Homily of H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti of April 16, 2006
Easter
1st reading: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Ps 117; 2nd reading: Col 3:1-4; Gospel: Jn 20:1-9
Today, helped by the Lord, we will try to lift a little more the veil of discretion, of silence that still envelops the moment of Resurrection but, in order to be clear on what will be said, some preliminary remarks are necessary. Christ is true God and true Man, that is, human nature and divine nature, united together, forms a single person and everything he does in human nature, even the actions of sacrifice, fatigue or eating, must also be attributed to the divine nature, therefore they have infinite value. When we die, the soul separates from the body and flies towards God and it will be judged on the basis of what that soul has done: it will be rewarded or punished or placed in an intermediate area of purification which is Purgatory. For Jesus, being God, the situation is completely different. At the moment of Christ's death, the Soul and Divinity separated from the Body and, as told by the scripture and it is part of our faith, they went to the so-called underworld, where all the righteous of the Old Testament were taken and led to Heaven. It has never been mentioned before, but Purgatory already existed at that time, as it awaited all those who found themselves united with God, still purifying themselves from the sins committed during their earthly life. You have heard today that these people were crying out to the Lord, as well as Hosanna, to be led as soon as possible to Heaven. In the moment established by God, with the Resurrection, something happened that is not recounted in the Gospels for a very simple reason: the Evangelists described what was seen and heard by the Apostles. The Transfiguration was seen, it was the subject of experience for some of them so it was controlled, not so the Resurrection. How the birth of Jesus took place was told by Our Lady to the Apostles, but in God's designs it was established that many centuries had to pass before knowing how the Resurrection took place. I don't know why, but everything falls within the divine will.
Today you have understood that Jesus was accompanied by all the holy souls who are in Heaven, by the angels, but also by those who were in Purgatory and, at the moment of the Resurrection, when the Soul and the Divinity of Christ were reunited with the Body, something immense, wonderful happened and men, as it happens every time God works in a grand style, had not realized. All the angels, the saints of Heaven, the saved souls and Mary, the only person still living on Earth who, by the will of God, was in front of the sepulcher in bilocation gathered in front of the tomb of Christ. The sepulcher is the second Eucharistic tabernacle that God established, while the first is the womb of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. When the Angel told Mary that she had to become the Mother of God and that the time had come for this mystery to be fulfilled. Our Lady agreed to fulfill God's will and in her womb God became present. The Angel, who was standing up, in an upright position, knelt in adoration because, in that instant, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity entered Mary’s womb. What was accomplished at the moment of Annunciation by the Angel was accomplished by all of the Heaven at the moment of Resurrection, when the Soul and the Divinity of Christ were reunited with the Body and the tomb became a tabernacle with Christ, true God and true Man. At that moment men did not realize anything, but a powerful, a very strong light flooded the whole Earth, to indicate that the promised Redemption had become a reality. In that instant the saints, the angels and Our Lady, with Saint Joseph on one side and the Baptist on the other, bowed in adoration and the angels sang the Alleluia as solemnly as on the day of birth when they sang the Gloria. The Mother of the Eucharist was happy, in adoration, because Jesus is her son, but Jesus is, above all, God and the Son of God and this wonderful scene must suggest a reverent and adoring attitude every time we are before Christ, even and especially when we adore him present in the silence of the tabernacle.
And now this homily turns into prayer. I would like to rephrase the words contained in the first chapter of the letter to the Colossians, of which you have heard a passage today. In the first chapter, we also spoke of it during our last bible meeting, Paul says: "I fulfill in myself what is lacking in the passion of Christ", that is, sharing with his sufferings in the sufferings of Christ. Well today, oh Lord, I want to take a cue from this expression, transform it, adapt it to the circumstance we are experiencing and, in other words, today we can say that we participate and accomplish within us what is lacking in the Resurrection because we participate and adhere with our detachment from sin to a life of grace that is rebirth and resurrection. This resurrection sees different subjects and I ask you, actually I cry to you with passion and love: "My Lord, when will the resurrection of Your Church take place?" It is a Church that we love, we have suffered and prayed for, but has not yet risen and will be so only when it is cleansed in love in every component, in a life of grace, in adoration full of faith, hope and charity, in a continuous adoration of the Eucharistic mystery. Only then can the Church be defined as resurrected and the ecclesial and religious communities will rise again only when the commandment of Christ, the commandment of love, is alive, throbbing and put into practice: "Love each other as I have loved you".
Christ did not say: "Love each other as men" but "Love each other as I have loved you", therefore we must love as Christ loved, which means having within us the life of Christ and the life of grace. If there is no life of grace within us, we cannot love like Christ. My Lord, the families you love so much and for which you instituted the great and wonderful sacrament of marriage will also be reborn and resurrected, when they too find the path of love. The expression "Love is the Telepass for Heaven" is written on that holy card that was given to you, but it is also the Telepass to reach the heart of the spouse. In fact, each spouse must stand in the situation of being able to reach his beloved, her beloved, by walking the path of love only and if love is present there won’t be those fractures causing so many marriages to break. We see around us so many separations leading to divorce and eventually breaking what God has united, on the basis of a misinterpreted sentence, shouted from the rooftops, that divorce belongs to civilization and to the freedom of men. Love, on the other hand, my beloved, as Jesus reminds us, is not a chain but an elevator that leads upwards and the more there is love, the more we rise, the more love, the more we are able to see things in the light and in the reality of God. This is what must work in the Church, the Resurrection of Christ. "He has accomplished what the Father had established", he died, he suffered before dying and rose again and wants to unite all men to himself in the Resurrection so that he can complete the plan of salvation with the definitive entry into Heaven. Unfortunately, this entry will not be for all men, not because God does not keep his promises, but because men, often, in their freedom, deceive themselves by asserting it and deny it by renouncing what is truly beautiful, what is truly high: the union with God.
Today Our Lady, for the umpteenth time, has spread her mantle over each of us, yet, we pray to the Mother of the Eucharist so that, at this moment, she may extend her mantle over the whole Church and over the whole world. If we invoke Saint Joseph as "Guardian of the Eucharist, Protector of the Church and Patron of the world" we invoke the Mother of the Eucharist and we also recognize her as "Mother of the Church and Mother of all men" because, let's never forget it, men were entrusted to her by the Lord at the supreme moment of His crucifixion, shortly before dying and returning to the Father. The Church needs Christ, the world needs Christ and we make ours the cry of John Paul II: "Do not be afraid of Christ", an expression drawn from the Gospel, because we have seen that only in the company of our Lord can we fulfill ourselves as persons and, without Christ, humanity does not receive the right motivations and that strength necessary to realize itself.
We need Christ and then, my Lord, we manifest this need to you today, knowing that you will meet our needs by standing at our side, as you stood at the side of the disciples of Emmaus, and you speak to us as you spoke to them. The disciples said: "When he spoke, our hearts burned", then let’s listen to Christ, only Christ, exclusively Christ, to reach the path of salvation.
Praised be Jesus Christ.