The books that sell best on Amazon
indicate that people want to know how to achieve success. That is hardly a surprise. Look at these titles: How to Succeed, or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune; Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals; and
How to Succeed. Some make it seem as if there’s one
secret to mastering anything: How to
Succeed in Everything: A Workbook. Then, there is specialized success, too: for
college, U Thrive: How to Succeed in
College (and Life); for business, Driven:
How To Succeed In Business And In Life; for children, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of
Character; and even for a very small group of people: How to Succeed as a Federal Judicial Law Clerk.
Relatively few people set their
caps toward failure, and I have a sneaking feeling these books are really just
how to succeed books with contrary titles:
How to Fail at Almost Everything
and Still Win Big; How to Fail: The
Self-Hurt Guide; and How to Fail as a
Therapist: 50+ Ways to Lose or Damage Your Patients.
So, here we are today, all
celebrating. Something great and life
changing has occurred. So has success been achieved? Who succeeded, and at what?
Just a few days ago, what had been
achieved was total failure. Jesus had
failed to win hearts and minds to his side.
He had failed to avoid capture.
He had failed to have good people around him. He had failed in his own defense. He had failed, in fact, to survive.
Nonetheless, He announced It is accomplished. Was failure what he had sought to
accomplish, as if he had picked up one of the abovementioned books on the
subject? No. He has accomplished the will of His
Father. He succeeded in being obedient
in every detail to what seemed to be a program to bring about His humiliation
and destruction.
But the will of the Father was not
that His Son be destroyed; no, His will was that Jesus save everybody,
including especially those who destroyed Him, by sacrificing Himself even unto
His own complete destruction. This is
the great work that went in to what we celebrate today.
For by accepting death, Jesus
conquered death, and by rising from the dead, changed death forever for us who
unlike Him are rightly doomed to die. He
did this by choosing freely to deny Himself every shred and vestige of success,
and taking upon Himself the consequences of yielding that success to all and
every person’s grasping for the success they insist upon and crave.
Already the separation of a few
days makes it hard for us to remember that apparent catastrophe, as we welcome
His victory. But as we rejoice that Jesus has changed our
own deaths into a pathway to His eternal life, let us remember how we got here.
None of the above books, nor the
people who buy and read them, would propose as a path to success what we
celebrate here this weekend. But we have
all the information we need to identify the path to the one true and lasting
success. What looks for to the world
like failure gives us confidence to get through our days of difficulty.
Submitting our will to the will of
the Father, even when it seems to lead us to destruction, is the path to life. Recognizing that acceptance and approval mean
nothing if they distance us or separate us from the Cross, is the path to
life. Yielding what we desire, so that
someone else may have what he need, is the path to life. Giving our life in love that another might
live, thrive, and grow, is the path to life. Being faithful to the one who is unfaithful,
is the path to life.
By all means, claim as your own the
victory that Jesus succeeded in winning for us.
At the same time, recognize so-called failure as the only path to it,
and be not afraid.
Fr. Gallaugher, Fr. Markey, and all
of us here pray daily for your Easter joy.
As we rejoice today in the liberation from death that Christ our God has
won for us by His submission to failure in all things but doing His Father’s
will, please accept my humble wish that you and all your loved ones enjoy a
blessed Easter, Feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, and of our victory.
Monsignor
Smith
