This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real.

There was a body in the grave. It was cold, it was definitely a dead corpse, it did not breath, and the heart did not pump; it was “brain dead.” You could see it; you could touch it and it was cold. It looked no different than any other corpse. For those of you who have had a realistic experience with a dead body, you know that it is profound experience.

The disciples of Jesus had such an experience with the dead body of Jesus. They saw it hanging on a tree. They saw the spear go deep into the side, and without a doubt it pierce the Sacred Heart. They saw the blood and water come forth. They saw the corpse laid into Mary’s arms. The women touch it as they prepared it for burial. What a profound experience then, it must have been to see the empty tomb on Easter Sunday.

But just as real and profound was their experience with the dead body of Jesus, so too, was their even more profound and real experience with His resurrected body. They would touch this body with their hands and it was warm, living. They would see it with their eyes, and it moved and breathed. There was not doubt that Jesus once dead in the body, now was truly alive again, in the Body.

Jesus is truly Risen! He is Risen indeed! He lives again, but not just spiritually, not just in the hearts and minds of His followers but in the flesh, with His true human body, with His human heart beating again for love of us, and His precious blood coursing through His veins. Christ once dead lives again forever. He has conquered death; and for those who accept the His gift of faith, they will share in His great victory over suffering and death and the cause of suffering and death, which is sin.

This gift of faith in the resurrection is what we as believing Catholic Christians are celebrating with great joy this day. Not just the Resurrection as a past event, but the Resurrection which occurs in our midst and makes present its power to renew the whole world. And so, the Resurrection points us to the great Mystery of the Holy Eucharist which makes truly present the Risen Lord, truly and really, with His living, breathing body.

The great joy of Easter is that Those believe, adore, hope and love Jesus, the risen Lord truly present in the Holy Eucharist, those who feed on Him in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth as the first fruits of that eternal life. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world; “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day: This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact, that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch, rightly defined the Eucharist as “a medicine for immortality and antidote to death.

The Joy of the Resurrection is more than just a pipe dream in your life and mine. It is a tangible and livable reality because Jesus, the crucified and the resurrection one is still in our midst. He is truly here, not just in our hearts, not just in the proclamation of the word, not just in our community gathered, Jesus Christ is still physical with us. Let me repeat it, Jesus Christ is still physical with us, in his resurrected body, a real body, albeit a glorified one. Jesus Christ Emmanuel, He who promised he would be with us until the end of the ages, becomes physically, sacramentally present, IN HIS BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY at this very Mass and He comes into us at Holy Communion.

This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real. A Joy that is obtainable in the midst of our sorrow, pain and death, because Jesus suffered sorrow, pain and death. But he has defeated death—He has risen! Jesus is truly, “The resurrection and the Life.” O Come let us adore His resurrected body at this Mass in the Holy Eucharist which I, acting in His person, am about to make present—physically—sacramentally—truly, on this altar of Sacrifice.

Let us put out into the deep of Jesus’ love by offering ourselves totally and with great trust, to Him, with Him, in Him, to the Father. Let us adore Jesus in the Holy Eucharist--beholding the face of Jesus with the eyes of faith, and through the eyes of the Virgin Mary, she who will be with us to help us in our offering of ourselves. For we are weak and we need a mother’s help. Let us pray, to Jesus through her, “Hail true body that was born of Mary, the Virgin, that truly suffered and was offered in sacrifice on the cross for man and that gave forth true blood from its pierced side. Be to us a foretaste of heaven…”
HAPPY EASTER to all of you and your families.