Happy Easter!
Lord is truly risen, Alleluia!
The darkness has passed, the light has come. The sorrows and pains of Good Friday have passed, victory is achieved, the Lord has triumphed over death. The Joy of the Lord’s resurrection fills our hearts and sends us forth to proclaim our faith in the risen Christ.
The proclamation of the Christian Faith is in some way, a self-introduction of God to man, to man who finds himself preoccupied with his self-made up condition of living that is void of God, if not simply ignorance, man to whom any other creed sounds rather stranger to him, an inconvenience, a discomfort. This self-introduction of God is also a descent into the abyss of the darkness of sin and ignorance, a place where man has estranged himself from God. Like a diver who dives into the deep sea to save a drowning soul, so God descends from heaven above into this abyss of hell to save and awaken sleeping man blinded by error and deception. But because blind man is getting somewhat comfortable with perishable things that have deceived him, man sees this proclamation of a new life in Christ, as an interference because it demands a change in his way of life, yet it offers him something higher. And until that light from heaven, the glory of Christ, shines upon this blind man and dispels the darkness that blinds him, a gift of immortality and everlasting peace that awaits him, then man wakes from his deep sleep and embraces this new life, this gift of God.
The resurrection of Christ from the dead is this great awakening of humanity from sleep. The diver reaches out to drowning man, Christ reaches out with his mighty hand and raises up this drowning man and gives him a new life, a breath of immortality. The celebration of Easter is then the acceptance of this new way of life in Christ, the gift of God, not simply an acknowledgement of a historical fact, but a complete embrace of a life of grace welling up to eternal life. This, my friends, is the true meaning of our Easter celebrations. Christ has defeated our enemy who kept us in captivity and has given us a fresh breath of life. This is the gist of the Christian proclamation of the Faith. An insertion of something essential to the life of man, a gift he cannot live without. Believe me everyone needs God, a life without God is hell and it is meaningless.
The words, “Take and eat, this is my body…Drink, this is my blood…” (Matthew 26:26) are very significant here. For if the words of Christ be true that say, “Truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53), then it is obvious that if we do not consume his body and blood, we have no share in his life. Christ did not simply save us from captivity, He gave us a share in his life, he gave us himself, for, he is “the life, the truth and the way.” His flesh and blood we claim, and the more we consume him, the more we become like him. This is the resurrection in Christ, the great awakening. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead is the hope of sharing in the life of Christ and his glory in heaven. This hope is nourished and sustained by the regular reception of the body and blood of Christ. Let us then, with the utmost reverence and gratitude, with open hearts and minds, approach the sacred table of the Lord’s most holy body and precious blood, to receive this gift of immortality, a new life in Christ.
Amen
~ Homily given on Easter Sunday, 2023
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