Sermons and Reflections from the Abbey

Easter Sunday April 8, 2007

Easter is the most crucial touchstone of our Christian faith. One human being, programmed for disbelief, finds hundreds of reasons to remain attached to disbelief. Another person, who has made the commitment of faith, finds hundreds of reasons that confirm, justify and validate his faith. No one can be neutral. You can pretend that you suspend your judgment, but truthfully the one who pretends to be an agnostic, only switches back and forth between belief and disbelief. The witness of the disciples of Jesus made a good case that their evidence led them to believe. ”They saw and believed” –– what they saw is a piece of evidence belonging to this world: the empty tomb, the burial shroud rolled up, but what they believed about him who is beyond this world -- the risen Christ, the message of angels, the ongoing life of Jesus’ body and soul, -- all these belong to another world, the world to come.

The faith of Easter not only enables us to look beyond this life, and see beyond what is transitory and passing, but also leads us to accept the spiritual side of our own being, our own inner life and helps us reject the suggestion that issues like absolute truth, absolute values, everlasting life, ultimate justice and purpose belong to the realm of false dreams and vain hopes.

When God reveals that he is truly and fully committed to our salvation, there is a real temptation to withdraw and remain cornered in a small mini–universe, a final I–DO–NOT–KNOW, in which a human being may postpone his commitments indefinitely. But we do not want to remain aimless pilgrims; we do not want to remain on a journey that leads to no place in particular.

We cannot say with the apostles, ”We saw and we believed,” for we are the ones of whom it was said, ”Happy are those who did not see, yet believe.” We have heard the apostolic witness and we believe. We have heard the witness of the scriptures and of the Church and so we believe. The same witnesses who saw him die, told us also that they saw his tomb empty and met him in his risen body, and touched him after he rose from the tomb. We are trying to learn that the purpose of God’s salvation plan had to include suffering and death for we understand that mortal man is saved by God joining us in death and leading us beyond death, beyond the decay of the grave, to become like him: a seed falling into the ground, a seed that must grow from the soil of decay into the newness of risen life.

We believe because we experience in ourselves the possibility of renewal of life, the energy of the risen Lord creating new beginnings in us and leading us to the novelty of inner life. We are given a path leading to renewed attitudes, hopes and expectations that reach out beyond our limitations, discovery of new modes of loving, new hopes that go beyond our own strength.

The modern expression of ”celebrating life” should not mean for us a pagan attitude of clinging to this earthly life and its excesses, but rather the Christian love of a life that knows no end. The gift of Easter is the gift of facing mortal life and all its burdens and trials as a path to everlasting life, eternal communion with God and each other. We should unite at his celebration with all our loved ones, both alive and dead, and celebrate the heavenly banquet of the Lamb, Jesus feeding us with his own self and turning us into God’s dear children, eager to serve him in all sorts of good deeds.

People speak of Lenten resolutions and often keep them meticulously. Maybe we should think about Easter resolutions, decisions that lead us after Easter into a better life. What do I have in mind? I think of a resolution to remain in touch with the invisible yet very real and very true reality of the risen Christ. To see in suffering people the dignity of being called to everlasting life, to keep before our eyes the ongoing presence of the risen Lord, to cling to the Eucharistic presence on a daily basis, to seek the deeper, the ultimate, the lasting and everlasting dimension in every-day existence. To dedicate ourselves to an ongoing program of transforming the Passover from this mortal life into an immediate and everlasting vision of God’s presence and work on this transformation each day and all the time.