April 7 Easter Sunday
(Feast of the Passover of Our Lord). Jn 20/1-9

Background
Most of the Gospels during Easter time are taken from St. John, a literary genius if the world has ever known one. Father John Shea has suggested that John's Gospel may be the greatest book ever written. Its author has an astonishing ability to take a perhaps dim memory of an incident which happened in the life of Jesus, retell it with vivid and life-like detail, and then wrap the story in deep and mystical symbolism which makes it a story for all times. Thus in today's story we can see the younger disciple outrunning Peter and then waiting respectfully for him. We can understand the chauvinist skepticism of the apostles, we can imagine the growing excitement among the followers of Jesus, there sense that something was happening, something astonishing, indeed beyond belief. And we are impressed, though we hardly notice it consciously by the act that the burial robes of Jesus have been put aside and neatly folded. Not only do we have life triumphan, we have the extraordinary occurring in orderly fashion.

Story
Once upon a time a young man named Ned (often called Neddie by his mother and sisters) went away to college. Ned was a very nice boy, for a boy. His parents and his sisters and little brother thought that he was quite sweet as did most of the young women in his neighborhood. Even the parish priest said that he wasn't all that bad for a teenager. But Ned wanted to be free from the limitations his neighborhood imposed on him. He wanted to get away from his family and friends and his parish. He wanted to test himself on his own, find out what life was like when were no longer labeled a "nice boy" or, worse, a "sweet boy." So he choose a college far away from home, all the way across the country. He couldn't come home on weekends or even at Thanksgiving. Well, everyone in the parish missed Ned, his parents and his brother and sisters especially. The house wasn't the same when Ned wasn't there. The young women in the parish missed him too, his jokes and his smile and his blue eyes. Even the parish priest said the neighborhood was too quiet. Then they began to think that Ned would actually like it in the strange place he had gone and they never would seem him again. Finally he came home for the holidays. Everyone met him at the airport (except the priest) and cheered him when he got off the plane. He hugged them all and laughed and maybe even shed a few tears. He'd never go that far away again, he promised. He loved his family and friends too much. Next year he'd transfer to a school much closer to home.

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