Saint Benedict Bascop - The Traveling Saint From England

 

Commentary On The Readings

Easter Sunday, 2024

First Reading
Acts 10:34; 37-43.

These verses are part of the conversion story of Cornelius, a Roman army officer. Stationed in Caesarea, Cornelius believed the God of the Jews was the true God, and he was a good-living man, but he had not become a Jew.
Advised by a divine messenger, he sent to Joppa for St. Peter, who had been a firm anti-paganist. But that changed with a vision he had that same day. So he came to Caesarea and entered the pagan home of Cornelius..., a first for Peter.

This passage from Acts was selected for Easter Sunday for a couple reasons.

First, The Resurrection is mentioned in it.

Secondly, St. Peter gives his first discourse to a Gentile, in which he affirms the Resurrection as the basic doctrine and crowning proof of our Christian faith.

As St. Paul says: “If Christ has not risen, then vain is our preaching; vain, too, is your faith.” (1 Cor 15:14).
St. Peter also stresses the truth of the Resurrection by citing witnesses besides himself, people who had seen the risen Jesus, spoken to him, and actually eaten with him.

But that first Good Friday, the Apostles and disciples thought the crucifixion ended their beloved Master's mission of mercy and redemption. They forgot all the times Jesus foretold His resurrection, and were convinced that the tomb near Golgotha was the end of all their hopes.
For fear of the Temple Jews, they locked themselves into the room of the Last Supper, and hid... lest they suffer the same fate as Christ. Two of them finally mustered enough courage to head for home on Sunday morning, dejected at their Master’s failure. Meanwhile, the others waited for their own chance to quietly leave the city.

But the Resurrection changed all that. It was unexpected, unhoped-for, and it actually happened. Even the most skeptical of them, “doubting” Thomas, was finally convinced of its reality. Had they been hoping for it, or even just thinking about it, we might dismiss it as a hallucination, or wishful thinking. But the exact opposite was the case – they were clueless and hard to convince, even when He appeared right in front of them.

This was intended by God — so that the basis of our Christian faith might be proven beyond doubt. Christ, who was truly, gruesomely dead on The Cross of Good Friday, was raised to life by his Father on Easter morning, in front of everyone.
He returned in His HUMAN BODY to heaven, in the full glory of the divinity which he had hidden while on earth. But His human body was now also glorified.
There (in heaven), as God and Man, he pleads for us at the right hand of the Father until the day when he who redeemed men will come to judge them all.

We now know that we are not mere “flesh bags” living on this planet for a few short years. Rather, we are citizens of heaven, children of God the Father through Christ our Brother.
He showed us; He has gone before us to His kingdom to prepare a place for us. He conquered death, and our certain, earthly death is no longer something to be feared.
Instead, our earthly death is how we start our TRUE lives.

The only death which we might now fear is the spiritual death of serious sin. This can keep us from our true, heavenly life. But while this possibility exists, it is just that - a possibility. The sincere Christian realizes what God has in store for him, and is not so ungrateful, or so forgetful as to let earthly pleasures and sins come for long between himself, and the eternal home which God has planned for him.

Second Reading
From The Letter of St. Paul to the Colossians 3:1-4.

Baptism in the apostolic days was usually by immersion, for those who were ready to believe in the one true God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Later it became more of a ritual washing. But either by washing or immersion, one is cleansed of the sins from his previous worldliness. It symbolized being buried in the tomb with Christ and dying with Christ to all earthly attachments and desires...then to be raised again from the water (the tomb) to be with the Risen Christ.

We are always looking forward to a happier day to come. This is natural, since this earthly life is not our permanent life; this earth is not the real home destined for us.
We were created for unending happiness in heaven, and it is only when we get there that our desire and our quest for all-satisfying happiness will end.

Today, Easter Sunday, St. Paul reminds us that this happiness is in our grasp. We move steadily towards it, more quickly than we realize. The Holy Trinity are daily doing all within their power for us.... all that is needed is the little that is asked of us.

So what is that? St. Paul tells us we must, “mind the things that are above, not the things that are of earth.” We must never let the, “things of earth” - the pleasures, the power, the possessions - we must let them block or impede us on our upward journey.

Does this mean we must all return to the desert and live as hermits, like the early
Christians did? Well, no – but yes.

We are not forbidden to have the lawful pleasures of life.
We are not forbidden possessions, or power, if they are used justly.
All we are forbidden is being attached to these things over our love for God, and the unlawful use of the things of the world.
And when I saw “lawful,” I mean God's Law, not the laws of men.

So, spiritually, we must stay in the desert and be NOT consumed by the things of this world that might draw our focus from Gods plan. 

Easter Gospel
John 20:1-9.

The Resurrection accounts in the New Testament differ in details, depending on which one you read. But the FACT of the Resurrection which is stressed in all of them formed the Christian Faith.
Had the Resurrection not happened, Christianity would have died with the sunrise on the first Easter Sunday.
Peter and his companions would have returned to their fishing-nets and boats on Lake Genesareth, and Christ, the nice guy who had helped so many, would have been forgotten in half a generation.

But Christ was no Hallmark character, with kind acts and calm words of wisdom.
He was the MESSIAH, promised for centuries. He was the suffering servant foretold by Isaiah, whose perfect obedience to his Father took Him to a horrific death on a crucifixion Cross and, finally, to the grave.
But above all, he was the God-Made-Man, the earthly Son of God.
He emptied himself of his divine state to be the perfect human servant of the Father.
He was then raised from the cold grip of physical death by the Father, with His divine glory invigorating his physical body!
THAT was, and is, the divine plan of God for mankind...

“Through Christ Jesus, and because of Christ’s (the new Adam’s) perfect obedience, all mankind would be made worthy of divine son-ship, and worthy of one day rising like Christ from the grave in glorified bodies.”

Is all this too good to be true?
Actually, yes - IF we imagine God in our own concocted image and likeness. Take heed you opponents of Christianity.

On the other hand, if you can grasp that God is infinite and incomprehensible to us....
If you can accept that what God sees in me, you, and our fellowmen is a mystery...
If you can accept that we are not God, and do not have the mind of God....
If you can accept that the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of His Divine Son for man’s sake is the greatest proof of love that an omnipotent God could give...

THEN you will have all you need to know.

As a wonderful consequence of this act of divine love, you and I are guaranteed our own resurrection from the death we must inevitably face. Our new life of unending happiness and glory awaits if we do not, in extreme folly, reject God’s offer.

Today, let us thank God once more for Easter and for all it means for us.

— Excerpted from The Sunday Readings, Cycle A, by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.