April 13, 2004 Homily by Fr. Robert Altier Tuesday within the Octave of Easter
Reading (Acts 2:36-41) Gospel (St. John 20:11-18)
In the Gospel reading today, we hear of this
appearance of Our Lord to Saint Mary Magdalene and how Our Lord was not
recognized by Saint Mary Magdalene until He called her by name. This is
something that is quite important for us because it tells us that God, in the
way that He deals with us, does not always allow Himself to be immediately
recognized. We go to prayer and sometimes it is very dry – most of the time it
is very dry. We deal with people out in the world and what we see oftentimes is
anything but the Lord at work. That is, the way that people deal with us, the
events that happen in our lives, sometimes we fail to see God in those things
and in those people. Yet it is precisely this point: that it is Our Lord Who is
at work and asking us for an act of faith.
Saint Mary Magdalene could not be blamed in the
least for not recognizing Jesus. But we, on the other hand, do not have that
excuse. We have her example. We have the example of the saints. We just think
of Mother Teresa, for instance, who said that the reason she was able to care
for these poor and unfortunate souls was because she saw Jesus in each one of
them. So we know that these are the things we can do as well and that Jesus
allows Himself to be hidden so that those with faith will be able to recognize
Him.
We recall that for the three years He was with His
apostles they did not recognize Him. It was not until the Holy Spirit came upon
them that they really understood Who He was and why He had to do what He did.
But we have that Holy Spirit. When the people of old asked Peter and the
apostles, “What are we to do?” they said, “Be baptized in the Name of the Lord
Jesus and you will receive the Holy Spirit.” We already have that Holy Spirit,
and He is the One Who is given to lead us into all truth. That truth, of
course, is Jesus Christ. And so if we have our hearts open to the movement of
the Holy Spirit, it is to be able then to see the working of Christ in our
lives, to be able to see that somehow in a way that we do not understand every
single thing that happens in our lives is ordered for the good. As Saint Paul
says, “All things work together for the good of those who believe.”
And so, once again, we ask ourselves, “Am I able to
see the Lord at work? Do I recognize Him present in the events of my day-to-day
life? In the people whom I encounter? In the things that happen, whether they
seem to be positive or negative?” All of it is part of what God’s Will for us
is. Again, we just look at what Mary Magdalene encountered and how she
interpreted it. Here she comes to the tomb and the body is not there. Her
initial interpretation is that somebody has taken the body and laid it somewhere
else. It seems very negative. She weeps; she begins to walk away; she does not
see that it is the Lord at work. She does not recognize, of course, what had
happened with the Resurrection because she did not understand that. And then
the Lord calls her by name. Then she understood; then she recognized Him. So
too, in our own lives, when various things occur and we originally assume that
they are negative, when the Lord calls each one of us and He points out to us
what His Will is in all of these things, then we are able to see them in a
different light.
So that is the lesson we can learn: to be able to
see Christ in everything, to be able to see His Will in all the things that
occur in our day-to-day lives, to be able to understand that even the things
that seem so negative at first God will use for our good and that all of it
somehow is part of God’s Will for us. In the Resurrected Christ, we are to have
a change of mind and of heart. We are to be able to see things from a different
perspective, to see things from God’s perspective, to be able to share in the
glory of the Resurrection. Part of that is to be able to see that the
Resurrected Christ is not always immediately recognized, but He is present; and
where He has been, His angels are going to be present as well. As the Lord
continues to work in our lives, we have to understand that He has sent His
angels to help us, to enlighten our hearts. He has sent His Holy Spirit to open
our hearts and our minds to the fullness of truth and to lead us to Himself.
We now need to pray and to ask Him for that grace to
cooperate with the Holy Spirit and to be able to see Him at work in our lives
so that in the people and the events that take place in our lives we are able
to see Jesus Christ, not in the form that we would expect to see Him, but truly
as the One Who is the Teacher, the One Who is teaching us the most important
lessons and helping us to grow in virtue. He will show us eventually what it
was that He was doing and why; we will understand. Immediately, we do not –
until He calls us by name – and then we see and understand. In the meantime, we
accept on faith. We trust. And we have to believe that it is He Who is present
and He Who is at work in every event and in the person of every individual that
we meet in our day-to-day lives. He is working to teach us the lessons that He
wants for each one of us to learn.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.