2 nd
Sunday of Easter 2014
Where have all the people gone? One week passing. Where have all the people gone? One week ago. Where have all the people gone? Gone to
Wegmans, every one….
If you were here last Sunday, you would have had trouble finding a seat.
You faithful folks who come to Mass every Sunday would have been displaced. So as I remember last week with standing room only and people out the door, I ask myself: Where have all the people gone? Then I realized that
Wegmans was opening today at 7am. There are traffic warnings all over.
Expect delays. Wegmans opening. April 27 th . That’s today. Could all those people who were here last week be waiting in line at Wegmans?
Of course I’m being facetious but the coincidence of the opening of a supermarket with all the hype associated and the dis-appearance of all the folks that were here last week captured my imagination. There’s so much excitement and anticipation about an opening of a Wegmans super market.
The impression you have is that people just can’t wait to get there. It’s almost as if they are “giving away” rather than selling. To paraphrase the
Acts of the Apostles: “Awe came upon everyone, and many signs and wonders were done through Wegmans.” The signs and wonders of modern day super marketing. For whatever reason, people just can’t wait to get to
Wegmans.
Those of you who are here this morning, could you not wait to get here?
Were you filled with great anticipation and excitement to be with this community of faith, to hear the scriptures broken open and to participate in the “breaking of the bread?
According to the Acts of the Apostles, that was the experience of the first apostles:
They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.
Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes.
They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,

praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
This description of the early church gives the impression that those believers experienced incredible joy in simply being with each other. There was so much excitement, anticipation, such a sense of community experienced in the “breaking of the bread”, their gathering for the Eucharist. Yes, this may be an idealized picture of the early Christians but there’s something
“contagious” about the joy that these believers are feeling. This joy comes from an immediate experience of the Risen Lord, Jesus in the community.
They touch and are touched by the Risen Lord, like the disciples in the
Gospel and like Thomas who is invited to touch but rather is touched by the vision of the wounded, Risen One.
For those of you who have been praying with Jesuits and our friends throughout the Lenten/Easter season with “ Moved to Greater Love
”, you may have been touched as I was by this quotation from last Monday’s prayer, quoting the words of Pope Francis in his Easter vigil homily from last year:
Jesus no longer belongs to the past, but lives in the present and is projected towards the future; Jesus is the everlasting "today" of God.
This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples and all of us: as victory over sin, evil and death, over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you dear sister, for you dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness ... and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!
Jesus who is alive. Jesus who is the everlasting “today” of God. He is the one who is here with us. Throughout the Lenten season I spoke of the well as one of the places of Encounter with Jesus. The well is overflowing now as is the possibility of encounter with the Risen One. Throughout this week in the liturgy, we have heard the stories of the Risen Jesus appearing to his disciples. In the upper room, in a garden, on the Way, on a beach but as
Catholic Christians we believe that our gathering for Eucharist is the privileged place of encounter with the Risen One. It is in the “breaking of the bread” that we recognize him most powerfully. But the encounter with
Jesus in the Eucharist is not limited to our communion with his body and blood. HE is present in the Scripture, the Sacred Word that is broken open

and in us, a community of believers who are willing to “break open our stories” and be broken and shared as He was for us. He is present in the one who presides and leads the community in prayer, the one who stands in his place.
As I refer to the four-fold presence of Christ in the Eucharist, I can’t help thinking of Pope John XXIII who was canonized today with Pope John Paul
II. It was John’s vision of God doing something new in the Church that called the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago. So many doors, locked for centuries because of fear, were unlocked in John’s calling of a council. Our self-understanding as a people of God on a journey, the way we celebrate the mystery of Faith in the Liturgy, our relationships with other religions, especially our Jewish brothers and sisters, were refashioned because of this
Council. I could have preached today about these new two popes, and now newly minted saints. I could have preached about the doors and windows that were opened because of one of them, and the wall separating east from west that came crumbling down during the papacy of the other, and the
Western Wall where the John Paul asked for forgiveness for the harm done to the Jewish people through the centuries. I could have but I prefer to simply thank you for being here today. I prefer to thank you for being like those first Christians who “devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.”
Yes, this “breaking of the bread”, this Eucharist is the privileged place of
Encounter with the Risen Lord. Yes, I know that you can encounter the
Risen Lord in your garden, in your dining room, on the beach, even on the way to Wegmans. But thank God that you are here and that the Risen One is here with us all.
.