Daily HOMILY for April 2, 2013: Tuesday of Easter Octave, Cycle C

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Tuesday of Easter Octave

St. Luke’s Institute

April 2, 2013

BROKEN HEARTED MARY +++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  In today’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene is heart broken and anxious: she grieves over Jesus’ death

Ø  She is despondent because his body is missing

Ø  Her turmoil is so great that even the appearance of angels does not comfort her

Ø  Her tears keep her from recognizing Jesus when she sees him

2 INTERPRETATIONS +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Bible scholars have interpreted Jesus’ words differently, “Stop holding on to me”

Ø  Did he say it to keep Mary from ritual impurity for touching a dead body?

Ø  Or was he telling her to treat his resurrected body with greater respect?

A 3^RD INTERPRETATION +++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Some scholars offer a third interpretation

Ø  Suspect Mary Magdalene wanted things 2 B way they were before Jesus’ death and resurrection

Ø  She had him back, & she wasn’t about to let him go

Ø  Jesus, however, objects

Ø  Passing from death to life marks a new stage in J’S 2 world, new step in Mary’s relationship w/ Christ

Ø  Sometimes God asks us 2 change R plans, to adjust our way of thinking, to see things in a new way

APPLICATION LADY AND ROSES ++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Woman moved from city to country was eager 2 fill backyard w/ wide variety of flowers, esp. roses

Ø  Disappointment that 1^ST spring when her otherwise healthy plants started losing their blooms

Ø  Some would disappear overnight

Ø  Early 1 morning, discovered what was happening

Ø  A deer was using her garden as a buffet

Ø  That discovery forced her to make a decision

Ø  Would she enjoy the flora or the fauna?

Ø  She made a choice; she changed her mind

Ø  Her garden of flowers would no longer be for her enjoyment; rather, she would enjoy the deer, which came to feast upon them

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Ø  There is an Easter message in that story for Mary Magdalene – and a lesson 4 you & me, as well!

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Weekly HOMILY for March 31, 2013: Easter Sunday, Cycle C -- Our Town

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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!

HOMILY for March 29, 2013: Good Friday, Cycle C

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Good Friday, Cycle C

Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse, Chestnut Hill, PA

March 29, 2013

Passover Then and Now

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Preparation Day

It was a very busy day – the day before a major holiday. It was as busy as the day before Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve.

There was shopping to be done and dinner preparations to complete. The house needed to be cleaned and guests to be welcomed.

Businesses had customers to serve and transactions to complete before the start of the holiday at sunset.

In his account of Jesus’ passion, the evangelist John notes that it was the preparation day before the Sabbath – and that year it was also the Passover feast.

Literally everyone was busy – too busy, I might add, to notice what was taking place in “official” Jerusalem.

In John’s telling, there are no taunting crowds demanding Jesus’ blood

Jesus’ arrest and trial, taking place in the middle of the night, are “handled” by Pilate, his soldiers and the Jewish authorities.

As a result so few people witness Jesus’ death that John can identify them by name.

The Passover in Process

Some scripture scholars believe that John’s account is the most accurate description of what happened on that first Good Friday.

In short, the death of Jesus was not the headline of the day in Jerusalem.

The depiction of massive crowds clamoring for Jesus’ death in the other three gospels was probably not the case – Pilate and his forces would not have countenanced that.

To them, the “Jesus incident” was a Jewish matter that concerned them only in so far as it could disturb public order.

As was their modus operandi, they took care of it as they would any other problem – directly, expeditiously, and mercilessly.

And so, scholars conclude, Jesus died alone, quietly, and out of the way.

A New Passover in Process

So while Jerusalem went about the business of Passover, God was putting into motion a second Passover.

As a brisk trade in the buying and selling of lambs for Passover was taking place all over the city, the Lamb of God was being slain just outside the gates.

While preparations for the Passover Seder continued, the new Passover was completed on a cross, planted on a hill near the city’s garbage dump.

During the Jewish community’s celebration of their journey from slavery to nationhood, God was calling his people to a new exodus from death to life.

Let It Be What It Is!

This Good Friday continues to be a day of preparation.

The events of this day are not an end in themselves, but the means to a much greater event: God completes the work of his second Genesis, in which he recreates humankind in the Paschal mystery.

This Good Friday is God’s calling us to a second Exodus journey, marked in the slaying of his Son, the Lamb, who becomes for us the new Passover Seder.

In our own experience, the darkness of Good Fridays past and present can be seen in our broken promises, lost hopes, unanswered prayers, severed relationships, grief, and death.

And today is our exodus from the slavery of all that pain and sin to the freedom of compassion and forgiveness. It is our “passing over” from this at-times-all-too-painful life to a life in God.

Conclusion

And so, today our own city carries on its business, nearly oblivious to why we have gathered in this church to remember.

Jesus hangs on his cross and the world walks by. On this busy spring Good Friday, God is again transforming humanity at its very core.

And, alas, humanity once again seems too busy to notice! Or do we?