2nd Sunday of Easter, A April 12, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
N.B. Technical problems caused the video to cut in and out several times.
Authority is a terrifying thing. And a comforting one. Without the authority of divine revelation and the authority of divine mercy, there are many questions that cannot be answered and many human faults that cannot be overcome. When authority is abused, however, it creates things so terrible that it’s hard to imagine worse.
That Apostles knew this on a deep, experiential, existential level. They are cowering in fear because those with authority – the Jewish high priests and the Roman government – have proven they are willing to use their authority to commit murder. If God’s chosen people can misuse their authority to cooperate with a pagan empire and put Jesus to death, then who could possibly be safe? No one. They are right to be afraid.
And yet, Jesus was not afraid. Even as they jeeringly watched him die on the cross, Jesus remained unafraid. The authority of the Sanhedrin was real and God-given; Jesus told his apostles to obey those who sat “on the chair of Moses.” Jesus gave authority to Judas to cast out demons and heal the sick. Judas’ authority is how he knew when and where to ambush Jesus. Authority abused is what killed him, but the source of that authority overturned that abuse by overturning death itself.
So, even though it’s natural for the apostles to be afraid, Jesus appears and says, “peace be with you.” He then immediately imparts authority to the Apostles: “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.” That’s ambassador language, a royal decree of authority. “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
When Jesus told people “your sins are forgiven,” the Pharisees were reasonably outraged. “Who but God alone can forgive sins?” God empowered prophets to speak of heavenly mysteries, he empowered kings to rule his people, he empowered warriors to destroy evil, but he had never before shared his authority to forgive sins. Now he has. So now the Apostles, who are rightly terrified of authority abused, can find peace in authority used well. Why fear death when it leads to eternal life? Why fear punishment when we know we can be forgiven?
Not that this moment of Divine Mercy has forever solved the problem. The Israelites were God’s chosen people. They wielded divine authority. If that’s true – and it is – and if they abused that divine authority – and they did – why does it shock us that the divine authority given to the Church would also be abused? The corruption of Israel’s authority led to exile, but the line of kings was unbroken until Jesus could inherit the authority from Joseph his father. The corruption of Church leaders causes many atrocities but the line of popes and bishops remains unbroken; the gates of hell will not prevail. Corruption in every generation, yet saints in every generation.
In the wake of terrible abuses of church authority, it is the authority of that same Church used well which offers real hope for peace. God sometimes uses an army or secular judge or civic leader to scourge corrupt Church leaders and draw holiness back to the surface, but political power and money and violence can never say what the Resurrected Jesus says in the Upper Room: “Peace be with you.”
How many times have I been able to offer the comfort of forgiveness and healing and the hope of eternal life to someone whose soul was endangered by some other priest or teacher of the Church? I cannot say for sure, but I can say it has been many times that I’ve witnessed the authority of the Church bring peace to someone whose peace was robbed by prior abuse of that authority.
It’s a terrifying thing, authority, but also a wondrous one. Besides the power to forgive sins, it also empowers us to overcome selfishness. Look again at the 1st reading. It’s no fairy tale. It really happened. Many early Christians – some of them even quite wealthy – offered everything they owned to live with other Christians and share all their resources. How did they manage that? In part because “they devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles,” because authority made it possible.
This gospel way of life has existed ever since. It isn’t saying every Christian gave up all their property. It isn’t saying that becoming Christian requires you to live in a commune without private property. It is saying that some Christians should freely choose to submit to authority in this concrete way. Monasteries and convents formed not long after this and still exist; places where men and women find peace in the choice to give everything they have and everything they are over to the authority of the Church so that their lives and their stuff can be used for the good of others more than just for the good of themselves.
Indeed, a healthy family practices this. Whose house is it? Whose food is it? The family’s. Spouses should not compare incomes; it’s our money for the good of the whole family. I found probably the best explanation of this in the rather unlikely place; an atheistic, foul-mouthed comedian named Jimmy Carr who once said the problem with communism is that it doesn’t scale but that everyone is a communist with their family. Communism also fails because it is atheist and forced. Yet, the principle of “from each according to their ability to each according to their need” does in fact apply to families and monasteries and voluntary Christian community. It does not work for nations.
Acts chapter 2 is not a political philosophy, it is a description of a small community of Catholics who voluntarily extend their definition of “family” to fellow believers living nearby. In order for that to work, however, it requires authority; father & mother in the family, abbot or abbess in the monastery. Authority helps us do what we cannot do for ourselves, which is escape our selfishness. A “servant leader” isn’t someone who obeys everyone else, it is a leader who does you the “service” of helping you get over yourself long enough to do what is genuinely good for the whole group, whether that’s a family, a monastery, a neighborhood, a school, a parish, even a company. Used well, authority is an essential ingredient in creating peace among fallen human beings affected by original sin. Add to that the divine power to forgive sins and suddenly the idea of spending your entire life permanently bound to other people doesn’t seem impossible and terrifying, but stabilizing and hopeful. We are right to denounce those who abuse authority, but do not forget that it is authority used well which offers you the best hope of finding peace in the wake of abuse.
“Doubting” Thomas’ didn’t doubt Jesus, he doubted the authority of the Church – his fellow apostles – when they told him of Jesus. After Judas’ betrayal, we can understand his hesitance. Yet, Jesus doesn’t excuse it. He forgives it, but then he charges Thomas and all the apostles to spend their lives bringing blessings to those who will believe without seeing, bringing blessings to those who, unlike Thomas, are willing to trust the Church’s testimony of Jesus, to trust the Church’s authority to grant what no power in the world can offer: the peace that comes from hearing a man say “I absolve you from your sins” and knowing it’s true even when the man who says it may well be a sinner worse than you.
Authority abused is a terrifying thing, but know that God will overturn death itself to set it right. Authority used well, however, can set you free from sin and selfishness. “Blessed are you who have not seen” and yet still believe. How? How can we believe in whom we have not seen? Because we have it on good authority that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” and that we have life in his name. And not just life, but also peace and joy and mercy and above all, a love greater than death.