Homily at Holy Spirit Catholic Community/The Resurrection by Rev. Beverly Bingle, RCWP

Holy Week is almost over.
We can go back to our "normal" lives now.
We made it through another Lent, another Triduum.
Like the first disciples going back to Galilee,
we've listened to the witnesses of events we can't explain.
Christ has lived and died.
Christ is risen.
We don't really have the words to tell about it,
but we know we are changed.
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We're different.
Once we start to live the Way Jesus taught--
by generously giving ourselves away,
by dying to ourselves and living in solidarity with all people--
we change.
We see things differently.
We act differently.
We have different values.
We have different goals.
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By the time these scriptures we read today were written down,
the grappling
with the reality of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection
had found many expressions
in the lives of those witnesses and their communities.
As you know from trying to tell someone else
about your own spiritual insights and experiences,
the words don't come easily.
The experience defies description.
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But our understanding grows as we live with that experience,
and it deepens.
Our life changes,
and we understand what happened
ever and ever more clearly.
We act on our understanding,
and life changes even more.
We become the paschal mystery.
Christ lives in us.
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I'm reminded of that poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins,
As Kingfishers Catch Fire.
He writes: "...the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
Christ--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his...."
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We will go on from this celebration today to love and do justice.
We will carry Christ into the world, everywhere we go.
Our families will bask in the bright light
of our care and concern for them.
Our friends will call on us to help because they know how we are. The
poor will find us with them,
providing for their urgent needs
and working to change the systems
that keep them from thriving.
Christ comes again and again.
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Mary of Magdala laments in today's Gospel,
"We don't know where they've put him."
She will soon find out.
I know exactly where they have put him,
where that unique expression of the Divine Presence lives:
in you!
In your heart, in your values, in your prayers,
in your reaching out, in all you do and all you are.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!

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Holy Spirit Catholic Community
Mass at 2086 Brookdale (Interfaith Chapel):
Saturdays at 4:30 p.m.
Sundays at 9 a.m.
Mass at 3535 Executive Parkway (Unity of Toledo)
Sundays at 5:30 p.m.
www.holyspirittoledo.org

Rev. Bev Bingle, Pastor
419-727-1774