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Alleluia, Battle Cry of Those Who Refuse to Despair

Homily

Easter Sunday, April 16

at St. Joseph Parish, Detroit

Alleluia, Jesus Christ is Lord, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he has risen from the dead, Alleluia!

“Tell us, Maria Magdalen, what you saw on the way? I saw the tomb of the living Christ, and the glory of the One Who Rose, angelic witnesses, the sudarium and burial clothes. My hope Jesus Christ has risen from the dead! And he will precede the Apostles into Galilee.”[1]

All through Lent we had contemplated several characters of the narration of the Passion of Jesus Christ, the wicked Judas, the weak Peter, and the believing centurion. Let us look at one last Character on this morning of light and life, Mary Magdalene.

At one moment of her life, she was a woman of loose life, possessed by seven demons. And Jesus came to earth, found her, and saved her. But now, Jesus had been tortured and killed, and her world was spinning.

She walked in the dark to the tomb, for it was night. She saw the stone removed, she saw the angels, she heard them teach her about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and she remembered all that she had heard from them. And so we know she was a woman of great contemplation. Yet she was still distressed, and she did not understand. So sad was her state, that when Jesus appeared to her in the garden – the new Garden of Eden, with the new Adam and a new creation – she did not recognize him, until he pronounced her name. Then she knew both him and herself. He told her to not be afraid, and to go tell the others.

So she ran. She ran to Peter, for by going to him, to the Rock, the prince of the Apostles, she in fact went to them all, for where Peter is, there is the Church. She announced the whole message. This woman who had been a great sinner and possessed by seven evil spirits was now the one who announced the Resurrection to the Apostles, for God loves the repentant sinner and does great things with those who are small.

From walking in the dark, she ran to the arms of the Catholic Church. From finding the stone removed, she found later that her doubts were the real stones removed from her loving heart. From not knowing, she was moved to believe. From despair, she was moved to hope. She went from seeing to proclaiming, from not recognizing Jesus to professing her faith in him, from death in the flesh to the resurrection in the flesh.

This is the effect the resurrection should have on all of us who believe. The resurrection is, in fact, promised to all who die; and to those who die in the state of grace, their resurrection will not be to eternal fire but to participation in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrected bodies of all the saints will be like the resurrected bodies of Jesus. And so the world has hope, but only if it believes in Jesus and is baptized.

All die due to sin, and so the unbeliever despairs, he is cynical and all is death and corruption in his eyes. But the believer knows that Jesus rose. We believe in the resurrection of the body not because it would be nice, but because it is true! Death is no longer the final word on man, but grace and resurrection in Jesus the Lord.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to be born of Mary, to die on a cross, and to rise from the dead.

This year, I wish to bring all of this home to a widespread problem in our world, and even in the hearts of many present: the problem of despair. Or maybe it is the problem of discouragement, which we can call “despair light.” Many good Catholics think they have good reasons to justify their discouragement or despair. Parishes are closing. Priests are scandalous. Bishops speak and act in ways to make one shake his head and cast his hands in the air in hopelessness. Spouses are unfaithful. Drugs, pornography, sex and violence infest every household in the whole land. And our society is ever more effective and sophisticated in suppressing the Catholic faith.

But do we forget that, since Jesus rose from the dead, evil has already been definitively conquered? The victory of Jesus simply needs time to play itself out in history. The wise person will take sides with the Lord.

Think of the transformation from darkness to light, form tomb to Church, from death to life experienced by Mary Magdalene. Don’t let the resurrection of Christ leave you indifferent, but allow yourselves to be transformed in that same way in which Mary was.

Jesus has made all things new by rising from the dead, and in his resurrection we find the cause of the exuberant hope and joy of all those who follow Jesus Christ. He has risen from the tomb, and Alleluia shall remain our battle cry. Amen.