In John’s account of the Resurrection, “the other disciple” enters the empty tomb, sees, and believes. Why is this detail included? “I think the hope here is that we not focus on some historical moment that happened, but rather an understanding of what the risen life is here and now,” says Greg, founder and president of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program in the world.“ The risen life is meaningful now, or it’s not meaningful at all.”
In this Easter Sunday episode of Preach, Greg shares with host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., how we might recognize and receive God’s “tender glance” not only at Easter but every day. “How do we notice the notice of God?” he asks. “And then become that notice of God in the world?” For Greg, the Resurrection isn’t only about what happened to Jesus more than 2,000 years ago. “We’re all going to die, and none of us will live forever, but we really can live in the forever,” he says. “The risen Lord is here and now—in the struggle, in the loss, in the grieving, in the delighting, in people sharing their lives with each other. You want to be able to say, ‘I’m right here, and I’m right now, and I’m breathing in the spirit that delights in my being, and now I’m breathing that out into the world. ‘Cause the world could use it.’”
Greg is also the bestselling author Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion and Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship and his newest book, Cherished Belonging, the Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. In 2024, he received the nation’s highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Scripture Readings for Easter Sunday, the Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord
First Reading: Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Second Reading: Col 3:1-4 OR 1 Cor 5:6b-8
Gospel: Jn 20:1-9
You can find the full text of the readings here.
Homily for Easter Sunday by Greg Boyle, S.J.
So John walks into the tomb, the empty tomb once Mary of Magdala has discovered… And the Gospel says “he saw and he believed.” And so what are we to see, and what are we to believe?
I think the hope here is that we not focus on some historical moment that happened, but rather an understanding of what the risen life is here and now. The fact is, we’re saved in the present moment. And so we need to acknowledge that none of us will live forever, but all of us can live in the forever. And so, how do we get to understand that notion of the risen life here and now in the present moment?
So, many years ago, I remember I was in a car with four homies. I don’t know where we were going. And there was a guy named Anthony in the front seat.
And we were laughing and bagging on each other and joking... And I looked at my gas gauge and I said, “Oh my gosh, we need gas.” So I turned to Anthony and I said, “Hey, be on the lookout for a gas station.” And he leaned over and he looked at the gas gauge—like he didn’t exactly trust me—and he goes, “You’re fine.” I said, “¿Cómo que I’m fine? It’s on échale—it’s on E. Hello! E means empty.” And he goes, “Really? It means empty?” I go, “Yes. What did you think it meant?” He said, “Enough.”
I said, “What did you think F stood for?” And he said, “Finished.” And once I thanked him for visiting our planet, I thought, Well, this is kind of how we are as human beings. We look in the mirror and we say, “Empty.”
And the risen life is about recognizing that you have more than enough, or you look in the mirror and you see “Finished.” And the risen life tells us fullness: that none of us will live forever, but all of us can live in the forever. And so we’re invited to see and to believe that, not just to recall some historical moment that has happened.
Many years ago as well, I was invited to speak to Teach for America, and it was in San Francisco, and it was like a thousand young people who had given a year or two of their life to teach in the inner city. So I brought two homies with me, Trayvon and Jermaine, just to get ‘em out of Los Angeles. And they saw San Francisco, and we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and did all those things.
Then I gave the talk on a Tuesday afternoon. And after the talk, I could see that all these teachers were surrounding Jermaine and Trayvon, especially these female teachers were surrounding them. And, they were really holding court. Well, I signaled to Trayvon. I said, “You know, we gotta go.” So as the three of us are walking to the car, Trayvon said, “Wow, that just… I don’t know, it made me feel proper.” And I said, “Why?”
“Well, when you told us ‘it is time to go,’ I turned to all these females, and I said, ‘Uh, you know, we have to leave.’ And one of them said, ‘Do you gotta go?’ And I looked at her and I said, ‘I got a flight to catch.’ I’ve never used that sentence in my whole life. ‘I got a flight to catch.’ It made me feel proper. In fact, I told them that we’re catching the red eye.”
And then I had to explain to Trayvon that a “red eye” is like when you fly at night and you arrive the next day and your eyes are bloodshot ‘cause you didn’t get much sleep. And then he said, “Well, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
But then he says, as we’re getting in the car, “But it made me feel important like I was somebody there.”
The risen life has to be that. It has to be discovering the truth of who you are, that you’re exactly what God had in mind when God made you. Otherwise, it remains a historical fact that we remember as opposed to a risen life where we see and believe, just like John who entered that tomb.
Finally, last story. You know, years ago I was invited to speak to 600 social workers in Richmond, Virginia. It was a gang in-service, where from nine to five, they commandeer a hotel ballroom. And all these social workers sign in and they get credits and they hear keynote addresses and workshops and breakout sessions. I had done a lot of these in those days. So I agreed, I bought my ticket to Richmond, Virginia. A week before I pull out the letter and I read it as it for the first time. And to my horror, I discover that I am to be the only speaker from nine to five all damn day. And I went, as the homies would say, here, I said, “Oh, hell no. I’m not gonna be the only speaker.” So I quickly invite into my office two trainees, homies in our 18-month training program, Andre, an African American gang member, and his rival and enemy, Jose.
And I sit them down. I said, “Look, at the end of the week, you’re flying with me to Richmond, Virginia. I’d like you to get up in front of 600 social workers and tell your stories. Take your time, ‘cause we got a long ass day to fill.”
Well, Jose gets up first, and he’s about 25 years old at the time. Shot caller from his gang, been to prison, tattooed. At that juncture, in his ninth month with us, he became a very beneficial presence, a man solid in his own recovery, and now he’s working with our substance use disorder team, helping younger homies and homegirls with their addiction issues. So, not only had he been in prison and on the streets a lot, he also had a long stretch as a homeless man, and an even longer stretch as a heroin addict.
So, he gets up in front of 600 social workers and he says, “I guess you could say my mom and me, we didn’t get along so good. I think I was six when she looked at me and she said, ‘Why don’t you just kill yourself? You’re such a burden to me.’”
Well, 600 social workers audibly gasp. And then he says, “It sounds way worser in Spanish.” And they got whiplash going from gasp to laugh. But then he continued, “I think I was nine when my mom drove me down to the deepest part of Baja California and she walks me up to an orphanage and she knocks on the door and the guy comes to the door and my mom says, I found this kid.”
“And she left me there for 90 days until my grandmother could get out of her where she had dumped me. And my grandmother came and rescued me. My mom beat me every single day of my elementary school years with things you could imagine and a lot of things you couldn’t every day. My back was bloodied and scarred. In fact, I had to wear three t-shirts to school each day: first t-shirt, ‘cause the blood would seep through; and second t-shirt, you could still see it. Finally, the third t-shirt, you couldn’t see any blood kids at school. They’d make fun of me, “Hey, fool, it’s a hundred degrees. Why you wearing three t-shirts?”
And then he stopped speaking—so overwhelmed with emotion—and he seemed to be staring at a piece of his story that only he could see. And when he could regain his speech, he said through his tears, “I wore three t-shirts well into my adult years because I was ashamed of my wounds. I didn’t want anybody to see ‘em. But now I welcome my wounds. I run my fingers over my scars. My wounds are my friends. After all, how can I help heal the wounded if I don’t welcome my own wounds?”
And that’s the sound of somebody walking right into the tomb and discovering the risen life here and now. And he saw and he believed that the truth of the matter is this: If we don’t welcome our own wounds, we may well be tempted to despise the wounded. None of us will live forever, but all of us can live in the forever, the risen life here and now. For we are only saved in this present moment. We just need to see and believe.
