Homily

Back in 2018 Bishop Bohdan of the Parma Eparchy asked me to give a retreat for his priests because he knew I worked for very little money. At my first meeting with those priests, I told them that I wanted to talk about something that would interest all of them. I wanted to talk about their deaths. I told them I felt it was important, because by the time I was done talking to them they would be 30 minutes closer to their deaths. But you, my friends, should be happy. By the time I am done talking to you today you will only be about 10 minutes closer to your deaths. We sing it over and over: "Christ is risen from the DEAD, by DEATH He conquered DEATH, and to those in the GRAVES He granted life." Notice the words, "dead . . . death . . . death . . . graves." And the word LIFE only appears once; “death” related words are 20% of that tropar. I think one of the reasons for that is that most people are rather afraid of death, of course, either their own deaths or the deaths of those people they love. I'm not ready to say I have absolutely no fear of death. I think the "Christ is risen" tropar mentions death so much in order to assure us of our ultimate victory over death, in the Resurrection. So that we won't be afraid. "Life" only appears once in the tropar. Sure, almost everybody likes "life"—especially their own.

But you know I have to admit I'm also somewhat afraid of life. Not the regular, I'm breathing and moving and have to pay my income taxes kind of life. I'm kind of afraid of the life that Jesus wants to give me. I'm afraid of divine life and not after I'm dead. I'm afraid of divine life before I die. Now to be clear I do have the gift of divine life I received at baptism. But I'm talking about the fullness of divine life that Jesus offers to us, the life that comes with total commitment, the life that was lived by the martyrs and all the saints for the past 2,000 years, the kind of life St. Paul was talking about when he wrote, "It is now no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." It's that hard core, full embrace of a life of extraordinary grace, a life of complete submission as a fully dedicated follower of Christ. That's the kind of life that scares me. I think I would compare it to a diving board jump into a swimming pool. When I was a young boy, like many of you, one day I decided to jump off the diving board. It was scary, it was intimidating but one day I finally took the plunge and it was okay. I did it quite a few times over many weeks. All was good. It's kind of like the life of grace I'm willing to live now.

But there's more available to me. There was another diving board at the pool. The board I was jumping off was only about five feet over the water. The other diving board was probably 185 feet high. It would probably take about 20 minutes just to climb to the top. And there you are, standing at the edge, and despite all the times you dove in off the other board, this one takes a much bigger commitment. You're standing there, and standing there, and all these thoughts are going through your head and all of them are telling you "Don't do it! You'll get hurt! You'll drown and then you'll really be sorry!" It's not like the little board, where a smaller amount of courage and trust is all you need. I can do that. There's a lot more fear involved in jumping off this one. You see the lifeguard—it's Jesus—and he's not only the guardian of my life, He's the giver-of-my life. He's yelling at me, "Don't be afraid, I won't let you drown."

And yet, and yet, and yet it is so very, very hard to give in with total trust and a faith that is worthy of my baptismal vocation because I'm still afraid I might drown, and I'm afraid of what might be asked of me, or what could happen to me and even though I know that the fullness of divine life is to live deeply in the love of God, in my fears the nagging thought is that maybe, it's better to play it safe. You know—not too much! Stick with what you know.

What if jump in and I end up in poverty? What if I end up hungry? What if I end up in Dexter? These and a thousand other negative thoughts are constantly urging me just to leave well enough alone. Most of the time these thoughts are not active, because I'm not ready to change my mind and my heart. But any time I start to be open to that change, these fears jump out at me like a junk yard dog. And the rest of the time they're in the background, growling softly, just to remind me that they haven't gone away and are ready to come at me if I try to make a move. Maybe the partially full life I’m living now is actually better than stepping off the high board and taking that deeper plunge into faith. My rational mind tells me that of course that's not right. Use your faith. Live your faith. But my fears keep telling my rational mind to just shut up and mind its own business.

There is no encouragement for us to pursue a life of deeper faith outside of these walls. So many people have a very, very hard time seeing anything greater than the life that they are living now in this world, to see beyond comfort, pleasure, safety, the search for happiness and self-satisfaction. As I look around today it seems so many are at a loss to say why they are living, or what great purpose their lives serve, or, knowing that you are going to die, what then is the value of your life? That is a question that would prove difficult for many to answer, even impossible. People are certainly living their lives, but in ways that seem so fragmented, so changeable, so unattached to any anchor of hope or purpose outside of themselves that could act as a guiding principle for everything they do.

It seems to me that there are so many who just move along from day to day, pursuing this, maintaining that, looking for something better but rarely knowing for certain what that better thing is or where to find it. People molded to one degree or another by the media and public opinion, people so keyed in to the current trends that if the internet would ever break down mass suicides would surely follow. If we don’t have a deep understanding of why we are alive then how is it possible to know how we ought to live? And that is the cause of so much immorality today, and so much sadness. and suffering, and confusion and anger.

This day, this Pascha we're challenged AND invited to lay aside our fears about death, because Christ has conquered death and even though we're not yet in our graves, He still wants to grant us life, His divine life, the fullness of a life completely saturated with grace. And if we have any fears about that kind of total dedication, we are also invited to lay those fears aside, as best as we are able, so that the love of Christ and our desire to love Christ continues to overcome the weaknesses of our sinful condition. We may not yet be ready to take that total “death-defying plunge” as disciples of the Lord but we can climb higher up the ladder that leads us closer to the edge of that spiritual diving board. Today is a great opportunity to commit ourselves even more closely to the Lord and surrender even more of ourselves to His gentle yoke. Let's not be afraid of death. And let's not be afraid to really live. Really live…in Christ. He has His hands out to welcome us today…let us allow Him to pull us closer.