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Easter Sunday, Cycle C
Sisters of St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill
12:30pm Hall, St. Margaret Parish, Bel Air
March 31, 2013
Our Town
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
The Play
When
I was in high school, I remember reading the play Our Town in English class. The play was written by American
playwright Thornton Wilder and for us, it was required reading.
It
is set in the small town of Grovers Corners in New Hampshire in the 1930s.
It is the final act of the play that I find very moving. Those who have died are seated in chairs that
are arranged in neat rows on the stage.
They are facing the audience, but the
people of the town just stare straight ahead, without moving their heads or
their eyes. Some of them are old, some are middle-aged, and some are very young.
The narrator walks slowly between the
rows of chairs as he tells the stories of these people: when they died, how
they died, and the families they left behind.
After finishing the stories, he walks
to front and center stage and looks directly out at the audience. Pausing, he
says:
“Now there are some things we all know. We all know that something is eternal, and it
ain’t the earth, and it ain’t the stars…
“Everybody knows in their bones that
something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. There’s something way down deep that’s
eternal about every human being.
“They’re waitin’. They’re waitin’ for
something that they feel is comin’.
“Something important, and great. Aren’t they waitin’ for the eternal part in
them to come out clear?”
The Eternal – Resurrection
Well, the narrator in Our Town makes quite a point.
Deep down in our heart, something tells us that this
life is not all there is. Deep down in
our heart, something tells us that there is life after death.
Our Scripture readings this evening/morning confirm
the intuition of our hearts.
Easter tells us that physical death is indeed not
the end, and that there is more; there’s a resurrected life of oneness with
God.
Signals of Transcendence
Theologians speak of “signals of
transcendence.” In truth, the term is one of those lofty sounding expressions
that has a very simple meaning.
A “signal of transcendence” is something in
this life that puts us in touch with something else that is richer and fuller
beyond it. It can be compared to the
sound on my cell phone.
When the sound goes off, I hit “answer” and
speak with the person calling me. The
sound puts me in touch with the other person.
Well, a similarly a “signal of transcendence”
is something in this life that tells us that there is a life beyond. It can be
something right inside us, or something outside us that connects us to something
beyond us.
Signals
(1) For example, we all experience some degree
of happiness. We might have a loving
family or loving friend, a good job, or a comfortable lifestyle.
And yet, even with any or all of these, isn’t
it true that we still hunger for more and find ourselves saying, “If only I had this or if only I could do
that…”
Our very experience of happiness still leaves
us hungering for something more.
(2) We’ve all had the experience of seeing a
newborn baby or of noticing the stars on a dark night or of being mesmerized by
the power and rhythm of the ocean. These
experiences of human life and of nature are magnificent.
And don’t we find ourselves caught up in them
to the point of wonder – wonder at what lies behind and beyond them?
These experiences can also leave us hungering
for something more.
(3) And then there is simply this yearning for
life within us. We want to live and we
almost rebel at the thought that life seems to end with physical death.
Tonight/Today we must ask: “Where does this yearning come from? What is the origin of this insatiable hunger
for life and living for fullness?”
Conclusion
I would suggest that these hungers or wonder
within us are “signals of transcendence.”
They point to something beyond this life and assure
us that we are made for another world.
Let this Night of Nights/Feast of Feasts confirm our intuition and our
experience.
Yes, the Resurrection of Jesus is a clear
confirmation of this.
Through the risen Christ, we are assured that
death is only a passage to another form of life, a resurrected life with God and
that that union will finally satisfy the deepest hunger and wildest wonder of
our human hearts!
