Homily for Saturday of the Octave of Easter

First Reading: Acts 4:13–21

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 118:1 and 14–15ab, 16–18, 19–21

Gospel: Mk 16:9–15

Seminarian Residence, Crowley, TX

        The Church frequently prays the first part of today’s Psalm (118) in the Liturgy of the Hours and many of those familiar lines speak of being surrounded by our enemies and how we can overcome by placing our trust in God alone: “the nations surrounded me, in the Lord’s name I crushed them” (v.10) But the passages we hear today in Mass come from the second movement of Psalm 118 and speak of our gratitude to God for that same deliverance.

          Originally, this Psalm was part of a collection of Temple Psalms the Jewish people would sing every year at Passover to celebrate the divine faithfulness of the God who delivered them from death^[1]. Verse 1 sums up the Psalm rather nicely: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his mercy endures for ever!” In Hebrew, the word for mercy is hesed. But hesed has a deeper meaning than just mercy. It means covenantal faithfulness, enduring love, everlasting favor. So this Psalm is a song of victory, deliverance, and thanksgiving because God is faithful, loves us, and never leaves us alone when darkness, chaos, and uncertainty surrounds us. It is a Psalm of gratitude.

          How fitting that Holy Mother Church chooses to give us this Psalm in the divine liturgy today, on this last day of the octave of Easter. For eight days we have been celebrating our Christian Passover – Easter. Easter is our celebration of the everlasting faithfulness, the hesed, of God giving his son Jesus Christ to deliver us from the darkness of the world that surrounds us. Easter is a celebration of God’s enduring love, his hesed, hearing our prayers as he walked with us through Lent. Easter is a celebration of gratitude for the everlasting favor of mercy Christ has given to us, his hesed, by dying and rising again.

          As this celebration of the Octave of Easter draws to a close, let us lift our hearts in gratitude for what Jesus Christ has given us. Let us rejoice in his hesed! Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his hesed endures for ever!

St. Joseph , most faithful, Pray for us!

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^[1] Konrad Schaefer, Psalms, ed. David W. Cotter, Jerome T. Walsh, and Chris Franke, Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001), 288.