Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Father Don Wolf, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offers a Catholic perspective on the issues confronting each person today.
Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
February 16, 2025 | "From Disappointment to Revelation"
This episode dives into the significance of the Eucharist and our ongoing encounter with Christ, exploring how the bishops aim to reignite this awareness among Catholic believers. Through examining resurrection narratives and the role of women at the tomb, we reflect on the importance of testimony, baptism, and the invitation to reconnect with our faith heritage as we seek a transformative experience with the divine.
• Exploring the bishops' intention behind the Eucharistic revival
• The role of women at the empty tomb and their initial reactions
• Understanding the surprised disciples and their expectations
• The significance of testimony in recognizing the presence of Christ
• The connection between baptism and new life in Christ
• The symbolic invitation to go home and reconnect with faith
************
Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.
This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolfe. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives and finding hope in His Word. And now your host, father Don Wolfe.
Speaker 2:Welcome Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Father Don Wolfe, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. The American bishops, in their concern for recentering our experience of the Eucharist, want all of their parishioners us to encounter the person of Christ. This is, after all, the heart of the sacramental moment and the whole reason we celebrate the Eucharist at all. What could be more powerfully intimate in our encounter with Jesus than to receive his own body and blood? Saying amen to the offer to take this and eat, and take this and drink is what Jesus extends to all his disciples. The bishops are concerned that we hold this gift close and make it our own. After all, a gift that's not opened, although it is given in all measure of generosity, is as if it were not given at all. They want us to receive it, open it, make it our own and then be changed by it. That's their intention as they promote the Eucharistic revival among us.
Speaker 2:There are a number of reminders in the scriptures about the ongoing encounter with Jesus that we do well to study. Over the last several weeks, we've examined several of them. All of them are reminders that this encounter with Jesus is not automatic, as if we were simply given a ticket to a theater with the promise that, having it in hand, we just go inside and watch the movie. The gift of the Eucharist is something more than that. We're invited into an encounter, not a product, and, as in all encounters, it carries with us the potential to be more than we imagine. This is also the intent of the bishops as they carry through their plans Making our world of faith larger, expanding the gift of our lives in Christ. This is the heart of their plans. It's not so that there are more people in the pews or that collections go up or that we all know how to answer questions the right way. No, the revival is an open door toward a life richer and deeper one, marked by intimacy and contentment as we are sustained along the way with Christ. But with all their good intentions, we're missing something if we don't pay attention to some of these foundational insights offered to us from the scriptures, we're liable to imagine the bishop's efforts amount to nothing more than a good PR campaign if it works. If it doesn't, it becomes one more of their efforts that begin with good intention but fizzled out.
Speaker 2:In the long run, we can come to a more sophisticated understanding of how the revival might proceed if we're attentive to what the gospel writers knew about the life of the church and the encounter with the life of Christ in the church. This is especially true in the genre of gospel stories having to do with the day of Christ in the church. This is especially true in the genre of gospel stories having to do with the day of resurrection, when the disciples encountered Christ risen from the dead. These record the whole community of believers struggling to make sense of what they saw and heard. When they were opening their eyes to the fact of the resurrection, they were struggling to encounter Christ too. We could learn from what they discovered.
Speaker 2:To begin, there's one characteristic in all of the resurrection stories in the New Testament that we should notice, and it's this the disciples are completely surprised when they come to the tomb on Easter morning. Although Jesus included the prediction of his crucifixion and resurrection as part of his preaching, no one seemed to have learned anything about it. We might forgive some of our lapses of catechesis by noting that even Jesus had a hard time getting his disciples to pay attention to what he was saying. It wasn't as though they had heard and then puzzled about what he was talking about. Apparently, they didn't go home and ask themselves what Jesus might have meant when he mentioned that he would rise from the dead after being crucified. They didn't understand it in any way. Coming to the tomb on Easter morning, they were completely unprepared for what they found. Of course, those who came first to the tomb were the women of the group. They'd come to the tomb in the early morning light to complete the burial process for Jesus, who had been hastily put into Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. A dignified burial was the last service these followers of Jesus could give him, so they made their way to the tomb in order that his body be prepared according to their custom.
Speaker 2:It was women's work in the stratification of responsibility in their society, as in many societies, and they were anxious to perform it for him. Also, they were women and therefore invisible to the concerns of the Roman guards. Concerns of the Roman guards. A group of women making their way in the dark of the morning meant nothing to those who were standing guard against some group who were intent on stealing Jesus's body or some other kind of mischief had a band of men stolen through the darkness to come to the tomb, the soldiers and all of the checkpoints around Jerusalem would have been on high alert, but women were social non-entities, invisible to the concerns of military men and the notice of those in charge.
Speaker 2:In the register of meaning and purpose, women counted for nothing. They could carry all of the needful things with them to provide the last bit of comfort in their sadness for the death of their friend Jesus. That they were taking the trouble of enduring the. In their sadness for the death of their friend Jesus, that they were taking the trouble of enduring the difficulties of going to the tomb indicated, of course, they expected Jesus' body to be there. Resurrection was the farthest thing from their minds.
Speaker 2:It could be objected that their status as women had kept them away from the teaching of Jesus that he imparted to the apostles. Maybe it was more or less a secret aspect of his ministry. Something kept away from the others, especially women. After all, if the only people who counted were men, then it makes sense that the special seminars Jesus had for the apostles that were described in the gospels revealed information not given out to others. It is plausible that the women just didn't know and so were rightfully nonplussed when they got to the tomb and found it empty. But it's hard to imagine that apparently not one of the followers of Jesus had bothered to say anything about the teaching concerning resurrection, if they remembered it and somehow deliberately kept it from the women going to the tomb Making their way through the morning darkness as followers of Jesus, without anyone adverting to what they could expect, that notion seems wide of the mark.
Speaker 2:It seems more logical that whatever Jesus had taught had simply not been received. They didn't have a place in their imagination for rising from the dead and so, even when it was the topic of Jesus' ministry, it went over their heads. Plus, we forget the trauma of his death. Jesus didn't just die. He was executed as an enemy of the state and an enemy of all Jewish religion. He wasn't simply crucified between two criminals Jewish religion. He wasn't simply crucified between two criminals. He was crucified as a criminal reviled by everyone as in the same class, as a murderer and a revolutionary, imagining that God would bless someone with resurrection.
Speaker 2:Someone like that someone is possible. Religions are rife with the stories of heroes who return to life. But that this would be enacted on one who had disappointed everyone, whose life had been poured out so painfully and horribly in an act of execution reserved only to those whom the state wanted to embarrass and demean. Someone who had come to notice by way of miracles and wonders but who had been helpless to prevent his own conviction. Someone who had moved crowds in the thousands by the power of his words but, when standing before the judge, had chosen to stand silent in the face of accusation and impeachment.
Speaker 2:That was unlikely. In fact, it must have been so unlikely in the minds of the disciples that any notion of it had evaporated the moment Jesus had died. They were not expecting it in the slightest. To be fair to them, no one would have any idea about resurrection. That is to say, everyone would have had some idea about resuscitation, like what happened with Lazarus He'd gone into the tomb wrapped in burial cloths and then had come out again unwrapping the bindings. If such a thing were to happen, that Jesus would be alive again, what it would look like, other than what had happened in Bethany, would be a mystery, even if there were some residual notion or remembrance of what Jesus had said. Those who came to the tomb didn't know what there might be to see or what anyone could say about what they saw.
Speaker 2:And finally, the embedded story in everyone's soul was the common one we still presume in our day and time, which is the cruel truth of the world, is that death has the final say in everything. A great man proclaiming the truth and making the powers of the world uncomfortable is silenced by killing him. That's the story everyone knows. It's a sad reality. The scattered energies of society can coalesce against someone who's designated as the enemy. That's the sad reality. Once this happens, not only is this enemy destroyed, those who do so are honored and congratulated. While we might feel it's a cheap and common trick to yell enemy at someone we don't agree with, it is effective and all through the history of humanity it has worked to settle our uncertainties and to calm our insecurities.
Speaker 2:Why wouldn't the followers of Jesus have expected the power of death to reign as they came to the tomb? Remember, the power of victimization can be so overwhelming. The crowd of people who were awaiting Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday were animated and excited. Some of them were expecting him to overthrow the power of Rome. Many were waiting to see something take place, and when nothing did, their anticipation turned to disappointment. They went from shouting Hosanna to crucify in a moment. Disappointment can kill because it's contagious. Who knows, maybe even some of the disciples of Jesus could have shouted along with all of the rest of the crowd, they being captured by the energy and the security of their neighbors. And when Jesus was finally convicted and executed, they all could feel as if something major, something hugely important had happened.
Speaker 2:The power of death isn't an abstraction, and it isn't limited only to the power to stop a person from breathing. It's the power to extinguish and to limit, the power to shut off and to set aside, all of which was exercised against Jesus. Making this happen was why Jesus was killed. Those who came to the tomb were expecting this power at its height. They didn't expect anything else. So when they got there, their expectations were disturbed. The stone sealing the tomb was rolled back. Someone had gotten there ahead of them, it appeared. As they approached, it became clear something had happened, something to interrupt the normal and the certain. Seeing the open tomb, they were anxious to know what the explanation was, because none of it made sense to them.
Speaker 2:As we come to the description of the women's experience in Mark's gospel, we have an interesting series of events. They arrive at the tomb anxious for what their next course of action will be, since they don't really know how they're going to roll the stone away to get access to the tomb. Men can't come with them and the work of taking the stone away is of raw muscle power. There isn't any other kind. So in order to complete what they came to do, they're going to have to recruit help from somewhere. They can't bring their menfolk along. They can't incriminate any of the men who might help, since that might lead to suspicion that could be fatal, and they couldn't move the stone by themselves. They'd be there, but they'd have to find a way to make it all work somehow. That's all contained in the spare description from Mark, but it describes the conundrum they face as they arrive. They're there ready, but they have to wait to complete their work. But as they arrive they see the stone rolled back. Of course they go inside to see what they can see, rather than standing around looking for clues. They go inside. Their focus is there. The body of Jesus should be there.
Speaker 2:In all of the gospel stories describing them entering the tomb, they encounter some explanation. In several of the stories, an angel is there to inform them of the resurrection. In Mark's gospel, though, we get a slightly different version resurrection. In Mark's gospel, though, we get a slightly different version. In this story there is a young man dressed in a white robe sitting in the tomb as if he were waiting on them. As they see him, he tells them what it, what it all means. He informs them quote you need not be amazed. You're looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who's is crucified. He has been raised up. He's not here. See the place where they laid him. Go now and tell his disciples and Peter he's going ahead of you to Galilee where you will see him, just as he told you. Unquote. They find out about the resurrection from this young man. Their own eyes don't tell them the story he does.
Speaker 2:This is the first of the major themes of all of the resurrection stories. Those who are there on Easter Sunday morning don't know what happened. All they know is that they've come upon the scene and it makes no sense to them. They have to have someone testify to the truth of the situation. Testimony is the heart of their experience, which is to say, their encounter with the resurrection of Jesus is by way of the testimony of another, even the women at the tomb on Easter morning. They have no advantage on us, who are now removed from the event by 2,000 years. Someone else had to tell them of it before they knew about it, just as we've learned of it by someone else's testimony. Our experience of resurrection is the same in all ways as theirs. In this case, the women at the tomb were informed by someone what their experience really meant. This is the theme. That's what's important to us.
Speaker 2:We who are looking for the presence of Jesus, who live at a time in which his presence is unappreciated or simply unexplored. We could learn a lot from the occasion of their discovery. They came to the truth of the empty tomb occasion of their discovery. They came to the truth of the empty tomb Unprepared for what they found. They had to depend upon the witness of someone who apparently had the information they needed so they could come to belief or at least come to understand what the presence of Jesus was. Besides that, they were given a set of instructions.
Speaker 2:This situation gives us a chance to look for the same circumstances in our lives. While we might be wondering just where we're going to find such a moment on our journey, we can wonder. After all, we're not present on Easter Sunday morning. We're not prepared to dispose the body of Jesus for burial, we not being first century individuals, having slipped through the dark on our way to the tomb. But there is a circumstance hidden in this story that gives us some purchase in this slippery circumstance, to find out what might be helpful for us.
Speaker 2:We need to pay attention to one more part of the story from Mark's gospel, in Mark 14, verse 51, in the story of Jesus' arrest in the garden, there is an interesting detail that appears only in Mark's description of the events. It says there was a young man following him, following Jesus, who was covered by nothing but a linen cloth. As they seized him, he left the cloth behind and ran off naked". Now, that's a fascinating detail. Mark's descriptions are usually the sparest in the gospel that is, after all, mark's gospel is the shortest of them, but this detail is included and it's not included in any of the rest of the gospels. When Jesus is arrested and taken away for the trial that will lead to his crucifixion, a young man is stripped naked in the garden as he turns away. Then, later in the story, there is a young man in the tomb who instructs the puzzled women in what they are to do. How interesting For generations in the early church.
Speaker 2:It was said that Mark's gospel was used as a meditation on the night of the Easter vigil, preparing those who were to enter the church for their baptism at dawn. The normal procedure was to spend this night meditating on the story of Jesus and the promises of new life in him and then, as the sun was coming up, to approach the waters of baptism. Stripping off his everyday clothes, the candidate would come into the waters of baptism, turn to the west, from where darkness comes, and abjure the spirits of this world and denounce all cooperation with them. He would then turn to the east, from where the light comes, and announce his acceptance of the promise of forgiveness in Christ and his allegiance to the work of God in the church. The candidate would then be baptized and walk out of the baptismal font and then be clothed in a white robe. What if the story of the young man in the tomb creates the pattern of what takes place at baptism?
Speaker 2:Readers of the gospel get a hint of what happens when baptism is offered to those who seek to encounter Jesus and to follow him. What's going on in baptism is what happened in the story of Jesus himself Following Jesus into the garden, encountering the powers of this world coming close to being captured by the entanglements of destruction. The one who wants to share the new life of the resurrected Christ finds it by way of the experience of baptism. Of the resurrected Christ finds it by way of the experience of baptism. He ends up on the other side of the baptismal font clothed in a white robe. We can also add the additional detail provided by St Paul that the baptismal pool is like the burial place of Jesus. Entering it, the one baptized accompanies Christ into his death and now can tell us of their powerful experience of Christ, the bishops imitated the Eucharistic revival.
Speaker 2:For those who have forgotten the promise of encounter with the risen Christ in the Eucharist, those who have grown old or dispirited in the faith, those who may have surrendered their commitment to the promises of Christ or those who simply never learned the comprehensive message of Jesus. All of these are invited to listen to. Those who have just recently passed through the waters of baptism and still know the power of Christ to cleanse and to renew. Coming out of the pool, he accompanies Christ in his resurrection. The newly baptized, standing in his white robe, is a participant in the resurrection. This is the explanation St Paul offers in the letters to the Romans.
Speaker 2:What we're offered in this story of unlikely encounter with the story of Jesus is that we are invited to pay attention to the witness of those who wear white robes and can tell us of the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus. In short, we're invited to encounter Jesus in a powerful way by listening especially to those who have passed through the waters of baptism. If we listen to them, we may have a chance to re-encounter the power of the Eucharistic promises and to know how certain and how moving it is to hear Jesus' admonition to do this in memory of me. It's a common experience that those who encounter the church are the most voluble about their faith. They're the ones most likely to talk about the power of belief and how it has lifted them from the troubles of their previous life. Knowing the comprehensiveness of finding Christ in their lives, they know what it means to have him present.
Speaker 2:The story in Mark's gospel is a reminder that we often need a prompt, an invitation, in order to remember what's important. We can take comfort that even the apostles themselves were lax and unbelieving when they came across the most obvious completion of what they had learned from Jesus' own lips. It took a young man dressed in a white robe, someone who was familiar with the tomb of Jesus, to tell them what it meant. We should listen to those who have something to tell us and finally, let's remember the message of the young man. He says go to Galilee. Jesus will precede you. Galilee is a home for them all. Go home is the message. Isn't that what the bishops want us to do? We should go home to the strength of the faith, home to the certainty that we've been given, home to the life of blessing and graces that we've been promised. The Eucharistic revival is an invitation to be at home in the comfortable and certain truths we learned as children and practiced as our heritage. After all, we've been through, after all the ups and downs of life in Christ, we should come home. It's there. We'll find what we're looking for and what life means for us. The scriptures remind us, from Easter Sunday onward, christ is waiting for us there, at home, where we know what we trust is there among us. This is our heritage. It's offered to us every day. Let's go back home. We'll find the source of life and the promise of forgiveness there. It's a promise Back in just a moment. Welcome back to our final segment, faith in Verse.
Speaker 2:We have a poem today called Cloudy Winter. So it all becomes clear now as the overcast shadows the day. What was not before allowed has now come to us on our way. We imagine here in wintertime the silent phase of nature's cycle, a pause in the passing climb so that all can come by full. But rather than quiescent, asleep in the ground and in their lairs, nature and her denizens sweep through all of life, full and fair, especially now as the days are dark and the temps cause to freeze and slow as the whole climate moves and marks action and sleep, first to and then fro. So in the life we share in our souls, amid the spiritual and the holy, god is equally at work amid the cold and comes to us completely and wholly. Despair, not at clouded skies and the tough days for you up ahead, darkened silence for you. There lies Fullest graces, even as you lie abed. That's cloudy winter Back home. That's the promise that's given to us all. I hope that in the weeks to come we can continue finding our home, as we continue living Catholic.
Speaker 1:Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcrorg.