Homily: Friday in the Octave of Easter

Deacon Tony Cecil

Homily: Friday in the Octave of Easter

Saint Thomas Aquinas Chapel at Saint Meinrad Seminary

I have to be honest—an initial look at what the evangelist wrote in today’s Gospel selection didn’t leave me with much hope.

First, Peter decides that he and the other disciples are going to go fishing. I know that it comes as a shock to everyone—but I’m not much of an outdoorsman, so that won’t do.

Later on in the Gospel, Peter jumps out of the boat and runs through the water to the Lord—uhhhh. No.

BUT, right after Peter does this, there’s that little line that John slipped in as he was writing—The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from the shore….

Now this I can get on board with. To me, at least, John’s being a little bit snarky here—and I've heard that I can be, too.

John points out what we are all too familiar with—that at times Saint Peter can be just a bit too zealous for…well, everyone.

It’s easy to imagine people like this.

When we hear of Peter’s over-zealous nature a list of people probably starts forming in our heads, if we're not lying to ourselves.

We know people whose excitement can exhaust us,

Whose piety we question,

The people we judge when we see them acting out,

The people we talk about when something happens,

The people in our families, the people in our parishes—the people in this community.

We know these people who are like Peter, and just like the other disciples, and at times, even Jesus, we can give them a hard time.

But then, last week, everything changed.

Last week after Mass, I was greeting the people as they were leaving when a woman came up and pulled me aside. She was an older woman whose smile went from ear to ear. She simply wanted to tell me that she was becoming Catholic at the Easter Vigil, and to share her excitement with me. When she talked about her baptism that was to come, her eyes lit up—when she talked about the prospect of getting to receive the Eucharist for the first time—she was literally bouncing up and down with joy. She knew I had to go, so, although we had just met, she threw her arms around me in a hug and walked away.

After she left, another parishioner came up to me, with a smile and said, I see you met Isabella—then she took a deep breath to continue—she’s a bit—energetic. But she’s a sweetheart, and she means well.

It seemed that Isabella was perhaps on this other woman’s list—that Isabella was to her who Saint Peter was at times to the disciples—a little too zealous.

In the blink of an eye, the Easter Vigil came. Isabella stood at the step of the sanctuary and waited to be called to the waters of baptism. When it was her turn, she practically bolted down the center aisle. We have a fan-shaped church, and so the center aisle is rather short—but that didn’t matter. She was ready and she could not wait.

Her smile was still there and tears ran down her face as father poured water over her and said the formula for her baptism. When he finished, she threw her arms up, as if she has just come victorious out of battle, and turned to wrap father in a hug, thanking him for the gift of her baptism.

And that’s when it clicked.

While it can be so easy for us to criticize Peter and Isabella and people like them for their excitement—they’ve got it right.

When Peter realized that the risen Lord was in front of him, staying in the boat was no longer an option--that was going to take too long, and he wanted to be with the Lord now, even if he looked stupid getting there.

When Isabella’s name was called, she knew what was waiting for her—she knew of the freedom that was to come—and she didn’t see the point in taking her time getting there—she was ready and she wasn’t going to wait—so if that meant speeding down the few feet to the waters of baptism, then that was what she was going to do.

They both have a beautiful sense of awe and excitement in encountering the Lord—they know that he is all that matters—that he is all they need—and they didn’t let anything hold them back from embracing him.

And then, there we are—with the other disciples in the boat.

There we are, taking our time to get to the shore.

making a snarky comment about how close we are—about how there’s really no need to be in a rush.

making an internal judgment or rolling our eyes.

making comments behind closed doors.

putting ourselves on a pedestal, using them as a step to climb up.

And there they are, off in the distance, in the embrace of the Lord.

The Church, in her wisdom, gives us this time of Easter to get it right like Saint Peter and Isabella got it right.

We’ve been through the penances of Lent, the darkness of Triduum, and now it is time for us to rejoice and to shout—it is time for us to sing alleluia ad nauseam—it’s time for us to get over our self-consciousness, our worries about what others think—whatever is keeping us in that boat

—and it’s time for us to be more like the ones we may not completely understand.

to risk being a little too zealous in our faith.

to accept that we can never be too joyful.

to be like Peter and Isabella—and to run to the Lord—to embrace Him—to rejoice in encountering Him----and to ask him to give us the strength to do it again, and again, and again, every day for the rest of our lives.

To access today's readings, click here. Note: names were changed, mainly because it's kind of fun to do so.