Joh 20:19-31
Acts 2:42-47
Pet 1:3-9
Focus: The Risen Christ is our Lord and God.
Function: The Easter Season is meant to help us believe in the resurrection.
Dear Sisters and brothers in the faith, we have celebrated Easter; and the feast continues for fifty days. After the Easter Vigil last Sunday, I was energized and full of joy: On that stormy morning we had ignited a fire in the monastery courtyard. From it were able to take the light inside in a little lantern to the Easter Candle. Fr. Adam sang the Lumen Christi (“The Light of Christ”) three times, and we monks lit our own candles from the Easter Candle. The light of Christ dispelled the darkness, also in my own heart.
Now we are back in everyday life. We monks are all well here at the monastery. We continue with our rhythm of prayer, Holy Reading and work. Overall, we have more time for prayer these days. Yet, the coronavirus crisis continues, and the uncertainties and challenges that come with it. We monks consider it to be our most important task to carry in prayer before God those who are suffering, who are ill, who are dying, those who are struggling with economic issues, the health care professionals and all those who help in many different ways…
And all of us can ask: How can the Easter Season, the fifty days of celebrating the core tenet of our Christian faith, namely the Resurrection of Jesus, be helpful for us? How can it assist us to become an Easter people, of faith, hope and love? The Scriptures of this 2nd Sunday of Easter show us the way.
Three times Jesus addresses the disciples in today’s gospel with, “Peace be with you!” This is a customary greeting – and it is much more than that! In his words at the Last Supper, in the Farewell Discourses, Jesus had said to the apostles: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.” Now they who were filled with fear, with sadness and with a sense of great loss, can experience peace again.
The Greek word that Jesus uses in the account of John’s Gospel, eirene, connects with the Hebrew concept of shalom. Peace in the sense of shalom means universal well-being, wholeness. The disciples felt miserable, now they are well again. They felt torn, now they are whole again.
The disciples rejoice as they see Jesus. This joy was also a promise of Jesus that is now fulfilled: “Your hearts will rejoice,” he had told them, “and no one will take your joy away from you” (Joh 16:22). This is coming true now.
Then Jesus breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is a reference to the 2nd creation account in the Book of Genesis. As God breathed life into that lump of clay and turned it into a living human being, so now the disciples are being re-created, made new and filled with God’s life-giving breath, the Holy Spirit.
They receive a sending, in which they participate in the mission that Jesus had received from his heavenly Father. They are meant to be messengers of peace, who invite people to accept the forgiveness that comes from God and to practice forgiveness among themselves.
Finally there is the Thomas story. Thomas, who had been absent from this first encounter of the disciples with the risen Lord, can’t believe their words. What they say seems so unlikely, too good to be true.
One week later Thomas is present when Jesus is with them again, with his gift of that peace that “the world” cannot give. By offering Thomas to touch the wounds of his hands and his side, he underlines that it is him. Thomas then makes the greatest and deepest confession about who Jesus is: “My Lord and my God.”
Dear sisters and brothers, The Risen Christ is also our Lord and God. The Easter Season is meant to help us believe in the Resurrection. The report about the life in the early Jerusalem Christian community gives us pointers as to how this can happen.
The early Christians devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. During the Easter Season, the liturgy presents us with many texts from the Acts of the Apostles. It would be good to follow these in Give Us This Day or in Magnificat. Or we can simply read a passage or two from the Book of Acts every day. It is encouraging to hear how, in spite of rejection and persecution, the message about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, spreads over the whole world known at this time. The apostles’ message evidently came from God. Humans were not able to destroy it.
The early Christians also devoted themselves to the communal life. We encounter the Risen Christ in each other. Our ability to forgive a person who has hurt us is a gift of the Risen One;
we receive it if we ask him. Our ability to share our possessions, to share whatever we have or can do,with those in need is a gift of the Risen One, too, and evidence of His presence.
Finally, the early Christians devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Prayer in common is always possible and perhaps even more important during this time of the pandemic.
So our homes truly become domestic churches and basic cells of the Christian faith, not unlike those first Christian domestic churches in Jerusalem. Even though most of you cannot participate in person at the Eucharistic breaking of the bread at the moment, you can know that the Lord is present wherever two or three are gathered in His name. And you can unite yourself with Him, with His Body and Blood, in spiritual communion.
Certainly, it would be nice to trade places with Thomas and the other disciples of his time and to share in this first overwhelming experience of Christ ‘s resurrection. If we, however, prayerfully, see, hear, note and perceive, especially during the next six weeks, we will get in touch, even in this difficult time, ever more fully with this new reality, with the light of Easter. Indeed we will encounter the Risen One.
~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB