3rd Sunday of Easter B
Basilica of the Assumption
April 14, 2024
Mentors
Most everyone can think of someone who had a positive impact on their life. It might be a teacher who believed in us, or a grandparent who shared with us their wisdom, or a colleague who “showed us the ropes”. I am grateful to the many mentors God sent into my life, especially James Cardinal Hickey for whom I worked for many years. To this day, when facing a difficult situation, I will remember something he said or did that still offers me guidance, and I seldom miss an opportunity to tell others what a profound impact he had on my life and ministry.
One night, shortly after the Cardinal died in 2004, I dreamt about him. The dream consisted of a typical work day from start to finish: Mass in the morning, breakfast, working at the office, going out a meeting, appointments, guests for dinner, going back to his desk to look at mail – At day’s end, the Cardinal smiled at me as if to say he was okay. He vanished and then the dream was over . . . I woke up astonished, feeling as though he visited me from eternity, but I was also plenty tired because I felt like I had done a whole day’s work.
More Than a Dream
If that dream astonished me (and it still does), imagine how astonished the Apostles were when the Risen Lord Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst. At first, they couldn’t believe it. Were they dreaming? Were they seeing a ghost? Was it really their Lord and Master back from the dead as he promised? We can sympathize with how astonished and incredulous they were. After all, if we are surprised when a departed friend visits us in a dream, we can scarcely fathom how dumbfounded the Apostles must have been when the Risen Lord passed through locked doors and stood before them.
This was no dream. Not a ghost. Not a phantom. It was the Lord. The Lord who was crucified had risen. He was not merely resuscitated, his flesh was glorified – glorified with the glory he shared with his Father from all eternity. Yet it was truly his flesh, our flesh, his humanity, our humanity that he, the Son of God, continued to share. To prove it, he showed the Apostles the marks on his hands, his feet, his side. He invited them to touch him, to demonstrate that he had flesh and bones. And he went further. In their presence, he ate a piece of cooked fish. Disbelief gave way to amazement. Fear gave way to joy. Dominus est! It was the Lord.
As he did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus proceeded to open the minds of the Apostles to the understanding of Scripture – the law, the prophets, and the psalms. Jesus demonstrated for them how all Scripture pointed to him, how his life, death, and resurrection was the fulfillment of God’s promises. At that moment, the Apostles realized that Jesus was more – more than their Mentor, more than their Master, more than their Teacher: he was their Lord and Savior whose death and resurrection opened the way for genuine repentance and for the forgiveness of sins. Here was the One who had conquered sin and death, standing before them.
You Are Witnesses of These Things
Just as we will often tell others about our mentors, describing for them their virtues and accomplishments – and describing also how they changed our lives – so too, the Lord tells the Apostles that they are to be his witnesses, beginning in Jerusalem and extending to the ends of the earth. They are to bear witness ‘to what they had heard, to what they had seen, what they looked upon with their eyes, to what they touched with their hands’ (cf. 1 Jn 1:1) – the Word of life, the Word made flesh, risen from the dead. The essential message they were to preach is that, in and through the Risen Lord we have their forgiveness of sins and that he is the way to a new and glorious life as the image of God is renewed in us and shines in us from the inside out.
This is exactly what we see in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Having cured a crippled man in the temple area, the Apostles are explaining to the people by what power and in whose Name they were able to accomplish such a wonderful miracle – namely – in the name of Jesus the Nazorean, crucified in the blindness of ignorance, but now raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. In him and in his Name alone is found the forgiveness of sins. This is the message the Apostles would deliver far and wide, not only by preaching and miracles but also by the shedding of their blood. Fear and incredulity thus gave way to joy and amazement, and in the Spirit joy and amazement led to courageous witness.
It’s Not Over
Just as we strive to carry on in a manner pleasing to our departed mentors, even more so should we want to advance the saving mission of Jesus, for no one can transform our lives more completely than he can. If, in the grace of the Holy Spirit, we have opened our hearts to the Lord, and we have allowed him access to our inmost thoughts and desires – the Risen Lord will not only forgive us but flood us with divine love and grace, imparting to us truth, joy, renewed purpose, inward beauty, and a goodness that exceeds anything we could attain on our own.
When that happens, we do indeed become his witnesses. We no longer talk about the faith in abstract terms or treat it like an object of art in a museum. Rather, we bear witness to what we have seen and heard and how the Risen Lord has touched our hearts and entered them, especially in and through the Eucharist, the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Thus, we can lead many to return to the faith or to discover it for the first time.
Pope Saint Paul VI once wrote that, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (EN, 41). If we have been mentored by others, let us in turn mentor others in the faith, not only by what we say but by the way we think, decide, and live, by our love for others, especially the poor, and by our readiness to give an account of our hope – with respect, gentleness, and kindness.
The Lord is truly risen! Alleluia!