Homily for Third Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2015, preached 8 and 11 at St. Margaret Mary

Sunday's readings:  http://usccb.org/bible/readings/041915.cfm

            “You do not have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body.”  Let me say that again – ““You do not have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body.”

            This statement, often attributed to the author C.S. Lewis, although he never wrote it, has become very much in vogue of late.  Writers quote it and celebrities tweet it.  And, I must confess, as I grow older and my body often feels weary and I even feel the heaviness of carrying around an aging, declining body, I might even believe these words .  Fighting a sinus cold and lung infection for the last two weeks and not feeling at all “myself,”  Lord knows there are times when I might even look forward to the hereafter, when I am freed at last from this body-home of mine!  I’m sure some of you can relate.

            Problem is, these words are simply not true, in fact it flies in the face of what Our Lord taught and what we believe to say “you do not have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body.”

            We, you and I, are both - soul and body.  Both, not one or the other.  That might be surprising to many, many who’ve been raised to believe that the soul is what matters, the soul is more important, or even that the soul is somehow better than the body.  Soul good, body bad.  Simply not what the Church teaches.  We humans are body and soul.  Soul good, body good.

            And for many, it’s all about a battle with the body.  This world teaches our young people to not be satisfied with their body, to hate their body even, and it’s not just young people.  I’m convinced that the best-attended church Sunday mornings in Irondequoit is not even a church, it’s L.A. Fitness, where yes, many go to keep their bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, healthy and fit, but many go to worship their bodies and where many put in hour upon hour working to change their bodies into something they hope they’ll like better.

            All week long, as I reflected on this Gospel, I kept coming back to the scene in the upper room – the Lord mysteriously appears before the disciples, and tells them not to fear, He is not a ghost, He is “flesh and bones,” and He invites them to see His hands and feet and touch Him. 

            And the clincher for me – “do you have anything to eat?” They gave Him a piece of baked fish and He ate it in front of them.”

            The inescapable fact of Our Lord’s Resurrection is this – Jesus was truly dead, and He was really raised up again – not just soul, not only a spirit, but body and soul.  Only a body has flesh and bones.  Only a body is hungry and eats a piece of fish.  His is a different body, to be sure, a body the disciples didn’t immediately recognize.  A glorified body, a body no longer subject to death.

            And the resurrection He promises to you and me, sisters and brothers, is this same resurrection – of our souls, yes, but on the last day the resurrection of our glorified bodies as well.  We profess this belief in the Apostles Creed – “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”

            We do not believe in a heaven in which we are mere spirits floating around on clouds.  We believe that Christ will raise us, body and soul, our glorified bodies and purified, sanctified souls re-united, re-integrated, never to die again, destined to live eternally within the life-giving communion of the Trinity.

            Brothers and sisters, that is good news!  And it makes me look differently on my body.  My body is not merely a temporary abode, and it’s not even a permanent dwelling place, but an integral part of who I am and who I will eternally be!

            And if we really take that in, really assimilate that, we can’t help but look very differently on ourselves as bodies and souls.  We will stop hating our bodies, stop yearning for different bodies, stop the battle between body and spirit. 

            We will find newfound respect, even reverence, for our own and others’ bodies.  With this respect and reverence, our desires will become rightly ordered.  We will realize that we can’t continue the desire to possess others’ bodies, or lust after others’ bodies.  We will look on all our sisters and brothers as human beings who are both body and spirit, created in the image and likeness of God, created male and female, good and beautiful each, and we will reverence them.

            One of the marks of our fallen world is the distortion we have all, to some degree, suffered in how we look on our bodies and souls.  In how we think of our bodies as our possessions, as something we own and can do with as we please, rather than an integral part of who we are as God created us.  And this distortion from God’s original plan is a source of great sin, of great disorder.  How much sin there is in the world because of the distortion of how we look upon the human body!

            The good news is that by the power of Jesus Christ, crucified, dead and risen from the tomb, He can forgive us and heal us, resurrect us if you will, from this distortion in the here and now.  As Saint Paul writes, as resurrection people, we are to consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive for God in Christ Jesus!”

            Yes we will still one day join Christ in death, and His empty tomb gives us great joy, great hope in looking to our own resurrection, but His power in us, which comes especially in receiving His own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Eucharist, can begin right now to heal and correct our distorted ways of thinking, heal and free us of our sinful tendencies, and open our hearts and eyes to see as God sees.

            Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, body and soul, never again to die!  Alleluia! Alleluia!

Blessed Easter! Homily for Easter Sunday, 9am, St. Cecilia Church

Today's readings:  http://usccb.org/bible/readings/040515.cfm
Colossians as first reading)

                             

            “You’re all fools!

            “Wasting your time here in church.  Believing in God – might as well believe in a sky fairy.  Intelligent people know better.  Intelligent people don’t need any of that. 

            “And believing that some dude died and came back from the dead and is still alive?  C’mon! What a joke. “

            Increasingly, at least in our part of it, these are the attitudes of the world out there.  Atheists, agnostics and “secular humanists” and even people who could care less either way - are becoming more and more emboldened to mock and look down their noses at people of faith, and will do so especially on this day.  This holiest of days on which we, who have the gift of faith, celebrate Jesus risen from the dead!

            And I dare say that it may be that there are some among us here today, who’ve perhaps come along with family or friends, who pretty much think this same way.

            So I spent some time this week pondering this question – what can I possibly tell them or tell the world out there, that will make them believe that what we believe, that what we celebrate here, that what we celebrate here especially to day – is true?

            I got on line and looked for what wise and intelligent men and women might have written to try to prove that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

            I found an especially good article – an excerpt actually from the book “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” – it’s a whole chapter from that book, written by Drs. Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli – only problem is it doesn’t really “prove” the resurrection.

            Rather, the authors go about discussing all the possible explanations of the resurrection account if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead – such as - perhaps He didn’t really die.  Or maybe His disciples hallucinated?  Or was Jesus as well as His death and resurrection all a myth?  Or was it all a conspiracy – did the disciples all just get together and plot to deceive everyone into thinking this dead man rose from the dead?

            The authors, admitting that they can’t actually prove that Our Lord rose from the dead, set out to disprove all of the possible alternatives to the resurrection, and they do a very good job of it, I think.  Time prevents me from delving into all of their well-thought-out arguments, but I’d like to focus on just two, in answer to the idea that it was all just a big lie, a plot, a big conspiracy:

            First, if the whole thing were a lie, somebody along the way, at some point, would have ‘fessed up.  Would have admitted the lie.  To quote the book – “no one, weak or strong, saint or sinner, Christian or heretic, ever confessed, freely or under pressure, bribe or even torture that the whole story of the resurrection was a fake, a lie, a deliberate deception.”

            But more importantly, this event changed the lives of all of those who witnessed His resurrection – who saw Him die and then saw Him alive!  Yes, His disciples were very different people because of the event that happened that Sunday morning. 

            To quote Dr. Kreeft – “their sincerity is proved by their words and deeds.  [His disciples] preached a resurrected Christ and they lived a resurrected Christ.  [And] they willingly died for their ‘conspiracy.’ Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom.” We pause to remember the 148 students martyred for their faith just three days ago at a college in Kenya.

            Kreeft continues:  “The change in their lives from fear to faith, despair to confidence, confusion to certitude, runaway cowardice to steadfast boldness under threat and persecution, not only proves their sincerity but testifies to some powerful cause of it.  Can a lie cause such a transformation?” unquote.

            Sisters and brothers, it is true that there is no “proof” that we can speak to an unbelieving world and make them believe what we believe and celebrate this day – that is, that Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, was born, died for our sins and to reconcile us the Father, was buried, and on the third day rose again from the dead. 

            But you and I can give them powerful witness, powerful evidence.  And that evidence is the way we live our lives - if you and I live resurrected lives ourselves.  You see, Christ’s rising from the dead defeated death and restores life, and yes, that means on our last day to be sure, praise God!, but it also means right here and now in our lives. 

            You see, we all have our share of brokenness, dishevelment, disorder, sin, in our lives.  We are all sinners, all in a sense, dead in one way or another – be it stuck in a particular sin - greed, or pride, lust, sloth, indifference.  Trapped perhaps in habits or addictions, or maybe burdened by worry or self-doubt, or perhaps carrying grudges, unyielding and closed to forgiveness, or maybe imprisoned in a sinful lifestyle. 

            Christ’s good news today is that by the same power that raised Him from the dead, we, too, may rise.  By the same power that raised Jesus Christ from death, you and I, too, may be set free of all that burdens us, all that ties us down, and live in His freedom, His peace, His great joy.  Set free to live our lives very differently from the world around us.  Set free to lives of great joy, of great peace, of great hope, for He is the only hope.

            Yes, brothers and sisters, if only we ask Him and place our trust in Him, we, too, will rise from all that is dead in our lives.  By that same power we, too, can live lives of faith, not fear, confidence not despair, certitude not confusion, and steadfast boldness not cowardice.

            And you and I will be the most powerful evidence to this world of the presence even now of the Risen Savior Jesus Christ. The most powerful witness.  If you and I live our lives very differently from this world, they will want to know why.  And they, too, will come to know Him and believe.

            And they, too, will share with us the hope and the joy that we celebrate this day – that this life, and its all its brokenness and pain and sin, has been redeemed by the saving power of Our God and Lord, Jesus Christ. That by His death and resurrection, He has once and for all conquered sin and death. And that eternal joy awaits us upon our own Resurrection on the last day, if only we confess our belief in Him and persist to that day.

            Brothers and sisters - Jesus Christ is indeed risen from the dead!  Alleluia!  Alleluia! Alleluia!