I’m late getting to this, but now that I’m preaching somewhat regularly again, I hope I can post my homilies more often. This is my first homily for my new parish, St. Francis of Assisi, in Apopka, Florida. I preached this at two Masses, 7:30 and 11 am.
Starting life over in a new place is never easy. I was anxious about this weekend. How would I fit in? Would Easter feel different?
Which made me wonder: well, what does Easter feel like?
I think it depends on who you ask.
The 22 elect who joined the church last night will tell you: Easter feels like a splash of cold water on a spring night. And not just that. It’s sensory overload.
They will tell you that Easter looks like darkness disappearing, as the flames of hundreds of candles spread throughout this church.
It smells like incense burning, like chrism being brushed over your brow.
It tastes like your first Communion wafer as you hold it on your tongue as long as you can and realize you have received Jesus, body and blood, soul and divinity, and you been blessed by incomparable grace.
What does Easter feel like?
The apostles in the gospel might tell you: it feels like the earth shifting under your feet as you race toward a tomb that you have been told is empty.
And then you get there. And your s are overwhelmed. It smells like freshly cut stone … and the remnant of perfumed spices … and the distant aroma of spring flowers in the garden just beginning to bloom. It’s is almost too much to take in.
And that’s understandable — the world has been remade! Jesus Christ is risen today! Life has conquered death. Hope has destroyed despair.
Coming from a life in journalism, I can tell you that Easter is the greatest scoop in human history. And we are continuing to live it. This gospel reminds us of one of the reasons we are all here this morning.
It’s because:
This great story, this great scoop, needs to be told.
This day is about that: telling the story, again and again and again.
An angel broke the news to Mary Magdalene. She ran and told the apostles. They ran to see if it was true. And then they carried the news back to Jerusalem to tell everyone else. And they told others. Who told others.
And the story just can’t be stopped.
This astounding reality of God’s love can’t be stopped.
We need to pass it on.
It’s gone on like that for 2000 years.
A few years ago, I traveled to Jordan. I was there one week after we had celebrated Easter in the United States. The Christian churches in Jordan follow the Julian calendar, so they were celebrating Easter THAT week. I was able to get to a Roman Catholic Church in Amman for the Easter Vigil.
When I arrived, the church was packed. I stood in the back. And the deacon had just climbed into the ambo. And he began to sing.
He chanted the Exsultet, the same ancient hymn I had chanted myself just one week before at my home parish in Queens. It was exactly the same. The same music. The same phrasings. It was stunning. It was haunting. “Rejoice, let mother church also rejoice, arrayed in the lightning of his glory. Let this holy building shake with joy!”It brought back many memories.
But there was one powerful difference.
He chanted it in Arabic.
Tears came to my eyes.
I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.
But I knew the story he was telling, the universal story of our salvation.
What does Easter feel like?
It feels like being part of the Body of Christ — this vast body of a billion believers, scattered around the world, but holding fast to a faith rooted in Resurrection and renewal and mercy, and singing this great hymn of joy, of God’s unceasing love.
“Oh love, o charity beyond all telling. To ransom a slave, you gave away your son.”
We need to keep telling this story.
the story of the Christ who suffered for us. Who died for us. And who rose for us so that we would know: death isn’t the end of the story.
We need to pass it on. With how we live. And how we love.
Most of all: with our love.
We tell this story every day of our lives with how we follow Jesus Christ.
We tell it with how we remember the forgotten.
With how we pick up those who have fallen by the side of the road.
With how we bring light to those living in darkness.
With how we bend to wash feet, and offer hope in a world that so often seems hopeless.
It’s all this and more. Jesus’s story goes on without end. Because of us.
Pass that on.
Let’s keep telling that great story and living it.
With joy in our hearts.
And “Alleluia” on our lips.
Last night, watching those 22 new souls come into the church and experiencing the wonder of that blessed night, it hit me. I got the answer I was looking for.
I sensed it in Jordan all those years ago.
I felt it in New York, where I lived for so many years.
I realized it here in this church last night. I think the new Catholics baptized last night realized it, too.
What does Easter feel like?
It’s very simple.
Easter feels like home.
Alleluia!
