Have you noticed how today more and more things are being labeled as “life-changing”.   I saw a preview for a movie last week, that claimed that the movie was a “life-changing” event.  That’s a pretty arrogant statement to make, don’t you think?.  More and more books are making that same claim: Read our book and your life won’t be the same.  I mean how do they know?  But it’s gone way beyond movies and books.  Join our health club, use our shampoo,  drive our car,  take this medicine, listen to this music, and everything is supposed to change our lives.  We keep using all these products and having all these experiences, and maybe that’s why so many people don’t know who they are any more.  Their lives have been changed.  They used the wrong shampoo.

       In actuality there are very few people and events in our lives that really change us, despite what certain products want us to believe.  In every life, we all get a very small number of people, both good and bad, who really change us.  And it is the same way with events.  Most of us have maybe four or five events in our lives that really change us forever.  Births, deaths, job changes, marriages, divorce, friendships all of these things are important in life.  And yet, my guess is that for most of us, the things and people who have really changed us, came from where we least expected it.

       Mary Magdalene has her life changed forever in our Gospel reading today, by an empty tomb.  The tomb wasn’t supposed to be empty.  The body of her friend and teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, was supposed to be in that grave.  To a certain extent, the duty that Mary was performing early that Sunday morning was a fairly routine one, after you’ve lost a loved one.  She was checking that everything was still O.K. and had not been disturbed.  Maybe she wanted to see if the Romans were still guarding the tomb.  Maybe she wanted to bring flowers.  Maybe she had wanted to pray for Jesus.  What she wanted and what she got early that morning, were two very different things.  The tomb was empty.  Mary went and got Peter and John, and they race there, and find the same thing.  There was no body in that tomb!   That first inkling of the Resurrection changed everything for Mary, and for Peter, and for John.  Could it be?  Is it possible?  Would God have really raised Jesus from the dead?  They didn’t know or understand it all.  But St. John says it best when he says, “He saw and be believed.”  Mary, Peter, and John would never be the same again.  The world was a different place on that one, particular Sunday morning. 

       My brothers and sisters, as we come here on this Easter morning, we too are supposed to have our lives changed.  The implications of that empty tomb, even two-thousand years later, for each one of us are life-changing.  Because Jesus was resurrected, we can live new lives.  Everything can be different.  We can put our pasts behind us, and start anew!  Easter is our annual reminder of the radical, life-giving, life-changing gift that Jesus is offering us.  We really CAN be different.  God wants us to BE different. 

        Are we?  Are we different?  Do we really let Jesus change our lives?  Or do we just go through the motions?  This past week, Newsweek magazine had as their cover story, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America”.  Did you see it?  I know, it was a real nice cover story for Holy Week, wasn’t it?  And today, in pulpits and ambos all over this country, there are going to be a lot of priests and ministers and deacons outraged at Newsweek.  Forget about Newsweek, forget about Oprah Winfrey and CNN, the people that all of us ought to be outraged at is ourselves, The Church.  If Christianity is failing in this country, if we are not really living out our Faith, then who’s fault is it?  It’s our fault.  Yours and mine.  We can’t blame Newsweek  for that!  We go through the motions.  We barely practice our Faith at all.  We have little or no commitment to what we say that we believe.  And we want to know what’s wrong with Christianity today and why it’s failing?

        My brothers and sisters, we are the Church.  All of us.  This is our responsibility, all of ours.  We don’t sit back and wait on the Pope to make us have Faith.  We don’t count on the Bishop to give us commitment.  We don’t expect our Pastor to make us holy.  You guys can’t even expect your Pastor to sing well.  We’ve got to do our part.  The Church can only be as holy as its weakest member.  Think about that!  When I was in high school, my parents sent me to talk to a local priest, about my concerns about the Catholic Church.  I complained for nearly two hours about everything that I saw that was wrong with our Church.  And when I was finished, the priest simply looked at me and said, “Well, you may be right.  But what exactly are YOU going to do about it?  What are you going to do to make it better?  He was right.

       My brothers and sisters, it is our job.  By virtue of our Baptisms, it is our responsibility.  Our Faith needs to change us.  And living out our Faith, we need to change our world.  And too many times, we’re not.  We’re not.  The greatest enemy of the Christian Faith is not Newsweek, or Planned Parenthood, or CNN, it is ourselves, when we don’t live out what we say that we believe.

       The Martyrs of our Church died for what they believed in.  That empty tomb so profoundly affected them, that they went to their own terrible deaths, for Jesus, knowing that He was the Resurrection and the Life.  If we can’t be more committed to the Faith than what we are, we’re going to owe them an apology.

       The tomb was empty for us, also.  May that fact and this Feast Day change our lives and make us true followers of our Risen Lord.  May His life-changing love transform us and our world!

Happy Easter!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

May God bless on this Great Feast,  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti…Pray for us !!!