‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
I bring you news of great joy —Alleluia!
The Lord is risen!
Alleluia!’
The liturgy for Easter Sunday— the last day of the Easter Triduum — is peaceful and serene. After the horrors of the previous days, one can interiorise and meditate on the good news proclaimed with more exuberance during the night: ‘The splendour of Christ risen from the dead has shone on people redeemed by his blood’; ‘Our Redeemer has risen from the tomb’; ‘The Lord is risen as he promised.’ Celebrated in this atmosphere, the Eucharistic thanksgiving on Easter Sunday has a joyful tone which is not really contained, but which rather springs from hearts penetrated with light and wonder, expressed best with simple words: ‘The Lord has indeed risen, alleluia. Glory and Kingship be his forever.’
At the same time, the Church turns to God to ask him for the resurrection of his Son to produce ‘today’ the fruit of renewal: ‘Let us look not beyond our lives for him: he will join us on our own path.’ — ‘God our Father, by raising Christ your Son you conquered the power of death and opened for us the way to eternal life. Let our celebration today raise us up and renew our lives by the Spirit that is within us.’ So we pray in the opening prayer of the liturgy.
The Easter season is , except for Ordinary Time, the longest liturgical season and, more importantly, it is different from the rest. Advent has a dual focus: the solemnities at Christmas and Christs’ second coming at the end of time. Lent is a preparation for the yearly celebration of Easter, whereas Ordinary Time forms an integrated whole. The Easter season on the other hand, is not a preparation for a solemnity but a prolongation of the solemnity just celebrated. God will not be out done, if our preparation in Lent lasts for forty days, God gives us fifty days to celebrate Easter. The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful exultation as one feast day, or better as one ‘Great Sunday.’ These above all others are the days for the singing of the ‘Alleluia’. The first eight days of the Easter season make up the octave of Easter and are celebrated as solemnities of the Lord.
From Easter Sunday to the end of the Easter season, the first readings for the liturgy will be taken from the Book of Acts. Today we hear how the apostles are charged by God with their mission to proclaim Christ’s resurrection ‘to the people,’ witnessing to what they have seen and heard. Peter’s ‘Credo’ which expresses the faith of the first Christian community after Pentecost, has been faithfully passed down to us through the living tradition of the Church. One finds a clear echo of it in the ‘Apostles Creed,’ still recited today.
Jesus’ actions ‘all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached’ took place publicly. Like many other people — whether enthusiastic, suspicious, or hostile — a centurion of the Roman army would certainly have heard the news. Doubtlessly, he would have been aware of Jesus’ reputation: ‘He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.’ But the pagan officer had something more important to learn, and Peter revealed it to him. If Jesus of Nazareth did such things, it was because God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power and ‘was with him.’ To see that Jesus’ works are signs, and to recognise by these signs who he truly is, one needs light from above. Peter could not forget what Jesus once told him: ‘Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you [that I am the Messiah, the Son of the living God] but my Father in heaven.’ The light is transmitted by prophecy: Scripture (interpreted by the Spirit), an apostle’s preaching, a believer’s testimony. The centurion of Caesarea would have heard of Jesus of Nazareth’s death on a cross and the terror of the officer in charge of the execution, perhaps even those things that happened at the tomb. But he could not know the good news of the resurrection: Peter was sent to announce it to him by swearing that with others, ‘chosen beforehand by God,’ he saw the risen Christ, and ate and drank with him. This is the testimony of faith. Peter himself, along with the other witnesses, was at first troubled by the discovery of the empty tomb, not knowing what to think, supposing the women’s words to be ‘nonsense.’ From him to pass from doubt and perplexity to faith, the Lord had to appear to the apostles, explain the scriptures to them, and remind them of what he had said. (Luke 24:13-35)
Our faith in the resurrection rests on the testimony of the apostles, transmitted in and through, the Church; those who have received it must make it known to others: ‘The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon.’ (Luke 24:34)
But Easter is not an ending. It is the summit of salvation history and gives it its definitive orientation; it continues now and shall continue until the end. Today, everyone who believes in the risen Lord ‘has forgiveness of sins.’ Tomorrow, Christ the conqueror of death will appear as ‘judge of the living and the dead.’ This is, in its fulness, the mystery celebrated by the Church. ‘This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.’
Saint Paul tells us, the Christian life is animated by the tension between what we are already and what is still invisible, though present, in us. We must actively take up the challenge of becoming what we should be. As he says in the second reading: ‘If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.’— He continues ‘Through baptism, we have already died with Christ’ and remain still ‘hidden with Christ in God.’ But the day will come when the truth of all things will be revealed: ‘When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.’ All this will be explained to the apostles more fully when they meet the risen Lord, and he explains everything to them.
For now, we find ourselves on that first Easter Sunday, ‘early in the morning.’ John deals more quickly than the others with the discovery by Mary Magdalene and her companions. Their first thought is that Jesus’ body has been taken away and put they know not where. The evangelist says that Mary Magdalene hurried right away to tell this to Peter and ‘to the other disciple whom Jesus loved,’ an expression that refers to John himself. Right away this suggests that the apostles, with Peter at their head, are the proper witnesses of the resurrection. ‘So, Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first.’ However, he does not enter but waits for Peter and lets him go in first, recognising his primacy.
Bending down, he can see ‘the burial cloths there.’ Peter entering the tomb, sees both this and that ‘the cloth that had covered his head’ is there, ‘not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.’Clearly, the body has not been stolen. The empty tomb, which itself proves nothing, is thus clearly to be seen as a sign that hints at what has happened. John goes immediately from the appearance of the sign to faith in the reality it points to: ‘He saw, and he believed.’ This is a wonderful formula. Certain things — water changed into wine as at Cana, cures, lance thrust into a dead body, an empty tomb with shroud and veil neatly rolled up —everyone can see these things. To recognise them as ‘signs’ requires an understanding informed by faith. It is attained when one sees and confesses the supernatural reality that God has wished to reveal to human eyes without dazzling them with sudden and strong light. John wants us to understand the interaction between ‘signs’ and Scripture. The latter allows one to understand the signs that in turn lead to an understanding of Scripture. If the disciples had not ‘known’ through Scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead, the empty tomb may well have remained an unsolved puzzle. But conversely, the ‘sign’ of the empty tomb led them to full knowledge of Scripture. Such is always the case. It will later be confirmed when the risen Jesus appears to them. The Lord’s resurrection is the supreme blessing for all believers. Every man and woman — each according to grace, charism, and ministry — must announce it to the whole world.
Finally, how can we leave this wonderful day without looking to her whom the Easter Gospels never mention, The Virgin Mary? John is careful to note her presence with the other women at the foot of the cross. Before handing over his Spirit to his Father, Jesus confided his mother to ‘the disciple whom he loved’ and ‘from that hour the disciple took her into his home.’ How could she not have known of the discovery of the empty tomb and John’s running there after Mary Magdalene’s message? Why should she herself not have been in the garden? We ought not to try and fill in the evangelists’ silence by supposing e.g. that she received her own announcement of the resurrection, she believed on hearing the message, the Risen Christ appeared to her first, etc. Mary, the model of the disciple who kept the Word and meditated on it in her heart, was at Cana when Jesus first spoke of his ‘hour’, must have been attentive to the other ‘signs’ worked by her Son and understood them in the light of the Scripture. Why should we trouble her meditation and silence when the evangelists, particularly John, have respected them? We will find her again in Jerusalem, in the upper room with the apostles and some women, waiting, seated in prayer, for the coming of the Spirit (Acts 1:12-14). After this, Scripture never speaks of her again. Chosen to bear the Saviour, in the disciples’ midst at the Church’s birth, she was the humble handmaiden of the Lord. On this Easter Day we salute her and join her to the joy of all believers.
‘Regina caeli, laetare, Alleluia!’
‘Queen of heaven, rejoice, Alleluia!
For the Lord whom you were worthy to bear, Alleluia!
Has risen as he said, Alleluia!
Pray for us to God, Alleluia!’
HAPPY EASTER
