Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Easter Vigil, C

April 16, 2022

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.16.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* Happy Easter, everyone! This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter together into dialogue with the Risen Lord Jesus as we begin the Easter Season.

* After Jesus’ resurrection, he engages in various consequential conversations with his disciples: with Mary Magdalene in the Garden, with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, with the ten apostles in the Upper Room, with Doubting Thomas, with Saint Peter at the Sea of Galilee, with about 500 disciples as he prepared to ascend to the Father’s right side.

* But as we see in the Gospel passages chosen for the Easter Vigil and for Easter morning, the emphasis is mainly on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, what that reality says to us, and what we say to ourselves, God and others as a result. In St. Luke’s account that we hear this year at the Easter Vigil, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James head to the tomb at daybreak to anoint Jesus’ body with spices, but they find the stone rolled away and two angels in the tomb who tell them that the Living One is not among the dead, but has been raised on the third day just as he promised. They then ran to announce this fact to the eleven apostles, who didn’t believe them. In St. John’s version for Easter morning, a confused Mary Magdalene, after seeing the stone rolled away, told Saints Peter and John, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we do not know where they put him.” The apostles ran to the tomb, entered the tomb, saw the burial cloths and head covering, and St. John tells us, “he saw and believed.”

* Jesus didn’t meet them first and say, “Surprise!” He wanted them to have to confront the fact of his resurrection, fulfilling the words he had told them on at least three occasions, that he would be betrayed, crucified, but on the third day be raised. We know that even when they would see him for the first time, they would nevertheless doubt. Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener. The apostles thought he was a ghost. The mind-blowing reality of his being alive 40 hours after his brutal crucifixion was something that they needed time to digest, and he gave them that time, to ponder his words and engage the possibility that what he had said, what the angels in the tomb had said, what the women running from the tomb had said, and for Thomas what the other ten apostles had said, was true.

* The Risen Lord Jesus wants to have a conversation with us like he did with Mary Magdalene calling us by name, with the disciples to Emmaus making our hearts burn and helping us to recognize him in the Eucharist, with the apostles confirming us in the gift of Divine Mercy as we’ll speak about next Sunday, and with the great multitude as he gave us the commission to go to the whole world, proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, baptizing in the name of the Trinity, teaching them to carry out everything Jesus commanded, and knowing the Risen Lord Jesus will be with us always until the end of time.

* But he also wants us to confront the fact of his resurrection and draw its conclusions in our life. The Resurrection is the definitive confirmation of everything Jesus said and did and so it must be consequential. That’s why at both the Easter Vigil and Easter morning Mass the Church has us renew our baptismal vows. Reflecting on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, the Church asks us whether we reject Satan,