The Pastor spoke somewhat facetiously about the letter that he wrote, but, later on, do read it. It's excellent! It's excellent! When I first came here, a little over a year ago now, when I was at Mass with some of you on Sundays, I would repeat phrases that I'd heard in my last few years in New York City, that I kept hearing and hearing and hearing..... One of them was "You know what I'm saying?" And another one was, "There ain't no way! There ain't no way!" And on a lot of the subways in New York City you would see the sign, "We are a work in progress."

Since I've been lucky enough to be in California, and lucky enough to be in this parish, when I want to visit a priest friend in San Francisco, I don't drive, so I take BART. And so it has been quite a while, and on BART, I've jotted down phrases that I hear from people. And, if I hear them two or three times, I jot them down. And these are the three I'd like to think over with you this Easter Sunday.

These were two men sitting behind me and one of them kept saying, "That's a lame excuse. That's a lame excuse." They were talking about a co-worker, I guess. "That was a lame excuse."

And, then, several months ago, I heard a man, sounding so weary and scared. (It was on a Saturday on BART.) And he was talking to his colleague, and he said, "I just... want to get through Monday." (It was on Saturday he was saying it.) He kept repeating it, all the way into the Embarcadero. "I just... want to get through next Monday."

And the last one is one I heard two days ago, over and over again. "You betcha life! You..." (on BART) "You betcha life!" Not four words, "You bet your life," but, "You betcha life!" (three words.) "You betcha life!" And those three will help me think about Easter with you.

First one, "That's a pretty lame explanation. That's a lame excuse." As some of you are weary of hearing, perhaps, I love talking to converts, adult converts to the faith, because they make as fresh as paint, things that I've taken for granted all my life. They see it with such fresh insight. And, on the upper East side, (which is where I was working before I went to Wall Street, working on a parish in the upper East side), very posh, very rich people lived there. And there was a convert, and she was British. And I love that because I love imitating badly the British accent. And it was in Holy Week. She was a convert, and she was originally from South Africa. She had just gotten her PhD. and... a convert, and it was in Holy Week. And she came to me and she said, "You know, you really should talk at Eastah about Josephus." Now, it rang a bell. I remembered Josephus from Scripture studies. And I said, "Well, go on" because converts are so fresh and... She said, "Well, you know, at Eastah you should talk about all the lame..." And she used that adjective! "...all the lame explanations that people have been giving since the Enlightenment." She said, "Oh! If ever there was a misnomer spiritually it is 'The Enlightenment.' About how Jesus rose from the dead... Up to then, everyone believed that Jesus rose. But at The Enlightenment, all these lame explanations... 'The Pharisees stole the body!' And that didn't work. Later on, 'The Apostles stole the body.' And that didn't work." And she said, "Eventually, it will come up some theory that He, you know, He swooned, got better, moved to Samaria and sold sandals." Her exact quote! She said, "All these lame explanations for that empty tomb, and the fact that eleven terrified men and then several hundred people went out and spread the word, and went through torture, exile and death, and nobody broke or changed. 'We saw Him. We touched Him. He's alive. We're going to live forever. We saw Him. We saw Him in the flesh.' So," she said, "Use that!"

So, I can't spend all the time on Josephus. But he was a brilliant Jewish scholar. He lived in Rome at the same time Our Lord lived in Jerusalem. And Josephus exchanged letters with Pharisee buddies of his, back in Jerusalem. He was an intellectual. He was hired.... Josephus was hired to teach the kids of Patrician Romans. He never met Jesus. But, we have in his annals, in museums we have Josephus'es annals (That means history, diary.) and in the beginning he mentions in his letters in Rome that Pharisee buddies of his back in Palestine, Jerusalem, complaining about this upstart Jewish carpenter who's causing a kind of ruckus. And, later on, Josephus'es open and understandable irritation, after Easter, that some of his Pharisee friends who'd participated in the planned execution of Jesus have changed their whole lives because they are joining the Christic cult because they say they saw Him alive. That's Josephus, an impartial, even hostile, witness.... No more lame excuses! How do you explain that empty tomb?

And, my last Easter Sunday, in Battery Park City (That's very, I keep saying "posh" but it was a very posh part of lower Manhatten. It's near Wall Street, very expensive apartments.) and on Easter Sunday there was a scientist there who was there for a science convention, one of those big hotels in lower Manhatten, and he came to Mass in Battery Park City, and after Easter Sunday he said, "Of course," he said, "quantum physics will clearly establish that Jesus had to rise from the dead." And I nodded as if I were fully aware of what he was talking about. "Quantum physics will fully establish the fact that Christ had to rise from.... " No more lame excuses! The night He rose from the dead He appears in front of those eleven scared men who probably had bolts on the doors and doberman pinschers, so scared were they that they would get the same treatment the boss got on Friday. And Our Lord appears. It's in the Gospels. This isn't something out of Hans Christian Anderson. And Christ says, "Have you anything to eat? Peace! Calm down! Stop hiding under the rug and climbing the wallpaper cause you dumped me... Peace! Have you something to eat?" No more lame explanations. Jesus has risen from the dead.

Now, the second expression (There are only three.)... The second expression is that man, so poignant. He sounded so scared, that guy behind me on BART, "I just... want... to get through Monday." This is on a Saturday. And there must be many... In a group this size, there must be many of you who are saying, "Oh, yeah. Great. Jesus rose from the dead. Uh-huh. I just want to get through Monday. I want to get through the stress and the anxiety of all Monday's responsibilities. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe Jesus rose from the dead." But, you see, if He rose from the dead, not just some glowing gossamer memory, like gas, but He rose from the dead and these people saw Him and talked to Him and then went out and spread the word, first the Mediterranean Basin and then all through Europe, changing the face of the earth, if He rose from the dead, and then the stuff He said, He'll keep His promises. He will keep His promise. He's Son of God. He will keep His promise. "Take up your cross and follow me." You got to anyhow! But, if He said it, then you are not carrying it alone. It doesn't matter how you feel. You don't have to have mystic visions of Jesus to take that with dogged faith. "Take up your cross and follow me." You'll... get... through... Monday, because I'll be with you. It doesn't matter how you feel. "I'm with you all days until the end of time." He's not talking to the Vatican. "I'll be with YOU, all days, with Father, with Me. I'll be with you all days,"... including Monday! Christ said that. If He rose from the dead, He's God. He'll keep His promise. Nothing to do with how you feel. You might feel very far from God, but just hold on! And the one that's so beautiful, this Man Who rose from the dead and promises that we're going to, He says, "Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened and I'll refresh you." Doesn't mean two martinis and air conditioning. You know what He's talking about, something much deeper than that.

There were men and women on Wall Street, my last few years there, under terrible stress, getting down-sized and fired, and many of them told me privately that they would grab a mantra, you know a saying, on Sunday, and they would go through the week, beginning on Monday. There are thousands of them from the Bible. Here's one right here in front of you: "Go in the peace of Christ." Brushing your teeth, say it with your teeth grit and your nerves jumping all over. "I will go in the peace of Christ." It's not silly. It's deep, deep prayer. And if He rose from the dead, then you'll get through Monday because He promises that He's with you. He'll keep His promises if He's risen!

And the last is "You betcha life." The guy on BART: "You betcha life. You betcha life." Well, we do bet our lives. And your lives involve not just your devotion here at Mass, but the life of your brain. Flannery O'Connor, I'm always talking about her because I love her stuff. She was a Catholic writer in the South. She won the National Book Award when she was dead because they didn't want to give it to a Catholic while she was still alive. That's true. When she was dead, they gave her the National Book Award. She was once (I know I told you this before.)... She was once at a convention of Southern writers (Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, that whole...) And they all respected her but one of them said, "You know Communion is just a symbol, Flannery." She was talking about the Eucharist. And Flannery O'Connor said, "If it's just a symbol, to hell with it!" And in her letters, the book of her letters, one of the best books I've ever read.... In her letters, she explains, "If it's just a symbol, just a cracker, to hell with it. But in some miraculous, mysterious, mystical way, sacramental presence of Christ... He's there." And it's the same with the Risen Jesus. If it's just a memory of a nice Jewish man who died young....

On the street where I live, I walk the dog, and , as I walk around the neighborhood, there are flags out on some of the houses. They're very pretty. I'm not knocking them. At Christmastime there was a big flag of Santa Claus outside the house, and another one, there was a big flag of a little house with smoke coming out of the chimney, Christmas-y. On St. Patrick's Day there was a big flag of a shamrock. And down the street farther, a big flag of a little leprechaun who looked a little drunk with a little hat on. And yesterday, I took a walk down that same street and there was a flag of a little chickadee coming out of a little shell. And then, later on, there is a little bunny with the biggest overbite I've ever seen in my life. And Father gave us a survey last week of a poll taken (I forget exactly...) of Americans or something, "What is Easter to you?" The rebirth of Spring, and new life, and..." If that's all it is, to hell with it! Let's go home and have some Bloody Marys and relax.

But if you betcha life that Jesus has risen, alive, and will keep His promises, you'll survive. Flannery O'Connor again... (Her Collected Letters is the best thing you could get, Flannery O'Connor's Letters.) But she says, "We breathe in, you and I, the oxygen of scepticism and intellectual sophistication.... Oh! You don't really believe that nonsense. Do you?" Now Flannery O'Connor had a first rate brain, but she loved talking about, and she even spells it this way in her letters, "interlectuals" that know everything and know nothing. And you are breathing that in. You breathe it in at work. You breathe it in when you drive away from this church. Sceptical, and ironic, and sophisticated and so.... You've got to feed your brain too. A friend of mine just discovered G. K. Chesterton. And it's restored the entire intellectual vibrancy of his faith. G. K. Chesterton was one of the most respected brains in England, a convert. He wrote a book (I don't have any cut on profits of any of these books. Believe me!) It's called The Everlasting Man. And this fellow who's a doctor and his wife who's a doctor, they're devouring.... "Oh, why don't we hear more..." There's so much good Catholic stuff to feed the life, you betcha life, of your brain as well as your heart.... And we're going to have a risen body.

And this is almost over... Father said it would be two hours and a half. It only seems that way! But we will have a risen body. That's why, as a woman said to me back in New York, she was puzzled (another convert) at the fact that in the gospels after Easter, Our Lord appears to friends, and strangers, and they don't quite recognize Him. Certainly a man, a physical human, walking and talking with them. Because it was a risen body, we don't quite understand. But we do know that when we get the risen body that it will be magnificent. And when I was young, I used to think, "Oh! Good! I'll get my hair back and all that kind of s....." It's not quite that simple. That's both aesthetically and spiritually stupid. Best metaphor I ever came up with (I mean, I ever read.) was "The butterfly has developed from the caterpillar." Physiologically, that's the same entity. Isn't it? That's the same essence, the same persona, same creature, same varmint. The caterpillar becomes the butterfly. That's a slight indication of the magnificence of our risen bodies. But we'll recognize each other. And you'll recognize me and I, you. And you'll say, "Are you the one that went on and on that Easter?" But it will be a risen body. And I'll meet, if I may say so, my mother. She died when I was six. She was thirty-two. I'll finally meet Eleanor Kelly. And you'll meet people you've loved, who died. And that's not Hans Christian Anderson. It's not Walt Disney. It's why... you're here... on Easter! Christ Risen and the promise of everlasting life for you.

Last, really last, story was of the last baptism I had in New York, and it was on Easter Sunday. (There were baptisms here last night, of converts.) But this was on Easter Sunday, Battery Park City's very posh part of lower Manhatten. It's right near Wall Street, big apartments for rich people. And there was a baptism and I was on duty in this little chapel in Battery Park City. And they walked in, very well-dressed, a young couple with their new baby. And the godmother, she didn't walk in. She shimmered in! She was a model, a rather famous model, and she was the godmother. And I instantly loathed her, because she was gorgeous. I've always been jealous of gorgeous women and handsome men, always! You'd think I'd know better at my age, but instantly I thought...And she was just Givenchy original and perfume and just really a knockout, and she was holding the baby. And I thought, to myself, "The reason they asked her is she's famous and she's gorgeous and she's probably got a lot of money she's going to give to this new baby, and mumble, grumble, grumble, grumble... And then we got to renewal of promises, which you and I and Father are going to do in just a minute. We had an older translation but the same idea. You know, the sponsors and the parents answer for the kid? "Do you reject Satan?" "We do." "...and all his empty promises?" "We do." This beautiful model, when we said, (You know, I dictated.) "...and all his empty promises?" and the people said, "...and all his empty promises" she repeated it, into the dead silence of the chapel, all by herself. "...and all his empty promises." And she said it again, as we stared..."And all... Do I reject Satan and all... his empty promises..." And I thought, "W-O-W! She knows what that means. She knows what that...." and I forgave her for being good-lookin'!

So, as Father indicated in his letter, when you read it, you don't have to be embarrassed about believing in the Resurrection of Christ. All the lame reasons that have come up to explain it have all dissolved. They have. They've all dissolved. You will get through Monday, with His hand in yours, no matter how you feel. It's dogged faith. It's grown-up faith. He's with me. He promised He would be. And someday, we're all going to get together again, meet joyfully face to face.... You betcha life!!