Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
5th Sunday of Easter

May 18, 2025
Collect
Acts 14: 21-27
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

In the collect we prayed, “Almighty ever-living God, constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us.”

The Resurrection of Christ (Piero della Francesca)

The word paschal is based on the Hebrew word for Passover.  In Christian language it takes on the meaning of Easter, referring to our Lord Jesus’ passover from his passion and death to his rising from the tomb and ascension into heaven.  Our Easter candle, representing the light of Christ and his victory over death, is also called the paschal candle.

Mystery means, in part, something we don’t understand, as in a mystery story or the mysteries of the ancient world, like the statues on Easter Island or the “lost colony” that disappeared from North Carolina without a trace in the 1580s.

But for us, mystery takes on additional weight—not only what we don’t understand, like the mystery of the Trinity or the mystery of Christ’s being both God and human at the same time.  It’s also the Greek word for the sacraments, those sacred signs by which God bestows on us his own life, the life of grace.  We usually begin Mass with a reference to “celebrating the sacred mysteries,” and after the consecration we “proclaim the mystery of faith.”

The collect prayed God to “accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us.”  That is, it’s God’s work, God’s accomplishment, not our own.  There’s an echo of this truth of our faith in the 2d reading:  “The One who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold I make all things new’” (Rev 21:5).  The renewal or rebirth of our souls is God’s work in those who accept this rebirth thru Baptism and following Jesus.  This truth is echoed again in the report that Paul and Barnabas give on their return from their missionary travels:  “they reported what God had done with them” (Acts 14:27).  Our part in this divine work is just to accept it, to say “yes” to God, like the Virgin Mary’s saying to the angel, “Let what you say be done to me.  I’m the Lord’s servant” (Luke 1:38).

Our prayer also asked that God do his work in us “constantly.”  There’s no “one and done” with God’s grace and with our commitment to him.  Our acceptance, our conversion from the Devil and all his deceptions, has to be ongoing, constant.  Every day we have to open ourselves afresh to God, to the way of living that Jesus teaches us.  God gives us the sacrament of Reconciliation—the mystery of his forgiveness and renewed grace—as a special help for our conversion.  After we were “made new in Holy Baptism,” as the collect said, we need renewal—oh, so often!—because sin ever lurks around us, trying to lure us away from God with the false, fleeting promises of wealth, power, pleasure, or fame.  St. Paul promises us, “Just as in Adam all die”—i.e., by our own self-seeking—“so too in Christ shall all be brought to life” (1 Cor 15:22).

Indeed, God wants us to “come to the joys of life eternal” (Collect)—the life of the Paschal Mystery of our Lord Jesus.  Paul and Barnabas assured their disciples, “It’s necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).  Jesus’ Paschal Mystery included his passion; so we sacrifice ourselves to follow Jesus:  to be truthful, to be chaste, to be kind and gentle, to forgive, to be helpful to others.  This is the “much fruit” we prayed about in the collect, that with God’s “protective care” we’d bear “much fruit,” the fruit of virtuous and holy living—thru the grace of God offered us by our Savior Jesus Christ.