OMELIE / Omelie EN

12 apr 2020

12/04/2020 - Easter Sunday: the Resurrection of the Lord

12/04/2020 - Easter Sunday: the Resurrection of the Lord

Reading 1 ACTS 10,34.37-43 * Psalm 117 * Reading 2 COL 3,1-4 * Gospel JN 20,1-9

Today, as in few other occasions, before singing the Gospel acclamation, has been sung or read out loud a “Sequence”, a hymn to help us highlight the great mystery we are celebrating. Jesus, by dying, has won over death. He is the Lord of life, the Lamb, the Innocent, the paschal Victim. These titles are not made up by us: the witnesses of Jesus' victory are suggesting them to us. Mary gives testimony of having seen the tomb, the angels, the cloth, and of having heard His voice. Mary's certainty becomes ours: with this certainty we have sung the Hallelujah to introduce the reading of the gospel.

The gospel is a story, detailed enough, of what happened in the morning of the “first day of the week”, after the Saturday lived by all Jesus' disciples in great pain. They were not only disappointed for the fact that they were expecting from Him signs of victory and instead they had to witness a failure, but also disappointed by the realisation of their own incapability to show Him a minimum of faithfulness and thankfulness.

The women are the ones who set out, to go back to the tomb in order to finish with the burials, as the use was. Among them we can see the very Mary of Magdala, freed by Jesus from the great suffering due the disordered sinful situation she had found herself in. She wants to show her gratitude, without fear: love casts out fear! In finding the stone removed she does not stop to think, but instinctively runs to those disciples who had enjoyed a greater closeness to the Master, to give the sad news: the Lord’s body has disappeared, and she thinks it had been stolen! She cannot imagine anything but vandalism, she does not think that the stone might have been removed from inside the tomb. Do not think this much the two disciples who run and find only the burial cloths. But seeing the unusual and unexpected position of the burial cloths they are left speechless. They start understanding something, maybe they start remembering Jesus' words and getting closer to what we believe in! Jesus has risen from the dead, He is not in death's power anymore! He had called back from the dead Lazarus: now He Himself leaves death! The disciples do not know, do not understand, they cannot see anything precisely, but at this point they are sure that death is not the last stop for their Lord.

We rejoice, and joyfully sing, because what leaves Peter and Paul bewildered is our deepest and greatest joy: Jesus has risen from the dead! This event does not involve only Him, it cannot be only about Him, but it is the source of our hope, the foundation of our life, which is made new! Saint Paul is telling us this, and Saint Peter repeats it: the earthly things that come to pass cannot imprison or frighten us, neither because they are there, nor because they are not! Our life at this point looks further up, because it is not confined here on earth. By seeing the risen Jesus we see the beauty of our future. If He has risen from the dead, our life too is destined for eternity, and since Jesus is truly the Living, we lean on Him and His words, advised by His Spirit. In fact: “he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead” Peter declares. The judge scrutinises our actions: if He is the judge, first of all He will look at how we welcome Him, how we love Him, how we rejoice for Him! This is our action that makes us pleasant to His eye! Thanks to Him our sins are forgiven: this means that we are reconciled with the Father who sees we are obeying His Son!

Our obedience to Jesus' words becomes joyful, becomes a song of praise to God: “hallelujah”, which means: “Let us praise the Lord”! Praising the Lord draws us closer to the others, makes us one heart and fulfills our life in a way we would never be able to imagine! Praise the Lord, sing the hallelujah, and you will find yourself in Christ's Body, in the heart of the Church, in the joy of the Risen! Hallelujah!