Easter Joy begins with our attitude and our love for the Holy Eucharist.

(“He has been raised- he is not here- Alleluia!” Tonight, the most solemn night of the year, the Passover of our Lord Jesus from death to life, we rejoice and are glad. Our Lord comes and fills us with amazement and awe. He comes to share this new life with us. In a few moments, Christ will indeed do this, as we welcome ___ new members into the Church. (Can also put here new life in baptism, if there are some.)

Very little about Jesus makes a difference in our lives if the Gospel stories are not true. In fact, if Jesus had not truly risen from the dead 2000 years ago and appeared to His disciples in a real body, I promise you we would never even have heard of about Him. Nothing else, except a historical, real resurrection could have changed sad and despairing men and women into believers radiant with courage, loyalty; and yes, Joy, true authentic Joy, which by the way is always Christian Joy. The resurrection is responsible for this change in the hearts of believers for centuries and it is no less powerful to change the hearts of men today. Indeed, “the joy of the resurrection renews the whole world”

It is exactly the lack of joy, or rather of meaningful joy, that torments many people today, even many Christians. There are some who even think that maybe it is wrong to seek joy in the face of so much suffering and injustice in the world and that maybe we should be apologetic if we are joyful. For all us, in the sufferings of this life, in it’s so many seemingly senseless tragedies, and in those times we ourselves feel darkness envelop us, we can be tempted to wonder whether our faith and trust in God is doing us any good. So often our faith, hope and love in God can be mocked by the harsh realities of life. Once however, we give into this temptation, which so many have, we lose the deeper meaning of suffering and death, then suffering and death ends up having the last word-despairingly, and then even life itself has no meaning.

Real Christianity, however, is about joy; joy not just in the life to come, but joy in the here and now, no matter what our circumstances. As one Christian writer said, “the Christianity of the New Testament was about crazy, total joy, the joy that put songs on martyrs’ lips as they were being marched to their deaths in coliseums, or roasted alive on a gridiron!” Where does this type of joy come from and how do we get it?

True joy, as I said, is Christian; it comes from the belief that life is not just a great tragedy that begins at birth and each day draws nearer to annihilation. True Christian joy also isn’t just about heaven, that joy cannot be found and experienced in this world but only in the life to come. Surely one can’t live in this life with this type of belief in which joy is only for the next life. No, at the heart of Christian joy is the conviction that Christ truly lives at this moment, that he knows his way out of the grave, and that everyone who believes in Him, and follows Him and His teachings in love, will share in his victory over death, beginning right now.

And so, it is exactly Christ victory over death, that gives meaning and power, not only to our faith, but to our lives. As many once Christian countries turn away from Christ and His Catholic Church, as so many souls are no longer practicing their faith or are practicing it only on their own terms, we now see more and more souls experiencing lives void of meaning and void of joy. A life without joy is a life without hope; is it any one the rates of suicide in our country, and in the world are exploding and why euthanasia is becoming more and more excepted.

The antidote to despair is faith, faith that Jesus is truly risen, not just metaphorically or some type of spiritual resurrection in the hearts and minds of the faithful, but that He is truly risen indeed, bodily, physically, really. And that He has promised to those who are His loyal and faithful disciples, that they will rise as well. This is the reason for our joy today and every day of our lives.

The Resurrection reminds us that in the midst of our sufferings, there is always the resurrection to follow, if, and this is a critical if, if we but love Christ above all things. If we put Christ and love for Him and for His Church first in our lives, then every time we are going through difficult times, we will be able to say with confidence, “this is just Good Friday, the Resurrection will surely come.” Once our hearts are filled with the consolation of this thought, we can even begin to experience joy amidst the sufferings in this world, the fruit of the power of the Resurrection in our lives. When we suffer with Christ, and this is the key phrase, “with Christ, that is with faith, hope and love in Him and His Church, by uniting our suffering to His, we begin to share in the joy of His resurrection which is the joy of eternal life.

The Key of all of this is the Holy Mass which truly makes present for us the victory of love and its power to not only save us but to fill us with joy, the joy of the resurrection. At this Easter Mass and at every Mass, we are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, which means, we are saved from everlasting death and so despair. This redemption happens by the Blood of the Lamb who gives us Himself anew under the appearances of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.

At Easter Mass we celebrate this victory of love. But every Mass is an Easter Mass, because it makes the saving act of Jesus death and resurrection truly present and affective to us here and now. But to share fully in the power and in the joy of this victory we need to share in this victory of love every single Sunday. Is it no wonder that as weekly Mass attendance around the world continues to fall, so too does the level of hope and joy, and love in our world.

At every Mass joy continues to break into our world; The Holy Mass is the cause of our Joy; this is how we get joy because the Mass makes present the true, physical presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is Jesus in his risen Body, alive among us. The Eucharist is where and how we united our sufferings to Christ in order to be filled with His Joy. This by the way is the secret of the martyrs; the Eucharist is where they found the strength to be joyful even while they suffered and died. The Eucharist is, “the remedy of immortality and the antidote against eternal death and despair” The sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, given to us in Holy Communion is the pledge of our own bodily resurrection, like Christ’s, so long as we die to sin and live for God alone in Christ.

Easter Joy begins with our attitude and our love for the Holy Eucharist. Those who believe the little white Host is truly Jesus in His resurrection and as a result fall on their knees before Him are given a share in the Joy of the world to come already in this world. People who kneel before the Holy Eucharist as their Lord and God and adore Him with their whole mind, heart and soul, and with all their strength do not jump off of buildings or give up hope, because they are filled with the joy that only the Risen Christ can bring. Joy=the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is our Joy--Jesus Christ--Our Risen Lord and our God.

On this Easter day, as we share in the power of the resurrection which is Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, we can be filled with the light of resurrection and the joy of the Resurrection. Let us here, now at this altar of sacrifice, united ourselves to Him by offering ourselves to Him, with Him and in Him to Our Heavenly Father, let us receive Him with open hearts and let us let Him take possession of us as we pledge our love and loyalty to Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord and our God truly present in the Holy Eucharist, so we can share in His Victory, the victory of love.

Queen of heaven rejoice, alleluia.
The Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia
Has risen as he said, alleluia

Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Pray for us who have recourse to thee...