April
21, 2019 [ Easter Sunday 2019]
Easter
Vigil Readings: ●
Genesis 1:1-2:2 ● Genesis 22:1-18 ●
● Exodus 14:15-5:1 ● EPISTLE: Romans 6:3-11 ● + Luke 24:1-12●
Title: Rebuilding
[_01_] ►” Saturday, August 11, 2018” ► That Saturday, we had very severe
thunderstorms, tropical rain. You may recall Caldwell had 5 inches of rain that
afternoon. A Little Falls car dealership lost many vehicles which were carried
away by the flood water.
Here in our Lourdes neighborhood,
the water rose quickly on the very aptly named Mississippi Avenue – to your
right
And, only the
doors of the church basement and well-built structure kept the water back. We
even got water on the basement floor.
And, several of you sprang into action to check doors, un-clog drains,
address the water …and … to calm me down. Thank you!
[_02_] At
the time, it was hard to imagine how we would clean up, respond, and bounce
back and we needed the church basement (Connor Hall) for an important family
social event. We needed a comeback…
Coincidentally, it was for Liam
Cunningham, our Eagle Scout who had who rebuilt 275 feet
of fence on our property, to honor him for this infrastructure “comeback”
… but would our infrastructure come back in time ?
We did get it cleaned up in time. I personally believe that so much
fresh water had flowed into our “Temple” (cf. Book of Ezekiel, ch. ___) that the
church basement appeared in better shape after the flood than before.
There was so much water.
[_02_] Easter
& the Easter Vigil are times to remember the celebration of water and the
baptismal water in our lives.
And, also to renew our baptismal promises.
What does baptism, or ‘to baptize’
mean? St. Paul wrote about this to in ‘Romans’:
“Brothers and sisters, are you
unaware that all of us who were baptized baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.
We were indeed buried with him through death so that just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness
of life”
(cf.
Romans 6:3 --__)
So, baptism is about death and new
life. About a comeback.
About the renewal of our promises,
continually. Father Ronald Knox writes –
in this very simple example – that we do not re-baptize – or baptize more than
once – just because it is about the forgiveness of sins.
For example…let’s say your mom tells you to
wash your hands..you don’t say … oh, I washed them last week or or I used hand
sanitizer in the car. Rather, you wash
them, repeatedly. Your mother knows!
So, baptism happens only once but we
renew our baptismal vows or promises.
[*** Pause
***]
[_03_] And,
renewal is good. Comeback stories are good. We love comeback come-from-behind
victories.
The University of Virginia men’s basketball
team lost in 1st round of their playoffs/tournament last year
despite being heavily favored to win the whole tournament.
It was the most embarrassing lost in the
history of the tournament. Then, this year, they “came back” and won the whole
tournament in 2019 to be national champions.
Comeback.
Serena Williams, she is a perpetual comeback
story, trouncing teenagers and players 15 or more years younger on the tennis
court.
And, who could forget Tiger Woods of last
Sunday, golf, the Masters?
Everyone loves a comeback story.
In our baptismal promises, we are making a
comeback, spiritually …
But, we are not always doing so
publicly for all to see…
For example…
►
1-on-1 in confession, we renew and come back to love God and love our neighbor
according to the Commandments.
►
in turning away from selfishness and self-centeredness, we reject Satan and all
his works and all his empty promises. That’s a baptismal promise. A comeback.
►
speaking and listening to God in quiet prayer – rather than all the competing
voices around us, we renew our belief in the Holy Spirit. A comeback.
►
walking into church, blessing ourselves with holy water, that’;s a comeback. we
say…Lord, I am trying to live my life in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, according to your will, though it is sometimes difficult.
[*** PAUSE
***]
[_06_] ►” Monday, April 15, 2019” ►
This
was the day after Tiger won the Masters. Monday.
Will there be a comeback achievement?
Another? Paris?
A few days ago, it was certainly more than a
thunderstorm and several inches of rain that affected the church of Our Lady,
Notre Dame, Notre Dame Cathedral, ile de
la cite, on an island in the River Seine, Paris. Monday.
What were you and I watching, feeling
to this heat, smoke, not to mention high volume and pressure of water?
One journalist (E.J. Dickson Rolling Stone) wrote that the fact that
the building did not collapse
– a concern in the hours immediately following the blaze - serves as a powerful
testimony to the skill of the medieval builders who – 850 years ago, circa 1200
– who had neither cameras nor computers nor calculators nor communication
devices, except handwriting and the spoken word. They did not even have clocks,
digital or analog.
“It’s worth remembering why [the Paris
church community] went to the trouble of building [Notre Dame] this way. They built it so it would endure, last. The
vaulted ceilings and & flying buttresses was not only for aesthetic [visually
artistic] reasons – but it was also for fire proofing. And, they were surely
worried about fire in 1200, 1300, all they had were buckets of water as their
extinguishers.”
They built to survive a fire.
Jesus dies for us so that will survive
a fire also.
Survive the fire of persecution… and
many difficulties, so that we will survive the fire of feeling unloved, rejected
…
Not only the fires of hell and Purgatory..but
that we will survive the fires of today, to know that we are loved and worth dying
for.
And – like the builders in 1200 of the
church, the firefighters on Monday had only 1 chance. You only get 1 chance to
fight a fire.
And, those firefighters were being
celebrated today in another cathedral in Paris.
[_07_] The
artwork of Notre Dame can be reproduced..human life cannot.
For this reason, hundreds of
firefighters rushed into Notre Dame.
They rushed in to get people out… and
just like the firefighters on 9/11 rushed in to get people out. And,they saved
tens of thousands of people in New York in 2001.
Jesus laid down his life for our sins
not only so that we might not fear death but that we might touch a little bit
of death and yet rise to new life.
And, to live a mature complete
Christian life, we are called to forgive others. This can be a burden, a cross.
We are called to die to ourselves. For
to forgive another person, we imitate Christ and while none is the savior of the world, we
participate in his saving mission and we give life by forgiveness.
To do this, we may have to die to our
own agendas ..to die to ourselves.
Jesus shows us that you
are
worth dying for, I am worth dying for.
Jesus shows us we are worth dying for,
to give us new life, given to us originally in baptism.
This is the life we re-claim when we
confess our sins, the life we re-claim when we forgive another’s faults.
In this comeback,
we don’t build a new structure but we build from the inside out, similar to
Notre Dame Cathedral will be rebuilt from the inside out.
Jesus is the way and truth to our new life.
His resurrection reminds us that he is the stone rejected by the builders and
has become the cornerstone. This the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and
be glad.
[_fin_]
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