The power of the Resurrection is the main theme of this Sunday’s readings.
Jesus Christ rises, despite His passion, despite his death on a cross, despite His being buried in a tomb, despite the stone, in spite of the presence of the guards. The Father raises His Son from the dead, in the Holy Spirit, demonstrating that Christ now has the keys of death and hell.
What does the resurrection mean for us today? How can it help us to understand better our current situation and the situation of the world?
First of all, in the reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew, taken from the Easter Vigil, the women are asked not once, but twice, to not be afraid. The Angel of the Lord says “Do not be afraid”, and the resurrected Jesus repeats the same words, “Do not be afraid”. Despite the darkness that still is around us, despite our anxieties and fears in regards to the future, we are not to be afraid, we are not to be frightened. In the words of St. Maximus of Turin, Christ “does not cease to set alight the world he sustains” (https://dailygospel.org/AM/gospel/2023-04-09). Once again, St. Maximus teaches us: Christ “is our today; the past, once gone, does not pass him by; the future, as yet unknown, holds no secrets for him…Before him the past cannot dissolve, nor the future hide” (https://dailygospel.org/AM/gospel/2023-04-09)
Second, following on the words “Do not be afraid”, we are to have deep faith in the fact that Jesus won over the most painful realities of isolation that exist in the universe: death and hell. By His descent to the dead, Christ liberated the just from the underworld. He brings us the sure and certain hope that even in death, even in the mysterious passage from this world to the next, we are secure in our faith in the Resurrection. The Risen Christ is our passageway, from this life to the next, when it will be our turn to finish our earthly pilgrimage. In the words of St. Maximus: “Old age had laid men out in death; [Christ] has raised them up again in the renewed vigor of today” (https://dailygospel.org/AM/gospel/2023-04-09).
Third, with His resurrection, Christ clearly shows His divinity. In the Gospel of John, from Easter Sunday morning, we heard Our Lord say, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. Christ, the Son of God, shows us the way to the Father. He shows us the way that we can take to reach God – the God who is not just an impersonal being, not some faceless force or energy, but a God who, through Jesus Christ, reveals Himself as Father. In revealing Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God reveals Himself as a Communion of Persons. So, in this way, our own personhood reveals itself as a great gift, a great challenge, and a great blessing.
Our baptism, revitalized and reinvigorated by the Sacrament of Confession, is the reality that leads us to the possibility of participating in the resurrection of Jesus. Water is a blessing, a font, a source of life – and in this case, it is the origin of life eternal. We are mindful of all the catechumens across the globe who have been baptised on this Easter weekend, and who are now incorporated into Christ and the Church.
I pray that the Risen Christ may sit down with us, as we take our Easter meals, whether in family, in community, or individually. May He patiently make us know, like He did with the disciples in Emmaus, how He accompanies us, and fulfills the Scriptures. May He strengthen weak hearts and doubting minds. May the Risen Christ come to us also with tenderness and comfort, as He came to His Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. What a great event it must have been for Mother Mary, to see her son as the definitive victor over pain and death.
Chrystus prawdziwie zmartwychwstał! Christ is truly Risen.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, April 9, 2023)