Part I is here
Part II is here
Easter Vigil Part 3 of Triduum 2021 April 3, 2020
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
On Thursday night we began an extended reflection on the idea of becoming perfect, not in the sense of never making mistakes but in the sense of being made complete according to God’s design. It starts with an encounter, an experience of the inexplicable love of God made man. That encounter remains available to you in prayer, in the Church, in confession, and in the Eucharist if you seek it earnestly. The journey to perfection moves from this encounter to a deeper trust, a trust meant to sustain us through the crucifixion, through a dark night where our relationship with God relies on faith rather than feeling. It is this trial, this purification, this death that brings faith towards perfection.
But it does not end in death! Christ is risen! And if you would be perfect, you too must rise! We Christians, especially Catholics, have gained a reputation for saying no. No to this pleasure, no to that idea. The world sees us as obsessed with what people can’t do, with denying ourselves, with the cross, with sin. We’re accused of being exclusive or judgmental.
To some extent, this is inevitable. Our master tells us the world will hate us and persecute us just as it did to him. Repentance and the Cross are required in the Christian life and a Church that accommodates the world is useless… easily replaced by any other organization. But what is so often missing, what is so often lost in our reputation is why we say no, why we hate sin, why Christ died.
Why did the Jewish leaders kill Jesus? If he was formally executed, then what was his crime? Was he killed for what he said no to? For what he rejected? No. He was killed for what he accepted. Recall what we read of his trial last weekend. The high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?’ Then Jesus answered, ‘I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Jesus was executed for what he said yes to, for saying “yes, I am the son of God.” And he said it with courage, with conviction, and if you can believe it, with joy. Jesus died for what he was happy about, not what he was angry about. He died for what he loved, not what he hated. It was not what he lived against, but what he lived for that brought him back to life. So too, our perfection, begun with encounter and matured through suffering, is meant to lead us ultimately to what we live for. We die for something in order to live for something more.
Go to the tomb. Encounter the love of Jesus. Learn to trust him to lead you through the crucifixion, through your death to self. But then, go to the tomb! See the massive stone, the great obstacle of your selfishness, your addictions, your weaknesses… see it rolled back. It may still be there, but it’s not completely blocking the way. You must “seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.” But do not go looking for what he does not have. We don’t come to Jesus to find death, to say “no,” we look for him to find out that we can say “yes” that “he has been raised.”
We are an Easter people! We must mourn our losses, we must lament our sins, we must reject evil and repent, but we are meant… destined to be a people of joy! This is what St. Paul is talking about in our 2nd [to last] reading when he speaks of death to sin and life hidden in God of life in Christ. Paul was a man of profound joy, not a sour-faced teacher. He was so because he lived a heavenly life, the kind of life that we can and should live. How?
We speak often of being disciples of Jesus and that is good, but it is not the full picture. Jesus raises up his followers to more than disciples; He calls them friends, he calls them children. He himself is not some perfect disciple of God, some great student. He is the Son! Being Catholic, being an Easter people does not come from being a class of students and friends. It comes from being a family! We are not meant to just be disciples of Christ, but to be brothers and sisters, to share flesh and blood, not just ideas.
If your faith has become a drudgery… if it has become background noise… if it has become a burden instead of a joy, a no instead of a yes, then listen well! You are meant to know joy! Not pleasure or comfort or success. It’s not quite the same thing as what most people mean when they say “happiness.” Joy is a spiritual happiness that can be experienced even while you’re facing sorrow or pain or loneliness. It is possible to have joy at a funeral, to experience joy while being slandered or attacked. Think of St. Maximillian Kolbe singing praises in the concentration camp, St. Lawrence joking about being grilled alive.
This joy is the flower, the fruit of perfection because it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit… the same Holy Spirit you received at baptism, when you sacramentally encountered Christ, were conformed to his cross, and promised a share in his resurrection. The same Holy Spirit redoubled in your confirmation [and that is about to be stirred up in our two converts tonight].
Perfection – and the joy that springs from it – begins with relationship. It requires death and sacrifice to be made complete, but it’s completion is not an ending, it is the beginning of a still greater relationship! Do you want life worth living? A life of happiness? Of purpose? Of love? Of Joy? Then let Jesus show his love to you… let him earn your trust… let that trust lead you to reject sin, to die to self, to say “no” to what you thought your life was about… but don’t stop because the no gives way to the greater “yes” to a new way of life. We don’t go to Jesus to die, we go to death with Jesus in order to live!
And just as we made our Lent a journey through the fundamentals, a preparation for encounter and the cross, we shall make our Easter a journey into joy, into the spiritual family and supports that nurture and sustain that joy. Even as you continue to carry your cross, to struggle against the same old sins, to wrestle with spiritual minimalism, you can enter into this journey and begin to taste of this joy.
Christ is risen, he is alive! He has gone before you to your spiritual home, a home full of true family, a home full of joy. If you seek him “you will see him, as he told you.” Seek him so that you may be perfect… so that your perfection may flower in everlasting joy.