In a time marked by conflict and uncertainty, the call is not to eliminate evil but to respond with sincerity, truth and hope – beginning with ourselves, writes Frank Brennan.

We Australians are ordinarily able to live our lives as if there is not too much evil and wickedness to worry about – or at least not too much that impacts directly on us as a nation.

This is not such an ordinary time. There is no shortage of evil and wickedness in our world at this time. And it’s impacting even on us who inhabit an island nation continent.

If only we could get rid of it. We know we won’t, but we know we have the capacity to extinguish the evil and wickedness in ourselves. It’s a very small start. But it is a start, making room for sincerity and truth, putting our personal relations in good order hoping this might contribute to the common good.

I was privileged to celebrate the requiem mass for Helena Carr in St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney 18 months ago. It meant I got to see Bob Carr up close as he delivered the most animated and uplifting eulogy for his beloved Helena – a eulogy steeped in sincerity and truth. I was so looking forward to his book Bring Back Yesterday: on losing the love of my life, and doing what it takes to survive. Bob does not profess any religious faith but I think he captures so much of the message of Easter – passion, death and resurrection – as he reflects on what he calls the leftover life – the lived reality of sincerity and truth, having to survive and thrive in a world of evil, wickedness and loss. Bob Carr writes:

“The leftover life is still one where you can fight to make a difference and push good causes. But the term acknowledges that there is something missing. The term also implies that you accept that. You accept it because there is no alternative. The leftover life is not “the dregs”, as a bereaved a cquaintance of mine quickly volunteered when I raised the concept. No, not the dregs, although it is imbued with the strongest nostalgia it is possible to feel. So strong you need a fiercer word than “yearning” to describe it. Something more savage, this desire to bring back yesterday.

“This two-track existence implies you can have a life of striving and pleasure and celebration but also a life of unsatisfactory, sour loss. They exist together, wrapped around one another.”

Bob opines that in “the welter of events that comprise a life” it is a hard ask to live ‘untroubled and beyond panic or despair or anger”. He says: ‘But maybe we bereaved can make a goal out of working towards such perfection of character. Because that honours our partner who, in our love, we see as having pointed the way. Living to aim for perfection of character holds at bay the wild dog of bereavement."

We Christians, whether or not we are mourning the loss of a loved one, are always living a two-track existence – one track of goodness, truth, hope and life, the other track of realism in the midst of evil, deceit, wickedness and death. Sinners, we are seeking perfection of character to honour Jesus, the exemplar who showed us how to live reconciled, on both tracks.

We maintain our steadiness on the first track, not with any guarantee that goodness and truth will triumph here and now – they often don’t. We maintain our hope by being attentive to the little signs as were Peter and the other disciple in the gospel from John. Jesus has died and is buried in a tomb. The two disciples run to the tomb where the stone has been rolled back. From outside the tomb, they see little. The unnamed disciple sees the linen cloths on the ground. Then Simon Peter comes and goes right into the tomb. He sees the linen cloths as well as the cloth that had been wrapped over Jesus’ head. The other disciple then enters the tomb and sees both the linen cloths and the head cloth. He sees and he believes. He has not seen any risen Jesus, and neither have any of us. But reading small signs, he sees and believes, understanding the teaching of scripture.

In the midst of death, evil and wickedness, we too are called to read the small signs of life, of hope, of sincerity, and of truth.

In the past, we have been used to morality, international law, prudent strategy and consistent tactics setting predictable contours for conflicts crossing national borders. Not now. But on Easter Day, gathering with family and loved ones, recalling those loved ones who have gone before us, we dare to imagine and we recommit ourselves to building relationships, both personal and diplomatic, which cultivate life, hope, sincerity and truth. We don’t pray to bring back yesterday; rather we pray to bring on tomorrow, and ultimately the life to come, when all will be one, in love, when all will be known, in truth. Happy Easter.

This is an edited version of Frank Brennan’s Easter Sunday Homily