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| “Resurrection of Christ” by Marco Basaiti, 1520 |
The Mass of Easter Day
Reading 1: Acts
10:34a, 37-43
Peter proceeded to speak and
said:
"You know what has
happened all over Judea ,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and
power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those
oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.
We are witnesses of all that
he did
both in the country of the
Jews and in Jerusalem
They put him to death by
hanging him on a tree.
This man God raised on the
third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to
us,
the witnesses chosen by God
in advance,
who ate and drank with him
after he rose from the dead.
He commissioned us to preach
to the people
and testify that he is the
one appointed by God
as judge of the living and
the dead.
To him all the prophets bear
witness,
that everyone who believes in
him
will receive forgiveness of
sins through his name."
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Commentary on Acts
10:34a, 37-43
This is part of
Peter’s speech to the Cornelius and his family (Gentiles). Peter (according to St. Luke) assumes the
people know what has happened – namely that Jesus who was thought to be the
Messiah, had proven that fact in the resurrection. Now he reminds them, before the creed was
written that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead.
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm
118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
R. (24) This is the day the Lord has made; let us
rejoice and be glad.
or:
Alleluia.
Give thanks to the LORD, for
he is good,
for his mercy endures
forever.
Let the house of Israel
"His mercy endures
forever."
R. This is the day the
Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
Alleluia.
"The right hand of the
LORD has struck with power;
the right hand of the LORD is
exalted.
I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the
LORD."
R. This is the day the
Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
Alleluia.
The stone which the builders
rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been
done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
R. This is the day the
Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or: Alleluia.
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Commentary on Ps
118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Psalm 118 is a
song of thanksgiving emphasizing the fidelity of God. The final strophe gives a reminder that God’s
only Son was rejected and, in the resurrection, revealed to all the word that
he is the cornerstone of all creation.
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Reading II: Colossians
3:1-4
Brothers and sisters:
If then you were raised with
Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not
of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your
life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life
appears,
then you too will appear with
him in glory.
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Commentary on Col
3:1-4
Paul gives
assurance to the Colossians that they too have a home with Christ who now is
seated at the right hand of the Father.
In saying this, he points their aspirations to the things of heaven.
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Brothers and sisters:
Do you not know that a little
yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast,
so that you may become a
fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are
unleavened.
For our paschal lamb, Christ,
has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate
the feast,
not with the old yeast, the
yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth.
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Commentary on I
Cor 5:6b-8
Paul calls the
Corinthians to conversion with a metaphor.
He uses the duel meaning or implication of leaven bread and the feast of
the Passover to symbolize the new covenant.
The traditional Passover meal or Seder is lamb and unleavened
bread. Christ, the Lamb of God in the
unleavened bread of the Eucharist is their meal.
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Gospel: John
20:1-9
On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the
tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed
from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon
Peter
and to the other disciple
whom Jesus loved, and told them,
"They have taken the
Lord from the tomb,
and we don't know where they
put him."
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;
he bent down and saw the
burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived
after him,
he went into the tomb and saw
the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had
covered his head,
not with the burial cloths
but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also
went in,
the one who had arrived at
the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet
understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the
dead.
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Commentary on John
20:1-9
In St. John’s
account of the discovery of the “Empty Tomb” we hear how the disciple whom
Jesus loved understood what had come to pass before Peter. Found also in Luke,
this story furnishes the testimony that confirms Christ’s resurrection. The
story of the discovery of the empty tomb describes St. John (the disciple whom
Jesus loved). “From these details concerning the empty tomb one deduces that
Jesus' body must have risen in a heavenly manner, that is, in a way which
transcended the laws of nature. It was not only a matter of the body being
reanimated as happened, for example, in the case of Lazarus, who had to be
unbound before he could walk (cf. John
11:44)”[4]
It is interesting that St. John arrives first but recognizes St. Peter’s
primacy, waiting for him to enter the tomb first. Note also that when St. John
entered the tomb, he immediately understood what happened and “believed.”
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Or: Luke 24:1-12
At daybreak on the first day
of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had
prepared
and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled
away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of
the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over
this, behold,
two men in dazzling garments
appeared to them.
They were terrified and bowed
their faces to the ground.
They said to them,
“Why do you seek the living
one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has
been raised.
Remember what he said to you
while he was still in Galilee ,
that the Son of Man must be
handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and rise on
the third day.”
And they remembered his
words.
Then they returned from the
tomb
and announced all these
things to the eleven
and to all the others.
The women were Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;
the others who accompanied
them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed like
nonsense
and they did not believe
them.
But Peter got up and ran to
the tomb,
bent down, and saw the burial
cloths alone;
then he went home amazed at
what had happened.
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Commentary on Lk 24:1-12
This is the first of five parts of the resurrection story taking place nearly simultaneously in St. Luke’s Gospel. The three Maries arrive at the tomb to find it empty and encounter two angels. The announcement of the resurrection comes in the form of a question; “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.” The great promise has been fulfilled.
This is the first of five parts of the resurrection story taking place nearly simultaneously in St. Luke’s Gospel. The three Maries arrive at the tomb to find it empty and encounter two angels. The announcement of the resurrection comes in the form of a question; “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.” The great promise has been fulfilled.
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Or, at an afternoon or
evening Mass: Luke 24:13-35
That very day, the first day
of the week,
two of Jesus' disciples were
going
to a village seven miles from
Jerusalem
and they were conversing
about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while
they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and
walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented
from recognizing him.
He asked them,
"What are you discussing
as you walk along?"
They stopped, looking
downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas,
said to him in reply,
"Are you the only
visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the
things
that have taken place there
in these days?"
And he replied to them,
"What sort of things?"
They said to him,
"The things that
happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in
deed and word
before God and all the
people,
how our chief priests and
rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and
crucified him.
But we were hoping that he
would be the one to redeem Israel
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since
this took place.
Some women from our group,
however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early
in the morning
and did not find his body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a
vision of angels
who announced that he was
alive.
Then some of those with us
went to the tomb
and found things just as the
women had described,
but him they did not
see."
And he said to them,
"Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the
Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his
glory?"
Then beginning with Moses and
all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what
referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the
village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that
he was going on farther.
But they urged him,
"Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and
the day is almost over."
So he went in to stay with
them.
And it happened that, while
he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the
blessing,
broke it, and gave it to
them.
With that their eyes were
opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their
sight.
Then they said to each other,
"Were not our hearts
burning within us
while he spoke to us on the
way and opened the Scriptures to us?"
So they set out at once and
returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered
together
the eleven and those with
them who were saying,
"The Lord has truly been
raised and has appeared to Simon!"
Then the two recounted
what had taken place on the
way
and how he was made known to
them in the breaking of bread.
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Commentary on Lk
24:13-35
This story of the disciples of the road to Emmaus is only
found in Luke’s Gospel. There is a mention in Mark (Mark 16;12) that is vague but
probably refers to this event. The actual location of Emmaus is not known but
it is estimated that it was between 7 and 18 miles from Jerusalem
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Homily:
What would you do if, a day
after you buried your best friend someone ran up to you and told you they had
just gone out to put flowers on the grave and found it empty? In this day and age you might think perhaps
the cemetery workers had needed to exhume the casket; perhaps a mistake had
been made. You might think that grave
robbers had done something heinous. It
is highly unlikely, no matter how spirit filled your best friend may have been,
that you would think “Oh, they must have risen from the dead.” Whatever your
thoughts might be, we can bet you would have them while rushing to the graves
side.
That is essentially the
picture painted by St. John
And when they arrived and saw
the tomb empty, we can only imagine the heart stopping shock they felt. It was as Mary had said and things were even
stranger than that. They feared; that
the Temple Guards
To understand how confounding
this event must have been, we need to understand what these disciples of Jesus
believed about him and about death.
First, and we must be clear about this, they absolutely knew Jesus was
dead. They saw him die and they saw the
guard shove a lance into his chest to make sure. The Romans were experts at killing, there was
no question Jesus was dead.
Jews of Jesus day were
divided about what happened after death.
The Sadducees and most conservative Jews believed that when you died –
that was it – you ended completely. We
find this expressed in the Psalms where we hear the psalmist pleading with God
to continue his physical life because once he has returned to dust he can no
longer praise God. Others believed in
some murky existence in a place called Sheol.
A place of the dead, not quite hell as we know it but an unhappy
place. Others still at the time of
Christ, notably some of the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the just,
at the end of the age – the end times.
The disciples of Jesus were
likely believers in this final view – that at the end of time, Jesus would be
raised up with the rest of the Just. In
their wildest dreams they did not suspect that what they found at the tomb
pointed to Jesus resurrection. The
Gospel even says so. We hear at the end
of St. John’s
In this Easter therefore, the
disciples would have been facing a huge mystery. It would not be until later when Jesus
actually appeared to them and invited them to inspect his wounds, to let them
know he was not a ghost. It was only
then that the magnitude of what had taken place would strike them. This revelation would send them scattering
across the known world proclaiming the Good News. That is the Easter Proclamation – Jesus is
risen from the dead and that was done for us.
The question we must ask
ourselves as we rejoice once more in this knowledge is what does this event
mean for us? In what way does it affect us and the way we live our lives? To answer those questions we must answer this
one – Why did Jesus, the only Son of God, come to earth as man and endure the
suffering and death at the hands of a people he came to save? It is a question that we each must answer for
ourselves because it is only then that the answer will affect the way we live
and our ultimate disposition at the end of time. If we believe that he did this so that each
of us might enjoy the rewards of the peace and love of God in this life and in
the next, then it should be the most important thing in our life. If we have not yet come to that conclusion
that Jesus’ sacrifice is supremely important in our lives, that decision will
show as well, and the benefits of faith will also be less evident.
Today we cry out rejoicing –
He is Risen! From this hour forward his
gift is once more in our hands; it is up to us what we do with it.
Pax
Please Remember Esther Ruth
Miles, September 18, 1925 to April 18, 2008
[1]
ALTRE
[2]
The picture used today is “Resurrection of Christ” by Marco Basaiti, 1520
[3]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible with the exception of the
Psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This
re-publication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4]
The Navarre Bible, Gospels and Acts,
Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, © 2002, pp. 699
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