“Alleluia!” It’s Easter!

I was talking to a neighbor of mine just a few days ago. He was baptized in his Baptist church just last year. I mentioned that this was going to be a busy week in my corner of the world.

He said, “Oh yeah. Easter. That’s your big day, isn’t it?”

I smiled. We made small talk for a few minutes and when it was done, I thought: “No. It’s not just my big day. It’s your big day. It’s everyone’s big day. This is the day that changed history.”

And in the Catholic Church, this year in particular, it is making history.

By one estimate, 30,000 people are entering the Church this weekend –900 people in the Diocese of Orlando, 24 in this very church alone. Across the country, the number of new Catholics is growing this Easter by 38% compared to last year.

What a wonder it is. Newspapers around the country have been reporting on this phenomenon. It was even splashed on the front page of the New York Times, just before Palm Sunday: “Roman Catholic Churches See a Surge in New Converts.” Something is happening. The Holy Spirit has been busy.

Remembering the conversation with my neighbor, I think it can be easy to reduce this glorious Sunday to just another “big day. “A day of Reese’s peanut butter eggs and jelly beans, plastic grass and wicker baskets, stuffed bunnies and a dinner table crowded with relatives from out of town as you carve the ham or dole out the lamb with mint jelly.

But before all the festivities, pause for just a moment. I want to call our attention to one phrase in this Gospel. It is so important, we actually hear it twice. The angel says: “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’

And in case anyone missed it, Jesus himself repeats:

“Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

This message is more than just a biblical GPS, or a reference point for Google Maps.

It tells us this: Jesus is not going to be found among the dead, but among the living – in Galilee. A place of meaning and memories. It’s where he first met the fishermen on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where he turned water into wine at Cana, where he healed the blind and the lepers, where he preached in synagogues and multiplied the loaves and fishes.

This is where people will see him. Far from Calvary, far from the tomb. He will be among the people. He will be among those whose lives he changed.

It is still that way today. Two thousand years after the Resurrection, we still see him among one another.

This is our Galilee.

Galilee is 100 yards from the front door of this church, at a food pantry, where the hungry are being fed and life is being lived and hope is being passed on in bread and cardboard boxes and paper bags. You want to see Jesus? He is there.

Galilee is a few miles from here, in a hospital where nurses are caring for a premature infant and holding its mother’s hand and doing everything to make sure that every breath matters and life goes on.  You will see Jesus there, too.

Galilee is in this church, where last night two dozen men and women were baptized in that font, re-enacting exactly how Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, in Galilee ‑ new Catholics professing faith and starting a new life – blinking back the water and their tears, with a beautiful new path stretching before them.

Jesus is here.

The fact is, you see Jesus in all the Galilees of our world – the ordinary places of everyday life, places where people pray for healing and hope, places where people get up and struggle, where they work, laugh, weep and face each day as it comes. Jesus is there.

You will see him in prison cells and intensive care units and orphanages.

You will see him in the gutters of India, where Mother Teresa’s sisters care for the poor and the abandoned – because, as the great saint herself once said, “Jesus often comes to us in the distressing disguise of the poor.”

“Go to Galilee and there you will see him.”

He is among the people – Emmanuel, “God with us.”

He is with all those who need to hear Good News. Those who thirst ‑ those who thirst for love, for belonging, for dignity.

All those who thirst for peace.

Jesus is in the hands that hold, the arms that uplift, the feet that walk with others, for others.

He is in the quiet but resolute work of so many who live out his command: “Love one another as I have loved you.” “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.”

Look for the least of these. There you will see him.

This Sunday, this “big day,” as we prepare to head off to celebrate and feast, let’s go with our hearts full, but with our eyes open.

Look for Jesus!

And let us live these days of Easter to bring him to others, so that when others see us, they will also see him.

Last year, Pope Leo put it beautifully:

         “The Risen One radically changes our perspective, instilling the hope that fills the void of sadness. On the paths of the heart, the Risen One walks with us and for us…Let us remain watchful every day in the wonder of the risen Jesus. He alone makes the impossible possible!”

Yes, this is a “big day,” but we need to make it more than a day for feasting and painting eggs.

Remember the words of the Gospel.

Let us go to Galilee, the Galilee that is all around us.

Because it is there where the great miracle of Easter continues!

Alleluia!