2018 EASTER HOMILY ESSENDON Mark Original ending When I talk to our primary school students, I like to draw parallels with faith and life,

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1 2018 EASTER HOMILY ESSENDON Mark Original ending When I talk to our primary school students, I like to draw parallels with faith and life, with our liturgical church seasons of Christian faith, and our surrounding environment, in which we live and move and have our being, as they say. This is autumn for us, heading into hibernation of sorts, which puts us a bit out of sync with the origins of Easter, which once was a pagan festival, celebrating the goddess Eostre, goddess of fertility to mark the coming of springtime, reflective of new life and growth bursting out. (Arguably, it was a smart marketing move on the part of the early Christians who effectively hijacked the idea, implementing it as a major Christian feast for the longer term, so there s no looking back now!) Easter eggs (like hot cross buns for Good Friday from straight after Christmas!) are as much a legacy of this ancient feast, but also symbolic of the potential contained in the apparently motionless and enclosed egg, just waiting to be broken out of, bringing forth new life and growth, reflective of Jesus risen from the tomb, from death to new and transformed life, also symbolized in nature by the beautiful butterfly emerging, transformed from the chrysalis. (And I guess bunnies have proclivities for fertility too!) The Christian celebration of Easter is a story of evolution from despair to hope, fear to courage, darkness to light, sorrow to joy, doubt to faith, as the growing realization is that the tomb is not just empty, but that Jesus lives now for us, and not just in the Gospel accounts after the resurrection over 2,000 years ago. The faithful women first run away in fear and shock, but ultimately come around to realising the reality of his ongoing presence, as they go back into Galilee, where the action is, to share the Good News with the other disciples, who have wilted in fear and failed, but now become rejuvenated believers, despite the tragedy and humiliation and fear of the Cross. And so here we are now, in our Galilee of life, as his disciples, similarly applying this Gospel of life to our lives. Simone Weil, philosopher, political idealist, was born to agnostic secular Jewish parents, but always had a Christian perspective, taking to heart from earliest childhood the idea of loving one s neighbour, and being drawn to Catholicism, yet never baptized, because of her love of those things outside christianity, (nothing wrong with that!), praying for the first time in Assisi, in Francis s original tiny medieval chapel, near where he composed his Canticle of Brother Sun, on the beauty of creation, of which we are part and in which we are immersed: the www, (wide and wonderful, or wild and wicked world) as I like to say, describing God as the current of supreme good. And isn t this reflected in the person and earthly life of Jesus, savagely cut short and eliminated by the nasties, who refused to see the truth and the good, but only determined to hang onto their supposedly fixed knowledge of limited truth, power and control? But now we come to see, with eyes of faith, that this was not the end, and that the experience

2 of the early believers endures as we are challenged by faith to identify his presence in our time and our world. Journalist and polymath, Elizabeth Farrelly, write about the Insurrection of Easter, as she puts it, with perceptive insights on the contrast between Jesus humble and simple entry into Jerusalem on a small donkey, with his ragbag of peasants, no pretensions of power and glory here, as we commemorated on Palm Sunday last week, and how the Romans at Jewish Passover, would put on a triumphal military parade in Jerusalem (perhaps a precursor to Red Square on MayDay!), to show off their clout (I never knew that before! Did you?)! She also makes a contemporary analogy with Jesus angry and provocative overturning of the tables of the money changers and vendors in the Temple, with neither fear nor favour, in the leadup to his ultimate demise, in human terms, suggesting this was his version of the banking royal commission!! Perhaps a slight stretch? And she also describes how the prevailing system charged people just to enter the temple, and excluded women, Gentiles, anyone with a disability, and slaves from intimate sacred experience. Jesus stage-managed upset was a blow for equality and diversity, designed for maximum symbolic impact on the patriarchy. Strong stuff, and no wonder the Temple Police and religious leaders in general were somewhat resentful, or even moreso, hateful of this Jesus who overturned orthodoxies, recognized the dignity of women, and was no respecter of titles or positions. Then there was the ongoing drama, with the Last Supper farewell, Judas kiss of betrayal, his angsted sorrow and tragic suicide, not forgetting poor old Pontius Pilate s wimping out, caving in to the fickle crowd, and then washing his hands of it all! (As a friend says, he gets far too much profile in our regular recitation of the Creed!) (Like the Leunig cartoon I used on Good Friday, where the Roman centurion talks about nipping the whole movement in the bud, at the foot of the Cross, the question may well be asked as to what has endured, as the empire eventually declined and fell within 400 years, having attempted to absorb Christianity in the meantime?) And how do we deal with it ourselves, given that we are in the middle of it all in our lives here and now? We can theologize about Jesus, his Incarnation meaning he entered fully into the human condition, with all of its marvels and limitations, including the reality of mortality. So he was committed to facing death in some way or other, but we can legitimately ask why it was so brutal and unjust, as the cruel, sadistic crucifixion of the utterly good man who spoke the absolute truth, as opposed to a Pilate of fake truth. In the face of darkness and evil, he brings light and hope to those who recognize his ongoing presence, following his way, and recognizing him in each other, particularly in those who continue to suffer in our imperfect world, our support of Project Compassion being one effective way of enabling the world wide good works of Caritas, as we ve reflected on during our Lenten season, making a real difference in recognizing the dignity and value of every single human life.

3 As people of faith, we wrestle with, question, and ultimately embrace the mystery and try to apply it to our lives in word and action. This Gospel of Jesus is very Good News if we take it to heart. As we know, Easter isn t just about buns and chocolate bunnies, bilbies, lambs or whatever else, but there s no harm in it all being part of the fun, as we celebrate our faith that He is Risen, as we continue to be Gospel people. Expect the unexpected! The most unlikely comes out on top, as with our Christian understanding of Easter. The task is ours, to live as people of Easter joy, hope and love. Once again, Michael Leunig reflects the Easter spirit well: Into Easter, out of breath, something good is put to death. Something mad is going on. Something that was loved is gone. Far away somewhere somehow, Beauty s egg is hatching now. It s up to you and me to keep hatching that egg. A Happy, joyful and safe Easter to all. Buona Pasqua a tutti! And enjoy the chocolate too (in moderation, like all good things)!! My Easter parable this year is The Lion Who Wanted to Love, about facing up to and overcoming our fears, and becoming the person we are meant to be confident and free, living and loving well, A good metaphor for living our Easter faith in the light and the love of Jesus. john hannon 31/03/2018 (Like our parish patron saint, Therese of Lisieux, who died at 24, Simone Weil died at the early age of 34. Pope Paul VI spoke of being heavily influenced by her thinking.

4 Despite her pacifism, she joined the republican anarchists of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930 s and even took a rifle, but was expelled from the combat line by her comrades, as she was extremely short-sighted and they feared her shooting one of them! Nothing like impractical youthful idealism!!) Creation implies an imperfect, if wondrous, world. Evil is the form which God s mercy takes in this world; evil, and its consequence, affliction, served the role of driving us out of ourselves and towards God, as Jesus shows us in his words and actions ( The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it. Affliction goes beyond suffering, as suffering plus, transcending body and mind; such physical and mental anguish scourges the very soul. It s the tortuous problem Bertrand Russell wrestled with in his philosophy, his passions being the search for love, for truth, and his unbearable pity for the suffering of humanity ( mankind ).) To self-empty, even unto the point of death, is a kind of fire-farming; killing the diehard ego to enable new growth of the soul, a religious vision that is connective, nurturing and, arguably, feminine. This is the insurrection of Easter.

5 Similarly, at Easter the disciples have to grapple with an absence: a tomb that is empty, and a Jesus who comes and goes, who is seen by some and not by others. It takes faith to see this as a sign of God s presence rather than a sign that someone has taken away the body or that people were seeing things that were not real. Above all, too, the disciples had to grapple with the absence of hope that they had experienced in Jesus death. They had hoped that he would set Israel free, but had seen him taken, tortured, dead and buried. It was natural that they, as with Thomas, should see only absence when told of visions of his presence. Yet they found Christ present when he appeared to them, when they heard the stories, and when they saw the effect that Jesus rising had on those drawn into it. They recognised that God s presence and love were found even in the hardest events and the places that seemed derelict in fields and tombs, the places of no hope. Angels could appear in the most desperate of places. And so it is in our lives. We all need to deal with the apparent absence of God in the events of our own lives or of those of others, near and far. We need the strength to keep hoping in the face of the despair, cruelty and hardship. We need Easter. Andy Hamilton fertility (and war, unfortunately). Hence Easter eggs!... Jesus take on these myths is undeniably female Jesus sacrifice is of self, not of others This was the revolution. Christ doesn t simply oppose male power structures. He insists that the old power model aggressive, domineering, objectifying is illusory; that real power is openness, vulnerability, love Only by dying can Jesus show his persecutors their mistake! But I counter that the qualities of which she speaks are not only feminine, but are to be demonstrated in the life of any genuine human being, whatever one s gender or orientation, and certainly are virtues to be lived out by any sincere Christian. Martin Flanagan (surely Catholic by name, but agnostic!) He advocated a revolution of the spirit. They crucified him for it, but 2000 years later, we re still talking about him!! And for those of faith, Jesus lives now! Life can be so unfair and difficult at times, but the challenges and enduring crosses are there for us to face and to do our best in making a positive difference as we celebrate and enjoy life, and do our best to live it well, in the context of being Christian believers in our Catholic/universal tradition, as Easter people. Michael Leunig reflects the Easter spirit well: Into Easter, out of breath, something good is put to death. Something mad is going on. Something that was loved is gone. Far away somewhere somehow, Beauty s egg is hatching now. It s up to you and me to keep hatching it. For my Easter story this year: