I love celebrating Family Mass. In my first assignment as a priest, at St. Helen’s parish, Howard Beach, I was blessed enough to be asked to serve as moderator of the Family Mass Committee by then-pastor Msgr. Joe Pfeiffer.

For my five happy years at St. Helen’s, each Sunday’s Family Mass was an event! The Children’s Choir was excellent. The lectors, the catechists, all were truly involved in bringing the Word and the Sacraments to the school-age children and their families with whom we were blessed to serve.

That wonderful Family Mass continues today under Msgr. Richard Marchese, the current pastor and his fine parochial staff. To this day, my happiest memories of St. Helen’s come from the Sunday Family Mass.

As chaotic as it could be at times, the liturgies were beautiful, rich and meaningful, and I know that I grew so much as a priest, as a preacher and as a teacher from these liturgies.

I always had the 10 a.m. Family Mass on Easter Sunday at St. Helen’s. Each year, I gave the same homily! Perhaps you might have heard the sermon, told in another form by a deacon or priest in your parish, but I believe that all of us, younger and older can certainly benefit from the thoughts expressed.

Once upon a time, there was a man by the name of Simon, who was from Cyrene. Simon went to Jerusalem one Friday to buy some eggs for the Passover. Simon bought some big, plain brown eggs. While he was at the market, Simon was grabbed by a Roman soldier and was told that he had to help this man, a criminal named Jesus to carry His cross on the way to the place where he would be crucified.

The Resurrection is depicted in a painting by Marie Romero Cash at St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, N.M.

Simon was scared and upset and didn’t want to do this, but he had to, so he put his eggs aside and went and carried the Cross. He looked at this man named Jesus and he saw how good and pure and innocent he was. Simon tried to help Jesus by carrying the cross and Jesus went and helped Simon, just by being nice and kind to him.

Jesus told him not to fear and not to despair, because out of all these bad things that were happening today, something really good was going to happen. All this suffering that Jesus was undergoing was not in vain, and he would send Simon a bright, big, beautiful sign that all of this was going to work out in the end.

As they arrived to the place where Jesus would be nailed to the cross, Simon was pushed away from Jesus by the Roman soldiers and was forced to go away. Simon did so and was very sad for this good man, Jesus. 

Three days later, on Sunday morning, Simon remembered that he had forgotten his eggs and he remembered what that good man Jesus had said. He ran to where he had left his eggs and he found them. Those plain, old brown eggs had turned into all the colors of the rainbow, which was the sign of the Covenant, that pact of love and friendship which God had made with us, the people whom He loved. As he looked on all the colors of the rainbow, Simon knew that Jesus was okay and that we would all, ultimately be okay, in and through Jesus!

That simple, old story not only tells us why we color eggs at Easter time, but explains quite simply a saving truth: out of anything bad, something good will happen, maybe not in our time, but in God’s time! Out of the Cross, out of Good Friday, comes the Resurrection, comes Easter Sunday. Out of darkness comes the light. Out of despair comes the hope. Out of death comes life, new and eternal life in and through Christ Jesus.

In our own lives, when everything seems to be going terribly wrong, when hopelessness and desolation seem to encompass us on all sides, trust in this saving truth. As simple as this message is, as basic as this thought is, it is the kernel of the Christian message.

Today, on this day of days, this day which the Lord has made and in which we rejoice and are glad, let us revel in this fact! Let us be children again, children of the most high God and know, in simplicity of heart and mind and soul, that the Lord is risen! Let us hear the Easter message with purity of heart, as if for the first time and learn to re-appreciate the Gospel message of our salvation. Alleluia!
 
   Readings:
   Acts 10:34a, 37-43
   Colossians 3:1-4
   Matthew 28:1-10 (41)
 
Father Cush is on the faculty of Cathedral Preparatory Seminary in Elmhurst.