Homily for Easter Sunday

Homily for Easter Sunday

April 9, 2023
Acts 10: 34, 37-43
Collect
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
Ursulines, The Fountains, Tuckahoe, N.Y.

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power” (Acts 10: 38).

Both Peter’s preaching of the Good News and our Easter collect refer to the Holy Spirit.  Peter speaks of the Spirit’s powerful work in Jesus’ ministry; the Spirit empowered Jesus to “go about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil” (10:38).  Our prayer to God, the Father of Jesus, is that we be renewed by that same Spirit and so be empowered to “rise up in the light of life.”

The Spirit is life-giving.  In the opening verses of Genesis we read, “the Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.  Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (1:2-3).  In Jesus, God brought light back into the world by “conquering death and unlocking for us the path to eternity” (Collect), for “God raised [him] on the third day” so that when the Spirit of Jesus sweeps once again over the waters—"everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins” (10:40,43).  The Spirit that empowered Jesus enables him to obtain for us healing from the devil’s oppression, i.e., from our sins and the consequences of our sins, viz., death and eternal separation from God—which we call “hell” or “damnation” or “eternal darkness.”

The Spirit was given to us in the waters of Baptism and our anointing with sacred chrism; that gift was affirmed in Confirmation.  It’s reaffirmed every time we celebrate divine forgiveness in the sacrament of Reconciliation, every time we receive Jesus himself in the Holy Eucharist, every time the Spirit moves us to prayer.

On Easter Day we celebrate Christ’s victory over death and the demonic powers—the powers that hold the world in their grip thru war, thru the destruction of human life, thru practices of human degradation, thru cruelty, thru selfish indifference to one another.  Christ’s victory is made available to us thru our faith in Jesus.  “Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining” (Sequence).  God’s Holy Spirit renews us with the life of Jesus, so that like him we may “go about doing good,” affirming life, human dignity, concern for our sisters and brothers, until the Father of Jesus brings us home into “the light of life,” eternal life.

Photo: Christ the Light of the World (grounds of the USCCB offices, Washington)