“Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be
afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.” (Matthew 28:5)
Imagine experiencing Easter for the very first time.
Sometime
last year, one of our youth group kids brought a young lady to church with
her. This young lady had never been to
church before, had never been baptized, and knew almost nothing about the
faith. Soon she started coming to youth
group and I got to know her and noticed she was a kind, very peaceful young
lady. It’s rare to find a teenager who
radiates peace. One night, as I
processed up for the evening Mass, I noticed that her friend had invited her to
sing in the choir. So August rolls
around and I start announcing that our Catechumenate classes were about to
start for all those who weren’t baptized, and this young lady approaches me to
tell me that she would like to be baptized.
Of course, I’m overjoyed whenever anyone, especially a young person,
tells me that they want to be baptized.
So she begins her classes and is ever attentive to every lesson. She goes on her first retreat back in
September with the Youth Encounters where she delves deeper into who Jesus is,
and around Christmas she tells that friend who first brought her to church that
she would like her to be her godmother.
As Holy Week approached, I tell those who are going to be baptized to
join me for all the Holy Triduum services so that they can experience them for
the first time and walk with Jesus on his journey. Now this young lady was going to play an
integral part in our Good Friday services since our youth group kids were going
to stage a living Way of the Cross, and she had been chosen to be Mary. I had no objections. I just smiled thinking that we were asking a
sweet young lady who wasn’t even baptized to play the part of the Mother of
God. As we went through the stations,
she looked on at the young man playing Jesus as if he were Jesus himself. The tears streaming down her cheeks were
genuine. She wasn’t acting or performing,
and when we came to the 13th station when Jesus is taken down from
the cross, he was placed in her arms right in front of me and her head sank so
tenderly down to his body. In every
photograph that was taken of that scene, you cannot see her face. She felt Mary’s pain. She felt the agony of that moment. Later on, the young man playing Jesus told me
that when she held him at that 13th station, he felt as if his own
mother was holding him. Truly, you can’t
make this stuff up especially when it comes to teenagers.
So
we come to last night and the great Easter Vigil. Seventeen people were going to baptized along
with this young lady who sat in the third pew on the aisle hanging on to every
word that was uttered and on every liturgical action. Then the moment came when she approached me
at the baptismal font with her best friend who is now her godmother. I try to be very stoic during Masses and
weddings and baptisms, but I must confess that it was tough holding in my
genuine joy at that precise moment. She
approached me with her big, peaceful brown eyes and bowed her head over the
baptismal font, and I gently poured water three times over her head and invoked
the Holy Trinity. Every person baptized
last night got a rousing applause, but the entire youth group was sitting in
the back and exploded in cheers when she emerged from those life-giving
waters. She was finally home. I proceeded to confirm her and give her First
Communion. She was really home. At one point, I thought to myself, “Would you
look at that? `Mary’ is finally baptized!”
What
struck me throughout the week is how she took in all of this mystery for the
first time. I don’t know much about her past, and quite frankly I really do not
give it a second thought. All I know is
that she has a future filled with grace with this great family of the Church
that she was just baptized into. She is
a living witness of the Risen Christ just like the women who went to the tomb
early on that first Easter morning.
Those women were overjoyed at meeting the Risen Christ just as this young
lady was and their mission was to tell others what they had seen.
We
would do well to learn from the example of this new sister in Christ who
experienced the Easter mysteries for the very first time. Imagine how those women felt when they saw
Jesus. Imagine how Peter and John felt
when they saw the empty tomb. Imagine
how our mother Mary reacted when she first saw her Son risen from the
dead. Our Lord is very much alive and I
have seen him in the wonderful young people that walked with him these last few
days from the table of the Last Supper to Gethsemane to Golgotha and finally to
the empty tomb. May we approach our
Risen Lord this Easter Sunday as if we were meeting him for the very first
time.
Postscript:
I preached this homily at my 10am Mass this morning. Many of the youth group kids were back and
went to Mass again because they were helping out with our Easter Egg Hunt. The newly baptized young lady was not
there. When I preached this homily again
at our way overcrowded Noon Mass, I was a quarter of the way through the story
when I looked to my left and noticed that the kids had snuck her in through a
side door and they were all sitting on the floor in front of the first side pew
to my left. When I finished the story, I
approached her, took her by the hand, had her stand up and said to her, “Let me
introduce you to your new family” as I motioned to the overflowing church. The congregation erupted in applause, and, as
always since I’ve known her, she cried tears of joy. (And if this story doesn't get any better, today is her birthday!) What a gift to be a Christian! What an even greater gift to be a new
Christian on Easter Sunday.
Happy Easter, my friends!
