“I shall not die, I shall live,… The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”. Ps 118:17, 22-23

Dear Parishioners,

It is marvelous indeed In the words of St. Peter in today’s first reading, “God raised Jesus of Nazareth from death. He had first anointed him with the Holy Spirit  and with power, so that he might go about doing good and healing all who were oppressed. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.”

It would take the disciples some time, and only with the help of the Holy Spirit, to grasp the full extent of what follows from this momentous event.

Probably the most immediate realization was the understanding of  Jesus’ resurrection as the Father’s stamp of approval, his authentication of everything that Jesus had said and done, and of everything that it implied. Here at the parish, we have a parish stamp. It is unique to us. So that when we stamp a document, it amounts to saying, for the benefit of the one who receives the document, “Yes, this document really comes from us, St. Mary’s Parish”. In the same way, Jesus’ resurrection is God the Father saying to the world, “yes, this man really came from me”. We know that it is God’s stamp and no one else’s because God alone has the power to raise someone from death.

Jesus, we are told by Peter, “appeared to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead”. He appeared, apparently, only to those who were chosen as witnesses. For a long time, I wondered about this. Why is this? Why did Jesus appear only to certain people? Now I think I know the answer. What did these people to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection have in common? They were all people who had known him in life. It was essential, in order to ascertain the identity of this Risen One, that he be recognized by a significant number of people as the Jesus of Nazareth that they  had known. Only his acquaintances, his disciples and a number of others who had known him, were in a position to do this.

Now that his identity was established, the torrents of understanding of the meaning of his life and his ministry, of his preaching, of his passion, death and resurrection, were unleashed. In the Holy Spirit, their eyes were opened and they recognized him everywhere in the Law, the Prophets and the other writings of the Old Testament. He had been there all along, discreetly announced. He was the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. He was the Messiah. He was the Son of Man. He had been prefigured in Joseph, son of Jacob, in Moses, and in a multitude of other Old testament figures.

Looking ahead, they knew him to be present to them. They understood themselves to be called, as Church, to be his ongoing life, presence, and ministry to the world. They were to live, in a million different ways, his life, his ministry, his passion, and his death, until the end of the age, at which time they would experience his resurrection.

It was indeed, and continues to be, all very wonderful. And by the grace of God, we are part of it. Of the Church, proclaiming and living the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, now made Christ and Lord. Words fail me when I consider all the light that was lavished upon us, and the ushering in of this new reality, the Church, that are the fall-out of Jesus’ resurrection. I must fall back, as always, on the words of the Scripture: “Return, my soul, to your rest; the Lord has been very good to you. For my soul has been freed from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living… How can I repay the Lord for all the great good done for me? I will raise the cup of salvation, I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord”. Ps. 116.  This is the Church’s cry for Easter.

To each and every one of you, a happy, light-filled, peace-filled Easter!

–    Fr. Guy