April 12, 2020 - Easter Sunday

(Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9)

“On the first day of the week,” we are told, “Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning.” The “first day” is saturated with meaning. Jesus had rested in the tomb on the old Sabbath of Israel. Just as the Creator God had rested after his week’s work of making the world on the seventh day, Jesus, who has re-created the world by his Passion week, rested in the sleep of death on that Sabbath. Now, he rises to new life on a new first day, as a sign of the first day of the first creation, the day when God had made light, and of the new creation he has worked in his Paschal Mystery. Just as the light dawns on the new creation, Mary's arrival early in the morning is a sign of the new light and life that this Easter brings.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 639 says: 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... The apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection, which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus.

• Picture yourself in a room with the other disciples early on that first Easter Sunday. Suddenly Mary Magdalene bursts through the door and announces that someone has taken Jesus’s body out of the tomb. What is your first thought? What would you do in response to this announcement?
• Do you find it difficult to have faith in the Resurrection? What are some reasons that it might be difficult for people to believe in it?