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SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (B)

  1. The Easter candle, symbol of the risen Christ, stands tall in our sanctuary which is resplendent in its Easter finery. It will remain in place until Pentecost Sunday when it will be placed at our baptistery where it will preside at our baptisms and funerals. At the baptismal font, it will remind us of St. Paul’s words to the Romans – Are you not aware that we who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him in baptism into his death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.

  2. What function does the Easter candle carry on in its present Easter location? Our Holy Father said of the Easter candle, “It gives light and warmth, that is, it stands for faith and love”. It is in place to proclaim the good news that the risen Christ is our light, the good news for the year 2009; in fact, the good news for all times and all places – that the world has been redeemed by the cross and resurrection of Jesus, that Jesus is truly the Lamb of God once slain who lives forever, that Jesus, our hope, is risen and has gone before us into that eternal Galilee, our final destiny in history. In the meanwhile, between Easter and his Second Coming, he remains truly present with us in sacramental mystery. In fact, sacramental mystery is the best definition for the Church.

  3. Easter, of course, constitutes the original Christian feast – it is a purely Christian product. The first heralds of the Gospel preached first and foremost, not the infant Jesus born in weakness – although this must always remain an essential part of the message – but the risen Christ reigning in power. Often times, this central position of Easter is not reflected in our lives. So many of us remain Christmas Catholics and do not press on to the adult realities of our Catholic discipleship. Christmas is more the domestic feast appealing to the child within us. Easter is the missionary feast – impelling us to share the good news of the risen Christ and his unfathomable riches with all the world. According to the Scriptures, Christ appeared first to Mary Magdalene. She became apostle to the apostles as she excitedly announced the unbelievable good news that she had seen the empty tomb and the Lord was not there. The Lord also appeared to two disciples on the Jerusalem road leading these sad and disconsolate friends to the town of Emmaus. They returned to Jerusalem to become evangelizers to the evangelizers as they told the apostles of their experience and how they recognized Christ in the breaking of the bread. The apostles were so slow to believe – just like Thomas in our Gospel reading today. Finally, the Lord appeared to the eleven, conferred on them the Holy Spirit from the Father, and gave them his great missionary command – “Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation”.

  4. We must focus on our Gospel reading, and set the gospel reading quite realistically in the world of our times. For brevity’s sake, we can use Pope Benedict’s description of our times: “In our days, when in vast areas of the world, the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and thus show men and women of our day the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Mount Sinai; to the God whose face we recognize in Jesus Christ crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon and with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearing, with increasingly evident destructive effects.” Our Gospel reading is most helpful in its articulation of the grace of faith and the work of evangelization. This is true of all the Easter Gospels, but we must make sure that we read them and hear them correctly, that is, that we discern the purpose that lies behind the post-resurrection appearances of the risen Christ. That purpose is to give us all a deeper insight into Christ’s presence here and now in the Church, a presence so different from the historical presence the disciples were familiar with as they followed the Master in his public ministry. When Jesus was in Nazareth he was not able to be in Jerusalem at the same time in his historical mode of existence. Now risen, he is simultaneously present in word and in sacrament whether in Nazareth or in Nantucket, whether in Boston or in Bangkok. Everything in our Easter narratives seems clear and normal except for Jesus himself. The disciples who knew him in the flesh had now the task of knowing him in his new presence among them in the Spirit. The great gift of the Eucharist can help us to understand Christ’s real true but sacramental presence in our midst – “The Blessed Sacrament from apostolic times reveals the tension that is always felt by those who follow Christ – between their belief in the real sacramental presence of the risen Christ and his presence in the Church through the Holy Spirit on the one hand, and the unshakable hope that one day he will return to them, a hope that implies that somehow he is absent.” (D. Stanley)

  5. Our Gospel reading today is also a good lesson on the grace of faith. The author many decades after Christ’s resurrection is writing for second and third generation Christians who, like ourselves, never saw the Lord Jesus in the flesh. To encourage the Easter faith of his readers our author relates the story of Thomas who was not present when the risen Christ first appeared to his chosen disciples. Actually there are two separate stories in the narrative. The author uses Thomas to link the two. One story concerns the original eye-witnesses and the other story concerns the second and third generation Christians and how they received their faith in Jesus’ resurrection. In the first story, Thomas is absent. The Lord commissions the apostles to go out, filled with the Holy Spirit, to proclaim the resurrection and to forgive sins. The second story focuses on Thomas who in the author’s mind represents the second and third generation of believers whom the author is instructing. For the benefit of these believers, the author has Jesus reprimand Thomas for his lack of faith in the apostolic teaching in his refusal to accept the grace of faith from the Holy Spirit validating that experience. The Lord then commissions Thomas, that is, the second and third generations of Christians, to believe in and teach the risen Lord to those who have not seen him in his resurrection appearances. “Happy are those who have not seen but have believed.” This is the author’s message for you and me on this Easter octave day. This is the gift and call we received in Baptism, and this is what 1 Peter tells us in the New Testament: “Although you have not seen him, you love him; even though you do not see him now, yet you believe in him. You believe with an indescribable and glorious joy as you attain the goal of your faith, that is, your eternal salvation.”