Tonight's Readings and Gospel
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{1 Corinthians 1:18 and following}
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.k
For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,n
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but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,o
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but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
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For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
We are here this evening, as participants in our liturgy, to celebrate the coming resurrection of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. We began with a service of light, but not just any light, Lumen Christi, the Light of Christ. He came into the world to overshadow the darkness (Jn 1:1f), the darkness of evil, to raise us from sin and certain death. He comes not to condemn the world but to save us.
Most especially and of paramount importance is this: He gives us renewable nourishment, the Bread of Life in the Eucharist. We will celebrate this Sacrament, the sweetest and most sublime of all in just a little while (our first time since Holy Thursday).
When we do so our faith informs us that Jesus is truly present. In fact the resurrected Christ in His glorified body will be present on the altar, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the consecratory words of a priest of Jesus Christ, our good pastor, Father Lee and me and my brother concelebrants. The same very Jesus of Nazareth, who roamed the Earth 2000 years ago and now resides in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, will be here to with us, the gathered assembly of His faithful disciples today.
We begin our reflection and in fact we will end it with the story of Carlotta Paciulli.
{Pause}
It is a true story. It is a story that illustrates “Divine Providence”, the invisible hand of God (to the human eye) seen through the story of our lives, all of our lives. Hindsight can be 20:20 when viewed through the lens of faith.
{The hand of God can be obvious to us if we have sight to see it. It is important to hear and reflect on others stories so we can learn our own stories anew. In Carlotta’s story it is important to trust that the hand of God will become apparent, and I ask you this indulgence on this blessed Easter night: try to view the stories of your lives through the lens of faith.
Divine Providence is that same hand of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit that guided Jesus to accept the chalice of crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane on Holy Thursday.}
And now, her story:
Carlotta was a young, beautiful Italian woman of the working class. She lived in Southern Italy near Matera just a bit inland from the western shores of the Adriatic Sea.
She met the love of her life, Michael, a gifted barber, who was from a nearby village. They married in the late 19th century and had four children.
There was terrible poverty and disease in Southern Italy at this time. The formerly autonomous province of Apuglia, in fact all of Italy was now united under the rule of King Victor Emmanuel II. Unification took its toll on the poor as many starved in the recession that ensued.
Carlotta’s husband Michael was sent to New York, the great city in the land of opportunity, the USA. Laborers and skilled workers alike were needed here and Michael was a very good barber, a trade high in demand. So he left Italy so as to earn enough money to support his immediate and extended families back home, planning to return in a few years.
He was successful in this endeavor for many months, perhaps even years. However, one day he received a fateful letter from Carlotta. It read: his two beloved boys had died from an infant disease which swept through his homeland. His heart broken he wrote a letter home, one sentence long. It read, “I am dead inside and cannot return home, for I have failed my family and my sons are lost.”
He meant forever.
Carlotta was crushed. Her husband’s decision was unbearable, in fact untenable. When they had wed in their local parish her dreams were realized. They were devout Catholics; in fact their faith had carried them through so many trials including the terrible war of unification. She must have thought and prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). By doing so, she would have literally echoed the cry of our Messiah on Good Friday from the Cross-just before he breathes his last breath.
In fact Carlotta knew in this moment something of what Mary must have felt like at the foot of the Cross as she watched the love of her life, Jesus the Son of God, die. She was now a Mater Dolorosa, the sorrowful mother and wife. For Carlotta, 1900 years after that fateful Good Friday on Cavalry for Mary.
{Pause}
My friends, tonight is different for us. Because tonight we emerge from the mysteries of the passion of Christ, what the Sacred Triduum (Define) is all about, Tonight we move into the glory of the risen Messiah, Easter Sunday. Jesus calls us to new life in him. First, in this world, so as to prepare ourselves for the next where there can only be goodness.
The goodness which is profound joy itself: standing before God in all His glory accompanied by the great cloud of witnesses: the Angels and the Saints (both known or canonized, and the vast majority of unknown: ordinary folk all around, like you and me). The Beatific Vision of the mystical City of God in heaven.
It is different because we are adopted sons and daughters of God, by virtue of our Trinitarian Baptism. We are no longer slaves to sin as our Lord’s passionate death, the pure and unblemished singular sacrifice that removes the shackles of sin once and for all and opens the heavenly gates now and for all eternity.
Tonight we emerge from our most solemn days,
Yesterday was perhaps the most solemn of days, Good Friday. Good Friday? What is so good about the crucifixion of the awaited Messiah of Israel, the anointed one and its true King? This event which when viewed in it's temporal context not through the 20:20 lens of faith was a scandal to the Jews and a stumbling block to the Gentiles. It is "good" because, simply put, it is of God. We will return to this theme.
Tonight after our service of light we listened to the story of a people, our story, we the descendants of Judeo-Christian tradition. We listened to four of the stories from the O.T…. and then the Epistle of John…which was followed by our great festival prayer, “Glory to God in the Highest” from which we have fasted from during Lent.
Finally our Gospel from Saint Mark tells us that the first witness to the resurrection was good Saint Mary Magdalene, the one who anointed the feet of our Lord while at supper. Overjoyed she seeks out the two: Saint Peter, upon whom the foundation of our Church is built (imperfect, yet perfect through God’s grace) and Saint John the author of the Gospel, the Epistles and the final chapter of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. It is John, who might be viewed truly as the least of the brethren at the time whence he comes upon the Tomb. He who believes first without seeing the Lord.
In a few moments, we will celebrate some other Sacraments. This is in fact what makes our Easter Vigil so special: the pinnacle of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults where so many stories have been exchanged on Thursday nights at 8PM. You are welcome to join us. Here good Deacon John, who proclaimed our Gospel tonight, moderates the group of searchers and seekers of the one true faith. Here is where Steve and Helen, Jim (walker……….) help teach
(fill in using worship aid)
using the time honored and true tradition of simple comfort items: coffee and cake, the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Let us pause to welcome our (soon to be) new fully initiated members of our “comfy” faith community , the family of the Eucharist here at Ss Cyril and Methodius in and around greater Deer Park.
And now, the rest of the story. Carlotta Paciulli was her married name. She was in fact my maternal great-grandmother. Her third child, the first to survive in Italy, was Angelina, my paternal grandmother, Nanny. Nana met Michael Suglia, my papa, here in New York.
You see Carlotta’s family and friends helped her get to NY with her two surviving children to rejoin her husband here. They took the risk, when many before and since have perished, of travelling in steerage class of a freight ship to be reunited with their husband and Father, Carlotta and their two little girls my Nana and Aunt. They especially did so because marriage is a Sacrament, for a man and a women to enter into a lifelong covenant of love. Its permanence shines through in their story.
Had they not risked that harrowing trans-atlantic journey, my grandmother would have never met my grandfather, here in NY.
{Pause}
Divine Providence. God’s master plan for the universe and his creatures. You and I are his favored creatures, created in his image and likeness, Imago Dei (Gen 2:24).
Had all of this, including the terrible death of Carlotta’s only two sons not occurred, It is reasonable to assume that I would not be standing here today. Nor would my six brothers and sisters the children of my Father, nor my nine nieces and nephews.
My friends, we must trust in God, for He made you and me. Our struggles may be a mystery to us, but he has a plan.
John 3:16
CORINTHIANS AGAIN:
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.k
For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,n
23
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,o
24
but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
WE CANNOT REASON GOD WITH OUR MINDS. WE ARE FAR TO LIMITED IN OUR MORTAL FLESH. HIS MYSTERY IS BEST LEFT FOR THE SPIRITUAL REALM WHICH WE MAY GET A GLIMPSE OF THROUGH PRAYER.
SAINT AUGUSTINE TEACHES THIS POINT WELL:
WE MUST FIRST BELIEVE IN GOD…
WHO HAS REVEALED HIMSELF AS FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT…
THEN ONCE WE BELIEVE FIRST, THEN WE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM…
FOR OUR HEARTS ARE RESTLESS UNTIL THEY REST IN GOD…
