The Joy of Easter: Faith and Resurrection
Summary of Headings
Introduction
The Significance of the Resurrection
A very happy and a very blessed Easter to everybody. One of the most beautiful ceremonies. I mean perhaps the most beautiful ceremony of the entire liturgical year. It is packed with so much to analyze and so much to contemplate. It's actually worth it just all of Holy Week as your meditation to take this liturgy of this night and just go through it. Read the exultet. Read the lessons that are being preached tonight. Read the Gospel and Epistle. Read all the responsories. They're absolutely beautiful. Everything about it is just a very beautiful thing. Contemplate the imagery of the new fire. The imagery of the Paschal Candle. The baptismal water. The Easter water. Everything that we do is just so magnificent and so powerful and so beautiful. It should mean so much to us. I will keep this short because of the time. But it is important for us to contemplate this. The Church puts such emphasis on this mystery above all other mysteries. Above everything else that we have just gone through. The Passion and Death of our Lord. The Last Supper. Everything that the Church is putting before us in the liturgy in these days. This is the culmination of all of them. Without the resurrection, we would not have faith. This is the seat of our faith. This is the principle upon which our faith is built. Somebody asked me recently, Why didn't Christ just tell his apostles what was going to happen to him? For a couple of reasons. One, he did. Not in so many words, but he said it on multiple occasions. That he was going to be lifted up. That he was going to go away. He said it in so many words. And he talked about being crucified and dying. And being raised again from the dead. And they still didn't see. They were so used to him speaking in parables. They thought that even when he was speaking the plain truth, that he was actually just speaking in parables. But their faith, one of the reasons that he did not tell them in so many words more often, or make it clearer to them, was one, they wouldn't have believed it if he told them. As is clear from the Gospels. And the second is because we have to learn to work by faith. Now our faith needs something to rest upon. And this is it. The resurrection. This is what our faith rests upon. If Christ had not risen from the dead, we would not have something upon which to build our faith. The apostles would not have bounced back from the crushing so -called defeat of the cross. They would have stayed hidden in the upper room. They would have tried to disappear. That would have been it. But the faith is built wholly and entirely upon this, the resurrection. Which is why the church, has such an explosion of joy. Right after the Epistle, we get to sing the Alleluia again. Now as we know, from the time of Septuagint Sunday, until Easter, we are deprived of even being able to say the word Alleluia at any ritual. If it's in a ceremony or a blessing or anything, we have to admit it for that time. The Mass removes the Alleluia verse and puts in the tract instead. Because the Holy Spirit, the Word is an expression of pure joy. Not just pure joy, pure joy in the presence of God. An expression of absolute pure joy in the presence of God. That's why it's like in the liturgy right now, it's as if the church couldn't contain herself anymore. And so you have this explosive three -peat of the Alleluia. That is repeated between the priest, the celebrant, and the faithful. It is something that is so beautiful and so important. Where there is faith, there must be joy. Because God is present through our faith. If we have faith, God is with us. And no matter what happens to us, or whatever we're going through, or whatever the world is going through, or whatever the world condemns us for, or attacks us, or anything else, if we have that faith, that joy will abide. It will stay there. It will always be there. And that is what we must reflect upon tonight. This is one of the reasons why we're supposed to say the Mass in pitch dark. Why it's supposed to happen at night. And so that the light of our faith, represented by the Paschal Candle, can illuminate, even in the darkness. The darkness cannot comprehend it. It cannot encompass it. It cannot snuff it out. It cannot destroy it. This is the Paschal Mystery. That out of the jaws of defeat, Christ's ultimate victory was won. The moment where it seemed the world, the flesh, and the devil had had their way, God's grace exploded into the world in an entirely new form, and gave us eternal life. That is the joy we must hold within us, in particular in the darkest days. Whatever problems and difficulties we may go through, whatever sufferings we may have to endure, whatever fears and abandonment and anything else, this mystery of Easter must console us, and uplift us, and strengthen us, so that we may never be doubtful or fearful again. So that we may never be alone. So that we may always be able to have something to cling to, no matter what. So that we will always be able to survive aboard this boat of the faith. That we will be able to save ourselves, despite ourselves, despite our sinfulness, and despite the best efforts of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that we continue to fight back, and try to overcome with a true spirit of joy that is born of our faith, because now we have been given the keys, quite literally, the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and all we have to do is use them, so that we can be eternally happy with our Lord in heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Faith and Joy in the Paschal Mystery
Summary
A very happy and a very blessed Easter to everybody. One of the most beautiful ceremonies. I mean perhaps the most beautiful ceremony of the entire liturgical year. It is packed with so much to analyze and so much to contemplate. It's actually worth it just all of Holy Week as your meditation to take this liturgy of this night and just go through it. Read the exultet. Read the lessons that are being preached tonight. Read the Gospel and Epistle. Read all the responsories. They're absolutely beautiful. Everything about it is just a very beautiful thing. Contemplate the imagery of the new fire. The imagery of the Paschal Candle. The baptismal water. The Easter water. Everything that we do is just so magnificent and so powerful and so beautiful. It should mean so much to us. I will keep this short because of the time. But it is important for us to contemplate this. The Church puts such emphasis on this mystery above all other mysteries. Above everything else that we have just gone through. The Passion and Death of our Lord. The Last Supper. Everything that the Church is putting before us in the liturgy in these days. This is the culmination of all of them. Without the resurrection, we would not have faith. This is the seat of our faith. This is the principle upon which our faith is built. Somebody asked me recently, Why didn't Christ just tell his apostles what was going to happen to him? For a couple of reasons. One, he did. Not in so many words, but he said it on multiple occasions. That he was going to be lifted up. That he was going to go away. He said it in so many words. And he talked about being crucified and dying. And being raised again from the dead. And they still didn't see. They were so used to him speaking in parables. They thought that even when he was speaking the plain truth, that he was actually just speaking in parables.