Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Bridging the Distance

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Psalm 33:4-5, 6, 9, 18-19, 20, 22; Romans 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20
Picture: cc coolm36

Sisters and brothers, I think many of us are familiar with the song From a Distance, which was popularized especially by Bette Midler in the 1990’s, around the time of the first Gulf War. Do you remember how the song goes?

From a distance the world looks blue and green,
And the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream,
And the eagle takes to flight.

From a distance, there is harmony,
And it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope. It's the voice of peace,
It's the voice of every man.

From a distance we all have enough,
And no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,
No hungry mouths to feed.

Do you like the song? I did when I first heard it. And, judging from its no. 1 spot on the Billboard charts at the time, many others did too. Which isn’t surprising. It has an alluring tune. And, more than that, it’s words also touch a deep chord in all of us, something that is perhaps felt more strongly especially in times of war and conflict -- a heartfelt yearning for harmony and peace.

But the song is not without its flaws. It seems to move the listener in a particular direction, doesn’t it? It seems to invite us to step back from our immersion in the messiness of worldly affairs, so that we can see, from a distance, the harmony beyond the chaos. Which may be a wise thing to do from time to time. But what then? Are we to remain looking down on the world only from a distance? Is that even possible? Not only does the song appear to advocate an escape from the world, it also seems to say that this is what God does. You will remember how the song ends by repeatedly telling us that God is watching us. God is watching us… from a distance.

As attractive as this picture may be to some, the Christian image of God is very different. Whereas Bette Midler’s song may seem to advocate an escape from the messiness of the world, our Christian belief in the Holy Trinity presents us with a God who moves precisely in the opposite direction. In the Trinity – Father, Son and Spirit – we find a God who continually immerses God’s self into our chaos. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, for example, likens the Son and the Spirit to two hands that the Father reaches out to save us. And in our readings today, we find at least three ways in which the Hands of the Father do their work.

In the first reading Moses reminds the people of Israel about the mighty deeds of God in their behalf – of how, with strong hand and outstretched arm God freed them from slavery in Egypt. In doing this, it was as if God was pointing a finger at them, choosing them and setting them apart to be God’s very own people. I’m reminded of those old army recruitment posters where the old man with the goatee and the top hat points a finger at the reader: Uncle Sam wants you! What God has done for Israel, God has also done for us. Especially through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, God has chosen us. God has set us apart: I want you! And, as we prayed in the psalm response just now, how blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own!

Not only does God choose us, but also, through the twin Hands of the Son and the Spirit, the Father draws us to him and empowers us to respond. As Paul reminds us in the second reading: You received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry “Abba, Father!” Or in the words we addressed to the Father in our opening prayer: you reveal yourself in the depths of our being, drawing us to share in your life and your love.

To these two actions of pointing and drawing, we need to add another: that of sending or commissioning. Which is what we find Jesus doing in the gospel. All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations… I am with you always, until the end of the age. Notice the direction in which God continues to move even as Jesus prepares to ascend into the heavens. Not content simply to watch from a distance, the Father continually reaches out his twin Hands to span the distance between us, promising to remain intimately present to us and in us, even until the end of the age. And because of this consoling divine presence, we too are moved in a very specific direction. Instead of stepping back and keeping our distance from the world, we are instead sent deeper into it to bridge the distance between God and God's people.

And this is a commission that does not go unheeded. I’m reminded, for example, of the recent article in the LA Times about the increase in volunteers joining the Peace Corps, including 25 year-old New Hampshire native, Alexandra Hodgkins, who is spending a couple of years helping the poor in a Panamanian jungle. But it’s not just the needy in faraway places who need a helping hand, is it? What about that 41 year-old man, for example, whose picture appeared on the front page of today’s Santa Barbara News-Press, threatening to set himself alight with gasoline because he hasn’t been able to find a job.

Sisters and brothers, with the world as messy as it is, it is indeed tempting to distance ourselves from it. But that is not what our God – Father, Son and Spirit – does. And, as Christians, that is not what we are called to do. That is not the song we are called to sing. Our song – the song of the Trinity – moves in the opposite direction. Its exact words will vary from person to person and from situation to situation. But perhaps it may sound a little like these lyrics popularized by Simon and Garfunkel in the 1970’s:

When you’re weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all.
I’m on your side, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found.
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.

Sisters and brothers, as we celebrate this solemn feast of the Holy Trinity, which song are we singing, in which direction are we moving today?

Pentecost (Mass During the Day)
Off the Island

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; 1 Corinthian 12:3b-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23

Sisters and brothers, in the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks stars as Chuck Noland, a gung-ho, jet-setting FedEx systems analyst who gets marooned on an uninhabited island when his plane crashes in a storm. He tries to paddle his way to freedom on a life raft. But the waves are too strong for him. No matter how hard he tries, he keeps getting swept back to the isolation of his island prison. Four long and difficult years pass, during which he struggles to stay alive. Then, one day, another storm washes ashore what looks like a wall from a portable toilet, something that anyone else would probably dismiss as a piece of junk. But not Chuck. His time on the island has helped him to see with new eyes. After staring at the thing for some time, he realizes the invaluable opportunity that it represents. He makes a new raft. And out of the piece of discarded debris, he fashions for himself a sail. Using the broken restroom to harness the power of the wind, he finally succeeds in escaping the island and returns to society a changed man.

Sisters and brothers, isn’t the experience of the Holy Spirit very much like that? In a sense, isn’t Pentecost also about getting off a deserted island? We see this most obviously, of course, in both the first reading and the gospel, where the breath of the Spirit drives the disciples from their fearful isolation in the upper room, giving them a mission of reconciliation. As the Father sent me, so I send you… Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.

But the story is much bigger than that isn’t it? The island prison from which the Spirit frees us extends far beyond the confined space of the upper room. For, as we know, Pentecost is only a part of the bigger story of Easter, the story of how God rescues us from the different islands on which we tend to get marooned by the stormy selfishness and shortsightedness of sin – our sin and that of others. Pentecost is about being freed from islands of anger and resentment, for example, where our hearts remain bound by the perceived misdeeds of others. Or islands of loneliness and addiction, where we are held captive by our own desperate cravings. Or islands of greed, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots grows ever wider. Or islands of blindness where we stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the truth that may be found in those who are different from us. Sisters and brothers, have you ever been trapped in a prison like these? Anyone who has will know first hand, as Chuck Noland knew, how powerless we are to free ourselves. We need help. And Pentecost is about how the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness, just as the wind helped Chuck. It is about how the Spirit is able to bring together in Christ people who have been torn apart, even people who speak different languages, even people who exercise diverse gifts. In the words of the second reading: As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.

But for us to get off these islands, we need to learn to harness the wind as Chuck did. How do we do that? How do we tap into the power of the Spirit, when we can no longer hear a noise like a strong driving wind, nor see tongues as of fire? Again, it’s helpful to consider Chuck’s experience in the movie. Notice how, even though we might expect the wind to have been blowing on the island periodically all the time that he was there, it wasn’t until four years had passed that Chuck finally managed to harness it. He could do it only when the time was right. And for the time to be right, two things had to happen. First, a sail had to be sent. And second, Chuck had to learn to recognize and to seize the opportunity when it presented itself to him. Both these things were necessary. Without the broken restroom, Chuck couldn’t harness the wind. And without having been transformed by his time on the island, he probably wouldn’t have recognized what looked like a piece of junk as his ticket to freedom. In order for Chuck to harness the wind, the time had to be right.

We find something similar when the Spirit comes in the first reading. We know, of course, that the Spirit has been and is always blowing among us. Recall how, in Genesis 1:2 for example, we are told that already when God created the heavens and the earth… a mighty wind swept over the waters. But still, in order for the disciples to allow this same wind to blow them out of the upper room, the time had to be right. Notice how the first reading begins: When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled… Before the disciples could harness the wind, the time had to be fulfilled, a sail had first to be sent, and they had also to learn to see things differently. For them to feel the powerful liberating effects of the Spirit, Christ had first to live, to die, and then to be raised. Christ is the sail that the Spirit washes upon the shores of our separation from one another. But it isn’t easy to realize this. As we know, like the piece of debris that Chuck found, Christ too was dismissed and discarded by those he came to save, a stone rejected by the builders that God used to renovate the face of the earth. It was only after having accompanied him on his mission, after having been shamed by their own cowardice in the face of his Passion and death, and only after having been consoled by him after the Resurrection, that the disciples were finally able to see clearly enough to accept Christ as the only means by which they could harness the wind. As we heard in the second reading: No one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

And isn’t this what the whole season of Easter has been about? In taking time to ponder the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising, we’ve been learning to recognize, in our own lives, the different ways that Christ may be inviting us to use him as our sail – to embrace his way of love, even to point of laying down our lives – so that the Spirit might free us from our islands of isolation. Through our celebration of Easter, we’ve been learning to recognize the crucified and risen Christ in the different ways he comes to meet us. Think, for example, of the person who finally stopped complaining about having no shoes after meeting the one with no feet.

I’m also reminded of this story someone sent me recently:

The local news station was interviewing an 84-year old lady because she had just gotten married - for the fourth time – having survived her three earlier husbands. The interviewer asked her questions about her life, about what it felt like to be married again at 84, and then about her new husband's occupation. "He's a funeral director," she answered. "Interesting,” the interviewer thought. He then asked her if she wouldn't mind telling him about her first three husbands and what they had done for a living. She paused for a few moments to reflect on all those years. After a short time a smile came to her face and she answered proudly, explaining that she first married a banker when she was in her early 20's, then a circus ringmaster when she was in her 40's, later on a preacher when in her 60's, and now, in her 80's, a funeral director. The interviewer looked at her in astonishment, and asked why she had married four men with such diverse careers. "Easy son," she smiled. "I married one for the money... two for the show... three to get ready... and four to go!"

Sisters and brothers, the Spirit of the Lord is already blowing upon the waters, eager to rescue us. How ready are we to go?

6th Sunday in Easter (B)
Fill Her Up!

Readings: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; Psalm 98:1, 2-3, 3-4; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17
Picture: cc Dalboz17

Sisters and brothers, have you ever experienced having your car run out of gas on the road? One can imagine how distressing it must be when that happens, especially if the nearest gas station is many miles away and you don’t have an AAA membership. On such occasions, we receive a painfully effective reminder that we can’t move our vehicles by sheer force of will alone. We realize how helpless we are without gas. We are forced to acknowledge that, if we wish to enjoy the convenience of zipping around in a snazzy automobile, we also have to take care to refill the tank from time to time. In fact, I know someone who always gets a full tank of gas every time a trip to a new destination is planned. That’s because this person is prone to getting lost. And, of course, it’s especially important to fill up before going on a road trip. You never know when you might lose your way.

Isn’t this very much like life in general? Isn’t life very much like a great road trip? Isn’t it true that, amid the many twists and turns on the highways and byways of our human existence, it’s difficult to predict when one might get lost? Who knew, for example, that a big fire would destroy 80 homes in southern California in the month of May? (Isn’t fire season supposed to be in the fall?) Or that a swine flu outbreak in Mexico would threaten many lives on a global scale? (I thought all we got from pigs was ham.) Or that the stock market would plummet suddenly, bringing with it various huge corporations, including banks and auto companies, not to mention our own retirement savings and mortgages? (Wasn’t GM supposed to last forever?) Who knew that these things would happen? And when such things do happen, when we find ourselves lost in them, aren’t we made painfully aware of how vulnerable we are?

Whatever others may say, at such times, we are made to realize that, just as an automobile needs gas to keep running, we Christians are dependent upon a power beyond ourselves for the strength to soldier on. And by soldier on, I don’t just mean physical or financial survival – although that’s often difficult enough. I also mean continuing to think and act in ways that befit a human being. For especially in times of crisis, it’s truly tempting to start looking out only for our own interests, or to vent our frustrations by engaging in destructive criticism, or to give in to depression and despair. From where might we gain the energy – the gas – to continue to act in Christ-like ways, to do as Jesus would?

This is where our readings prove enlightening. Not only do they help us to understand the nature of this gas that powers the vehicle of our Christian life, but they also indicate to us how we might go about filling ourselves up with it. The nature of this spiritual fuel is spelled out for us in the second reading, where John tells us that everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God… for God is love. Indeed, as cheesy as it may sound to some, from a Christian perspective, the world runs on love. Love is what keeps us connected to God even, or especially, at times when we are most likely to feel lost. Isn’t this why, in the gospel, in his farewell speech to his disciples before going forth to face the great crisis of his Passion, Jesus sees fit to offer them, and us, this crucially important reminder: As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love?

Yes, it’s quite clear from the readings that love is what fuels our meandering road trip through life. But, at least in my own experience, it’s often all too easy to misunderstand what this means. When we hear Jesus give us his great commandment to love one another as I have loved you, it is tempting to quickly focus first on what we have to do. We have to love others, no matter what. But isn’t it true that as soon as we try, with any degree of seriousness, to do this, we come face to face with our own weakness and powerlessness? Can we truly be expected to love everyone – even to the extent of laying down our lives for them? Everyone? All the time? Difficult enough to speak civilly to the neighbor whose political views are diametrically opposed to mine, or to tolerate the hard-of-hearing housemate who watches TV at a thousand decibels, let alone give my life for the terrorist who’s trying his darnedest to it take away!

The one who tries to love others on his/her own strength is not unlike the motorist who expects to operate a vehicle on an empty gas tank, by sheer force of will alone. For the love we are commanded to have for one another is not something that comes ultimately from us. As the second reading reminds us: In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

In order to keep chugging along in the Christian life, it’s important that we take care to fill our gas tanks from time to time. And we do this by visiting three privileged locations where a refill might be obtained. The first location is found by looking back. It is found in the Mystery that we have been celebrating in a special way in this Easter season, and at every Mass. In the words of the responsorial psalm, the Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power through the Dying and Rising of Christ the Son. And we draw from this power every time we remember, as we are doing now, what God has done for us in Christ.

If the first location involves looking back, the second requires that we look ahead. Consider Peter’s experience in the first reading. Till now, Peter has witnessed the Spirit working powerfully among circumcised Jewish believers after they had been baptized. But in Cornelius and his household, Peter witnesses a new thing. He is led to see that the Spirit is also at work in uncircumcised Gentiles, even before they are baptized. And, to his credit, Peter willingly forsakes his prejudice in order to follow the Spirit’s lead. He orders that the Gentile believers receive baptism. And by doing so, Peter allows himself to tap into the power of God that has been moving ahead of him. Could it be that, even today, we need to attend carefully to the ways in which the Spirit might be moving powerfully ahead of us in unexpected ways?

When we engage in the practice of looking back and looking forward on a regular basis, we also come to find a third location from which to tap into the power of God’s love. Gradually, we come to experience the truth in Jesus' words in the gospel, where he calls us not servants, but friends. It is in the nature of a friend to remain not only behind or in front of you, but also to walk by your side. In recalling the Father’s love behind us, and in yielding to the surprising action of the Spirit moving ahead of us, we learn also to recognize the friendship of Christ beside us. Which brings to mind those moving words from St. Patrick’s Breastplate:

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Sisters and brothers, on the road trip of the Christian life, we are truly surrounded by gas stations.

How full is our tank today?

4th Sunday of Easter (B)
Baby Talk

Readings: Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18
Picture: cc landeth

Dear sisters and brothers, have you ever witnessed parents speaking to their little ones in baby talk? Or maybe you’ve even done it yourself. What does it feel like? I’ve sometimes witnessed people do it in public and marveled at the fact that adults don’t seem to feel the least bit embarrassed speaking like that. Which brings to mind Friday’s edition of the comic strip For Better or For Worse, in which a young mother is coaxing her toddler to sit on a potty. Nizzie sit on poe? She asks politely. Nice poe-poe! Sit on pottie? She asks again. Pottie good, she says. Nizzie big girl. Big girls sittum on poe! Baby talk. But after the mission has finally been accomplished, the mother laments to herself: And for this I majored in English.

I’m not sure what the child-rearing experts have to say about baby talk specifically, but isn’t it amazing, the lengths people go to for their children? Good parents think nothing of lowering themselves in order to communicate with and care for their little ones, even to the extent of speaking gibberish in public. Isn’t that part of the power of love? It leads us to lower ourselves in some way.

But that’s just one direction in which love tends to move us. Can you think of another? Consider this phone conversation someone had with a stranger who was complaining about her parents, telling of how they were so controlling. How they never allowed her to do anything on her own. How she had no freedom. Then, when asked if she would mind revealing her age, she says, Oh, I’m 40. Our reaction to this story, I think, indicates another direction in which love tends to move people. Not only does it move parents to lower themselves for their children, at the appropriate time, it should also lead children to rise to the challenge of taking responsibility for their own lives, and to assume their proper role in their family and in society. We shouldn’t expect to continue acting like children throughout our lives, just as we don’t usually continue speaking baby talk all the time. Lowering and rising, these seem to be two important directions in which love moves us.

And these are also the two directions of movement that we find in our readings today. The second reading exhorts us, for example, to see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. And how has the Father done this except in and through the death and resurrection of Christ the Son. As Peter tells his listeners in the first reading, there is no salvation through anyone else… In Christ, the presence of God has been lowered into our midst. In Christ, the Father has spoken to us, in our own language, a Word that we can all understand.

In the gospel, Jesus helps us to appreciate even more deeply this movement of divine descent by painting for us the tender image of the Good Shepherd caring for his sheep. Not only does the shepherd have an intimate knowledge of each of his sheep – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – but his love is such that he is willing even to lay down his life for them. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. Indeed, out of love, the Good Shepherd lowers himself even to the extent of becoming a baby sheep. For as we remind ourselves at every Mass, before receiving communion: for us, Jesus the Good Shepherd became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. For our sakes, the Shepherd assumes the condition of a lamb, slain in sacrifice to save his scattered sheep.

This is the mystery that we remember and in which we rejoice, especially in this great season of Easter, and at every celebration of the Eucharist. We celebrate the love that moved the Good Shepherd to lower himself, becoming for us a Lamb of Sacrifice. And our regular celebrations of this mystery should also help us to recognize how God continues to shepherd us in and through the various experiences, the different persons and situations, that we may encounter on a daily basis – in parents and children, friends and relatives, colleagues and classmates… Not just at Mass, but also in all of the mundane experiences of our lives, however challenging or consoling, the presence of God remains among us.

But this lowering of God into our midst is only the first direction of love’s movement. Can you recognize the other? Especially in the readings of these past weeks of the Easter season, haven’t we witnessed how those who meet the risen Christ always end up running off to tell other people about it? Haven’t we noticed how, filled with the Holy Spirit, the early Christians – and especially Peter in today’s first reading – continue to rise courageously to the challenge of preaching the good news to others both in word and in deed? Isn’t it striking how, moved and inspired by the Good Shepherd’s self-sacrifice, his sheep are emboldened to continue his work? Not only does love move the Shepherd to become a lamb, it also strengthens his sheep to become shepherds for others. In love, not only is there a lowering, there needs also to be a rising.

And this upward movement is also implied in another image of Christ that our readings present to us today: the image of the stone rejected by the builders (that) has become the corner stone. If Christ lowers himself to the extent of becoming a corner stone firmly embedded in the chaotic soil of our human situation, it is only so that we who claim to be his disciples can build upon the solid foundation that he provides. And isn’t this the grace for which we asked the Father in the opening prayer just now: to attune our minds to the sound of his voice, to lead our steps in the path that he has shown, that we may know the strength of his outstretched arm?

In this connection, we may recall that the students of this parish are in the midst of organizing a retreat – a wonderful opportunity both to be shepherded and to shepherd others.

Sisters and brothers, today our readings remind us that to celebrate Easter – indeed, to celebrate the Eucharist – is to immerse ourselves in this twofold movement of love. It is to remain in the presence of the Shepherd who has lowered himself among us, so that we, in turn, can rise to the challenge of shepherding others. For as tempting as it may be to hang back and to be satisfied simply with being so-called Sunday Catholics, we know that to choose to do so is not much different from choosing to speak baby talk for the rest of our Christian lives. In the words of that popular Josh Groban song that could so easily describe what the Good Shepherd has done and continues to do for us:

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

Sisters and brothers, how is the Good Shepherd inviting us to rise to the challenge of love today?

3rd Sunday of Easter (B)
Effective Medicine

Readings: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48

Dear sisters and brothers, have you ever suffered a very persistent bout of the flu? I recently heard someone talk about such an experience. He said he’d already taken several courses of antibiotics, but even after many weeks, he still didn’t feel one hundred percent. He also said that it was probably because he’d been working too hard. He’d not been taking enough rest.

Which reminds me of two pieces of advice that I’ve received in the past regarding effective medicine. The first is an old Chinese proverb that goes liang yao ku kou (良药苦口), or good medicine is bitter to the taste. Which probably explains why many of us continue taking antibiotics even if it’s seldom a pleasant experience. The second piece of advice is from a musical produced in the sixties that was made into a movie, which I watched as a child. Some of you may remember Mary Poppins, and the song entitled A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down. There’s much wisdom in that, don’t you think? My sick friend’s need for rest is probably a case in point.

Taken together, these two pieces of advice tell us that effective medicine needs to be both bitter and sweet. And this seems also to be the experience of the people in our readings today. There are at least two groups who are feeling unwell. In the gospel, the disciples are still suffering the traumatic effects of having witnessed the shameful execution of Jesus, in whom they had invested all their hopes and dreams for a better life. And even though the Risen Christ had already appeared to several of them – including, most recently, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus – even though he had consoled them and administered to them his own powerful brand of antibiotics, they are still feeling under the weather. The Easter joy that we talked about in our opening prayer just now is still not yet an enduring experience for them. And the condition of the people that Peter addresses in the first reading is probably even more serious. Not only do they have no experience of the Risen Christ at all, they don’t even realize the depth of their need for him. How do these persistent ailments find their cure?

In both cases, there is a painful pill to swallow, a pill that is bitter in two respects. First, there is the need to acknowledge, not only that Jesus died, but also that those who are ill are somehow implicated in his death. The author of life you put to death… says Peter to his listeners. And even if the disciples did not actually kill their master, in the gospel, they remain burdened by the shame and guilt of having abandoned him. Isn’t this why they are so fearful when at first they mistake the Risen Christ for a ghost? Wouldn’t the presence of a ghost simply serve to remind them of the terrible consequences of their cowardice?

But that is not all. For the cure to be complete, a second form of bitterness needs to be submitted to. Again we find this in both the first reading and the gospel. It’s a key theme in Luke’s accounts of the resurrection. It consists in the conviction that it was necessary that the Christ should suffer… And this is difficult to accept, perhaps more difficult even than our own responsibility for the death of Christ. For if suffering and death are truly an inescapable part of Christ’s human experience, can it be any different for us who claim to follow him? 良药苦口: effective medicine is bitter to the taste.

Thankfully, however, the cure is not all bitter. Actually, unlike many of our modern sugar coated pills, which are sweet only on the outside, but bitter on the inside (which is why we don’t chew them), the core of the Easter message is one of joy, as is the experience of the disciples in the gospel. For the one administering the precious cure to them is not a ghost but someone whom they can experience in a very real way, one who is truly alive. In the words of Peter, you put (him) to death, but God raised him from the dead… The disciples’ fear is changed into incredulous joy and amazement, for in the Risen Christ they find that their mistakes have somehow been neutralized. And not just neutralized but even used to bring about a greater good. They have an intimate experience of what the awesome power of God can do even in the face of human weakness and sin. Much more than a spoonful of sugar, the disciples experience the sublime sweetness of the Resurrection.

And what, we may ask, is the sure sign that they are on the road to recovery? Is it not the fact that, in the first reading, we find them doing exactly what Jesus tells them to do in the gospel? Both in word and in deed, and in the name of Christ, they preach to all the nations the good news of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Does this mean that they will never again suffer relapses, never again know the experience of sin? Is this our own experience? Probably not. But, as we are told in the second reading if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one… And this too is part of the sweetness of the Easter message.

But there is something more to say isn’t there? For combating sickness is not just about seeking a cure after we fall ill. Perhaps even more importantly, it is also about disease prevention. It is about cultivating a healthy lifestyle, such that we will be less vulnerable to viruses. Again the second reading spells out for us what this healthy lifestyle looks like in the spiritual realm. It consists in knowing the Crucified and Risen Christ. And the way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments: the great commandment of love, expressed especially in obedience to Christ’s commandment to share with others, as Peter and the first disciples did, the gift of healing that we have all received. For our world today, marked as it is by diseases of all kinds -- diseases such as greed and selfishness, loneliness and poverty -- is truly in dire need of this same healing.

Sisters and brothers, today how might we deepen our experience of this bittersweet cure of Easter, so that we might better share it with others?