While most of you will be spending the Triduum in Church proclaiming the Resurrections, I will likely only be with you in Spirit. A nasty case of Norovirus has swept through our family, leaving us either out of commission or still recovering. It is still very much an open question if I will fee recovered enough to show up to Mass on the day seemingly all Catholics do.
Like Christmas (and sometimes Mothers Day), Easter is one of the days where people come to Church who otherwise seldom go. Our homilies focus on the importance (rightly so) of welcoming those Catholics, and hopefully our welcome will plant a seed for something more later. While a nice gesture, it also makes us feel good. We are doing something positive, our actions might bring Christ to the lost. Aren't we awesome? Sometimes our vanity needs to be flattered, I get it.
Yes, you can play a critical part in proclaiming the empty tomb to the Masses. The Empty Tomb is the greatest "sign and wonder" one can see. The reality of the empty tomb is that the most ironclad of laws in the universe (the permanence of death) is subject to an outside force. If Death itself must acknowledge a superior, in what way is that superior force limited? All are subject to Death, and yet Death is subject to the Father. In the Resurrection, death becomes subject to the Son, and like all things, becomes the footstool of the King of the Universe. For those who are stuck in sin or who feel the crushing weight of the laws of the universe, there is comfort in knowing there is something better.
When the pious women first encounter the empty tomb, they encounter an angel. That angel has one mission: to tell anyone who appears of what has happened.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles; but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
What I'd like you to think about is: what if those women did something different? What if, instead of proclaiming Christ risen, they kept it their little secret? What if they rolled the stone back? What if we do the same? I think the Church today spends a lot of energy rolling the stone back in place, her actions doing their best to hide the power of the Resurrection from the world. It is for this reason she has been shrinking in so many places, and why her leaders are increasingly consumed by chaos and impotence. This also explains why our walk with Christ is so full of complications, because we are exerting great influence to push that heavy boulder back into place, rather than allowing it to remain rolled away, showing the fullness of emptiness.
Why would we do this? A big reason is because the rolling away of the Stone is the ultimate gut check for our faith. If the Empty Tomb is real, then Jesus Christ is real. If Jesus Christ is real, then everything he said is true. If everything he said is true, I have to amend my life. I have to turn away from sin. I have to take a lot of uncomfortable stands. I have to use every ounce of my being and my power to wage war against sin and evil. That sounds like a lot of work!
If I'm a bishop or pope and I encounter sexual abuse, I must set aside my original priorities and do everything in my power to expel it. I have to risk feeling the backlash of that corruption. The light of Christ can expose some pretty nasty stuff. Or.... I could just roll back the stone. Out of sight, out of mind. I can give speeches telling everyone how we are in a New Springtime, how the real enemy is this or that group, and how spotless the Church is even if she has sinners. I can talk about those aspects of the faith which are more agreeable to me instead. Even better, I can complain about the faults of others.
We might also read those words at the end of the Gospel passage above: "but these words seemed to them an idle tale" and draw our own conclusions from that. Why waste time proclaiming this? Certainly everyone will think its nonsense. If we spend a little too much time thinking about them, we might even conclude of course they will dismiss it as a pious fable: have you seen THEM? Look at what they believe! Look at how they are trapped in sin, whether moral failures, heresy, or rigidity! Look at the way they worship! C'mon man, are these people really worthy of this message? So let's roll the stone back. Don't worry, when the right people come along we will tell them the truth. You know, those who act like me. THEY WILL BELIEVE.
In a vacuum, and in a worldly manner, you can rationalize all of this behavior as not only understandable, but good. Why cast pearls before swine? Why let the light that left the empty tomb uncover a lot of rotten things, in myself and the Church at large? What good will that do? The Resurrection is the greatest gift God gave to the Church, let's protect its sanctity! All of these things might be true, but they represent something fundamentally opposed to the Resurrection: an attempt to control God's power. The gift of the Resurrection was meant to be shared with the world. It is not the possession of the Church, but something she is given in a sacred trust, to deliver to its intended audience: all of mankind. To keep that gift to ourselves is to strip it of any meaning.
So think about that this Easter. Think of how everyone in the Church, from the Pope in Rome, your patriarch, to you, have exerted great energy to rob God's greatest gift of meaning 364 days a year. Or.... hey, just think of how awesome you are welcoming people on that one day a year.
