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Richard Bollman, S.J.
HOMILY. 2nd Sunday of Easter, A "Upper Room Stories"
Gospel of John 20:19-31
When I was a novice Jesuit, the custom was to spend our third month,
all of October, making the Long Retreat, the 30-Day exercises.
This was out at the novitiate building that still operates in Milford,
now as a retirement center.
The first year novices occupied dorms by themselves that month,
kind of roped off from the rest of the house,
and we had our own chapel on the third floor, a long narrow room,
able to hold the 54 of us and the Director of Novices up at the front.
We started on an evening, after dinner, after our last chance to talk,
for at least a week, till our first break day.
I remember the evening very well, the weather turning cool,
Father Wernert coming in at the front and sitting down at his table.
I remember virtually nothing explicit from the whole retreat,
none of his words, but I do remember his first sentence,
which I will now tell you.
He looked up at us, 54 very earnest but wary souls, ages 18 - 26,
and he said "We are gathered in the Upper Room,
and Jesus is in our midst, saying ‘Peace be with you.’"
That moment turned around my expectations of God and Gospel and praying,
because clearly the story of the upper room was happening right there.
Jesus was right there; I had no doubt. There was life here being given to me.
And the Society of Jesus, the local group of us, was no longer abstract,
it was who we are, our lives and talents and relationships.
All of that is still real, and it has happened again and again for me
in different communities. This is what Sunday is about,
being gathered, experiencing our fragility, even the closed door of fear,
and Jesus in our midst saying Peace be with You.
Each Sunday of the year is a time for remembering
not just what happened in the past, but what keeps happening here,
in the lives we’ve been given,
the impulse to come and meet and open up a little,
to know the bigger life of Christ through faith.
It happens in the annual Holy Week Triduum and in the newly initiated,
and here today the children to be baptized,
next week First Communion for some of the children old enough now.
You come into the vestibule and touch the water: it’s warm,
baptisms today, families growing and changing today.
How am I growing, changing, what is my struggle and gift.
And in our midst, Jesus saying Peace be with you.
This is the Church no longer abstract, but existing in the Body.
Existing in the all that you find out about for the plight of the world:
today building houses, or picking up tickets for the AMOS banquet,
or hauling in food for the homeless or cookies for prisoners.
Peace be with you, in everything you give and receive.
When I was interviewed for this job,
one of the questions really surprised me.
We were in the upper room of the Parish Center, nearly 30 Cabinet members,
and one person asked simply:
"why are you interested in joining the parish?"
Until that time, I didn’t think of it as "joining the parish,"
but as doing what I needed to do to help the sacramental life.
I thought of it as a professional position, not membership in church structure.
But I did know something of community life, and of the Peace of Christ
that is discovered among open and honest people.
And that’s what I’ve found:
Sundays here are important to my own spiritual health,
and my involvement in the way God calls everybody.
And like many of you say, I’m at a point now, where
I notice a difference for myself when I’m away on Sunday.
Noticing that difference, like Thomas, is a gift,
awakening me to what I desire, to recognize the Lord
in the sacrament of presence that is open to me.
"Presence" is the important mystery, even to the point
of carrying around a ‘virtual Bellarmine’ in my imagination
with whom I can pray at other hours, in other cities.
This is Christ made whole. And you feel whole: there is peace, assurance.
Christ coming through in what you hear, what you eat and drink,
and in who you embrace.
We meet the living one, sent for our sake out of love,
and so we believe, and believing we have life in Christ’s name.