6th Sunday of Easter – Homily (Msgr. LoPinto)

As we mentioned at the beginning of today’s liturgy, it is the sixth Sunday of Easter.

And so for six, seven weeks we have been singing alleluia, yes.

And I wonder sometimes since we do these things almost out of practice or what you might say habit.

Whether we ever really stop to think.

Why are we using this one word so frequently?

Alleluia, alleluia. I asked you to define it.

You would probably say to me something like, well, it must have something to do with joy.

Isn’t that why you say alleluia? But does it have something to do with glory?

I would dare suggest to you that you might find an insight into the use of the word alleluia, which again is certainly a word that captures the right of Easter in the first reading.

As a reader is reflecting on an experience that not only he has, but those who are with him are of that original community.

And they have gone the house of Cornelius who was a Roman centurion. As far as we know, a member of what would have been the Gentile community.

And Peter has been invited there and is sharing with them the good news.

But something very dramatic happens. And the dramatic thing that happens is, as Peter is speaking with them.

Sees those with him, see the Holy Spirit descend upon these people in their shop.

They’re shocked by what they witness. They’re shocked because in again, these are not people of the tribe.

These are not people of the tradition. This is a new group.

And in a sense, the alleluias are the celebration. Of the new day of God. Well, that’s what Easter is.

It’s a celebration of the new day of God when God breaks open the barriers, not just the barrier of death.

Certainly that is one of the critical pieces of the barrier of the prejudices, the barriers of the narrowness.

The barriers that was so ingrained. In the human culture.

He shatters the. And he basically says there is no tribe.

There is one people. One people who live in me.

He manifests for us by his life, manifested again through the son who is present among us, just as the scripture says, God so loved the world that he sent his son.

They live among us not. In a sense. Apart from us. It is one with us.

And in so doing, he literally makes available to us a new way of life.

A way of life captured in that Word, which is repeated over and over again in this scripture today.

Makes open to us. Way of love.

Way of love that is beyond our comprehension.

Because it is the love of our self giving.

No conditions. If there had been conditions, the reality is that Jesus would have never come.

This would have never come because the history was a history.

Of literally. Sitting in the face of God.

God, God’s love. So overwhelming. God’s love is so ever embracing.

God is ever able to overlook.

Overlook always shortcomings. And to put you on a journey.

The God began in creation. They often say.

We missed so much of the story, the essence of the story of creation, because we literally concentrate.

On Eve and Adam eating of the fruit of the tree.

Was merely a manifestation. Of the limits of our humanity.

Greater event. That God would come.

All of the afternoon breeze. And God would walk.

Well, that was God’s design. That was God’s plan. Not that we’d be apart, that we’d be separate.

That we’d be together. Maybe be at one with God.

And in the mystery of God. We would be at one with one another.

But we would be literally making up. Into the very being of God.

A being of love. So as we come to this sixth Sunday of Easter.

The Lord uses it to remind us. This is why you are singing Alleluia.

Because I have literally broken in.

You are broken and fragile. History.

And I have offered to you. A new road.

A new road. On, And I have invited all of you. It regardless.

l, you are where you are, what you look like, what language you speak.

What place you hold in the scale? Of the society.

I invite you. Join with me in this new moment.

And to live this new moment. That’s why we have the Eucharist frequently.

That’s why we have it weekly, that we encourage and invite everyone in, because the Eucharist, the celebration of the Eucharist.

The liberation of living and God’s life.

And it’s manifested. In the most concrete way that you could imagine.

Manifested in the fact. That when you look around you.

You’re not just here with your family. And not just here with your neighbor.

Here with strangers. You’re here with people of very different backgrounds.

And as we come together. And we Joy of the Lord, there is a prayer.

It’s the prayer of consecration again. We think of that often in terms of the transformation that takes place.

In the body and blood, in the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ.

But there’s a second consecration. That takes place shortly thereafter.

As we pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon us.

As it has come upon has the spirit has come upon the bread and wine and transformed it into the body and blood of Christ.

We pray that the spirit upon us.

And transform us. By the power of the spirit into the body and blood of Christ.

Literally, we grew the Eucharist. Will continue to grow in the newness of Jesus’s rison life.

And that the Eucharist will give us the strength. The lives that reality.

Day in and day out. Despite all the obstacles.

Despite all the negativity, despite all the violence.

We will be faithful and remember to speak.

I are actually. The love of God.

In our families. In our communities, ultimately in the world at large.

I invite you to stand now that together we’ve made proclaimed the faith that brings us to this moment.

Each week.