Homily for Easter

 

It had been this way from the beginning. At the moment of the Annunciation, the same invisible, supernatural life-giving Will of God first called to life the human body of Christ in the silence and darkness of the Blessed Mother’s womb.

 

Thus the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures of Christ took place through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s created humanity and His uncreated divinity were drawn together in the miracle of the Incarnation.

 

There had been no human source for either the Incarnation or the Resurrection. These events had taken place outside the course of human events. Yet there had been a certain dependence wherein God, in His unimaginable love, made His Divine Will subject to the free will He had created for human beings. Things had gone badly with the exercise of free will at Eden, yet once again God had placed His trust in the free will of humanity. This time there was a “Yes” at Nazareth, and a “Yes” at Gethsemane in which the Blessed Mother and Our Lord Jesus Christ reversed the “No” of our first parents, becoming a New Eve and a New Adam, to form God’s new Creation.

 

Now, while there had been no witnesses to the miracles of the Incarnation or the Resurrection, there were discoverers of these truths: Saint Joseph at the Angel’s message of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy, and Saint Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. These discoveries were met with an element of confusion, but not with incredulity. For both Joseph and Mary Magdalene, love says “Yes” to faith, and the Gospel unfolds with the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ.

 

The witnesses to truth could not have been more different: Joseph the Just, believing in his dreams… and Magdalene the Repentant, whose forgiven sins always lurked in the recesses of her memory. This suggests to us that wherever we are in our quest for God and for holiness of life, the discovery of God’s Truth is available for those who sincerely seek it.

 

We shall never fully comprehend the miraculous power of God in this life, but perhaps it will be revealed in the life to come, when our wills no longer have the capacity to say “No” to God’s Will, but only an eternal “Yes.”

 

Saying “Yes” to God’s Will opens up the possibilities of discovering, or even witnessing the miraculous plan God has for us, and, perhaps through us, for the world around us.