A Homily for the Third Sunday after Easter

​+ As the Church continues to contemplate the reality of the bodily resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead in her Sacred Liturgy of this third Sunday after Easter, she teaches us very clearly as she prays. In the words of the collect, that we who hold to the truth that Christ is risen and hope to share in that same victory over death must embrace those things which are in accordance with our faith and reject those which are inimical to it.
 
St Peter supplies the detail in the epistle:
 
“I beseech you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul. Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that in case they speak against you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
 
…by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.  Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God.”
 
St Peter even adds that we should honour the Emperor. In the current absence thereof, we may presume that this teaches us to give due reverence to civil authority.
 
All of this is good, clear post-resurrection instruction on basics of Christian life, and our holy mother the Church is very wise to repeat it to us each year, even as we are filled with Easter joy. Indeed, our joy at the fact of Christ’s resurrection allows us to hear this instruction with renewed clarity. If Christ is risen from the dead, victorious over sin and death, the desires of the flesh are no longer that which I worship, good deeds and right conduct follow on connaturally, freedom does not need to be abused to be enjoyed, fraternal love and appropriate relations with civil authorities are more than possible. For if Christ is risen from the dead, that is truly all that matters—and sharing in His resurrected life, even here and now through the Sacred Liturgy and the sacraments, is the only thing that is truly worthwhile and desirable.
 
Yet, as the Gospel underlines, we live in the light of the resurrection but also in the seeming physical absence of the resurrected Christ. He is gone from us, bodily, “for a little while.” This “little while” can seem rather long, and at times the words of the Gospel seem to ring true rather more loudly than we would like: “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.” For the Church in our times suffers many wounds—not simply the victory of sin over grace in the lives of far too many of the baptised, but also apparent confusion in respect of her purpose and mission and even at times, in respect of her teaching. It is as if the light of the resurrection is not sufficient for some to see clearly; as if the “little while” has lasted a bit too long and some have grown impatient, abusing their freedom—and also at times their authority—to advance ideologies and agendas that divide and exclude, rather than unite and embrace that which the Holy Father described only yesterday as “legitimate differences in the harmony of the Spirit.”
 
Yes, the situation of we who live in the light of the resurrection is difficult, and perhaps the “little while” has gone on, in our opinion, quite long enough, thank you. Yet it may go on even longer. That is for God to decide.
 
Impertinent impatience is, however, not for the Christian. One can only begin to imagine what choice phrases St Peter, or even St Paul, would employ in the face of it!
 
What is for the Christian is faith in the Word of God, Who speaks directly to us in this Holy Mass: “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
 
Whatever our sufferings, whatever attacks or difficulties we face today or tomorrow, from the world or from a Church in disorder, if we are faithful to Christ we shall see Him soon, “in a little while,” and we shall rejoice. No one, no prince, pope, prelate or other potentate can take that joy from us.
 
We have St Peter’s instruction and Our Blessed Lord’s own assurance. What need we fear? For this let us give profound thanks at this altar this morning, ever begging the grace of our own perseverance in Easter joy, and that others shall come to walk in its light. +  

---