HOMILY
Easter Sunday – April 20, 2025
This is the day the Lord has made! … Welcome one and all on this day of Resurrection – this day that defines who we are as Christians. … Welcome to our Catholic family – our Christian brothers and sisters – and those of you from different faith traditions. … And to our Jewish brothers and sisters, we wish you a very happy and blessed Passover. … This is indeed the day the Lord has made!
With the entire Church of Scranton, we give thanks today for 215 catechumens and candidates who listened to the voice of the risen Lord speaking to their hearts and said yes to God’s invitation to grow in faith, including Sawn Mulligan, Fabian Dominguez, Sabrina McKenna and Nathania Palar who were baptized and received into full communion in the Catholic Church here in our cathedral during last evening’s great Vigil of Easter. How blest we are by their presence and commitment to journey with us in faith.
As you listened to the proclamation of the gospel that described the experiences of the first followers of Jesus on the morning of the resurrection, did you notice something unusual? For all that we celebrate this day, we don’t encounter Jesus in the gospel. While Jesus was very present to us throughout the gospels of Holy Week – Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday – today, of all days, we don’t meet him. He doesn’t speak to us or show himself to us in the manner with which we’re accustomed to experiencing him in the gospels.
Saint John tells us that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb in the morning of the first day of the week and found the stone rolled away from its entrance. So she ran quickly to tell Simon Peter and the other disciples of her discovery, even though she didn’t fully comprehend what she had experienced.
The urgency to announce the resurrection – despite not yet encountering the risen Jesus – is far more intensely conveyed in Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels. “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has been raised from the dead.” In other words, do not tarry as you try to make sense of something beyond your ability to understand. Go! Jesus is not here. He is risen. Your journey with him is not over. It’s only begun. So go to your homes – go into the streets – travel to the countryside and proclaim Jesus raised from the dead.
While the gospels tell us that Jesus did eventually appear to his disciples and to others prior to his ascension, from the earliest days of the Church to this gathering, countless numbers of believers have come to know Jesus raised from the dead not because they have seen him. No, they – and we – have come to know Jesus raised from the dead through faith – faith in the power and presence of God alive in our hearts. We’ve come to know the risen Jesus through the Easter sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. And we have come to know him through the community of believers – this community – in which Jesus lives and through which his grace and mercy are mediated to us.
It’s vital that we reflect a bit on what we know about that first Easter day, for we are at no disadvantage when we compare ourselves to the first believers. Like those who journeyed with Jesus to Calvary and who peered into an empty tomb, it can be difficult at times to understand the ways of God and to believe all that we are called to embrace as followers of the Risen One, can’t it? … Some days, despite the faith that rests within our hearts, our lives can feel empty – as we grieve the loss of loved ones – as we experience the consequences of our self-consumed behavior – and as we confront any number of disappointments and fears. … Not unlike the early Church, the harsh realities that we face in our world can unsettle the best of us as we look at wars in the Holy Land and Ukraine – to our own country fraught with division and hatred – to far too many areas of the globe enveloped by unrest and blatant disrespect for human life – not to mention the grief and pain that we experience in our families and personal lives.
Yet, despite the burdens that are borne by so many, if we are humble enough to look beyond ourselves – to acknowledge our need for a savior – and to allow the selfless love of Jesus to become the pattern for our lives, we will surely encounter the Risen Jesus – in the same way that he has been experienced since the earliest days of the Church. It is this same reality that prompted Pope Francis, in announcing the great Jubilee Year of Hope, to invite us to focus on the miracle of Easter. “The death and resurrection of Jesus is nothing less than the heart of our faith and the very basis of our hope” as Christians.
Seven years ago, when we were updating our cathedral to commemorate the 150th anniversary of our diocese, many of you asked that we place a crucifix in the sanctuary. When we looked at options for its placement, some suggested that a crucifix suspended over the altar might block the view of Raphael’s painting of the transfiguration of Jesus. Providentially, however, you can see that from whatever vantage point you look at the cross, your eyes are always pulled beyond it to the transfigured image of Jesus – a sign of hope pointing to his resurrection – and a reminder to us that for as heavy as our crosses may be, the presence of the Risen Lord in our lives always triumphs over suffering and death.
Brothers and sisters, but for the faith that rests within our hearts and prompts us to pray at this hour, we have no guarantees about anything in life, do we? No guarantees save for the resurrection of Jesus where God has the last word.
Just as the risen Jesus is the final image that we see as we confront this cross, in the resurrection, God assures us that no matter how things look – no matter how much it appears that evil has the upper hand – no matter how overwhelming the suffering and pain may be – no matter how hopeless we may feel, the ending of our story has been written by God, who has loved us to the cross and given us all reason to hope.
Simply put, the resurrection of Jesus assures us that, as the mystic Julian of Norwich affirmed, “in the end, all will be well, and all will be well, and every manner of being will be well.” This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad!