As a homilist, I am SO GLAD we’re done with the Easter Sundays and Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi. It gets to a point where it’s hard to come up with something new year after year. I do joke with the community here at St. Paul’s Retirement, however, often saying that the chances are pretty good they will forget my homilies from one year to the next, to say nothing of one day to the next!
Anyway, I often wonder what happened to the people who were the recipients of Jesus’ miracles. In Sunday’s Gospel, what happened to the young man who was raised from the dead? To his mother? Did the miracle change them in any way? What about the young man whom Elijah restored to life (First Reading)?
Nowadays, of course, the media would go berserk: what’s it like on the other side, or how did it feel to be dead, what are your plans now, etc., etc. There would be a book deal in the works, with movie rights soon to follow.
Hopefully those folks lived out the remainder of their days as pure gift, with a deeper appreciation for life and all its blessings. Hopefully that’s what we too do after our own death experiences. Now here I’m not referring just to actual death and resuscitation (for example, on the operating table). I’m talking about our recovery from all the little deaths that mark our life’s journey: the changes we’ve had to make, the letting go’s, the recovery from illnesses, etc. Does life go on as before, or do those dyings and risings make us a deeper, wiser, more grateful people?
Be God’s smile for someone today … raise them to life!
Fr. Herb, C.S.C.
