Friends
Peace be with you.
When I was growing up, every Sunday night my mom would pop popcorn in a black popcorn popper, put it in a white rinse tub, and put it in the middle of the living room where my four siblings and I would lay around watching TV and devouring it. My parents would generally take a popcorn bowl to their recliners and sit with us. I still do this if I’m able, although now I’m the one sitting in a recliner. However, we always chose to give up popcorn for Lent, as a kind of family experience of fasting. That was perfect because, after we would have a huge Easter meal, either at home or at one of our grandparents’ houses, we would look forward to snarfing down popcorn that evening. It felt like we were done. We’d completed Lent and our life could get back to normal.
The longer I’m a priest, the more of a problem I think this is. Lent is meant to be like spring training for baseball or rehearsals for a play or studying for a Commercial Driver's license test, which I need to do by the way. Lent is meant to prepare us for an Easter life, not to be an end in itself. It’s meant to build up our strength and renew our life of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We’re not meant to go back to the way things were but we also aren’t meant to live a perpetual life of Lent. Instead, I would like to suggest there are three things, from today’s Gospel, that indicate what living an Easter life is all about.
First, notice that the first thing that both the angel and Jesus say to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary is “Do not be afraid!”. The world and even certain movements in the church seem to be focused on motivation through fear. With all due respect to those who have a deep devotion to Fatima, while I truly believe miracles have been associated with the appearance of our Blessed Mother from there, I also believe there are people who seek to cause a lot of confusion and fear from their belief that the third secret of Fatima is still hidden. I worry that they’ve missed the point. Jesus said do not be afraid. Among St. John Paul the Great’s first words were “do not be afraid”. We must be courageous in a world that seems to be growing increasingly hostile to Christianity and, in particular, the gospel of life. If someone tells you to be afraid in order to get you to change, remember Jesus’ message: do not be afraid!
Secondly, we are called to a genuinely personal encounter with Jesus. The two Mary’s first encounter the angel and then encounter Jesus. When they encounter Jesus, they fall at his feet, embrace them, and did him homage. We have to have this same attitude in our liturgy. It must be a place of encounter. Sometimes people complain that we do some things differently at St. Patrick’s than the way other churches do them. I would suggest that there are legitimate differences that parishes can have that don’t mean one or the other is heretical. It drives me crazy to hear people who love the Latin Mass, for instance, claiming that Mass in English is wrong or vice versa, people who claim that those who love the Latin Mass are wrong. I would suggest that, when we get so critical of the form of Mass that we make fun of it or complain about it, we are missing out on the legitimate encounter with Jesus we are meant to have there. Even the worst Mass in the world, as long as it’s valid, can be a profound encounter with Jesus if we open our hearts to it.
Lastly, notice that Jesus calls his brothers to go to Galilee. They have to set out and, eventually, receive the evangelical mandate. We know that, for years, we have been losing congregants rather than gaining. I’ll admit that I feel happy at seeing more people coming to church now than when I first arrived but I sometimes worry that some of that is more people who attended other churches who are coming here because I’m getting a reputation as Fr. short homily. If I’m wrong about that, I apologize. While everyone is welcome here and I hope no one ever hears me say that you can only go to Mass at St. Patrick’s. The truth is that there are far more people who have fallen away from practicing their faith or who have never heard the message of the gospel who need to hear that Jesus is risen, that he is alive, and that he is truly present in all eleven parish tabernacles in the Cedar Rapids area. And it must be us who spread that message. Lent may be over but that was just preparation for our life of Easter evangelization. Do not be afraid, Jesus will be with you to reach out to those in need of hearing the gospel. Tell them he is alive, that he is here, and how much he loves you and them.
