Easter Sunday

April 12, 2009

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

John 20:1-9

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            I told those of you who were here last night for our beautiful Easter Vigil Mass that our Society’s Patron, St. Thomas More, was executed on July 6th and this also happens to be my mother’s birthday.  My parents were received into the Church the same day I was.  Now taken by itself, this seems like an interesting coincidence, but I told you yesterday that I do not think its.  I believe St. Thomas More has been praying for our reconciliation to Mother Church since before any of us even knew his name.  The birthday coincidence is just one of many signs that point to the Lord’s hand at work in our lives.  Allow me to share a few more examples.

            Having waited for more than two years to receive permission from the Holy Father for me to be ordained a Catholic priest, my rescript arrived from Rome in February 2007.  Bishop Dougherty called me down to the Chancery to discuss when we could arrange for me to be ordained first to the deaconate and then to the priesthood.  He was eager for me to return as quickly as possible to the role of pastor to my flock of converts to the Catholic Faith.  Thus, he pulled out his calendar to see when he was available on a Saturday in a month’s time, which would allow for planning the ordination and give me time to take the mandated retreats.  He determined that I should be ordained to the deaconate on March 24^th and to the priesthood after four weeks as a transitional deacon.  In fact I was ordained on March 24^th, precisely thirty-six years to the day after I had been baptized in a little Episcopal Church in Morristown, Tennessee.

            By the time that happened, I had come to expect such amazing confluences.  Here is why.  My wife and I struggled for five years to have children, but after I finally broke down and prayed to our Blessed Mother to intercede for us, Kristina conceived within a month.  (Keep in mind that the Catholic Church was not yet on our radar screen.)  As we considered names, Kristina settled on Clara if the baby were a girl, and, sure enough, she was.  I think she mentioned something about Clara Barton.  When three years later we needed to find shelter in a Catholic Church, the Bishop sent us to St. Clare’s.  Not until years later did it occur to me that our Blessed Mother knew where we would end up long before we did.

            I may sound like a nut, but I assure you I am not.  I drew inspiration to tell you these stories from today’s Gospel, wherein John steps into the tomb, sees the linen burial cloths lying there and immediately believes in our Lord’s resurrection from the dead.  He has not been told that the resurrection took place.  He even adds as a postscript to this episode that he did not know the Scriptures indicated that the Christ must rise from the dead.  He simply saw the cloths and with the eyes of faith was able to put two and two together.

            It got me thinking about how often we see evidence in our own lives that the Lord is risen and actively playing a role in the events unfolding around us.  I know that many of you could add stories to the ones I just related that indicate God had been planning this amazing work in Scranton for decades before it actually took place.

            I think about how Judy Sanderson was an organ student forty years before we finally left the Episcopal Church; so when we needed a musician to add untold beauty to our liturgies, she dusted off an old skill and volunteered.  She and her husband Don had only come to Good Shepherd the year before we left the Episcopal Church.  They and so many others.  When all was said and done, the St. Thomas More Society was made up of former Anglicans from parishes up and down the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys.  We could not have planned for us all to come together at Good Shepherd between 1999 and 2004 and then agreed at a certain time to become Catholic.  What happened was too perfect to have been of our own devising.  As I contemplate our journey into the Church, I find myself in John’s position staring into the tomb.

            You see, John could have thought to himself, “Oh, I guess Mary’s right.  Somebody moved Jesus’ body.  We better get looking for it.”  But this is not what he thought.  Without Jesus coming and speaking to him face to face, John believed that Jesus is alive because John had faith to read correctly the signs that Jesus had left him.  And with this faith, he was able to see even more as Jesus continued to reveal Himself to the apostles.

            But some object:  What makes you think God has given you a special mission in the Catholic Church?  You’re a nobody, for one, and you do not have a Catholic name, or even an English one for that matter.  You’re married and everyone else is celibate, and the Mass you say is celebrated by practically no one.  If people really want to be Catholic, they do not need you and your Society.  It’s so small that it could not possibly make a difference anyway.  All these things, by the way, have been said to me.

            And our answer must be, “Precisely!”  God used a bunch of Galilean fishermen who had no formal education to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  We can hardly attribute to their incredible talent the Church with which God has blessed the world.  The more the instrument appears to be useless, the more people will attribute to the hand of God whatever success the instrument enjoys.  Because the apostles were all nobodies, we know it was God working through them; and more than that, we know that it was Jesus, our Risen Lord, helping them to spread the good News about his victory over sin and death.

            I do not assume that Christ’s miraculous deeds done through weak vessels of clay ended when John the last Apostle died.  Jesus continues to accomplish the miraculous.  I remember last year Ed Jordan telling me that he thought Paul Campbell coming to serve as our choir master was a miracle.  At the time, I thought to myself, “The whole thing’s a miracle”.  With the eyes of faith, we can see that my mom’s birthday, my ordination date, my first daughter’s name, Judy’s presence with us, and Paul coming to us – these are not all mere coincidences.  They are signs to us, little encouragements that we are doing something very special here in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and we better keep doing it!  Even more importantly, like the linen cloths lying in the tomb, these signs that Jesus gives us are signs that He lives, that He is the one who has planned and fulfilled our work, and He walks with us still.  How we ought to rejoice that Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!