My Easter reflection

I'm including the notes from my Easter reflection below.   Here's the video of that reflection.


Easter Sunday (April 12, 2020)

We celebrate this glorious and joyous feast of Easter this year in very unsettling circumstances -- when nearly all of the faithful have to stay home from Mass on this day that is the very center of the Church’s liturgical year and indeed the center of our whole lives because, as St. Paul reminds us, if Jesus had not risen from the dead, our faith would be in vain.  Of all days not to be able to celebrate Mass with our fellow parishioners, not to be able enter into sacramental Communion with Our Lord, crucified but truly risen from the dead, this one brings perhaps the deepest disappointment.   I celebrated Easter Vigil and Easter Day Mass, with just one seminarian, and while a tremendous privilege as always to be able to do so, still it was painfully obvious that the usual joy was missing that comes from the Church enthusiastically joining in the liturgical expression of Christ rising form the dead.

So I think the Gospel reading from the Mass of Easter Day – John 20 – seems especially poignant and especially fitting to our own situation this year.  We see the opening scene:  It is still dark out.  The Apostles are terrified and demoralized.  All save the young St. John have fled from the Cross in terror.  Mary Magdalene is inconsolable.  Under the cover of darkness, she travels to the tomb because – well, we don’t know exactly why.  To weep there perhaps.  To remind herself that her beloved Lord, the meaning and center of her life is now gone.

But something truly astonishing happens when she arrives there in the wee hours of the morning.  She sees in the dim moonlight that the stone sealing the tomb has been rolled away.  We can only guess what is racing through her mind.  Perhaps that she can’t believe her eyes at first, that they were playing tricks on her.  But then a moment of panic – and dismay.  “They have taken away my Lord!”

She runs breathlessly to tell the Apostles.  St. Augustine the great doctor of the Church puts it beautifully, “She ran with the speed of love.”  Why did she run to them?  Probably because she wanted them to go out and look for Him with her.  Maybe just to grieve with her that He was taken away – because almost no one like to grieve alone.

In these unusual times, can’t we relate to Mary of Magdalene?  We feel the darkness closing around us.  The constant sad news of the world-wide epidemic not yet abating.  Of feeling trapped at home.  Sometimes, in cramped quarters, truth be told, grating on the nerves of those we love the most. 

And – this certainly weighs heavily – we feel that Our Lord has been taken away from us.  “We don’t know where they put Him!”  Often locked inside a Church building we don’t have access to.

But the minute these beloved Apostles St. Peter and St. John hear the news from the Magdalene, they run to the tomb.  Racing faster and faster – the older man Peter and the younger man John.   John eventually outrunning his elder.

When he got first to the tomb, St. John saw the burial cloths lying there, but didn’t go in.  Perhaps he was deferring to Peter.  Perhaps he was uncertain about what he would find.  So St. Peter charges in – as usual the bold and courageous one, the man of action.  And sees a tiny, telltale sign that will change everything.  He saw not only the burial cloth that covered the body, but the cloth that covered the head lying neatly wrapped off to the side.

What at first seemed too good to be true – clearly began to dawn on them that it really was true.  St. John – always the intuitive one, the contemplative one – the one who sees first with the eyes of faith and not just the empirical evidence – writes one short phrase about himself, as the author of the Gospel and its subject: “He saw and believed!”

That is all it took!  Logic could explain it.  If thieves had taken his body, they would not have bothered to engage in the complex and difficult process of taking off the burial cloths.  The myrrh, the anointing spices, would have been like glue, sticking the wrappings to his body.  No, Jesus was not stolen.  He was risen!

Logic could explain it, but only love could confirm it.  St. John, we remember, was the disciple whom Jesus loved most dearly.  The one who lay his head on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper.  The young disciple who so loved Jesus that he noticed everything about Him.  Including most likely the way that he would fold his clothes as they traveled together for three years in their public ministry.  When He saw the headcloth folded there – St. John just knew.  That Jesus Himself had risen, so had removed His own burial cloths.

Even before Jesus appeared to them in His resurrected glory, and they began to get a full understanding of what it meant for Jesus to rise from the dead, we can only imagine the uncontained joy that soared in St. John’s heart when he saw the telltale sign: Jesus was alive.  Before He saw the glorified wounds.  Before He heard that glorious voice blessing His brother Apostles, “Peace be with you!”  Before he and they received the astonishing gifts of the Holy Spirit empowering them to forgive in Jesus’ name.  He knew, Jesus was alive!  That no matter what happened next, there was cause for great joy.

I stress that point because the lay faithful are now in much the same position not just of Mary Magdalene, but of St. Peter and St. John in today’s Gospel.  They were still not physically with the risen Lord.  It was still dark.  But even without His physical presence, they could rejoice, because they knew that Jesus is truly risen!

We should ask the Risen Lord to grant us that same attitude, as we pray longingly for the day that when together we can be united again with Our Lord and Savior Who is truly risen from the dead in Holy Communion and receive Him Body and Soul.   But still, we already rejoice because we have the sure telltale signs that Jesus has conquered sin and death.  That Jesus has risen from the grave.  The Church bells can still ring even as priests celebrate Masses privately. Since they stand in the person of Christ the Head, they continue to offer adoration and praise, and bring His real and risen presence to churches across the world.  They continue to offer the holy sacrifice of Christ Himself for the forgiveness of their sins and yours.  Like St. Peter and St. John, even before we see the Lord, we rejoice.  Because He is truly risen. Alleluia!

Gospel text Jn 20:1-9