caused them.
Now
take this one step further. Look at everything that you
think and feel and say and do that you do not like in
yourself. Your negative emotions, your defects, your
handicaps your errors, your attachments and neuroses and
hang-ups and yes, even your sins. Can you see everyone
of them as a necessary part of your development, holding
out a promise of growth and grace for you and others,
that would never have been there except for this thing
that you so disliked. And if you have caused pain and
negative feelings to others, were you not at that moment
a teacher to them? An instrument that offered them a
seed for self-discovery and growth? Can you persist in
this observation? In your observation till you see all
of this as a happy fault, a necessary sin that
brings so much good to you and to the world? Yes, the
Lord had to suffer and then enter into Glory means that
he had to die to be resurrected.
Tips
for a Good Homily:
Try to find out in recent times something sad has given
way to happiness. Maybe an accident as united the
family, a death has united the family or neighbours.
Maybe failure in exams has opened the eyes of a student.
May be a fault or mistake has made the person change
his/her life?
Thomas
was convinced when Jesus appeared to him, reached out
his hands to Thomas, and said, “Put your finger here.”
Thomas dropped to his knees. “My Lord and my God!”. It
was self-hypnosis, you counter. The disciples wanted to
believe that their Lord was not dead, so they just
invented it out of whole cloth. Really? Let’s look at
some of the evidence.
Jesus’
Body Was Missing.
If the
Jews could have found it, they could have stilled the
preaching of Jesus’ resurrection that filled Jerusalem.
But they could not.
The
Body Wasn’t Stolen.
The Romans had no motive. The Jews had no motive. Ah-ha,
you say, the disciples stole it. There is the matter of
the Roman guards, and the disciples’ initial disbelief
when the women brought them the news early that Easter
morning. This brings me to my third point. If the
disciples had stolen the body, you wouldn’t expect them
to risk their lives. People don’t die for what they know
is not true. But the disciples put their lives on the
line, and nearly all were eventually martyred for their
faith. They certainly believed it. The church mushroomed
size in Jerusalem, the very place he was crucified.
Followers of Jesus in the city of Jerusalem grew from a
few dozen to thousands upon thousands soon after Jesus’
resurrection. They believed it was true.
Contemporary Documents Refer to the Event.
Thallus the Samaritan, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny contain
references to Jesus. Jewish historian Josephus writes
about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. They knew
something had happened.
Jesus’
resurrection from the dead is actually more plausible
than any other explanation. That’s why we Christians
make such a big deal about Easter. That’s why we
celebrate.
Jesus’
resurrection means that death is not the end.
That though my body may lie moldering in the ground,
Jesus, whom the Father raised from the dead, gives me
eternal life. Ultimately, we Christians believe, our
bodies, too, will be raised from the dead.
And
since Jesus is not dead, people can encounter him
today. You can know him through a personal
relationship. I could point to lots of people who can
testify what Jesus has done in their lives to bring them
from the brink of disaster to peace and meaning and joy.
He changes people for good.
If
you’re not sure can’t really say you’ve met this risen
Jesus, this Easter Sunday why don’t you slip into
church to seek him. And perhaps in the midst of our
celebration, you’ll find him for yourself. He’s alive,
you know. That’s what Easter is all about!
You
are welcome to share your beautiful thoughts on this
topic with others.
Thanks and wish you a Happy Easter.
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Dear friend, my
homilies will be posted on Thursdays and you can benefit
them and if you need more resources, you could contact
me on
rudyocd@yahoo.com or
rudyocd@gmail.com
Let us make this ministry
fruitful one so that the Word of God becomes a source of
joy for me and for you and help people become more aware
of its riches. You are also welcome to share your
feedback with me. Thanks and God bless.
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