Homily for Easter Sunday 2012

Today we are commemorating a unique event, unparalleled in history. Nothing like this has ever been heard before Christ or after Christ. Lazarus was raised by Christ from the dead but he died again. Christ rose from the dead to die no more. He has risen from the world of the dead, with unearthly splendor and glory. Today we celebrate the triumph of life over death, hope over despair, light over darkness, goodness over evil.

Our Blessed Lord has conquered death; now he reigns in glory. He has redeemed us by paying his own blood as the price. He became obedient unto death; therefore, the heavenly Father raised Him from the dead and gave Him a name above every other name. He is the grain of wheat that fell on the ground in order to give existence to thousands and thousands of grains.

Jesus had declared: “By my own will I lay down my life, and by my own will I will take it up again.” And today we see him breaking the shackles of death and rising as the victor king. Thus tragedy has been turned into triumph, sorrow into joy.

Is it not foolish to appoint guards at the tomb lest the dead person should escape? Yet that was what the Jewish leaders did. It is apparent that the enemies of Jesus remembered that he whom they had killed had predicted He would rise again, and so they tried to preclude that while His own friends and disciples were not mindful of his prediction. Mary Magdalene came early in the morning, not to see the Risen Lord, but to offer spices and ointments at his tomb. She also wept thinking that it was stolen. She never thought that He was risen.

We believe and know that Christ is risen. Saint Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith” (1 Cor 15:14). Saint Paul also wrote to the Romans that we who have received baptism in Christ, then we have also risen with Christ and will enter into the newness of life. If we died to sin and live in righteousness, we too shall rise like him in splendor and glory.

We certainly rejoice in the Lord’s triumph over death. Let the “ALLELUIAS” that resound in the Church today be an echo of the eternal song of praise that goes on in heaven and resounds in our hearts. Was not the Lord who said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it?” He did exactly as he said. Conquering sins and death He rose on the third day. This is the fountain of our faith and the mystery of our salvation. If we follow faithfully in the footsteps of our Lord, we also will reach the glorious resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is the guarantee of our resurrection. This hope should encourage us to live a true and sincere Christian life. We should die to our sins of pride, hatred, selfishness, and dishonesty; and evil desires should not find any place in us anymore.

Let us also enter into a new life with Christ. Let us take up our crosses and follow Christ that has shown to us that the way of the cross is not the way of death, it ends not on Calvary but in the resurrection and eternal life. The example of Christ who sacrificed His life and the altar of self-denial encourage us to be ready to suffer in serving our own fellow men and women. Easter reminds us that death is not the end. For the one who lives in Christ, death has no terrors. For him or her, to die is gain because death is the beginning of eternal life.

2012 Easter Vigil Mass homily

The concept of death is as old as human beings. Man found death as a part of his daily experience. He experienced the death of plants, insects, animals and his own fellow men. Ever since, man’s reaction to death has taken different attitudes. Some were and are terrified. Some freeze at the thought that they will have to come face to face with death one day. Others tried to find ways to avoid it turning to the supernatural world or spiritual transformation looking for answers. Immortality has been a subject of fascination to humanity since the beginning of known history.

During these days of the paschal mystery our readings have been recounting and our liturgies portraying the last days of Jesus and the way his disciple responded to all these happenings. From the Upper room where Jesus bent down and washed the feet of this disciples, the agony of the garden, the arrest, the scourging, the carrying of the cross the crucifixion, to the death of Jesus and his burial.

When Jesus took his last breath on the cross, the disciple hearts shrank on fear and their faith in Jesus’ promises vanished with his last breath. Once again they came face to face with the reality of humankind, death.  They had experienced it in their own flesh in one way or another. For them it was the end. Sad and disappointed the disciples and followers of Jesus hide or disperse and go back to their normal life. I do not think we can blame them for such response. The idea of Jesus fulfilling his promise of rising from death was just something at the back of their mind, something that they did not assimilate, something they could not believe because they had never experienced it. The disciples’ concern was centered mainly on Jesus’ death.

I would like to share with you the story of a child who began to read the Gospels. Like many other children, he became fascinated by Jesus life and deeds. Suddenly, he ran out of his room crying hysterically into the arms of his scared mother. He cried: “They killed him. They killed him.” His mother comforted him and then whispered to him, “now my dear son, go back and finish the story.” In our own personal lives; where have we stopped reading the accounts of God’s promises? We heard in the readings tonight an account of the creation of man and woman, the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt, the promises of God’s future kindness to Israel, the new life that Jesus brings us through his resurrection. This was in God’s plan for mankind, but the highpoint in God’s plan for us was the resurrection.

This night is the most blessed of all as we heard in the Easter Proclamation. The same cross that was used as a sign of punishment, as a sign of shame, as a mean to take away life, has become a sign of victory, celebration and life. Jesus’ resurrection reminds us that there is life beyond the grave. Jesus’ resurrection reminds us that we have an immortal soul. Although our body will return to dust, as we were repeated on Ash Wednesday, our soul will live forever with God. It is under the light of the resurrection that the whole event, which has taken place these days make sense.

My dear brothers and sisters, if we really believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, if we really believe that the resurrection of Jesus is the final answer to the human quest for immortality, why are we so much worried about death? Should not we be more concerned about resurrection?

The light of the Easter candle reminds us of the sure hope that the Spirit of the Risen Lord continues to act in our lives and in our world. Easter is a time when we realize that what humankind has long for in the depths of our hearts has become a reality. Easter is a joy born on the belief that the death of Jesus is our ransom from death. Easter is the discovery of the secret of how Jesus lived his life, a life lived doing his Father’s will and bringing people to himself.

The word that tonight is being proclaimed to the four corners of the earth is a transcendent word that we cannot explain, however it is something that we can experience. As we rejoice in the Resurrection of Christ this Easter, let us not merely say Christ is risen, but “I shall rise.

May God bless each and every one of us and may the peace of the risen Christ be with you and your families. On behalf of Saint Dominic’s Priory Community and on my own behalf I would like to thank you all for coming and forming our community of prayer this evening and wish you all a Blessed Easter.

Fr. Alejandro, Salcedo OP

St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau

Good Friday: The death of Christ and our death

When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, ‘It is finished’.

And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit (Jn 19:30)

My dear sisters and brothers, as we contemplate Jesus dead on the Cross, let us reflect on his death and our death.

We open the daily newspapers, we watch reports on Television. We read and see death everywhere: in wars, in the streets, in schools, in hospitals, at home. Today we see death on Golgotha, the death we are re-living now: the death of Christ the Innocent One, the Lamb of God, the Son o0f God and the Son of Mary.

We are celebrating Good Friday. Properly speaking we begin today   the celebration of the Pasch: the passage of Jesus from Death to Life, from Good Friday to Easter Vigil.  Good Friday is the memorial of the death of Jesus on the Cross. For us believers, the death of Jesus our Redeemer is a victorious death,  a death motivated by God’s incredible love for us all: “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

            “That whoever believes in him may not die”? Yes, Jesus death, St. Paul tells us freed us not only from sin but also from death. Not from natural death, of course. We all – some sooner, some later -; we all shall die:  “Man’s days are like those of the grass; like the flowers of the field it blooms; the wind sweeps over him and he is gone” (Ps 103:15-16). Jesus’ death freed us from a meaningless death.

The inescapable knowledge of our death puts us face to face with the meaning of our life and our death. What is the meaning of the life of Jesus and of his death on the cross? The meaning is Love! Someone said that when one loves someone his or her love is telling the beloved: “You shall never die.” God loves us, and therefore, we will never die. Jesus, God-Man, truly died physically; on the third day He rose from the dead. After him, we shall also die and be risen from the dead. His death and also our death because of him point to the resurrection. “I am not dying, I am entering eternal life” (St. Therese of the Child Jesus).

Do I accept my death? Do you accept your death? It is said that the young believe in death, but it happens to others; the old believe in death and in the approaching personal death. How about the adult? A person becomes an adult when he or she accepts for the first time his or her death.

We try to accept our death, part of our life, with hope, prayer, and above all, love – love of God and all neighbors. Truly, only love will accompany us when we die, that is, “the love we have accumulated through life” (S. Galilea).  Moreover, only our love accompanies our loved ones before they pass away: a compassionate love which does not allow our beloved sick and suffering to die earlier in their hearts than in their bodies, that is, to die a social death. Social death, or the death that may precede a biological death, is the death of those who feel totally alone and abandoned before dying.

Are we afraid of death? Partly, yes: it is natural to be a bit afraid facing our death or the death of our loved ones and also of those brothers and sisters who are crucified by forced poverty, violence, injustice and war. We are also believers, and our faith in Jesus tells us that death is not the end of life – only of this earthly life -, but a passage from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, a sort of “changing place from one room to another,” as Blessed Pope John Paul II told us before he passed away seven years ago.

Let us always remember that the death of Jesus on the Cross on Good Friday is a hope-filled death: “I am,” Jesus is telling us from his Cross, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

My dear brothers and sisters, may we all have – when it comes – have a holy death. Let us together invoke the help of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother and, after her Son’s death on the Cross, Our Lady of Solitude, with the Holy Mary!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinner

 now and at the hour of our death. Amen

FAUSTO GOMEZ, OP

Good Friday 2012

St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday! A day where people around the world gather together in Jesus name to commemorate the three mysteries of today’s celebration: the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood and Christ’s commandment of brotherly love. Mysteries, which are inter-related and any of them will be meaningless without the understanding of the others. We must have a clear idea of the meaning of the washing of the feet if we really want to understand the importance of the Eucharist and the significance of the new commandment.

2000 plus years ago, the popular way to go from one place to another was on foot and they walked long distances on rough and dusty roads. You can imagine the feet of the people when they arrived in Jerusalem from Galilee for example. For sure their feet will be sore with blisters and painful.  It was therefore normal that the house servant of slaves would provide a warm foot-bath and massage to relieve their pain and to restore energy to continue and complete their journey. For sure the disciples would have understood Jesus washing their feet in light of this cultural background, however for John and for us it is an indicator to the meaning of the Eucharist we celebrate.

Nowadays we do not travel on foot. We have faster and more comfortable means of transport, however our life as Christians is a hard journey in this long pilgrimage. Along the way we find difficulties, trials, get tired, worn out and out of energy to continue our journey and we may be tempted to give up. But Jesus has given a place where we can go in to bath our aching feet and to be refreshed in body and soul for the journey that is still ahead. That place is the Eucharist. This is very well expressed in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. When we give communion to a sick person, we call it viaticum which means “provisions for a journey.” This is my Body and this is my blood, take it, eat and drink. With this words Jesus is telling us that his Body and his Blood is always a viaticum to regain strength to continue our journey toward God

As we can see in the Gospel we just read, John doesn’t give any account of Institution of the Eucharist at all. I believe this is not an omission. This story of the washing of the feet explains the two Sacraments: that of the Priesthood, and that of the Eucharist. It tells us what it means. By washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus is saying, “This is my body; this is my blood; Do this in memory of me.” And, he is also saying, “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

By washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus is establishing a close link between him washing the disciples’ feet and the disciples washing the feet of others. If the Eucharist is the place where the Lord washes our feet, daily life is the place where we ought to wash the feet of others. True Eucharist piety must lead to service of others. Jesus who broke the bread of the Eucharist also washed the feet of his disciples.

The Eucharist is the start and finish of our journey. It is the place and the center from which we are sent out to bring Christ to the world. We should not be afraid to get our feet dirty, to run out of energy. There is no other way of putting into practice Jesus command, “this is my blood, this y my flesh, do this in memory of me” than by passing through the dust and mess of the world in which the world is.  We cannot love and keep our feet clean. We cannot love and save our life. The washing of the feet is not the prelude to the Eucharist, it is the Eucharist.

What we have just listened in the Gospel is only part of John’s account of the Last Supper; John’s account concludes with Jesus’ Priestly Prayer. During that prayer to the Father, Jesus prays for the apostles, “Consecrate them in the truth.” My dear brothers in religious life, tonight we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the gift of Priesthood to the Church. Jesus in the Upper Room embraced the fullness of humanity and showed us the way. Let us consider ourselves the first ones to get our feet dirty and the first one to follow Jesus example, to bend down and wash the feet of our brothers and sisters who cross our path. Jesus knelt down at the feet of his friends and washed them, and called upon them to do the same to each other.  That is our calling, too.  In whatever form it needs to take, we are call to be companions of our brother and sisters in the long journey, to relief their spiritual aching and help them regain their strength so that they may be transformed by the truth.

Holy Thursday is also known as Maundy Thursday. The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum which means “command”.  Holy Thursday is a day of love, the day when Jesus showed us the depth of his love. He instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist where he gives his own body and blood, and to fulfill his promise of being with us as our daily nourishment, he instituted the sacrament of the Priesthood. Through the ministry of priests, the Eucharist is celebrated until Jesus comes again in his glory.

Tonight, my dear brothers and sisters we are given a new commandment, a lesson in how we are to give ourselves to and for each other. “I have given you a model to follow,” he says, “You too should wash one another’s feet. As I have done for you, you should do for one another. Blessed are you if you do it.”