Easter Thursday: True God and true man

Fr Richard's homily for Easter Thursday. Fr Richard has been offering his Masses for the Holy Souls this week.

Readings: https://www.universalis.com/20200416/mass.htm

Homily: True God and true man

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One of the hardest things I’ve found teaching young children about the Faith is the dogma that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man. The looks you get back can be quite amusing – ones of perplexity and puzzlement. Of course, it’s understandable that a seven-year-old will take time, along with further repetition and explanation, to grasp this wonderful truth.

Even when the Risen Lord Himself appeared – body and soul - in front of them in the upper room, the disciples also still struggled to comprehend the true and full identity of Christ. St Luke tells us – “they thought they were seeing a ghost”. They couldn’t quite comprehend the humanity of Christ, that He’d risen bodily from the dead. When they were invited to touch our Lord: “Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood their dumbfounded.”

It seems there was something “disorienting” to the human mind about the Resurrection, even among the followers of Jesus. When Peter, bestowed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit, tells the Jews in our first reading that he and John have healed the cripple precisely in the name of Christ and by His power, Peter says: “Why are you so surprised at this?” Are these not very similar words that Jesus said to Peter and the other apostles when He appeared in the upper room?

We too find ourselves in a very ‘disorientating’ time, when there’s a risk of illness and, for some, death. “Where has this global pandemic suddenly come from? I wasn’t prepared for it,” we might say. “How long will this go on for? How can I cope with not seeing friends and family?”

In being totally focussed on our world, wanting to know all the time exactly how things work, and the reason for them, we can forget that God is not confined by the very laws of nature He designed. In this Easter Octave of 2020, we need to be reminded: Yes, Jesus Christ is true God and true man. He is alive; He is risen! He is in our midst and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He acts in our lives in ways we cannot comprehend. He calls us to repentance; He calls us to follow Him. He looks after us in our distress. He consoles the weak and comforts the dying.

By His death and Resurrection, He has set us free; He has opened up our path to eternal life. “This day was made by the Lord: we rejoice and are glad.”