Easter Sunday

*EASTER SUNDAY*

Jesus is to be found today, wherever people are bringing hope to others

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God, come to our assistance.

Lord, make haste to help us,

Glory to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Send the fire of your Holy Spirit deep within us.

Souls in purgatory, pray for us.

Angels and Saints, pray for us.

May the Lord bless us and keep us;

May the Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious to us;

May the Lord turn his face toward us and give us peace. Amen

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Alleluia, alleluia.
Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed;
let us then feast with joy in the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia.

 

*The Gospel*
John 20:1-9

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.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into 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.

Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first and he saw and believed.

For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.

*REFLECTION*

Pope Francis proclaimed 2025 a Jubilee Year of Hope. This Jubilee Year invites us to reflect on the gospel message of hope so that we can become messengers of hope in our world today.

Easter is the great feast of hope.

Yet the great message of that first Easter Sunday is that God is always working to bring new life out of great loss and death, God turned the awful tragedy of the killing of his own Son to the good of all humanity.

In raising his Son, God released a power for good into the world, a power of life, which gives us hope. We call this power the Holy Spirit. It is this Spirit of the risen Lord that makes us a hopeful people.

Yet, the gospel reading this morning suggests that most of Jesus’ first disciples did not pick up on this hopeful spirit immediately. When Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found it empty, she presumed that the body of Jesus had been stolen. She said to Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him’. Her discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb did not lead her to Easter faith and hope. Perhaps this is not surprising. What happened on that Easter morning never happened before. It was outside the realm of ordinary human experience. It was as if God’s world invaded our world in a way that left everyone at a loss.

In reality, the tomb, a place of death, had become a womb, a place of new life, not just for Jesus but for all who believe in him.

However, this good news was not immediately clear to most of the disciples. They were slow to become people of Easter hope. It would take the appearance of the risen Lord to them to finally change their despondency to hope.

When the disciple whom Jesus loved reached the tomb, went inside, and noticed how the grave clothes were neatly arranged, the gospel reading says, ‘he saw and believed’. He alone recognised the true significance of the empty tomb. He knew that Jesus had been lifted up in glory, as Jesus had always promised, and that he was now drawing all people to himself. He saw the empty tomb with the eyes of faith and, so, he became a person of Easter hope.

Today’s feast invites us to see all of life with the eyes of the beloved disciple, eyes of hopeful faith. Like him, we are to recognise how the Lord can be powerfully at work even in those places of our lives that can seem empty and devoid of life.

Mary Magdalene was asking, ‘Where is the body of Jesus?’ We can ask, ‘Where is the risen Lord to be found today?’ He is to be found wherever people are bringing hope to others. We find him where the most vulnerable among us are cared for, where people of faith are building communities that place Christ at the centre. We find him among those who are working to resist all the forms of violence and death that saturate our culture. In all of these ways, and many others, the spirit of Easter is alive in our parish and in our world today, and, for that, we give thanks this Easter morning.

*PRAYER BASED ON TODAY’S GOSPEL*

Most holy angels of God, please come to me, speak to me and reveal to me the most glorious message of the Resurrection of Christ. Lord, I pray that my heart be freed of all fear and that my mind be opened to all that You wish to reveal to me. I do believe in the glory of Your Resurrection; help me to believe with all my heart and to proclaim that truth to others. Jesus, I trust in You.

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May the all-powerful Lord
grant us a restful night
and a peaceful death.
— Amen.

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Father, I thank you for you have heard my prayer
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