Current Homilies for Fr.
C.P. Jones, O.P. and Fr. Bernard L. Keitz, O.P.
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Homily for Easter III 09
April 26, 2009
C.P. Jones, OP
Gospel: Luke 24:35-48
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.
Many 
years
ago, I was invited to a dinner party in the home of a liberal Protestant
theology professor. There were several theologians there, both senior and
junior; I was among the most junior. As the night wore on, the conversation
turned to the topic of the resurrection, and it quickly turned into an
argument between our host and me about whether Christians had to believe
in the bodily resurrection of Our Lord.
Our host posed the question, if the bones of Jesus were to be discovered in an excavation in Jerusalem, and were somehow proven to be the mortal remains of Jesus, could one still go on being a Christian? I answered adamantly, “No”—that I would have to stop being a Christian. Our host did not think that was necessary. He said he could go on being a Christian even if the gospel we have just heard turned out to be not true. He could accept the gospel of Easter as a kind of edifying fable about how the idea of Jesus lived on in the minds of his disciples after he had died. It was the idea of Jesus that mattered to him, not his body!
That professor went on to hold an important position in his church without ever being taken to task by its authorities about his view that the resurrection of the Lord was not about his body. At the time of our disagreement, he and I were members of the same church, which I came to realize could not continue to be my spiritual home if it tolerated the denial of the resurrection of the body—so that became a factor leading me to join the Catholic Church, which certainly would not deal leniently with a theologian or a preacher who espoused the views of this professor.
Now, it is one thing to say that Christians have to believe in the resurrection of the body, and another thing to understand why, and what it means. Why were the apostles so insistent that they met the Lord in his true body after he had died? That is certainly the message of the gospel we have just heard, as it is of all the Easter gospels.
Then, what does it mean, that the body of Jesus rose from the dead—and, even more, that our bodies are destined to rise from the dead as well, as we profess in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting”? These questions may be answered briefly in three stages.
In the first place, we human beings really are our bodies. We are more than our bodies, certainly, but we are at least our bodies. When I say, “I know you,” I have in mind at least what you look like, how you move and speak, your bodily expression of yourself. What you are expressing is your soul, the unseen part of you that animates your body. But I couldn’t know your soul, which is more than your body, apart from your body. If you were to die, and I looked at your corpse laid out in its coffin, I would say to myself that you are gone. I have no way of knowing you now, no way of continuing our friendship, if all you are now is (as the gospel says) a “ghost.”
In the second place, then, if there is life after death, it could not be called real human life, nothing any sensible person would desire, if it were a merely ghostly kind of life. Who would look forward to being a disembodied soul, floating forever in a kind of ether, having no contact with other souls, or anything outside itself, because it lacked the only means of contact that it ever had, which is a body?
The whole idea of disembodied souls is an anomaly. The Church does teach that we will be in such a state, but only in the interim between our death and the general resurrection. For the souls in Purgatory and in Heaven, God will supply what is lacking to their nature. God directly illuminates the souls in Heaven, for example, with the knowledge that you and I are praying to them, and for what intentions we are praying. He directly illuminates the souls in Purgatory with the knowledge that you and I are praying for them. But the souls in Hell are cut off in the darkness of a terrifying isolation, because they have cut themselves off from God.
So, in the third place, God who created us with bodies must be expected to do no less than re-create our bodies in a way that fits us for eternal life—real human, but eternal, life. God will supply what we are lacking in that interim, disembodied state that follows death; but ultimately, our creator will re-create our bodies. He will make what little remains of us into bodies that function as real bodies, though without the limitations, defects and frustrations that subject our present bodies to mortality. St. Paul calls these “spiritual bodies,” meaning bodies that perfectly express our souls, and thus perfect those bonds that unite us to each other and the world around us in this life.
The body of Jesus was raised from the dead—not resuscitated, but raised to this new, perfected form of life. It was his body, his real body that the apostles were given to see and touch. But it was his body changed: he appeared to them suddenly, then disappeared; he came to them through locked doors; they recognized him less by his physical appearance than by his characteristic words and gestures. He told the first person who met him, Mary Magdalene, that she must not hold his body, because he was going to the Father. When he disappeared at last, in his Ascension, Jesus promised his friends that he would come again, as he had gone. He was going to prepare a place for them—a place, a real place, because bodies must inhabit places. In the general resurrection, you and I will find our places, infinitely better, richer, fuller places than we live in now. That is what the resurrection means and promises. Who would not desire it, if it were possible? And Jesus has shown that it is possible—indeed, if there is eternal life for us at all, we should expect no less.
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER B
26
APRIL 2009
Fr. Bernard L. Keitz, O.P.
To put it mildly, the Apostles gathered in that upper room in
Jerusalem on that first Easter evening were surprised when Jesus
appeared in their midst – very surprised. The Gospel text
speaks of them as “startled,” “surprised,” “amazed.”
I want to confess – right at the start – that I don’t
much like surprises.
Surprises – well-intentioned or not – make me uneasy.
Somebody says: “We’re having a party for Harold.
But please don’t say anything. It’s a surprise.” Something
inside me shivers. Poor Harold!
Surprise parties often turn out to be phony – the
person being surprised finds out about it and has to try to pretend to
be surprised.
Surprise parties can be dangerous – the reaction
is unpredictable: anything from annoyance to a heart attack.
Surprise parties can be embarrassing – when the
person being surprised is caught totally off-guard: no shave, hair a
mess, wrong clothes.
That’s me. But it’s not God.
After hearing today’s Scripture readings, it seems that
God likes surprises. Recall what we heard today.
(1) The resurrection of Jesus was a grand divine surprise.
When we read the Gospels, we discover that no one in the Lord’s
entourage expected anything like a resurrection.
Jesus was dead – executed as a criminal. Everybody – both
his foes and his followers – expected him to stay dead.
But God had other ideas. Out of death, God brings life.
Out of shame and degradation, God brings glory.
Out of sin, God brings grace and redemption.
The resurrection of Christ turns out to be the biggest surprise in
the whole of human history.
Ironically, none of this should have come as a surprise. As Jesus
explained to the shocked disciples, it was all clearly foretold in the
Scriptures: “the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on
the third day.”
Why didn’t they understand? Maybe they weren’t listening.
Maybe their minds were closed to such prophecies.
We’re led to ask this question of ourselves. What things
have been foretold to us that we refuse to listen to? What surprises
lie ahead for
us – surprises that shouldn’t be surprises?
(2) Another surprise: that God makes our Easter faith in the
Risen Christ depend so much on earthly, physical things – touching,
eating, the tangible, the bodily.
They came to know him when he ate bread and drank wine with them,
when he ate a piece of fish, when he invited them to touch his hands
and feet, to put their hand into his side.
How amazing that such a transcendent, supernatural event as resurrection
from the dead should be verified in such down-to-earth ways. Jesus insists
that he is not a ghost: he is a person of flesh-and-blood meeting us on
our level in this world.
(3) A third surprise: God surprises us by having the
Risen Lord send us forth on MISSION.
It isn’t enough for us to see the Risen Savior, to
touch him, to believe in him. We are called to go forth to testify
before the world as witnesses to his resurrection.
Jesus says: “Repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to
be preached in his name to all nations. You are witnesses of these
things.”
We are witnesses!
When you hear something like this, do you have an attack of the “could
nevers”?
The “could nevers” is a serious disease that
breaks out whenever you say things like:
I COULD NEVER forgive her for what she
did to my mother.
- marry the man I’m living with.
- volunteer for service at the nursing home.
- talk about my religion at the office.
God is a God who surprises us.
Have you ever tried to surprise yourself?
Like doing something you always knew you just could never
do?
Like going forth into the world seeking opportunities to be a
witness of the Lord’s resurrection?
The God of Surprises is cheering us on.
It’s Easter time. Let’s celebrate.
Lets do something that we are sure we could never do.
