Cycle A - Year II:  

20 April 2014: Easter Sunday

(Liturgical color: White)

John 20:1-9

The Lord is risen! Alleluia!

Psalm 118 sets the tone of today's liturgical celebration: "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!" For our Lord has risen! Alleluia, alleluia!

The Good News this Sunday is from John, the beloved Apostle. The gist of the gospel narratives: When Mary of Magdala came to visit the tomb where they laid the body of Jesus early morning on the third day, she saw the stone cover already removed from the entrance of the tomb, and the tomb empty. Hurriedly she went back to the other disciples and reported what she saw. Simon Peter and John went with Mary again to the empty tomb. There they saw the burial clothes and the cloth that covered Jesus' head neatly rolled up in a separate place. They saw and believed that the Lord is risen, even when they did not yet understand what is written in the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

Thus, by the account and personal testimonies of his closest disciples, Jesus is risen and wins over sin and death for all of us. The Resurrection of our Lord is the very cornerstone of our Christian faith. Because if Jesus did not rise to redeem us from sin, then everything we did during the Holy Week, and everything we do now, is meaningless.

Let us reflect more deeply on the event of Resurrection itself:

The Resurrection reveals an entirely new dimension of existence. A resurrected body is a glorified body, not subject anymore to the physical limitations, and not even to diseases and death; it is a body that enjoys a certain luminous glow and total perfection. In the single event of the Resurrection, Christ's human body and human soul were reunited.

And so we believe that at the final judgment, every human body will be reconstituted in a glorified state and rejoined to the soul that once animated it, either to enjoy the eternal bliss of heaven, or the eternal fires of hell.

In the Catholic Church, Easter is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year. That is why it is called the greatest feast (festum festorum). Our Lord's Resurrection is a concrete and historical event which is the strength and foundation of Christianity. 

But while the Apostles testified as eye witnesses, and we also have the evidence of an empty tomb of Jesus, the Resurrection is still a matter of faith for it reveals a level of existence well beyond ordinary human comprehension for now.

Yet, if we want more proof of Christ's Resurrection, the martyrdom of the Apostles (except for John who was not martyred) is our "proof" that the Resurrection really happened. The Apostles' faith, experience, and witnessing of Jesus led them to give their lives as martyrs because they knew and they were assured of the Resurrection so long as they remained faithful to the Lord until the end. And so they did.

Easter invites us to be witnesses as well to the world that Christ is truly risen. Through our authentic Christian living, we must be like liberated and joyful People of God in whatever situation of earthly life, repentant and full of hope and happiness. Because united with our risen Lord we, too, become children once more of our heavenly Father, looking forward to the promise of a new, transcendent and glorified existence as a reward of our fidelity to our Lord Jesus Christ until the end of time.

Happy Easter to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!