Easter Sunday 2020
Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9
Unless the old brain cells let me down, I will remember to my dying day my first Easter in the seminary. The Vigil was spectacular, all bells and whistles—well, maybe not whistles, but tubular bells, kettledrums, lights flashing on, purple drapes falling, music to die for, and a brief and succinct homily from the legendary Mgr. Laurence McReavy.
Easter Sunday morning Mass was memorable in a different way. The principal celebrant was Mgr. Philip Loftus, another iconic figure, who laboured under two handicaps, his voice and his face. The latter was that of a lugubrious bloodhound, whilst the former was the source of his nickname, Clank. With mournful face and beautifully imitable voice, he began his homily with the words “TO-DAY—IS A DAY—OF UNRESTRAIN-ED JOY.”
Despite the delivery, I agreed at the time with the sentiment. There was, and is, no doubt that Christ is risen, that He has conquered sin and death, that ultimately we have no more evil to fear. That was true then, and it is true today.
As the years have passed, however, I have become less sure about the exact terms which Mgr. Loftus used. Certainly it is a day of joy; indeed it marks a lifetime of joy, because the Resurrection has changed the world irrevocably and for ever.
Can, and should, however, our joy be unrestrained? Suffering, death, and evil still exist. Can our joy be unrestrained when millions of people lack basic necessities? when bombs are still falling in Syria? when Iraq still teeters on the brink? when the Holy Land continues to be a powder keg, with much of its population deprived of land and freedom? when refugees are pouring across the Mediterranean, facing misery and death, and causing grave difficulties for the countries in which the survivors land? when churches are being bombed and worshippers blown to pieces as happened last Easter in Sri Lanka? Can our joy be unrestrained when a pandemic is ravaging the world, killing people in their hundreds of thousands and bringing associated problems of financial hardship, and mental and social stress?
Even for the Easter disciples, joy was not unrestrained. The reaction of the first women at the tomb, as described by St. Mark, was terror: for Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John, as it appears from today’s Gospel, there was initial bewilderment.
The penny may have dropped for the Beloved Disciple, but that did not prevent the Eleven, later that day, from cowering in fear, or the Emmaus disciples from being whelmed in misery. Even when the risen Lord had appeared, there was still a degree of ambivalence, as we notice in the episode on the shore, around the charcoal fire of Peter’s denials and repentance.
So joy—yes: immense joy which cannot be destroyed even by suffering, and which will sustain us through our most difficult times, those times when we are called to return to the Garden of the Agony or the road to Calvary; joy which will remind us, in the darkest of days, that Gethsemane and Calvary are stages on the route to resurrection.
But unrestrained joy—I suspect not. That would be an insult to our own suffering, and to the suffering of the world. Let us indeed rejoice today, and let that joy take deep root within us, so that nothing can destroy it, but let it be inextricably linked with compassion. The Lord is risen indeed but, as we shall be reminded next week, He still bears the marks of His wounds.
