Bocelli Easter Present

At 7pm Milan time today (Easter Sunday), he stood immediately above the tomb of St. Charles Borromeo, next to the Blessed Sacrament, ten yards from the statue of St. Bartholomew (appears briefly in the video).

He sang Panis Angelicus, two Hail Mary’s (we’ll forgive him for singing Ave Maria instead of Regina Caeli today), and part of the Gloria. Then he walked out the front door to the piazza and sang Amazing Grace.

If you weren’t one of the nearly 3 million people who watched it live on-line, watch it now. (You can skip ahead to 3:45 if you want to, but I liked the quiet-Milan-cityscape countdown.)

There is hope.

Easter-Vigil Homily

He made the heavens and the earth. He liberated the Israelites from slavery. He sent the prophets to proclaim the Messiah. And then He lay in the tomb, wrapped in a burial cloth.

We read about the cloth yesterday, at the end of St. John’s account of the Passion. And we will read about the cloth again tomorrow morning; St. John mentions how the Lord left the cloth behind, in the tomb, after the resurrection.

In Turin, Italy, they comforted the world today by taking a camera into the vault where they keep the holy shroud. We can all venerate the cloth that wrapped the dead body of Jesus, through the internet.

We do not deal in myths. We have no vague religion. You ask knowledgeable people, when will this virus crisis be over? And the only answer is… some theory. Maybe a solid theory. But a theory. ‘Well, theoretically it could be over by May 31,’ or ‘theoretically it could stretch out,’ etc.

We, however, do not stand on no theory. You’re not reading your phone or computer right now because of a theory. We Christians stand squarely on facts.

He dwells in heaven, the divine and human Christ. Father Kyle spoke Thursday about the Lord’s abiding presence at every Mass, even the private Masses that we priests celebrate these days. And Jesus remains present in the tabernacle of every Catholic church or chapel, 24/7.

The Savior remains with us. We need Him now more than ever, of course.

Also not a myth. Our faith in the Real Presence. Based on facts, like “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood.” “Do this in memory of Me.” “He who eats my flesh remains in Me and I in him.”

Now, a skeptic could reasonably ask: “Wait. You’re saying that one man, one carpenter, who died a long time ago, keeps you company, all over the world? That an ancient Jewish man lives in every little piece of bread you call a consecrated Host?

“Call the epidemiologists! It’s an outbreak of widespread insanity, called Catholicism!”

Ok, ok. We accept your question, Mr. Skeptic. We are not, in fact, insane, but perfectly calm and mentally healthy. How can one man live, in the flesh, in every Catholic church on earth? How?

Two-part answer.

1. He is no longer dead. This man lives, in the flesh, in heaven. He did die. Then He rose again, and left the burial shroud in the tomb. He possesses life, the likes of which we cannot fully imagine.

We do not say that a mortal man like you and me unites Himself with us in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. We say that a man like you and me, Who died and rose from the dead, unites Himself with us, in this way.

2. He is the true God. God made flesh. The Mass involves no magic trick. It involves God making His risen human body present to us. If God Himself did not have a human body, we could have no Eucharist. But He does have one.

Heaven exists. Jesus’ body dwells there. And God, Who is heaven, can make heaven present wherever He wills to do so. And we know perfectly well where and how He wills to do so. He Himself said it: “Take this. This is My Body.”

Death has a grip on the world right now. None of us will ever forget this terrifying nightmare of COVID-19. But heaven has a stronger grip. Coronavirus packs a heavy punch. But the Body of Christ, risen from the dead, stands like a brick wall of undying life.

How Seeing the Risen Christ Benefited the Disciples

After the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He remained on earth for forty days. His disciples got to see Him again. When we get to heaven, please God, we will see Him, too. [Spanish]

In the meantime, let’s consider some of the things that ran through the minds and hearts of the disciples when they saw their Master risen from the dead.

First: When they saw the Lord, the disciples grasped some important, currently invisible facts.

Fact one: The death of the body does not mean that the soul is destroyed.  The soul lives on.

Two: The separation of the soul from the body which occurs at death is not permanent. The power of God united our souls and bodies in the first place. He will re-unite all human souls and bodies at the end of time.

Three: The disciples clearly saw that death is not the final state of mankind.  God did not make us to die; He made us to live.  Our hearts long for undying love, for a fullness of life that is stronger than death. We can have such a life, such a love.

There is more: Seeing Christ changed the way the disciples understood their own pilgrim lives on earth. Christ rose from the dead in His wounded Body. He proceeded to visit the places where He had lived and done His work. In other words, His glorious, undying life filled the familiar places—Jerusalem, Galilee.

For the disciples, to see Christ in the world was to see the world redeemed. This world involves more than just death and taxes. It is the place where Christ, the conqueror of sin and death, walked, talked, and ate, during the time between His resurrection and His Ascension.

When the disciples saw Christ risen from the dead, they learned these truths which currently elude our eyes. They also experienced profound comfort. They were with their beloved teacher and friend again. Just to be with Him was the greatest comfort of all. But along with it came four other comforts, too.

One: When the Lord died, evil seemed to triumph over truth and goodness. But in fact the opposite happened. Good proved to be infinitely stronger than evil. God proved to be infinitely stronger than the devil. Satan had his day, but that day passed. In the end, God won.

Two: Christ had given His disciples many hopeful teachings about the loving care of the heavenly Father, about the sweetness of the kingdom of God, about the rewards that await everyone who strives to serve God faithfully.

When the Lord was killed, the disciples began to wonder if all these hopeful teachings were really true. Their hearts broke with the thought that their Teacher could have been wrong about all the enchanting things He said. As the disciples put it, on the road to Emmaus: “We hoped he would be the one who would redeem Israel. But…”

When Christ came back from the dead, He definitively dispelled these doubts. Lord Jesus was right all along. The heavenly Father is kind and merciful. His Kingdom does come, with all its peace and happiness. Faithfulness will be rewarded.

Third comfort: Christ had always been very good at showing His friends how much He loved them. But now He showed them in an altogether more wonderful way. To conquer death for them—to die, and then come back to them from the dead! What greater sign of love could there be?

A fourth consolation for the disciples had to do with the human body.  As it is for us now, the human body is magnificent, but it bears many marks of sin. There’s the fact that we all inevitably die, plus other signs of the mortality of the flesh, like: bad smells emanating from our bodies, rickety-ness of our bones and joints, getting tired, getting crabby, bleary eyes, bad hair (or no hair), illnesses, corns, acne, bad teeth, earwax buildup, athlete’s foot, etc.

When the disciples saw Christ’s glorious resurrected body, they realized that all these marks of human bodily mortality are temporary. When we rise again in the resurrection on the last day, please God, we will have no blisters, no postnasal drip, no food allergies, no cataracts—no bodily problems of any kind.

Last but not least, after He came back from the dead, the Lord Jesus gave His friends additional assurances about His love and care for them. He forgave them for abandoning Him. He promised to send the Holy Spirit to remain with them always. He gave them the power to forgive sins. He promised to prepare a place for them in heaven.

Some day, please God, we will see Christ like the disciples did and share in their clarity and their joy. In the meantime, we can share in the joy of the Resurrection by believing in it.

The Report

We have received a report. Two thick volumes. Took years to prepare. It recounts the underhanded workings of some seriously evil men. [Spanish]

I have a brother who works as a journalist. Writes for politico.com. He has taken to referring to that report that came out in Washington this week as the “Ferris Bueller Report.”

Not the report I’m talking about.

We have received a report. God started this whole business of human life by putting us in a garden of paradise. We foolishly and brazenly rejected His generosity. The shadow of death then covered the bright sun.

But it is not as if God is not God. By which I mean: Both infinitely powerful and infinitely good. God does not allow evil to despoil His good work–at least not without a plan to bring even greater good out of the evil.

Devil has some tricks up his sleeve. But you cannot outwit God, Who knows all. God may appear to lose a battle to the devil. But God Almighty and all-beautiful does not lose no wars.

We have received a report, dear brothers and sisters. God became one of us, and walked into the capital city. We might think that Washington, D.C., festers like an evil swamp. But they’re having a Boy-Scout conference up there, compared to Jerusalem in 33 AD.

The God-man walked into the brood of vipers, with no weapon of any kind in His Almighty hands. They pounced on Him like piranhas. He bled and died. Almighty God bled and died in our mortal human flesh.

But we have received a report. Not the Ferris Bueller report. The holy and apostolic report.

Volume One awaited fulfillment. St. Peter, St. John, St. Paul; Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke—they gathered facts and gave us the New and Eternal Volume Two.

He rose from the dead.

They saw the tomb, empty, with the burial cloths neatly folded. Okay. Hmm… Empty tomb of the dead rabbi. Investigation needed here. “They have taken the body of our Lord, and we don’t know where they laid Him…”

“Mary… Cephas… Thomas… Paul… It is I.”

We have received the report. They saw Him. They touched His wounded, resurrected flesh. They ate with Him. They listened to Him some more.

He rose. He won. The all-good, all-beautiful, Almighty God-man does not lose no wars. Not with Satan, not with death and destruction, not with darkness and evil. He did battle with death, and won.

How solid is this report? Did the apostles and martyrs base it on flimsy evidence? Maybe the cynics can explain it all away? Spin it as a lovely myth? File it under “Nice Little Stories” for the weekend edition?

Don’t think so. Too coherent. Multiple witnesses, all eagerly ready and willing to die for the truth of it. And, as we experience through a grand tour of Old Testament passages at the Easter Vigil, Volumes One and Two support and confirm each other.

No, we have received as solid a report as you can receive in this world. We, too, will gladly die for the truth of the holy and apostolic report, if it comes to it. Jesus lives.

The Faith

We know that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, because it is a verifiable fact of human history.

Let’s look at it this way. When we read the Scriptures during Holy Week, we encounter a number of unfamiliar names. Malchus, the Temple guard who lost an ear in the Garden of Gethsemane. Alexander and Rufus, the sons of Simon the Cyrenian, who helped Jesus on the way to Golgatha. Clopas, the husband of one of the women at the foot of the cross. Salome, who came to the tomb.

We might wonder why these names appear in the gospels. They appear without explanation. We hardly know anything at all about these individuals; to us they are “just names.” Why did the gospel writers throw those names in?

Simple explanation. Because the gospel writers knew them. St. Mark knew Alexander, Rufus, Clopas, and Salome. St. John knew Malchus. The gospel writers knew them personally. And the people for whom the gospel writers took the trouble to write their books—they knew Malchus, Alexander, Rufus, Clopas, and Salome, too.

So St. Mark and St. John didn’t explain who Malchus, Alexander, Rufus, Clopas, and Salome were for the same reason that I wouldn’t need to explain to you [the English-speaking people of St. Joseph’s parish, Martinsville, Virginia] who Bob Humkey, or John and Joseph Nguyen, are. You already know who they are. See what I mean?

The Holy Gospels put us right in the middle of the original Church–the living, breathing social network of the first Christians. The number of people who saw Jesus after He rose from the dead—not small. Five hundred plus. The number of ancient documents bearing witness to the widespread accounts of His appearances—not a small number of documents. The twenty-seven most reliable ones make up a familiar volume, namely…the New Testament. And there are many other documents attesting to the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

Ancient history is not a science in which anything can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. But an honest historian of the ancient world would readily acknowledge: The evidence for the fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead vastly outweighs any evidence to the contrary. To make the case that He did rise, you can refer to these many documents. To make the case that He didn’t, you need a vivid imagination for conspiracy theories in order to explain away these documents.

So the man rose from the dead. Fact.

What we believe—what we hold by the divine gift of faith—is this: Jesus’ rising from the dead has something to do with us. What makes us Christians is: believing that the mystery of why we exist gets resolved by the fact that this man rose from the dead.

We believe that the mysterious power Who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs, and brought us forth into the light of day, and fills our lungs with air, and spreads the stars in the sky for us at night—God. We believe that He has revealed His plan. Namely, that Jesus’ eternal life would be our eternal life. That is our faith.

The New Testament, therefore, offers us two things at the same time. 1) An impressive collection of historical records from the ancient world. 2) The account of how our family began.

A reasonable person can’t doubt that it happened. What we believe, by the grace of God, is that when it happened, it happened to us.

 

Easter Exhortation

Click HERE for Spanish.

Everyone remembers what happened when the Lord died? The disciples moped along, downcast and directionless. Jesus had been crucified. And the disciples did not understand.

As we recall, on the road, two of these disconsolate disciples met a mysterious stranger who wanted to know what was eating them. These two then expressed the thoughts and feelings of all of Jesus’ followers. “We thought he would redeem Israel. But now our hopes are dashed.”

Now, what kind of Messiah did they think was going to come? Was the Messiah going to redeem Israel without uniting Himself with the suffering of His people? Without offering Himself as the truly pleasing sacrifice to the Father? Without establishing the religion of the new and eternal covenant?

After all, the blood of bulls and goats does not atone for sins. Man, left to his own devices, stands helpless before inevitable death. Something that overcomes the separation between man and God had to happen.

So let’s say to these confused disciples: “God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways not our ways! Human beings see crucifixion as the most shameful death imaginable. Human beings see what happened on Good Friday as discouraging, depressing, totally dispiriting. But God can turn a wooden cross into a gilded throne. God can turn heartbreak into triumph.”

Then Sunday came. The disciples, who had despaired only hours earlier, saw the Lord. And they probably began saying things like, “The heavenly Father has turned the Master’s cross into a throne of glory. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The grave could not hold Him, and He can turn bread into His immortal flesh!”

What kind of savior do we think we want? Do we want some pure spirit who has nothing to do with the trials and tribulations of our human pilgrimage? Do we want an ideal for a savior? Or a theory?

Or do we want some kind of human “savior” that grows up in a mansion and goes to Harvard? The kind that wins lots of prizes during an illustrious career and then retires to Cabo San Lucas? The kind that everybody feels comfortable with? So comfortable that, when he is confronted by contradictions and threats, he backtracks in a heartbeat, saying “Oh, no, when I said the Pharisees were a hypocritical brood of vipers, I didn’t mean you…”

No. To the contrary. I think we want the Messiah we actually have, the true Messiah Who has saved the world. The Messiah Who grew up a carpenter, suffered heroically for His beloved friends, conquered death by dying for the truth, and reigns supreme in a realm too sublime for us even to imagine.

That’s the real Messiah, foretold by the prophets, attested to by the Apostles, who lives with us in the breaking of the bread. The Messiah we never could have foreseen. But Who–now that He has done what the prophecies declared He must do–certainly is the best Messiah possible, the only Messiah possible, our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Surrexit Dominus

—

Christ is risen.

We do not believe in cleverly disguised myths, or shibboleths, or fancies of our minds.

We believe in the divine man Who rose from the dead and was seen by 500+ people. Reliable records of these sightings have been handed down to us.

We do not know much about the life to come. But we know that Jesus is living it. And that He lives it as a man in order to share it with us.

The Future Sea

Which great Old-Testament image shows us what Easter means for us, for the Christians of the world? This event happened originally, many centuries before Christ, in order to show us what Christ’s Passover has accomplished for us…

Moses leading the Israelites through the Red Sea.

You don’t have to watch Charleton Heston’s “Ten Commandments” to perceive the intense drama of the moment. Wind blowing. Hapless Israelites lined up, a cavalcade of refugees, with Moses leading the column, staff in hand. As every second passes, the angry Egyptian charioteers gain ground.

And the Israelites do not have geography on their side. Trying to get to the Promised Land? Good luck! Ain’t no bridge over this here sea! We can imagine that desperate prayers and lamentations burbled anxiously on the lips of Moses and his followers at this moment.

But the Lord impatiently said to His prophet Moses, “Come on, man! Why are you crying out to me? Tell them to stride forward. Lift up your staff. I got you!”

Moses, to his credit, did not panic at this. He did not say, “You mean, we should march into the middle of all that water?”

If it were you or me, we might have said, “Look, Lord, I know You made the heavens and the earth, and blew the spirit of life into all the vigorous creatures of the cosmos. But that’s an awful lot of water out there, and I don’t know how to swim.”

Moses, however, said no such thing. He did not panic. “Adelante!” he said. “Vamonos! We are stepping into that ocean, people, for the glory of God Almighty!”

I said that all this happened in order to teach us what Easter means for us. What does that wide sea represent? The windswept water?

I think we can say that the Red Sea represents a uniquely opaque reality. An impenetrably dark reality. A reality of incomprehensible mystery, when it comes to what our churning little minds can grasp.

The sea represents: All that is yet to come. Every moment, subsequent to now. The future.

This could be our last Easter like this. An asteroid could land right here. Or: Our constitutional system of government could unravel completely. Or, on the other hand: Tomorrow, you or I could meet someone with something beautiful to say, that we have never heard before, and our lives could completely change. This spring could turn lovelier than any spring we’ve ever lived through, and the world could start to look different.

Who knows what’s coming down the pike? All we know about it is that we don’t know. The future is the wine-dark sea.

And what about the voice of the Lord, speaking to Moses? God Almighty saying, “Stop whining and stride forward! I will be glorified by getting you Israelites to the other side.”

He is saying to us: “Vayanse! Don’t tell me you can’t swim. Don’t tell me you’d rather have the leeks and melons and cucumbers you had when you served Satan as slaves. Don’t tell me that you’re not sure you can handle walking through a tunnel of water, miraculously suspended to the right and to the left, and teeming with whales and fish. Don’t talk, just walk. Don’t whine, just step forward in line. I got this. I am God, and I am telling you that I got this thing, the future. I got it. Don’t you worry about it.”

Now, the Egyptians never made it through the sea. What undid them? What does the Scripture say? The Egyptians ________ed, and their chariot wheels got mired in the mud. The Egyptians ________ed, and they sounded the retreat. And, next thing they knew, the dark sea washed over them and drowned them instantly. (panicked)

The Easter candle means this: Be not afraid. The only enemy that we really need to fear, Christ has conquered. Christ has conquered our only real foe.

Adelante, entonces! Forward. The future–unknown as it is, nebulous as it is, as choppy as a stormy sea as it may be: the light of Christ’s Passover candle will shine in it.

Computus and My Brother’s Birthday

Week after next, we will have a full moon.

The Purim moon, which precedes the Passover moon.

Easter always falls on the first _________ after the first _____ _____ after the _________ _________ (March 21).*

If you’re looking for an extra-hard Lenten penance to do… How about: Determine whether or not a period exists during which the dates of Easter repeat exactly. If so, determine what the period is.

Now, I know that Easter occurs with some regularity on March 31, since that’s my dear little brother’s birthday. He had an Easter birthday two years ago, and thirteen years ago.

I know that Easter sometimes occurs on March 23, since Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008, will remain forever etched in my memory as the miserable, cold day when the Georgetown Hoyas got knocked out of the NCAA tournament by Steph Curry and the Davidson Wildcats. It just didn’t seem to me that the good Lord Jesus had risen from the dead so that Roy Hibbert’s college career could come to such an abrupt and painful end.

Painful Easter

Easter occurs somewhat frequently on March 27, which means that Good Friday and Annunciation Day are the same. I remember that happened in 2005. And it will happen again next year.

The most frequent date of Easter? April 19. But we are living through a 75-year period during which Easter never falls on April 19.

Turns out that the mathematicians of the Middle Ages devised a science called Computus, by which to determine the date of Easter in any given year.

And there is a cycle of Easter dates. They repeat exactly, according to form, in a perfect pattern, very regularly.

Every 5,700,000 years.

______________

* Sunday full moon vernal equinox

Prepared to Answer

One thing we can say for sure when Easter arrives: Lent is over.

A couple weeks ago, some people told me I looked thinner. I was like, “Ah–don’t think so. I’m the worst Lenten faster ever. If I look thinner, it’s just a fluke.”

To be honest, I flailed through Lent in a spiritual haze, holding on for dear life, wondering when the Lord would finally bring on spring. I’m sure all of you kept a holier Lent than that. Forty days more focused on prayer, sacrifice, and helping the poor.

Whatever the case, now it’s over. Lent is officially over. And the whole reason we keep Lent has arrived. All our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving serves to prepare us spiritually for the moment when the Church askes us a few simple questions.

Maybe some of us can remember when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Many of us cannot. That whole question is moot right now anyway. We have all grown up and can answer the questions for ourselves.

The moment has come for us to own our answers to these questions The answers are called our ‘baptimal promises.’ The moment has come to put everyting–heart, soul, mind, and strength–into our answers.

We do penance during Lent to prepare for this. We pray, we fast, we impose discipline, so that we can summon our whole selves and answer these questions with all the sincerity of which we are capable, the sincerity of God’s beloved children.

Do you renounce Satan?…