What do we think we recognize

“Nothing that I do is finished,” writes the poet W.S. Merwin, “so I keep returning to it/ lured by the notion that I long/ to see the whole of it at last/ completed and estranged from me.” I’m sure we’ve all had similar experiences of trying to perfect a project or a skillset. Think of the writer who refuses to publish because he keeps tinkering with the paragraphs, or a musician who will never let anyone hear a new song because he keeps changing it.

As Merwin indicates, there’s something in us that grasps tightly to the thing, almost as if we’re afraid to let it take wing, to estrange it, as he puts it, and allow it take its place in the world apart from me who created it. Once it’s out there, I can no longer dictate the terms of its existence. For instance, even as I preach this homily, I’m losing control of the words and you are going to hear it as you will (if you’re still listening!). There’s nothing I can do about that except trust that between us there will be a meeting of minds and a friendship will be kindled on the basis of something entirely new, something neither you nor I control. I’m often amazed at what people get out of my homilies; profound things, subtle and wise things, things I never said! Somewhere between the pulpit and your ears, these words improve tremendously, a phenomenon grounded in the work of the Holy Spirit for which I am grateful.

It seems to me that, in the days after Our Lord’s death, the apostles were grieving the fact that they had lost control of events. At the Cross, something profound had been completed, Our Lord specifically announced that, “It is finished.” But what precisely, had been finished? And having been finished, had they lost their Lord, had he become estranged as he slipped away? As long as Christ was with them, they were part of the process, helpers in the mission. But now Christ had flown the coop.

The disciples are huddled in the upper room, having returned to a familiar place to grapple with the loss of the familiar. The past three years of their lives were upended, and a piece of themselves had disappeared along with their Master into the grave.

This, at low ebb, is when the Resurrected Lord appears. St. John recalls the event with understatement, writing, “Jesus came, and stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be to you… The disciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord.” I love the way St. John uses simple phrases to convey complexity. This is, after all, a simple event; a man comes into a room and greets his friends. So simple that we might take it for granted. Just like the years of following Jesus during his ministry had perhaps become old hat. Just as it is a simple thing to wake up each morning, stretch, and open the shades to the sound of songbirds. Just as it is a simple thing to be in church on Sunday morning. It’s what we do. We were here last week and we’ll be here next week. It’s always the Mass, always the sacrifice, always a familiar cast of clergy and parishioners.

The Cross is a perfect sacrifice, complete and finished. And yet, theeffect of the Cross is unfinished within us. It’s an ongoing project, the perfection of our souls by cooperating with grace. We are, as the introit this morning indicates, but newborn babes opening our eyes in wonder.

The weight of it can be too much, unfinished projects with no end in sight, so we retreat to the familiar. But our existence cannot become familiar. We are creatures bound for eternity, the tabernacles of endless grace. What is the meaning of Easter, the redemption of the soul, and the supernatural peace to which we are destined? How do we react to the miracle of the Eucharistic Host in our midst? St. Thomas the Apostle is our fearless leader in this regard, for he refuses to accept second-hand knowledge of the miracle. He will see with his own two eyes, and when he sees, he falls to his knees and adores; “My Lord and my God!”

We think of unfinished projects with regret, bemoaning that there’s always another level of perfection to achieve. I can always improve my mile-time in running, always improve the garden, cook an even more perfect brisket, love my family better, write better, stand up straighter, become a better friend, a more sincere Christian…but if we shift perspective we’ll understand how beautiful it is be surrounded by unfinished projects and to ourselves be unfinished projects. Merwin writes, “the unfinished is what/ I return to as it leads me on/ I am made whole by what has just/ escaped me as it always does.” In other words, to be unfinished simply means that we are seeking ever more levels of happiness, we are made whole by what we are becoming. And then, with a poetic incisiveness that makes me love him so much, he exclaims,

oh gossamer gossamer breath
moment daylight life untouchable
by no name with no beginning

what do we think we recognize

There, just beyond our incapability to complete it from our own resources, what do we think we recognize? What is that divine reality that kindles and sparks and throws the disciples clear of the upper room to shift the entire history of the world on its axis? Why do they pour out of that room full of vigor to engage in a project that, unless God empowers us to do the impossible, is impossible – namely, the redemption of all things? Is it Christ eastering in his world? Is it the world beyond this one emerging from the wreck of Eden, throwing open sealed tombs and bursting through locked doors?

If the work of Christ is unfinished in us, this is cause for joy and wonder, because it means that the work of Christ has begun in us. It is cause to see with new-born eyes, the same eyes that will one day behold God in the beatific vision of his glory, the same eyes to recognize Christ right here and now, fully present with us but escaping, drawing us on, and to react precisely as St. Thomas does, “My Lord and my God.”

What do we think we recognize? Certainly nothing familiar. It’s like saluting an earthquake, the world lifted clear from the waters of baptism, bright-eyed with the wonder of being. The Risen Lord makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar, everything unfolding and pushing forward towards Paradise, and so is prompted a going-out-of our nature, moving in the tailwind of the radiance of Our Lord’s presence, and even the very circulation of the blood in our veins is figured in the drift of stars.

An Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and said to the women, “He whom you seek is risen, Alleluia.”