Christus resurrexit! Resurrexit vere! Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen Indeed!

Homily for Easter 2011

Tonight/today we celebrate the holiest of our feast days- the very core and center of our Christian faith- the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ--a fact of faith; a fact of history.

In the last weeks of Lent we saw all of the apparent contradictions of life in the accounts of the Samaritan woman, the man born blind and the raising of Lazarus. During this Holy Week we have tried to enter more deeply into the mystery of the passion of our Lord and of His great love for each one of us. We began last Sunday as we triumphantly processed with Christ on Palm Sunday; we commemorated the Last Supper and the institution of the Holy Eucharist and the Sacred Priesthood on Holy Thursday; and finally, we entered into His passion and death on the cross on Good Friday.

The disciples during the first Passiontide were left scattered and confused; some where even despairing. Only a few disciples were faithfully at the foot of the cross, including Mary Magdalene. She had been saved from seven demons by Jesus and became a close intimate faithful disciple.

The Fathers of the Church saw Mary Magdalene as the woman who had loved Christ much by crying in repentance on the feet of Jesus and drying them with her hair. Mary Magdalene, who had been forgiven much by Christ, loved Christ deeply, for only those who have been forgiven much can love much. One can speculate that her Holy Saturday was spent weeping (which is really how all repentant sinners should spend it).

Because she loves Christ much, she is then the most eager to properly prepare the dead body of Jesus for permanent entombment. All must have seen lost to her as she walked. When she arrives at the tomb, she is expecting to ask the soldiers move the stone so she can do her very sad act of love—anointing the dead body of her savior. All of us who have been in the presence of the dead body of someone we love knows how she must have felt.

But when she arrives at the tomb, the stone is already moved and the body of her beloved Jesus is missing. Her love for Christ had drawn her to the tomb to do this last service and yet she (can’t) even do this last gesture of love and respect. All of her plans were dashed-could things get any worse?

But beyond all of the hopes and expectations of Mary Magdalene and the disciples, Jesus had risen. When He had told them that He would love them to the end, the end didn't mean to the death, but to resurrection; it meant that His love would conquer even death itself. All of the paradoxes, contradictions and confusion are defeated by this love. Christ’s love has defeated all hatred (and so all death); For Christ is the God who is Love truly among us.

The celebration of Easter is a reminder to us all that it is only through a firm, active and actual living faith in the resurrection that we can overcome the difficulties in our own life. The paradoxes, contradictions, confusions, and sufferings in our life, and even our own death, can only be overcome by love; but it must be authentic true love. And authentic true love has its only source in the love of Christ. Jesus is the God who is Love and has come to earth to conquered even death itself so that we might live.

Our faith in Christ must be active and alive. It's not enough for us to say, "I believe!" Our faith must be lived out by deeds of love, because faith without love is dead; without love we are dead, and so without Christ who is love we are dead. So let us today rejoice, open our hearts and receive this victorious love, the Love of Christ. Let today be the first day of a new intense life with Christ and in Christ.

But good intentions are not enough, we need to come in contact with the Power of Christ's Resurrection. And that Power is available to us in the Sacraments, especially the Most Blessed of All Sacraments-The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Holy Eucharist is the Power of Love for us to be freed from sin and so freed from death in order to live in Christ.

Here at the Holy Mass and only at the Holy Mass can we participate in this life giving, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. For the Holy Mass makes these events truly present before us, not just at Easter but at every Sunday Mass which is a miniature Easter. This is known as the Pascal Mystery...the life, passion and death and Resurrection of Jesus, actually become present to us in time and space, in reality, so that we in faith can be present at them and actively draw from them their transforming and life giving power, which is the power of God’s Love for us.

Our Catholic faith is not just about remembering the past events, no, the power of Christ love makes present to us these events for us in the now. Christ has come, yes, but He will come again, both at this Holy Mass and in glory at the end of the world. If we in faith and love open ourselves to the Mystery of His Divine Love present in the Holy Eucharist, then Christ will transform us into His image and likeness so that we can be saved by His love. Then becoming one with Christ, we can take His Love out into the world, so that it too may be transformed and saved in and through us. This is the cause of our Joy, of our Hope!

Christus resurrexit! Resurrexit vere! -Christ is Risen! He is truly risen from the dead; He is alive. They have not taken our Lord from the tomb, our Lord Himself has taken Himself from the tomb; and we who have the true faith know where He is; He is truly with us in His Resurrected body in the Holy Eucharist about to made truly present at this Mass and every Mass and He desires to give Himself and His love fully to us in Holy Communion--this is THE mystery of our Faith. The Eucharist is the God who is Love; only with faith in the Eucharist and in His love, only in Jesus can we be victorious. Alleluia!