The long 40 days of Lent has come to an end, and the Great Pascal Triduum brings us to Easter. Once again, we are going to profess – His tomb is empty, Jesus is no longer there, HE is Risen, He is alive again! What great news!
What does it mean to us? Have you heard that the word “Easter” isn’t just a noun?! Easter is something we should think of as a verb.
Just like our faith. It is active. It moves. It’s something alive and wondrous and constantly in motion. And if you want proof, look at today’s gospel: Mary of Magdala in this story runs to tell the apostles what has happened, and two apostles run to the tomb to see for themselves. Running, in fact, is mentioned no less than three times in this short passage.
This is something more than just a good cardio workout. Even in the earliest moments of our faith-literally, the dawn of Christianity-our faith was and is a faith on the move.
Easter is about going. It’s about rising. It’s about running, pouring, anointing, sprinkling, affirming, and rejoicing. It is about opening our throats in a full-throated cry that has been too silent for too long:
Alleluia! He is Risen; He is Alive!
Easter is sharing – it is the lit candle, the Paschal candle, spreading light from person to person until the entire church is ablaze with a fire that can only be called faith.
Easter is hearing – it is hearing once more the astonishing news that awakened the hearts of the women at the tomb: “He is risen.
Easter is proclaiming – it is proclaiming the Good News that our Savior lives. Death has been conquered. We have been redeemed.
Easter assures us – that Christianity is a faith on its feet, running to spread the Word. Because ours is a faith that cannot stand still.
Make your Easter a “VERB” and live it on!
With Easter greetings and prayers, Fr. Tom
GROW AS A DISCIPLE
Today we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection, the pinnacle of the Church’s entire liturgical year. As disciples, we know that Christ’s resurrection is not something that happened to him alone; his resurrection offers us the promise that all who believe in him will one day rise with him. But the new life Christ promises is not something we have to wait for the next life to experience! Everything we have been doing throughout Lent to prepare for today’s celebration also gives us a foretaste of the fullness of life we will share with him at our own resurrection. By God’s grace, we have been inwardly renewed by Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Our minds and hearts have been lifted from the things of earth to the things of heaven. As disciples of the risen Christ, let us continue to “seek what is above,” deepening our own participation here and now in the life he won for us through his cross and glorious resurrection.
GO EVANGELIZE
The scene in today’s Gospel offers us a helpful insight for evangelization. Peter and John run to the empty tomb. While John gets there faster, he waits outside and allows Peter to enter first. We can think of Peter as symbolic of faith (he is the one, after all, who confesses Jesus as the Christ (Mt.16:16)), and John, as symbolic of love (in our Gospel, John is referred to not by name, but as “the other disciple whom Jesus loved.”) Although Peter and John see the empty tomb and believe, our Gospel reading ends with this interesting detail: “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” I think what the text is showing us is that love and faith often precede understanding. In our efforts of evangelization, apologetics and theology have their place. But we must not forget that sometimes inviting someone to love and trust in the Lord – before they have all the answers worked out – is more effective than trying to help a person reason their way to faith by perfect explanations. Love and faith draw us to encounter the risen Lord, and understanding comes later.
CELEBRATE
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad” our psalm tells us. Today is the Solemnity of solemnities, the Feast of all feasts! Take some time to rejoice and give thanks for all that God has done for us through his death and glorious resurrection. Today nothing else should be on our “to do” list other than to celebrate well!
By The Faithful Disciple