Category: Resurrection

CATHOLIC FAITHWATCH: “EASTER VIGIL HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER [SAINT] JOHN PAUL II, Holy Saturday, 14 April 2001” – VaticanVa

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Saint Pope John Paul II file photo, adapted from image at archives.gov

“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. …”

Click here for: “EASTER VIGIL HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER [SAINT] JOHN PAUL II, Holy Saturday, 14 April 2001” – VaticanVa

View of St. Peter's Basilica at Vatican from River

[featured images are file photos]

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Seeing and Believing: Scott Hahn Reflects on Easter Sunday” – St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology

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Jesus and Mary Magdalene After Resurrection, adapted from image at loc.gov

“… 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. …”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: Saint Gregory Nazianzen: “[‘You were raised with Christ; seek what is above’] Sermon I, 1,4-5, PG 36, 623; 35, 395” – DailyGospel

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Jesus and Mary Magdalene After Resurrection, adapted from image at loc.gov

“Christ has been raised from the dead: you also, arise! … It is the Day of the Resurrection, and this beginning of a new world has good auspices! Let us then keep the feast with joy: let us embrace one another with the kiss of peace! … Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with him; yesterday I died with him; today I live again with him; yesterday I was buried with Christ; today I rise with him. So let us bring our offerings to him who suffered and rose again for us … Let us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most fitting. Let us give back to the image of God within us the beauty that belongs to this image. Let us recognize our dignity; let us honor our archetype. Let us know the power of the mystery, and for what Christ died. Let us make ourselves like Christ since he made himself like us; let us become God through him since he became man for our sake. …”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Mass on the Move – A Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter” – Archdiocese of Washington/Msgr. Charles Pope 4.29.17

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Image of Town Associated with Historical Emmaus, adapted from image at loc.gov attributed to American Colony (Jerusalem). Photo Dept.,

“In today’s Gospel we encounter two discouraged and broken men making their way to Emmaus. The text describes them as ‘downcast.’ …. They are also moving in the wrong direction, West, away from Jerusalem, away form the resurrection. They have their backs to the Lord, rising in the East. The men cannot see or understand God’s Plan. They cannot ‘see’ that He must be alive, just as they were told. They are quite blind as to the glorious things that happened hours before. In this, they are much like us, who also struggle to see and understand that we have already won the victory. Too easily our eyes are cast downward in depression rather than upward in faith. …”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Emmaus and Us: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Third Sunday of Easter” – St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology 4.24.17

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Christ Breaking Bread, Photograph of Painting, adapted from image at loc.gov with credit to Detroit Publishing Co.

“How does #Jesus make himself known at #Emmaus? First, He interprets ‘all the Scriptures’ as referring to Him. In today’s First Reading and Epistle, Peter also opens the Scriptures to proclaim the meaning of Christ’s death according to the Father’s ‘set plan’ — foreknown before the foundation of the world. … In every Eucharist, we reenact that Easter Sunday at Emmaus. Jesus reveals Himself to us in our journey. He speaks to our hearts in the Scriptures. Then at the table of the altar, in the person of the Priest, He breaks the bread. The Disciples begged him, ‘Stay with us.’ So He does. Though He has vanished from our sight, in the Eucharist—as at Emmaus—we know Him in the breaking of the bread.”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “PERFECT TIMING” – Presentation Ministries (Cincinnati)

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Last Supper by Duccio, adapted from image at openi.nlm.nih.gov

“… The early Church realized that Jesus’ timing of the first two Masses (Eucharists) was very significant. Led by the Spirit (Jn 16:13), they devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread, that is, the Mass (Acts 2:42). Wherever the Church has emphasized devotion to the Mass throughout its history, it has seen the love, power, and glory of God. Therefore, let us fully enter into the Sunday celebration of the Mass. May it be the center of our Sunday and of our life. Let us pray the Mass daily or as often as possible. Let us visit the Blessed Sacrament frequently. A life eucharistically centered is a life centered on the crucified and risen Christ.”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Today’s Meditation” – The Word Among Us

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File Photo of Sunrise at Joshua Tree National Park

“Their eyes were opened and they recognized him. … Don’t you wish you could have been there when Cleopas and his friend were walking to Emmaus? Wouldn’t it have been exciting to hear Jesus interpreting the Scriptures and to see the look in their eyes when they recognized him in the breaking of the bread? Well, in a sense, we can be there. Even today, two thousand years after his resurrection, Jesus’ word can cause our hearts to burn and bring us to the place where we recognize him. How is this possible? Because the Scriptures do more than teach us about Jesus—they reveal him to us! ….”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Homily 23 [Re: Jesus on Road to Emmaus]; PL76, 1182” – Saint Gregory the Great/ DailyGospel

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Christ Breaking Bread, Photograph of Painting, adapted from image at loc.gov with credit to Detroit Publishing Co.

“There were two Disciples on a journey together. They did not believe and yet they were speaking about the Lord. Suddenly He Himself appeared but in a form they were unable to …. They invited Him to share their company, as one does with a traveler … So they prepared the table, set the meal, and the God whom they had failed to recognise in Scriptural explanation they now discovered in the breaking of bread. Thus it was not in hearing God’s Commandments that their minds were opened but in doing them …. If anyone wants to understand what he has heard, he should hasten to carry out whatever of it he has already managed to grasp. The Lord was not recognised while He was speaking; but He deigned to make Himself known when He was offered a meal. So let us delight in hospitality, my very dear brethren; let us take pleasure in practising charity. …”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Homily, Third Sunday of Easter” – Fr. Joseph Jensen/ Saint Anselm’s Abbey 5.2.14

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Jesus and Mary Magdalene After Resurrection, adapted from image at loc.gov

“… It would be pointless to speculate much about the nature of Jesus’ resurrection. Someone asked me, “Since He had a body, how could He go through doors?” A simple answer would be that it isn’t said He went through doors, but that He appeared among them, even though the doors were locked. Luke and John are at pains to indicate Jesus had a real body—Luke by presenting Him as eating before the apostles, John as having Doubting Thomas touch His hands and side. There was, however, a real transformation. St. Paul compares it to the case of the seed that is sown and the plant that comes from it: “it is sown corruptible, it is raised incorruptible.” As in our Easter hymn, “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.” …”

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CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “From Fear to Faith – A Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter”

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Sacred Heart: Jesus Christ with Right Hand Raised in Blessing

“… Some people want Jesus without the Church. No can do. Jesus is found in His Church, among those who have gathered. There is surely joy to be found in a personal relationship with Jesus, but the Lord also announced a special presence whenever two or three are gathered in His name. It is essential for us to discover how Mass attendance is essential for us if we want to experience the healing and blessing of the Lord. This Gospel has a lot to say to us about the need for us to gather together to find the Lord’s blessing in the community of the Church, in His Word, and in the Sacraments. Let’s look at today’s Gospel in five stages. …”

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