Michæl McFarland Campbell

Some thoughts for the First Sunday of Easter. Readings: Acts 10:34, 37–43; Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22–23 ℟ v.24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

℣ Christ is risen, alleluia!
℟ The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!

Joy is the best response

We were created for joy. We never hear someone say,

You know, this whole joy thing is not for me. I wish I had a little more misery in my life.

We are created for joy, but we come to realize that it’s not something we can just buy at the local supermarket. Thinking about the most joyful moments of our lives, is it not true that they were a surprise?

Today’s Gospel gives us an idea of the surprise of discovering the empty tomb. St Mary Magdalene had been there at the foot of the Cross. She had see Jesus die. Crucifixion was not a joke. Being such a horrible way to die, even the Romans eventually outlawed it. So it was, that St Mary Magdalene was not expecting an empty tomb. She knew that Jesus had really died.

So, when she sees the empty tomb, she does not know what to make of it. So she runs and tells St Peter and St John. Both of them run to the tomb. St John beats St Peter to the tomb, he looks in, and then waits for St Peter, the first among the Apostles. St Peter enters the tomb, and then St John follows him in.

What they saw surprised them. We should really say that what they did not see surprised them. The body of Jesus was gone. The burial cloth was there, but the body was gone. The Greek actually says that the burial clothing was lying there in its folds. It was as if the body of Jesus had just evaporated and left the clothes lying there as though there were a body. But a body there was not.

Imagine the surprise. What has happened here? We are told in the Gospel that St John saw and believed. He believed that Jesus had risen from the dead! The surprise must have overwhelmed him. But as he began to believe, he was filled with joy.

Joy is the best response to Easter. Who could have ever imagined that death could be conquered? That is the meaning of Easter. Our deaths are not the end. Just as Jesus rose from the dead, we will rise from the dead. Body and soul, we will live forever.

Suffering does not have the last word. Death does not have the last word. No. The Love of God, given to us in Jesus Christ, the Love of God has the last word. This is why the response to today’s Psalm is

This day was made by the Lord, we rejoice and are glad.

On Easter Day, we also are surprised by the presence of the Risen Jesus. We, too, are filled with joy.

When we realize the gift of Easter, joy is the best response.

The Saint of joy

The St Philip Neri, the founder of the Congregation of the Oratory, was known as the Saint of Joy. His antics were legendary. On one occasion four Polish nobles came to visit him. He welcomed them and started to read a book of jokes to them. Every so often he would stop laughing to remark,

You see what wonderful books I have, and what important matters I have read to me!

They went away grumbling about this charlatan who pretended to be a saint. He would also go around Rome with large white shoes on his feet, or dressed in a marten skin cloak, or have his beard shaved off only on one side, or get a haircut in church while Mass was being sung. When he was being criticized by others for his supposed ignorance, he made sure to mispronounce some Latin words during the Mass while they were present. He once said that

a cheerful and glad spirit reaches holiness much more quickly than a melancholy spirit.

St Philip Neri, was a man who had been surprised by the incredible Love of Christ. He realized that joy was the best response.

This day was made by the Lord, we rejoice and are glad.

Tell your story

The Easter story is the most wonderful story ever told. But it is not simply a story told for fun, it is a story that also happens to be true.

Think about how fast good news spreads.

If I really believe that Jesus died for me and for each person, do I not want to tell others?

If I really believe that Jesus rose from the dead at Easter, do I not want to tell others?

If I really believe that Jesus is alive, and wants to fill our lives with healing, freedom, and joy, do I not want to tell others?

Our faith, Christianity, spread because Christians told their story. In our own time, people will come to find joy in Christ if we tell our own story about finding that same joy.

Today, as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we know that He wants to be both our strength and our joy. After we receive communion, in church or at home, let us take a minute and ask Him, “What is my story?”

Surely every one of us will remember one moment when we realized that our life was different because I know Jesus Christ. Can we share that moment with someone else?

Someone else in this world is waiting to hear that story. Someone else is waiting to experience the joy of Easter.

As it is Easter, let us join in praise by singing the Regina Cæli:

Joy to thee, O Queen of heaven, alleluia;
He whom thou wast meet to bear, alleluia;
As he promised hath arisen, alleluia!
Pour for us to God thy prayer, alleluia!

℣ Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia!
℟ For the Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!

O God, who, by the Resurrection of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, hast brought joy to the world: grant we beseech thee, that, through his Mother the Virgin Mary, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Some thoughts on the readings Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B).

God wants friends, not robots

Why do so “many disciples,” as St John puts it, decide to stop following our Lord after His explanation of the Eucharist as the “living bread,” while at the same time the Twelve stay with Him?

This question touches one of the great mysteries of our existence: human freedom.

Somehow, in the depths of the human heart, God leaves us free to accept or to reject the gift of faith. No one can manufacture faith in God, it is a gift that always begins with God, comes from God: “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” But the choice to accept or to reject that gift, to follow Jesus or turn one’s back on Him, remains with each individual. “Do you also want to leave?” Jesus Christ is the Lord of life and history, but He refuses to impose His rule on hearts that want to stop accompanying Him, and return to their former way of life. God gives us the gift of life, but He leaves us free to adminster it as we wish, either in communion with Him, or not.

Try to imagine how Jesus spoke the words,

Do you also want to leave?

St John 6:67

Try to picture His expression as He looked into the faces of His chosen Twelve. He cared deeply about them. He had handpicked them to be His closest companions. He had opened up His heart to them, and now, as other followers said “no thanks,” giving up on Him, He looked to the Twelve with a tinge of sadness, perhaps apprehension. Would they abandon Him too?

How near God draws to us in Jesus Christ! He humbles himself, makes Himself weak, almost powerless in the face of our freedom. He does not want mindless robots or heartless slaves: he wants friends, for ever.

Wisdom from the artists

Through the ages, this basic and fundamental fact of Christianity has come across exceptionally well in art. In every period of Church history, Jesus is most frequently protrayed in one of two ways.

First, as a little baby in the arms of His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. This isn’t just an artistic symbol: this really is how God came into the world, as a helpless little baby. But what a strange way to depict the all-powerful Creator of the universe! And yet, from the perspective of our Christian faith, it makes perfect sense. God does not want to intimidate us into following Him. He wants to win over our friendship. So He doesn’t show up amid fire and thunder. No, He smiles at us with the irresistable charm of a child.

In pre-Christian times, pagan temples were designed to give exactly the opposite impression. To get to the central place of worship, you had to make your way through a series of antechambers, each one darker and more foreboding than the one before. By the time you reach the actual altar, where a huge statue looked down at you out of the flickering shadows, you were breathless, tense, fearful, and thoroughly intimidated. Paganism had no concept of the true God, the God who wants friends, not robots.

The second way that Christian artists have most often depicted Christ is on the Cross. There, as He suffers and dies, we see not the weakness of a wimpy divinity (after all, we know He rises from the dead), but the unconquerable mercy of the God who wanted to prove beyond any doubt that His love for us truly is personal, determined, and forgiving. This is a God who really cares about us, and cares about how we respond to His invitations.

As Pope Benedict XVI said in a Christmas homily:

Every man and every woman needs to find a deep meaning for their existence. And for this, books are not enough, not even Sacred Scripture. The Child of Bethlehem reveals and communicates to us the true ‘face’ of the good and faithful God, who loves us and who does not abandon us even in death.

Respecting others as God respects us

A mature faith is, among other things, a conscious faith. Jesus does not want us to remain spiritaul infants for our whole life. Rather, He wants us to follow Him in freedom and in love, fully aware of what we are doing. When He allows trials and tests to come away, it gives us a chance to deepen that awareness, to exercise our freedom and our love. And when we exercise them, we strengthen them. God wants mature followers, not robots, zombies, or fanatics.

If God treats us with so much respect, we ought to treat others in a like manner.

During the Last Supper, Jesus commanded His Apostles to

love one another as I have loved you.

St John 15:12

Imitating Christ’s love involves being ready to sacrifice our own likes and comforts for the sake of others, as Jesus sacrificed His on the Cross for our sake.

But, it also means treating others with this deep sense of respect. When we lose our patience with the people we work with or live with, we end up failing to respect them as God has respected us. After all, when has the Lord lost his patience with us? When we try to manipulate people, tricking them, flattering them, or forcing them into giving us what we want, we end up violating their dignity as human beings. When has God forced us to do the right thing?

God knows that, in the end, only if our faith matures and deepens, if it becomes truly conscious, will we be able to weather the storms of life, and triumph over the temptations of life.

Today, as Christ comes to us once again in the Eucharist, proving His desire for our friendship and happiness, let us take His hand and promise to follow wherever He leads, knowing with absolute certaintly that He can never lead us astray.

Readings:

1 Kings 8: 22–30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6: 10-20; St John 6: 56-69.

The Holy Spirit works quietly

We all like spectacular fireworks. They are exciting, impressive, exhilarating. The Church’s first Pentecost had some spectacular fireworks. The Apostles and other Christians were gathered “all together in one place”. Where that was precisely, we do not know.  It was probably somewhere inside or near the Temple in Jerusalem as right after the fireworks, crowds started to gather. It may have been the same large room where our Lord and the Apostles had eaten the last Supper. Nothing is certain. 

So, they were all in one place, then a thunderous noise like a strong wind, like a tornado, came from the sky. And then flames appeared. Flames of fire just appeared out of nowhere—spontaneously—hovering in the air. These flames divided up and started floating through the air until they came to rest on each of the people gathered there. 

The fireworks didn’t stop there. All of a sudden, the Christians present started speaking in languages that they did not know. A crowd had gathered by now, an international crowd, with visitors from all over the world who were in Jerusalem for the festival. Each one heard the Christians explaining the Gospel in their own language. 

This was a dramatic, spectacular display. 

We would be wrong to conclude from this spectacular display that this is the Holy Spirit’s normal way of acting in our life. In fact, it is just the opposite. God’s action in our life most often is gentle, hardly perceptible at first. How does our Lord send the Spirit to the Apostles after his Resurrection? He breathes on them—quietly and subtly. How does St Paul describe the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church? Like the soul of a body—powerful, essential, but invisible, subtle. 

The Holy Spirit works quietly. 

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The example of Mary

Consider the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Bible tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary was right there in the Upper Room, waiting with the Apostles for the coming of the Holy Spirit. She was the mother who had given birth to the head of the Church, our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, in Bethlehem. And now she is the mother who is helping to give birth to the rest of the body of the Church at Pentecost. 

What was she doing? Praying with them certainly. But she was probably also serving them, being a mother tom them in the midst of their confusion and nervousness. They probably asking her about her son, Jesus, and listening—maybe for the very first time—to the story of His birth and childhood. Maybe this was when they first heard about the Annunciation, the day that the Archangel Gabriel came to her and explained that “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you and you will conceive”. She probably told them about the many conversations she had in her heart with the Holy Spirit after that day, the ones St Luke referred to in in his Gospel when he wrote: “And Mary kept all these things, contemplating them in her heart.”

This is the key. To contemplate is to go over an idea in the silence of your mind and converse about it with God. That is what Our Blessed Lady Mary was always doing. Becoming the spouse of the Holy Spirit did not bring fireworks and fancy balls into her life, it brought meaning, mission, wisdom, and courage—and just as seeds take root and grow in the unseen darkness of the soil, these virtues take root and grow in the quiet centre of the soul. 

Quiet, gentle, unseen, yet powerful, transforming, and everlasting—that’s the work of the Holy Spirit. 

St Teresa of Calcutta put it beautifully when she said: 

“God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

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Obeying the quiet voice

There is only one condition attached to the gift of the Holy Spirit. To experience God’s transforming presence in our lives, we have to obey His will out of love. “If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word,” as Our Lord Jesus says in the Gospel. 

All of us here today want to obey God’s will in our lives—some want to do so passionately, others with reluctance, but we all want to—otherwise we would not be here. But how do we know what God’s will is? 

The Holy Spirit quietly reveals God’s will to us in two ways. 

First, He inspires and guides the teaching of the Church. 

We have the commandments of the Bible; the instructions of the Catechism; the examples of the saints; the regular updates from the writings of our spiritual leaders. The Holy Spirit wants us to know how a Christian ought to live, He gives us the Church to keep us posted. In this way the Church is like the conductor of a symphony: we have to keep our eyes on its leader if we want to play our part well. 

But the Church can only give commandments and guidelines that apply to everyone. That tells God’s will 85% of the time. 15% of the time we are faced with opportunities and challenges unique to the circumstances of our life. That is when the Holy Spirit guides us more personally, through inspirations, through His seven Gifts; the Gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. 

In both ways, He is hard at work, quietly but surely, building up our happiness and the happiness of all around us. 

Today, let us renew our commitment to follow and obey—not to experience spiritual fireworks, but in order to feed the fire of God’s love in our hearts, the fire whose light and heat we all need so much. 

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Do not be afraid

One of the constant refrains in the Gospels is the admonition of Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ: “Do not be afraid.” When the Lord draws near, it is our natural tendency to be afraid. We can be afraid of his presence. We can be afraid of what he might ask of us. We can be afraid of our limitations in the face of the call to true conversion and holiness of life. We can be afraid of our apparent obstacles along the path of our Christian discipleship. As our confidence in God increases, our fear decreases. As our love increases, our fear disappears. Of what are we afraid in our relationships with the Lord? Are we surrounding our fear by giving ourselves in faith?

Henry Tanner’s Annunciation

Henry Tanner created a remarkable painting of the angel Gabriel’s annunciation of the Incarnation. On the left-hand-side of the painting we see a column of light representing Gabriel. On the right-hand-side we see a young girl sitting on a simple bed. From the expression on her face, we see that she was not expecting this encounter, we see that her life is about to undergo a dramatic change. Her hands are clasped together, her face reflects both a curious mixture of uncertainty and a dauntless trust in what God is asking her through the angel’s words.

When God asked the Blessed Virgin Mary to become the Mother of Christ, she said, “Yes.” This was not an easy affirmation; she had not idea what her consent would imply.

However, the Blessed Virgin Mary remembered why. God was calling her: God would give her the strength that she would need. The Blessed Virgin could offer her life in service without knowing the reward, since love is its own reward.

Henry Tanner’s remarkable painting today hangs in the Philadephia Museum of Art. The painting reminds us that whether it is a summons from an angel or a cry from a cranky infant, or a call to help someone in need because of COVID-19, if we remember the “why” behind our action, then that action becomes a prayer.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.