by Faith Central & Steve Welsh
From the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. [Click here for Mass Readings]
[featured image is file photo]
“Jesus revealed Himself again to His Disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. … He said to them, ‘Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.’ … they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the Disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord.’ …”
“1. ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has Risen’ (Lk 24:5). … the two men dressed ‘in dazzling apparel’ rekindle the hope of the women who … rushed to the tomb …. They … experienced the tragic events culminating in Christ’s crucifixion … the sadness and the confusion. In the hour of trial … they had not abandoned their Lord. They go secretly to the place where Jesus was buried in order to see Him again and embrace Him one last time. … moved by love, that same love that led them to follow him through the byways of Galilee and Judea, all the way to Calvary. What blessed women! They did not yet know that this was the dawn of the most important day of history. … that they … would be the first witnesses of Jesus’ Resurrection.
2. “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb” (Lk 24:2). … ‘… they did not find the Body …’ …. In one brief moment, everything changes. Jesus ‘is not here, but has Risen.’ This announcement … chang[ing] the sadness of these pious women into joy, re-echoes with changeless eloquence throughout the Church in … this Easter Vigil. … the mother of all vigils, during which the whole Church waits at the Tomb of the Messiah, Sacrificed on the Cross. The Church waits and prays, listening again to the Scriptures that retrace the whole of salvation history. … it is not darkness that dominates but the blinding brightness of a sudden light that breaks through with the starling news of the Lord’s Resurrection. Our waiting and our prayer then become a song of joy …. [H]istory is completely turned around: death gives way to life, a life that dies no more. … Christ ‘by dying destroyed our death, by rising restored our life.’ … the Truth that we proclaim with our words … above all with our lives. He whom the women thought was dead is Alive. Their experience becomes our experience. …
3. … O Vigil … you disclose the very heart of our Christian existence! … O Christ, how can we fail to thank you for the Ineffable Gift … you lavish upon us? The Mystery of your Death and Resurrection descends into the Baptismal Waters that receive the old, carnal man and make him pure with divine youthfulness. … Jesus lives and we live in Him. For ever. … This Vigil makes us part of a day that knows no end. The day of Christ’s Passover, which for humanity is the beginning of a renewed springtime of hope. …”
[featured images are file photos]
Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!
Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly King, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!
Sing we to our God above, Alleluia!
Praise eternal as God’s love. Alleluia!
Praise our God, ye heavenly host, Alleluia!
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Alleluia!
From the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. [Click here for Mass Readings]
[featured image is file photo]
“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. … she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other Disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them … So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to 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. …”
From Loretto Abbey in the Archdiocese of Toronto.
[Click here for Mass Readings]
[featured image adapted from image at Creative Commons Wikimedia Commons Pjposullivan,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loretto_Abbey_chapel_interior,_Toronto.JPG, with additional conditions stated at that link and in the alt-tag here]
“… We are the children of the apostolic witnesses. That is why we still gather early in the morning on the first day of every week to celebrate this feast of the empty tomb, give thanks for ‘Christ our life,’ as today’s Epistle calls Him. Baptized into His death and Resurrection, we live the heavenly life of the risen Christ, our lives ‘hidden with Christ in God.’ We are now His witnesses, too. But we testify to things we cannot see but only believe; we seek in earthly things what is above. …”
Catholic News Agency reports:
“At least 200 people were killed in explosions Easter morning, detonated in churches [and] other sites across Sri Lanka. Hundreds more are reportedly injured. … explosions were detonated during Easter Mass at churches in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, and in Negombo, a city 20 miles to its north. At the same time, a bomb exploded at a service at the evangelical Zion Church in Batticaolo, on Sri Lanka’s east coast. St. Anthony’s Shrine was the Catholic church targeted in Colombo, and St. Sebastian’s is the Catholic parish in Negombo. …”
“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. … behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. … ‘Why do you seek the Living One among the dead? He is not here … He has been Raised. Remember what He said to you … that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and Rise on the third day.’ …”