Easter Sunday homily by Rev. Fr. Paul Denizot, rector.
Not an easy task than to speak of the Resurrection!
We would all love to fully comprehend the mystery of the Resurrection, yet it eludes us.
The evidence is so thin: an open tomb, some linens. It beats us, to the risk of thinking that it is not realistic to believe in the Resurrection.
What about us, are we ultimately realistic?
Us lot, the post-modern people who are so self centered. Alike the perfect monad no longer in need of anything but itself, expecting nothing outside itself. Hence, the trendies who go about hugging trees in order to try and connect with reality. Are we really realistic on our tablets, immersed in our digital worlds creating multiverses? Engrossed in our made-to-measure realms where one can choose to become a unicorn? Marvellous!!
Are we realistic in a world that deconstructs everything?
A world that deconstructs gender? No more women, no more men!
Are we realistic in a world that battles against time and growing old, for ever getting botoxed?
Are we realistic faced with the lure of transhumanism? So what about getting a bionic arm transplant or trying to live for another hundred years? Are we realistic with our constant craving for ever more possessions? I’m going to work like hell and then I get a vacation to an exotic place?! I’ll knuckle down, and then I’ll get to reach the untouchable retirement! Am I realistic when I have constant expectations on my children, expecting them to be this way and no other?
Here at the shrine of Montligeon, there is something that brings us back to reality and that especially moves me: that is death.
Here we are realistic. I recall a mother who had lost her son to a brutal accident. She was not a believer as such, yet she came to Montligeon seeking consolation. She was in much anger. Straight from the start it was tricky. After exchanging, she confided: “You know, since my son’s death, I live in reality.”
The reality of suffering, illness, death. One thing is certain and applies to all: we are all going to die one day!
So of course, one can fancy a vacation in far away places, going on retirement by the seaside, receiving guests in one’s B & B house, displaying Buddhas in every room.
With death and suffering, we are hitting hard reality. Let’s face it, some among us are in pain, from bereavement, distress, affliction, loneliness…
Here we are in the real world, and the Resurrection comes precisely to connect with us in this reality. Because Resurrection is real. The Resurrection is Christ’s victory over death, the victory of love and of life itself. It is the response to the shriek in man’s heart: “« ce n’est pas possible “It can’t be! It is impossible for death to have the last say!”
The Resurrection is not an intellectual answer.
It does not represent an answer to be grasped or apprehended. Forever eluding, it can only but be received in faith. accueillie que dans la foi. It is beyond my reckoning, but I believe that Jesus is alive. Moreover, here is what is being celebrating today: “I believe that love, and life have the last say.”
Excerpt of Easter Sunday homily by Rev. Fr. Paul Denizot, rector.
