Easter Sunday 2024
Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9
The Easter of 1972 was my first as a seminarian, a student for the priesthood. More than half a century on, I still remember the homily, which was preached by Mgr. Philip Loftus, the President of the College. Mgr. Loftus was, in many ways, a great man, but he suffered from two handicaps, one of which was his voice, and the other his face, which resembled nothing so much as a particularly doleful bloodhound. His voice, meanwhile, had earned him the nickname Clank, sounding as it did like a rusty chain being dragged across rough ground.
Consequently, it seemed somewhat incongruous when Mgr. Loftus began his homily “TODAY---IS---A -DAY-----OF---UNRESTRAIN-ED JOY!”
But was he correct? For a long time I believed that he was. The resurrection of Jesus the Christ, true God and true man, marked the ultimate defeat of evil. Jesus took all the evil of the world, and carried it with Himself into death. In doing so, He brought about its defeat, ensuring that evil can never have the last word. Whatever may attack us, whatever may afflict us, whatever may defeat us, cannot defeat humanity, because it has all been conquered by the risen Christ. In the end, evil cannot survive: surely this is a reason for glorious, thrilling, immense joy.
Indeed it is. The early Christians used to greet each other in the streets with the words “Christ is risen” to which the response was “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” Sheer joy filled them, and it should fill us: it should be the driving force of our lives.
And yet, can it really be unrestrained? Can it be unrestrained when so much of the world’s population still goes hungry? When hundreds of thousands of people die by violence every year; tens of thousands of them in the land where Jesus died and rose victorious over death, tens of thousands more in Ukraine, and in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Haiti, and in countless forgotten conflicts? Can it be unrestrained when human rights are denied to so many in China, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, among other nations? when the Soviet Gulags are flourishing again in Putin’s Russia? when our own lawmakers hold life cheap? when obscene wealth and even more obscene deprivation stalk the towns and cities of the developed world?
The philosopher Pascal claimed that Christ is in agony until the end of time. He is in agony because His body on earth is racked by suffering. Christ suffers with and in a suffering world, and we suffer with and in Him. Pope St. John Paul II was right to declare that “We are the Easter people, and Alleluia is our song”, but we are also, and at the same time, the Holy Thursday night people whose cry is “Let this cup pass me by”, and the Good Friday people, and “My God, my God” is our prayer.
So joy definitely is ours today, and throughout the Easter season, and indeed our whole life long, but it cannot truly be unrestrained, because of the suffering of suffering humanity, and the groaning of creation. Christ is risen: evil is defeated. Let us rejoice and be glad, but let us never be unmindful of those who suffer.
