Homily for 7th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
7th Sunday of Easter

June 1, 2025
Acts 7: 55-60
Ps 97: 1-2, 6-7, 9
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

Stained glass
Holy Name of Jesus Church
New Rochelle

“The Lord is king, the most high over all the earth” (Resp Ps 97).

On Thursday we celebrated Christ our Lord’s ascension into heaven.  As God he’d been in heaven for all eternity.  As a human being, a man like us, he’d begun to exist at the moment he was conceived in Mary’s womb.  The ascension celebrates the exaltation of Jesus’ humanity at the throne of heaven.

It’s this exalted Jesus of Nazareth whom St. Stephen sees while on trial:  “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).  Stephen had been preaching that Jesus is the Messiah, and that’s why he was arrested.  On trial, he testifies further to Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation to divine status, to Jesus as Lord.  This infuriates the men who’d put Jesus to death a few years earlier; they objected to anyone proclaiming that Jesus was alive and was God’s special messenger, more than a great prophet, even the Son of God.

This pre-eminence of Jesus as Lord is also announced in our reading from the Book of Revelation.  In his vision, St. John hears Christ’s voice:  “Behold, I’m coming soon.  I’ll give a recompense to each person according to his deeds.  I’m the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev 22:12-13).

Both Stephen and Revelation, then, are acknowledging that Jesus is Lord, and “the Lord is king, the most high over all the earth.”  This is a fundamental part of our Christian belief, as we profess in the Apostles’ Creed:  “I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty.”

We profess those words, or the similar words of the Nicene Creed, every week.  Do we profess them also by how we live?  Is Jesus Christ the king, the ruler, the center of our lives, “exalted far above all gods” (Ps 97:9)?

I’m sure none of us has a little shrine in our home where we’ve set up and worship a statue or image of Zeus or Venus or any other god, or of Buddha as the great teacher of the path to eternal bliss.  It’s likely, tho, that we have false gods in our lives.  For example, we may worship ourselves by telling lies to protect our reputation, or by spreading gossip about the faults of other people, or by boasting about our own accomplishments.  We may worship at the altar of selfishness by using pornography or engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage or by deliberately making marital love sterile.  We may worship at the altar of the dollar by so focusing on work that we neglect the important people in our lives—parents, spouse, and children; or by using our resources only for ourselves without regard for the poor and the suffering; or by gambling our wages away on the illusion of striking it rich.

The long tradition of the Church reminds us of the 7 deadly sins that keep us from serving God and our neighbor:  pride, avarice, lust, gluttony, laziness, anger, and envy.  These 7 false gods distract us from worshiping God as “the Most High over all the earth, exalted far above all gods” (Ps 97:9), and Jesus as Lord, “the first and the last, the beginning and the end,” the one in whom and for whom we were created, who promises us a recompense, a heavenly reward, for following him.  “Through him, and with him, and in him, all glory and honor” belong to God, the almighty Father, forever and ever.  Amen. (Doxology)