If Easter-People Only Knew

The following was preached by Fr. Will Wainio as a homily on Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday - April 4 and 5, 2026 at Saint Patrick Catholic Church in Kent, Ohio.

If Easter-people only knew.

We pass as pilgrims

to a place called Easter.

More than an idea or an ideology,

certainly more than a day,

Easter is a site located

within the very heart of God.

It is a holy place beyond geography.

If Easter-people only knew.

Pilgrims to other sites always return

with souvenirs and trinkets

and, if they are lucky, a memory.

I carried water back from Lourdes once,

before the day when holy water

posed an in-flight hazard to hapless travelers in a terror ridden world.

Another time, I carried shells

from the coast of Maine.

The trunk of my car smelled

like a bad fish market on a hot day.

Then there was the time I smuggled seeds

from Calabria thinking could grow

memories of my father on fragile limbs.

We do what we can in a vaporous world.

The pilgrimage to Easter is different.

If Easter-people only knew.

We collect no souvenirs and

take no photographs.

But what we carry does pose a threat

to a world in the grip of

money, power, wealth and war.

If Easter-people only knew.

There is an explosive power in this pilgrimage.

Myself, on pilgrimage.

We would never pass through

the unsubstantial security systems

of an idolatrous world.

The devil in all his disguises

knows that we could engulf the planet

in flames of love beyond imagination.

These flames could vaporize

hunger, Ionliness, war and death.

If Easter-people only knew.

We are inflamed,

even when we travel

wet and shivering,

bundled up against a Springtime

that will not leave the cold cave of Winter.

When it seems that each day,

we look out water spotted windows wondering when the rain will withdraw,

it is then that the flame sustains us.

Fr. Joseph Fata, Easter Vigil, 2013

Daffodils do bloom in the snow

and farmers will venture out

into once water logged fields to

sow the seeds of summer.

We carry the burning sun

even in leaden hearts.

If Easter people only knew.

We are pilgrims into Easter.

Matthew tells us that

When Jesus died

"The earth shook and the rocks were split."

Later he tells us the Daybreak

of that first Easter was shattered

with 'ta great earthquake."

What is his preoccupation with seismic shifts?

If Easter-people only knew.

Within each of us there is an Earthquake of tectonic proportions that will bring,

not devastation, homelessness and nuclear disaster, but a glorious shift in the very axis of our spinning world.

The grave of Fr. Joseph Fata

A shift away from paralyzing fear.

A shift away from narrow thinking.

A shift away from old models of languid living.

If Easter-people only knew.

Our pilgrimage into Easter

does not allow us to remain at the tomb.

We build no monuments to death.

Jesus is not there, not contained.

He can never be merely enshrined

in Churches, in tabernacles, in granite or stone.

No, he is unleased, in love

like a fire, like an explosion, like an earthquake.

If Easter-people only knew.

This is the legacy of our

Pilgrimage into Easter.

Jesus did not stay in the manger.

Jesus did not stay on the Cross.

Jesus did not stay in the grave.

Nor do we.

When we venture on that

Pilgrimage into Easter

We are inflamed.

We are earthquaked.

We rise.

The poet Maya Angelou

captures our pilgrimage

when she says:

"Out of the huts of history's shame  rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise...

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a Daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise."

If Easter-people only knew.

The poem I shared with you is not my own; it was written by the late Father Joseph Fata. Though composed over a decade ago in 2011, its words remain just as true and relevant today. Our world is still at war, the earth still seems to quake beneath our feet, and our lives continue to be shaped by those who place money, power, and greed above all else.

Yet, if we as Easter people truly understood the power we possess, we would realize that we can change the world.

For we are Catholic Christians—we are an Easter people—and Alleluia is our song.

Father Fata's poem "If Easter-People Only Knew" along with other writings, reflections, and poetry can be found in his book "Chronology of a Life Well Loved: Poems & Reflections"