Fr. Mychal Judge O.S.F.[1]
B.5/11, 1933 – D. 9/11, 2001
He Rolled the Stone away for Us
(One Nifty Word: Alleluia)
To the churched and unchurched[2]
gathered in a church not built by human hands[3]
March 23, 2008: Easter Sunday
Acts 10: 34, 37-43 Colossians 3:1-4 Mark 16:1-6
First reading from Acts
Peter proceeded to speak and said: “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
Glory to you, Lord.
After the Sabbath day was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices to go and anoint the body of Jesus. Very early on Sunday morning, at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way, they said to one another, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb?” (It was a very large stone.) Then they looked up and saw that the stone had already been rolled back. So they entered the tomb, where they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe, and they were filled with alarm. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was nailed to the cross. He is not here! He has been raised! Behold the place where they laid him.” (Mark 16: 1-6)
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Introduction
The huge stone rolled away
On Good Friday, Joseph of Arimathea placed the dead body of Jesus in his own tomb newly hewn from rock, and then rolled a very huge stone across the entrance and went away. (Mt 27: 58-61) Very early on Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome were on their way to the tomb with spices to anoint the body of Jesus. On their way they asked one another, “Who will roll away for us the huge stone from the entrance to the tomb?” When they arrived, to their great surprise they saw that the stone had already been rolled away. (Mk 16: 3-4)
Who rolled it away?
Who rolled the stone away? Matthew writes there was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord dressed in a robe white as snow came down from heaven, rolled it away, sat on it and announced to the women, “He is not here; he has been raised, just as he said.” (Mt 28:6) Mark writes that a young man dressed in a white robe told the women on entering the tomb that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead. (Mk 16: 5-6) Luke writes that two men in dazzling garments appeared to the women who were surprised to see the stone rolled back. The two announced to the women, “He is not here. He has been raised.” (Lk 24: 6) Whoever it was who rolled the stone back, the message is simple: the stone was so huge it took a mighty angel from above or at least one or two hefty men from below to roll it away.
God murdered by an “act of God”& an act of man
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietsche is famous for his expression “God is dead.“ (Nietzsche -- The Madman, section 125) What or who kills God for us? Sometimes it is “an act of God” (i.e., an act of nature) -- like the tsunami of December 26, 2004, which ruthlessly swept away 140,000 people in southeastern Asia. That horrendous act of nature murdered God for many people, laid Him in a tomb and rolled a huge stone at the entrance.
Sometimes it is an act of man that murders God. Nietzsche, who put his expression "God is Dead" into the mouth of a madman, writes,
Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!" As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. “Is your God lost,” asked one. ”Has he strayed away like a child,” asked another. “Has He hidden Himself? Is He afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated?”
So did the people mock him. Then the madman jumped into their midst, transfixed them with his glances and said, "Where is God gone? I will tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet known has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?”
God murdered in the Holocaust & 9/11
The twentieth century proved the madman wasn’t so mad after all; man does, indeed, murder God. Elie Weisel (the most famous surivor of the Holocaust) writes of the Holocaust -- that horrendous act of man -- in a little volume entitled Night.
Never shall I forget that first night in camp [Auschwitz] which turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of children whose bodies I saw turned into wreathes of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget, even if I am condemned to live as long as God.
For many other Jews God died in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau. The Holocaust, in fact, was such a horrendous act of man that it gave rise in the middle of the twentieth century to a group called The Death-of-God Theologians.
Marina Fontana, whose husband David was one of the 343 firefighters who died on 9\11, tells how that horrendous act of Usama bin Laden murdered her God:
I cannot bring myself to speak to God anymore because I feel so abandoned. I guess deep down inside I know that He still exists, and that I have to forgive Him and move on. But I am not ready to do that yet.
God murdered in the churches
After Nietsche’s madman’s episode in the marketplace, he made his way into different churches on the same day, and there he intoned a Requiem upon churches as “tombs and sepulchers of God." Sometimes it is nature and sometimes it is man who murders God. Sometimes it is the very church herself who murders God. In the Inquisition she not only murdered heretics like Giordano Bruno[4] but with them she also murdered very God Himself. The church murders God much less spectacularly but still quite effectively with her picky pedantries, hohum homilies and lifeless liturgies in the Sunday assembly.
God murdered for Jung
For example, Karl Jung, the father of modern psychology, describes the day of his First Holy Communion. He waited for it with eager anticipation. It finally came. Behind the altar stood his father, the minister, in his familiar robes. He read off the prayers from a book. He ate a piece of the bread and sipped the wine, then passed the cup on to the others, who looked stiff, solemn, and it seemed to him, uninterested. He waited in suspense for something out of the ordinary to happen but it did not happen. He saw no sadness and no joy on anyone’s face. When his turn came, he ate the bread which tasted flat, and sipped the wine which tasted sour. After the final prayer all pealed out of the church, neither depressed nor illumined with joy, but with faces that said, "Well, that's that." In the course of the following days, it dawned on Jung that the church had killed God for him on the very day of his first Holy Communion. He found himself saying, "That is not religion. That is the absence of God. I must never go back there again.” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)
On the lofty mount where Jesus was transfigured before his apostles, Peter exclaimed to Jesus, “Oh, how good it is for us to be here! Let’s build three shelters here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (Mt 17:4) The church, too, which assembles us weekly on the lofty heights of Mt. Tabor, should have us exclaiming, “Oh how good it is for us to be here. This is the presence of God. We must come back here again and again.”
A robin before the tomb
Sometimes it is an act of nature like a tsunami that kills God, lays Him in a tomb and rolls a huge stone at its entrance. On the other hand, sometimes it is an act of nature which rolls the stone away for us and brings God back to life.
When winter in northern climes has turned into a tomb for us (as it, indeed, did this past winter of 2007-08) we find ourselves crying out in early March, “Who shall roll the huge stone away for us?” Then suddenly one day a solitary robin appears and hoists her tiny wings against the heavy stone before the tomb of winter holding spring captive. She does not know (or pretends not to know) there is one more blizzard waiting in the wings. At the end of the day, however, the lengthening light, the mystical smell of spring in the air, the biological clock within us and the reappearance of the robin assure our human spirit that the back of winter has been broken. The robin is finally triumphant; her tiny hoisted wings roll the heavy stone away, and spring springs forth in all its glory. Heaven and earth are flooded with hints, hunches and hopes that God, indeed, will roll away the stone before our tombs.
An angel robed in brown before the tomb
Sometimes it is man who kills God, lays Him in a tomb and rolls a huge stone at the entrance. On the other hand, sometimes it is man who rolls the stone away from the tomb of God and brings Him back to life. By the power of his magnanimous living and magnificent dying Fr. Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, rolled away a huge stone before the tomb of God in New York City and raised God up for a whole sea of weary New Yorkers.
On the apocalyptic morning of September 11, 2001, Fr. Mychal (one of four chaplains for the New York City Fire Depart.) rushed to ground zero where he died in the line of duty. Almost immediately, legend (inspired by his legendary life) sprung up concerning his death. He had taken off his helmet to give the last rites to a dying fireman when suddenly a mass of debris came crushing down upon him. He died there on the spot, and his body was carried off to a nearby church where it was laid upon an altar.
New Yorkers knew the Franciscan friar. They knew he was a recovering alcoholic who comforted alcoholics, assuring them they were not evil people. They heard him tell alcoholics, “Look you’re not a bad person. You have a disease that makes you think you’re bad, and that’s going to `f…’ you up.” (At times he had no compunction in using forceful language when the occasion called for it.)
New Yorkers knew also he was a gay man by orientation. He opened the doors of the well-known Church of St. Francis of Assisi on 31st Street in Upper Manhattan to Dignity -- an organization for gay Catholics. They saw him in his brown Franciscan robe march in the first gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade. No wonder he was controversial in his own house -- the church. No wonder a Monsignor in the New York chancery frequently had to admonish him for this or that meticulous churchly thing.
But New Yorkers knew (if his church at times did not know) much more than that about Fr. Mychal. They knew he had an encyclopedic memory for people’s names, birthdays and passions. They knew he was a friend of everyone from the homeless to Mayor Giuliani who at his funeral declared that Mychal was a saint. They knew that he was a true New Yorker, born and raised in the city, but they knew also that he lived on an entirely different plane of priorities from most New Yorkers. He was non-acquisitive. He was completely unselfish and utterly uncomplaining.
Behold how Fr. Mychal -- a hefty angel dressed in a brown robe -- rolled away a humongous stone of doubt, unbelief, anger and lackluster religion for a whole sea of scorched and prostrated New Yorkers! On the day of his funeral, September 15, 2001, 3000 people flocked to participate in the service. The funeral Mass itself took place in St. Francis of Assisi Church in midtown Manhattan, and was presided over by Cardinal Edward Egan and attended by former President Bill Clinton, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea.
The words of the homily that day preached by Fr. Michael Duffy (also O.S.F.) went forth to the whole world by three TV networks. And when a memorial service was held one month later for the fallen angel, an endless flow of priests, nuns, lawyers, cops, firefighters, homeless people, rock-and-rollers, alcoholics and recovering alcoholics, gays and straights, local politicians and middle age couples from the suburbs streamed into Good Shepherd Chapel on Ninth Ave, an Anglican church, to do a memorial service for a Roman Catholic priest. Yes, indeed, though it was a man (Usama bin Laden) who murdered God for us, it is also a man (Mychal Judge) who brought God back to life! Yes, indeed, though it is the church that sometimes murders God for us, sometimes it is also a man representing the very best of that church who brings God back to life.
Conclusion
One nifty word: Alleluia!
There are no nifty words for Easter. There are only nifty robins which roll away the stone and call forth spring from the tomb of winter. And there are only nifty churches which roll away the stone before the sepulcher of God and bring Him back to life with life-giving Liturgy and life-giving Word. And there are only nifty people like Father Mychal who represent the very best of their church; they roll away the stone for us weary wayfarers and assure us that Jesus is alive even in the midst of the human condition. At the end of the day, however, there is one nifty word for Easter; it is Alleluia. Alleluia is not an intelligible exclamation but rather a kind of ecstatic babble which wells up in our hearts because of robins in the springtime and life-giving churches and people like Fr. Mychal Judge.
[1] Order Of St. Francis
[2]] By “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[3] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
[4] Because of his “heretical” writings Bruno, a Dominican friar, was condemned by the Inquisition of the Medieval Church. He was brought to the Campo de' Fiori, a central Roman market square, his tongue in a gag, tied to a pole naked and burned at the stake, on February 17, 1600. A statue of Giordano Bruno created by Ettore Ferrari was erected at Campo de' Fiori in Rome in 1889 on the day of the Holy Spirit. It looks in the direction of the Vatican.
