Happy Easter! Alleluia, Alleluia!
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Today the Christian Church commemorates the awesome mystery of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. The 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles says, “We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.”
“The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross” (CCC 638):
Christ is risen from the dead!
Dying, he conquered death;
To the dead, he has given life.
The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. In about A.D. 56 St. Paul could already write to the Corinthians: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. . .” (CCC 639).
“O truly blessed Night,” sings the Exultet of the Easter Vigil. No one can say how the Resurrection came about physically. Still less was its innermost essence, Christ’s passing over to another life, perceptible to the senses. Although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles’ encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history (CCC 647).
It is in the mystery of the Resurrection of Christ that we have hope that death no longer has the final say and that a glorified life awaits for all who place their hope in Jesus Christ and abide by his teaching.
Happy Easter!
