Alleluia!  He is Risen!  On this Easter Sunday, our hearts are filled with joy as we celebrate this great feast on which Jesus rose victorious from the dead.  His victory was not just for Him alone, but for all for whom He died.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes this beautifully in the following words:

Christ’s Resurrection—and the risen Christ himself—is the principle and source of our future resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.… For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor 15:20-22) The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that fulfillment. In Christ, Christians “have tasted … the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5) and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so that they may “live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”(2 Cor 5:15; cf. Col 3:1-3) (CCC 655)

Because of His Resurrection, and through the gift of Baptism, we share in the new life He makes possible, a life which promises victory over death for those who remain united to Him.  As such, the most fitting invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this day is the following:

Heart of Jesus, our Life and Resurrection, have mercy on us

Easter Sunday radically changes the trajectory of human history and gives new hope to our lives.  It also shifts the Lord’s day from the Sabbath (Saturday) to eighth day (Sunday), the first day of the week and the first day of the new creation which the Resurrection ushers in.  Sunday becomes the fulfillment of the Sabbath, and each Sunday is to be celebrated with a special focus on worship and joy.  Our celebration of Easter Sunday sets the pattern for how we should ideally celebrate every Sunday.  The new life on the Resurrection should guide how we observe this day not just once a year, but every week.

When we think about how so many of us observe Easter Sunday, we prioritize going to Mass.  Such should be our priority every Sunday.  When we go to Mass on this day, we often see people making special efforts to dress in a special way as a sign of our joy on this great day.  If every Sunday is a little Easter, shouldn’t we consider this choice of dress each week?  After going to Mass, we then spend much of the rest of the day with family and friends, resting and rejoicing.  Many of us would not even think about shopping or doing work on Easter Sunday because of the nature of so special a day.  Should we not approach every Sunday this way?

Perhaps as we celebrate with family and friends this Easter Sunday, experiencing the gift of worship, rest, and rejoicing, it can be an opportunity for us to commit to carrying this on to every Sunday of the year, such that they stand out as different from every other day of the week.  Sundays are days on which we rejoice in the gift of new life the Lord has won for us on this day, and should be a foretaste of the worship, rest, and rejoicing we will experience with our family, the Church, in the Resurrection.

Happy Easter! He has risen from the dead, never to die again! And in his great love for us, our Lord Jesus Christ promises to raise us from the dead too, when he comes again!

He has risen, we will rise, and there is no news better than that! It is such good news that you just feel a need to end all sentences with an exclamation point 🙂

All jokes aside, I truly wish you and your families all the best this Easter. It is such a beautiful season, because in this season we remember the reason for our Christian joy. We remember that we live for another world, a world that will be free of suffering and death. We remember that this other world (Heaven) is not some made-up dream, but a promise – a promise made to us by our God who became man, died, and rose from the dead for us. 

It takes faith to believe this promise. It takes faith to abide by God’s law and remain in a state of right relationship with him. But the fact that it takes faith doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Jesus is alive and well, seated at the right hand of the Father, and is really present on our altars, in our tabernacles, and in our hearts. He holds out to us an offer of eternal life. 

The faith we hold in this future reality makes all the suffering of this life seem so little and so insignificant that no matter how bad things are here and now, we can rejoice in Christ’s victory. If we hold fast to our faith in Christ and the promise of our baptism, we will rise in Him at the last day. Our bodies will rise up again as glorious bodies, never to die again.

The resurrection of the body is a central and foundational teaching of Christianity. Our resurrection at the end of time is one of the key elements of the first proclamation of Christianity in the early years of the Church. It brought the early Christians joy and hope and gave them courage to die for their faith at the hands of the brutal Roman torturers. Still, as fundamental as this teaching is, it is seemingly one of the most often forgotten truths of the faith. 

Case in point: I think, over the past month, I have been asked at least three times about the concept of reincarnation. “Can a Christian/Catholic believe in reincarnation?”

The answer: “No, absolutely not!”

The answer to this question is “no” for several reasons. 

First: A human being exists as a body-soul composite. You are not just your soul. Your particular body is just as much “you” as your soul is “you.” Therefore, for your soul to be able to enter a second body would make no logical sense. 

Second: the dignity of the human person militates against the concept of reincarnation. It would be supremely undignified for a human soul to enter the body of anything lesser – such as a dog, cat, dolphin, or butterfly, for example.  

Finally, and perhaps most fittingly for today, God has already revealed to us in a very definitive way exactly what our end will be. Although it is still somewhat shrouded in the mystery of faith and future reality, we firmly believe in the resurrection of the body. Our faith assures us that at the end of time, all those who have died will be reunited to their bodies and live forever in the new heavens and new earth (cf. 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 21, and Isaiah 65:17). We are not going to be disembodied souls for all eternity, thank goodness!

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He gave even more dignity to our human bodies than ever before by joining a body to his divinity. Through our entrance into his death and resurrection in baptism, we are promised a share in his resurrection when we pass through our death. May we always remain steadfast in our relationship with him and persevere in grace to the very end! Happy Easter!

Every year, on both Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we listen to the account of the Lord’s Passion.  On Palm Sunday, we hear the account from one of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark or Luke) and on Good Friday, we always hear the account from John’s Gospel.  Having both accounts is helpful as there are certain details that are unique to each account.  For example, after Peter denies Jesus, Luke alone recounts the words: “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” (Lk 22:61) That simple detail has been a source of many hours of meditation for me personally, praying with the power of the gaze of Jesus – His sorrow when I choose against His will, and His delight when I consider His profound love for me.

One detail of the Passion which is only found in John’s Passion narrative is the account of the solider piercing the side of Jesus after He had died on the Cross.  Here is what we will hear:

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (Jn 19:32-24)

The Church has reflected deeply on this scene, seeing the blood and water as symbols of the sacraments of the Eucharist (blood) and Baptism (water).  We can therefore say that the pierced Sacred Heart of Jesus is the source of the sacramental life, and as such, is the source of our ongoing spiritual lives.  I have therefore chosen the following invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this Holy Week:

Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.

During Holy Week, spending time praying with the Crucifix can be a fruitful spiritual exercise.  Looking at Jesus hanging on the Cross evokes a variety of emotions.  On the one hand, we know that it was our sins that were the cause of His suffering.  This certainly fills us with sorrow.  But as we gaze upon the wound in His side, we are filled with hope as we recall the gift that comes from this sacrifice – new life for us and the light of hope that scatters our darkness.

In that regard, I share one of my favorite little quotes about the Crucifix, which I first came across many years ago in a Stations of the Cross booklet.  The quote has been attributed to St. Bonaventure, and it encourages us to look upon the Crucifix and see in it an invitation to draw close to Jesus in this most powerful image of His love for us:

Behold Jesus crucified!  Behold His wounds received for love of YOU!  His whole appearance betokens love.  His head is bent to kiss you.  His arms are extended to embrace you.  His heart is open to receive you.  Oh what love!  Jesus dies on the Cross, to preserve you from eternal death.