Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Agnes Church, Manhattan

Third Sunday after the Easter Octave

April 25, 2021

1 Pet 2:11-19, Jn 16:16-22

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.25.21_Homily_EF_1.mp3

 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

* At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus says something extraordinary about the consequences of his resurrection in the life of believers. The passage is taken from St. John’s Account of Jesus’ Last Supper discourse to the apostles. Jesus is describing how he is going to be temporarily ripped away through his passion and death and how they will weep and mourn while the members of the Sanhedrin, Annas and Caiphas, Herod and Pilate, Barabbas and the mob, the devil and the fallen angels will rejoice, but he says that that grieving will be just a fleeting anguish, like the labor of a woman giving birth. When Jesus rises and returns, when he sees them and us, again, he tells us, “Your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy away from you.”

* The joy of Easter is something that no one is ever supposed to take away. Easter joy is not meant to be an ephemeral experience on Easter Sunday or one that lasts just for an octave or even a 50-day season. It’s not something, to paraphrase St. Peter from today’s first reading, that’s contingent on who is king or governor or president, or what community we live in, or whether we’re slave or free, or suffering or in good health. It’s not conditioned by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or which sports team is in first place, or what we had for breakfast. Truth incarnate is pretty emphatic about the impact Easter is supposed to give us: “Your hearts will rejoice,” he says, “and no one will take your joy away from you.”

* The Church proclaims this joy at Easter. “Haec dies quam fecit Dominus: exultemus and laetemur in ea,” we sing in the Gradual on Easter Sunday: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad!” In the Exultet that begins the Easter Vigil, we proclaim, “Laetetur et mater Ecclesia…,” “Rejoice, let Mother Church rejoice, arrayed with the lightning of [Jesus’ risen] glory, let this holy building shake with joy, filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.” I love the Eucharistic Preface in the Ordinary Form that I celebrate with the Sisters of Life most mornings, in which to the Preface of the 1962 Missal we’ll use later the words, “Profusis paschalibus gaudiis” are added: “Therefore, overcome with Paschal Joy, every land, every people exults in your praise.” Easter joy is meant to overwhelm us. It’s supposed be profusely flowing out of our pores! This is the joy we proclaim this joy in our hymns: “Regina Caeli, laetare,” “Rejoice, Heavenly Queen!,” “O Let us swell the joyful strain,” “Raise your joys and triumphs high.” Not only the entire Easter season but the whole of Christian life is meant to be an Ode to Joy given to God for what Easter is and means. Jesus came into the world, took on our nature, lived among us, preached, suffered, died, rose, ascended and sent the Holy Spirit so that, as he said earlier on Holy Thursday in St. John’s Gospel, “My joy may be in you and your joy be complete!” And no one, he says, can rob that joy from us. The only one who can eradicate that gift is ourselves, if we refuse to live in the joy of Easter or fritter or toss that joy away.

* Perhaps the greatest scandal in the Church, and certainly one of the biggest pastoral problems, is that so many Catholics — including, sadly, not a few bishops, priests, religious and consecrated, Sunday and daily Mass-goers — simply do not radiate joy. They don’t rejoice in the Lord’s day or most any other day. Their hymns, even during the Easter season, are rather glum,