As the sun came up on Easter morning, the holy women went to the tomb, expecting to
find themselves in a predicament. They went there with the object of anointing the body of Jesus
and knew that, or believed rather, that when they got there they would find an obstacle between them
and the Lord, that they would be unable to carry out their task unless they were able to find
someone to roll back the stone. But much to their astonishment,
and rejoicing as well as ours, not only did they find the stone rolled back,
but our Lord's body no longer in need of anointing.
And so this morning we rejoice not only in the fact that the tomb is empty, but also in the fact
that our Lord has removed the obstacles that separate us.
From him and from his Father.
During the Easter celebration, we have the Mass of the Vigil, which takes place during the middle
of the night. It's supposed to take place sometime after sunset of Holy Saturday and sunrise of
Easter Sunday. So it is a nighttime celebration, which the new Easter fire, which represents the
glorified Christ and his grace, is a celebration of the mass of the vigil, which takes place during the
this dark moment in the Easter holiday season.
And in fact we mm expecting that product the Easter fire is lit also the Easter candle,
the Paschal Candle, which is brought into the church, and then in the process of that liturgy
we are taken from the darkness of night into the light and glory of the risen Christ.
So there's this experience of passing from the light to the light from death to life from death to life and
buster to light to light from death to life and it is the moment of destruction when we
come from that spiritual tidings that relate to life we no longer is home to that spiritual
ourte a physical character that separates it's the moment of resurrection which makes us more and more
I prayed of the star sometimes Asher baentry we held it in his Welcome to The wagons- Ой upfront liberty
liturgically, if you will, when we celebrate the very rising of the Lord and focus our attention
on the fact that in his earthly journey, death did not have the last word, that ultimately
his death was a victory and not a defeat. In this morning's liturgy, we celebrate the Mass
already in the light. We've already experienced the resurrection of Christ, so to speak, and
we renew our joy in this sacrifice of the Mass. And we have an opportunity to reflect
not only on the resurrection as it affects our Lord and Savior, but also in the way that
it affects us, in the sense that St. Paul tells us that we should
celebrate this feast not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the new leaven
bred of sincerity and truth. The resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is power
in our lives. That power is given to us through the sacraments, through baptism principally,
which is what is celebrated in a very unique way during the Easter vigil, but also again
through the rest of the sacrament.
And especially in the Eucharist. And that power allows us to overcome all the obstacles
that come our way in our spiritual life. We all experience Good Friday in a number of ways.
Only in us, we don't experience it with the innocence of Christ. We are tempted. We fall
into sin. We confront other people who are really no weaker than we are. And we carry
crosses through our lives. We carry crosses through our lives. We carry crosses through
our lives.
And there is always going to be anドンethe mass. We have crosses throughout our life
in our families and in our daily duty and elsewhere that we cannot escape and we can't
always know what to do with these crosses and these difficulties. But in this Easter
mystery we learn what to do. We learn to bring all these things to the altar of God and to
find the power of the Lord in His Sacraments, and in His grace. And there are women, as
the tomb expecting to find it sealed and a dead body inside when they got there it was empty and
and their obstacles were removed even their even their task at hand which was to anoint the dead
body was taken away from them and they were left to contemplate with joy the miracle that they had
witnessed in other accounts when they get to the tomb there's the angel there and there is
a stupendous miracle of the fact that the tomb is empty and the angel rolls back the stone to
show that it's empty the tradition of the church is not that the angels rolled back the stone to
let our Lord out but they rolled it back to reveal that it was empty so our Lord
essentially
escaped from the tomb he escaped through the the rock of the tomb through the obstacle through the
divine power you know the the shroud of Turin reflects this this miracle of the body somehow
escaping from the shroud and as it passed through the shroud and printed the shroud with the image
of Christ and and this miracle not just the raising of Christ but the manner of his raising
reveals to us
what God wants us all to learn in our in our own lives that miracles are possible especially
miracles of grace the beginning of our Lord's existence he was conceived of the Virgin without
the seed of man conceived and born virginally born from our Blessed Lady without breaking the
seal of her virginity which is an exact parallel to the miracle of the resurrection
and at the moment that that took place the angel told Our Lady all things are possible with God and if
it's possible to make a virgin a mother it's also possible to bring a man back from the dead and in
this case this man is also God and he raises himself on his own power and if those things
are true and we are baptized into the death and resurrection of the Lord and we share in his life
then the obstacles which we confront no matter how difficult or sometimes discouraging they may be
are possible for us to confront and overcome as well perhaps not in the way that we would always
like to overcome them but in a way that is pleasing to God and allows us to go forward
toward heaven and this is what the apostles didn't understand on Easter Sunday when our Lord came to
them and said to them that we are not able to overcome them but we are able to overcome them
peace be to you they were shocked even after they had heard the account of the women they still
didn't believe that John and the other accounts we hear about John and Peter going to the tomb and
John once he goes in sees and believes but everyone had a little catching up to do the angel
told the women that the Lord was not there why are you seeking the living among the dead he told you
he would go before you into Galilee you'll find him there
talking to them as you should know these things what a you know what do you ask why why are you so
surprised and yet when we face the cross and and the little deaths of daily life and then
we find the power of God coming to our rescue we are surprised and we you know have faith we think sometimes when we feel the presence of God and we feel like we'reoped
you
losing our faith in the moments when he says you are committing for my reason our ready will not come正
our instead ofshopping your falsely wants God a king of you our God who was doomed did you believe in a Regi
seems far away but we always have to go through this uh this this daily experience of darkness
and light of sunsets and sunrises of um of death and life and so uh on this easter morning as we
celebrate the holy sacrifice of the mass we face the liturgical east we face the rising sun we face
christ coming to come for us he comes for us in the mass he comes from heaven and we are not only
experiencing his sacrifice and his sacrificial love we are also experiencing his resurrection
and his second coming and we're already being prepared for heaven so today we
ask for all the graces that we need for ourselves and everyone around the world that we all might
hear the word of our Lord when he says to us, peace be to you. The power of God is with us
because the power of the resurrection is with us in the Eucharist and in our daily fulfillment
of the task that the Lord has given us. We need to believe with all our heart in the power of God
to heal us. And in a particular way, we turn to the Blessed Mother, the Queen who stood at the
foot of the cross and shared in our Lord's sorrow and shares now in his victory because she believed
that all things are possible with God. All things are possible with God for those who believe
in the power of God.
The resurrection.
The resurrection.