Bishop Leo O’Reilly’s Easter Homily
delivered at the Easter Vigil
Cathedral of SS Patrick & Felim, Cavan, 23rd April 2011
I’m not a regular TV viewer so I sometimes miss good programmes. I almost missed a very good programme during the week – a very appropriate programme for Holy Week. I was lucky enough to catch the second half of it. It was called “Finding Peace”. It was about the tragic death of Michaela Harte in Mauritius a few months ago, and the impact of that on the people who were closest to her. It moved me to tears at times, but it also lifted my spirits and gave me great hope. It gave me hope because it was such a powerful witness to faith in Jesus and in the power of faith in Jesus, particularly at times of tragedy or difficulty in our lives. All credit to RTE for screening it and Tommy Gorman for producing it.
The faith of the people close to Michaela was deep and sincere. Their willingness and ability to talk about it unselfconsciously was an inspiration. I don’t have a transcript of the programme, but I think I can recall the gist of what was said. Michaela’s husband John put it very simply: Michaela is still with me. She hasn’t gone away. I’m conscious of her with me every day. I talk to her and pray to her. Of course it’s different now. It will never be the way it was before and that’s painful. I don’t know if I’ll get over it, but I know she’s in a better place.
Her father Mickey said that a day never passes that he doesn’t miss her, that he doesn’t cry. But he said, without my faith I don’t know how I could live with it at all. I can’t see her but I know she’s close. I know we will meet again. I thank God for the faith I have that helps me to cope with this tragedy. I don’t know how people manage who don’t have faith. Her young bridesmaid said how much she had been inspired by Michaela’s own faith and how that meant so much to her now.
What all of the family and friends of Michaela who took part in that programme were saying quietly but clearly was: I believe in the resurrection. Easter is about celebrating our faith in the resurrection. This is an earth-shattering event, a cosmic event that affects the whole world. So we recall the whole story of our salvation, from the creation of the world to the coming of Jesus and his life, passion and death. The climax of the story is the resurrection. The mind-blowing truth that we believe is that Jesus was raised from the tomb by God and entered the glory of heaven. His resurrection means that death is not the end, that evil and injustice and sin do not have the final say. They are swallowed up in the victory of the resurrection.
That is all wonderful in itself. But what is much more wonderful is that God has made us sharers in the resurrection of Jesus. We proclaim that sharing when we light our candles from the paschal candle – the symbol of the risen Christ. St Paul says: “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death… [We] joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead… we took might live a new life.” So, we believe, not only that Christ rose from the dead, but that we rise with him. We share in his resurrection. We begin to share in it at baptism – and so we have baptisms as part of our celebration tonight. These children are given the new life of Christ tonight. And that life comes to full fruition in us in the glory of heaven.
So when Michaela’s husband John said: She is still with me, he was saying: I believe that Michaela now enjoys the fullness of life with Jesus – the life of the resurrection. When her father Mickey said: I know we will meet again, he was saying: I believe that God, who raised Jesus from the dead, will raise Michaela too, and he will raise me and all of us and that we will be united again in the glory of heaven.
Each of us has been touched by the death of someone close to us at one time or another. Some have been bereaved in the recent past. Others may feel the loss of a relationship that has ended, the pain of family breakdown, or the threat of serious illness or advancing years. Every loss, whether of life, of health, or love or friendship, is a death. Our faith in the resurrection will not take the pain of these losses away. Both Michaela’s husband and her father were clear about that. But what they said was that their faith in Jesus helped them to find peace. The title of the programme was well chosen – Finding Peace. When Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection his first words were: “Peace be with you”. And then, the gospel tells us, he showed them his hands and his side. Faith in the resurrection doesn’t make the wounds disappear. It will not banish the wounds we have suffered and that we continue to suffer in this life, but it is a sure way, perhaps the only way, to finding peace.