what is your Easter duty?

Homily
Thursday in the Octave of Easter
16 April 2020
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

Jesus is Risen!  He is truly Risen!  Alleluia!
Shocker, right?
No, of course you've heard it before.
You've heard it a million times.

The disciples had plenty of advance notice for today's visit from the Risen Christ.
All the prophets prepared them.
Jesus foretold it.
They had at least two eyewitness reports that he was alive.
Surely they were ready.
Nope. They were scared to death.
They fell apart.

Jesus had a right to ask why.

I can tell him why.
The scariest thing imaginable
is someone who comes back from death to life.
It's always enough to scare us from life to death.
And that's the point.

For the Resurrection is an entirely new way to live.
We can't begin if we aren't first scared to death.

The good thing is we don't have to imagine this encounter with the Risen Christ.
It's here. Right in front of us.
We've been told of it a thousand times.
It's our Easter duty.
To receive the Eucharist even more intimately than the first disciples who touched his hands and sides.
It's the chance of a lifetime.
Just once to allow the Risen Christ to scare us to death.
So through his Resurrection, we can begin to truly live.