Homilette for Sunday, April 8, 2007

Easter Sunday

(Colossians 3)

Tom Monaghan is a multimillionaire. He says, however, that he wants to die a poor man. So he is giving away his fortune to projects that help others and that give glory to God. He financed the great cathedral built in Managua, Nicaragua, after an earthquake devastated the city. Now he is donating heavily to a Catholic university in Florida that will live up to the faith it proclaims.

We can call Tom Monaghan an “Easter person.” Easter people practice the advice which St. Paul gives in the second reading. They think about what is important to God and not what the world sees as important. We can see the latter by flipping through the television channels with the remote. Very likely we will see images of crude people wielding guns, of salespeople selling jewels, and of attractive people showing off muscle-toned bodies. These things may not be bad in themselves but they are hardly the good that God most desires of us. No, God wants us to take care of one another with our resources, to pursue the truth with our minds, and to trust in Him for our needs.

Throughout the world today we welcome new Catholics into the Church. They have learned what it means to be an Easter people by a long period of formation. We have relearned the same lesson by the forty days of Lent that we have just completed. We no longer set our hearts on fame, fortune, and fun. Rather, we give them to goodness, truth, and love of God.