Homily of Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ
Mass of Installation
St Peter’s Cathedral, Belfast
3rd Sunday of Easter, 14th April 2024
‘So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.’ (Luke 24: 46 – 48)
Today’s Gospel tells us all that we need to know about the Diocese of Down and Connor, its people, its clergy and its bishop. We are witnesses to this: Christ, the Son of God suffered and was put to death and he rose from the dead. It was not for his own sake but so that ‘in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations.’ We are witnesses to this. We have no other purpose.
In the oratory in my house there are two pieces of stained glass. They are both images of the Risen Lord Jesus. In both he is dressed in white and in one he is in the very act of stepping up out of the tomb. There are two angels visible over his two shoulders and three women in the foreground just about to have their minds blown by this awesome reality. In the other image he has his left arm raised, greeting the world, and in his right hand he is holding aloft the banner of victory.
It will be important for me to look at those images every day. It is essential that every one of us have the triumphant Risen Lord before our minds every day. And, on this Third Sunday of Easter he is right before us in the Gospel we have just read.
The Risen Lord Jesus comes into sheer chaos; two of the followers were heading for the hills, feeling badly let down; those who stayed in Jerusalem gathered around the eleven as the cowered out of fear and self-pity. Eleven, not twelve; that is another window on the tragedy they were living through.
But something is happening; the two who were fleeing recognise him ‘in the breaking of bread’ in the little town of Emmaus; they race back and hear that some of the women have seen the Lord alive.
And then Jesus stands among them. The Risen Lord comes among his followers who have been brought face to face in a most cruel way with the darkness of the world, with the reality of sin and with the humiliation of their own inadequacy. In those circumstances the very first thing he says is; ‘Peace be with you!’. Never in all of history was a greeting more hard-earned. ‘Peace be with you!’.
We need to pay close attention because this is his first message to us, gathered here today. As a group of disciples, we all experience some form of chaos, feelings of failure, inadequacy, or being let down. Each of us knows our own desolation. When Jesus says to us ‘Peace be with you’, what do we hear? What do we do with it? My initial reaction might be; ‘For there to be peace in my heart, someone or something else needs to change. Circumstances must change for me to find peace.’
There are so many circumstances that challenge our peace. It can be the difficulties of our own personal history, the terrible pain and misery of so many people in our world or the sad state of the Church. The one who says to us ‘Peace be with you’ is the Lord of history. When he, the crucified and Risen one proclaims peace then we have a duty to choose peace, to share in his peace.
The peace that he invites us in to is not superficial; it doesn’t ignore the realities. We see that in the next key moment in the scene. Jesus says:
Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed.
His hands and his feet still carry the marks of the nails, signs of suffering and signs of divine love. He deliberately calls attention to them. There is terrible suffering and injustice in our world. In the Church there is woundedness that we have inflicted on each other. Jesus stands among us as one who knows our woundedness; he wants us to know that where we feel weak and broken, he is with us most especially.
For us to be who we are called to be we must hear the Risen Lord say; firstly ‘Peace be with you’ and secondly ‘Look at my hands and my feet’.
I spoke to the priests very specially at the Mass of Chrism about the renewal of our hearts. The Risen Lord Jesus who came among his broken and hurting followers and spoke of peace and showed them his hands and his feet, wanted nothing more than to renew their hearts. If we listen to him today and let him live among us, he will renew our hearts.
When he does, we will be channels of peace in our world. We will reach out confidently in love, with our brothers and sisters of other Christian communions, and together we will encourage our local politicians to be generous and bold as they seek to make our political institutions work for the good of all. On the global level even today the escalation of war is an awful threat. Christians who are channels of peace are ever more necessary.
Our lives are all a pilgrimage to grow every closer to God and to live with Him forever. Our diocese is very specifically seeking to chart a pathway to the future and much good work has been done to prepare us for that. I am excited to be a part of it. Pathways are created by walking together and our Christian path is laid down by walking with the Risen Lord. I hope to spend a lot of time in the coming weeks and months praying and discerning with you, the priests and people of the diocese, how and where the Lord is leading us.
The Gospel tells us everything we need to know about our diocese and its future. It is the Risen Lord who will lead and guide us. He will speak, he is speaking, to us of the Peace that he uniquely brings, a peace that flourishes in the midst of weakness and brokenness. The fact that we are weak and broken does not need to be a disadvantage on our Christian pathway. On the contrary, we have among us the God of all possibilities who transforms darkness into light, who brings out hope where despair reigns and salvation where sin abounds.
We are witnesses to this!