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How quickly we forget.\u00c2\u00a0 How soon after Easter everything returns to normal.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a week after Easter and the Resurrection and its meaning are already fading as we become embroiled in the turmoil of our daily lives.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
We are all kind of like Thomas with the nail marks in the arms and the legs and the pierced side.\u00c2\u00a0 They were the realities to Thomas; the resurrection was too much to believe.\u00c2\u00a0 And it just didn’t seem relevant.\u00c2\u00a0 The nails are like the job we went back to; the kids we take care of every day; and the aches and pains that all of us experience with our earthly bodies.\u00c2\u00a0 These are the things of the here and now.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what we have to deal with right now- what is real, not what was promised.\u00c2\u00a0 So, it’s just as easy for us to think that “The Resurrection and the Kingdom” are something way out there in the future as it was for Thomas to discount the words of his 10 friends.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
But, Jesus Resurrection is real and the Kingdom is now.\u00c2\u00a0 It is up to us to make that count now in our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 The Easter story and John’s revelation tell us that.\u00c2\u00a0 In Acts, the Apostles are described as “all together”.\u00c2\u00a0 That doesn’t just mean physically together.\u00c2\u00a0 The sense of the Greek original is different.\u00c2\u00a0 It means that they were all “of one mind”- all of one belief.\u00c2\u00a0 These apostles believed, and reinforced one another’s belief.\u00c2\u00a0 They worked miracles because they really believed, believed with all their hearts, that Jesus Resurrection was real and it meant that they, too, would experience the resurrection and everlasting life.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, the Spirit was with them. and they could do incredible things.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, after their conversion the Apostles did not separate themselves from the world.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, they lived in the world and dealt with the realities of life.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, after Pentecost, they went out and lived separate lives, evangelizing throughout the World.\u00c2\u00a0 Thomas took the Church to India, and Bartholomew went to Persia, for example.\u00c2\u00a0 They believed strongly, and let God’s spirit work in them to do the will of the Father.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several decades after the scene in today’s Gospel, while in exile on Patmos, John wrote to people just like us- people who hadn’t seen the Risen Christ, people who were suffering from tremendous persecution by the Roman Emperor, people who were torn by divisions in their churches.\u00c2\u00a0 John wrote of the “Distress, the Kingdom, and the Endurance” to the people of 7 Churches in Asia Minor near Patmos.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the people John wrote to, we are challenged to believe even though we have not seen.\u00c2\u00a0 We, in this Church, have only the scriptures.\u00c2\u00a0 They record the Church’s handing down of the events of the Resurrection.\u00c2\u00a0 We are also bonded together by the “Distress, the Kingdom, and Endurance”.\u00c2\u00a0
\nThe implications of the Resurrection on our attitude on life should be as remarkable as for the Apostles, not just passing moments of joy on an Easter Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the Kingdom that Christ offers all of us who believe is everlasting happiness, with our enemies out of the picture.\u00c2\u00a0 That Kingdom begins here and now, yet it is something that transcends this world and all the suffering and evil in it.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the Resurrection should mean to all of us- a\u00c2\u00a0path blazed by Jesus himself for all of us to everlasting life.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus tells us that we are blessed who believe and haven’t seen.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Kingdom and everlasting life is how we are blessed.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there is also the Distress to deal with- all of us, in our humanity, feel that distress\u00c2\u00a0 In the lives that each of us has been given.\u00c2\u00a0 The distress of earthly life doesn’t go away-\u00c2\u00a0But the Resurrection helps us to see that distress in the context of the Kingdom.\u00c2\u00a0 Just as John exhorts the 7 churches in Revelation to hang in there, with endurance, we are challenged to hang in there with endurance.\u00c2\u00a0 Endurance means that we embrace our lives with the kind of endurance Christ practiced knowing of the certainty of our Resurrection and everlasting life.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
How can we do that?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, the first step is to really believe.\u00c2\u00a0 You can start with the Eucharist in just a few minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus is present in the Eucharist just as he was for Thomas in Solomon’s Portico.\u00c2\u00a0 And when we really believe that in our hearts,.and resolve to accept God’s will for us in our lives, including the distress and suffering that are part of his will for us,\u00c2\u00a0 then we will experience the divine mercy of God- Forgiveness for all of our transgressions against the will of God.\u00c2\u00a0 We will be filled with the grace of God, and feel the Spirit working in our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 It is fitting that on this Divine Mercy weekend, we make that beginning.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0 April 15, 2007 Homily Second Sunday of Easter Divine Mercy Sunday Acts 5: 12-16; Rev 1: 9a-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20: 19-31 Dc. Larry Brockman How quickly we forget.\u00c2\u00a0 How soon after Easter everything returns to normal.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a week after Easter and the Resurrection and its meaning are already fading as we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}