April 20, 2025
The Resurrection of the Lord
The Mass of Easter Day
Lectionary: 42
Reading 1
Peter proceeded to speak and said:
“You know what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.
We are witnesses of all that he did
both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to us,
the witnesses chosen by God in advance,
who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commissioned us to preach to the people
and testify that he is the one appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead.
To him all the prophets bear witness,
that everyone who believes in him
will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (24) This is the day the Lord has made; let us
rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
“The right hand of the LORD has struck with power;
the right hand of the LORD is exalted.
I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.”
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
Or
Brothers and sisters:
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast,
so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are unleavened.
For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Sequence - Victimæ paschali
laudes
Christians, to the Paschal Victim
Offer your thankful praises!
A Lamb the sheep redeems;
Christ, who only is sinless,
Reconciles sinners to the Father.
Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous:
The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
Speak, Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring.
“The tomb of Christ, who is living,
The glory of Jesus’ resurrection;
bright angels attesting,
The shroud and napkin resting.
Yes, Christ my hope is arisen;
to Galilee he goes before you.”
Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining.
Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!
Amen. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed;
let us then feast with joy in the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042025.cfm
Commentary on Acts
10:34,37-43; Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; John 20:1-9 or Luke
24:1-12 (for afternoon Masses, Luke 24:13-35)
Our Easter celebrations form the heart of our Christian
living. Our faith is deeply rooted and finds its real meaning in the
resurrection of Jesus. St Paul says that, if Christ is not risen, then all our
believing is in vain.* It
is sad, then, to find people who make Good Friday and the death of Jesus the
climax of Holy Week. However, attitudes change over time and more and more
people have come to love the Easter Vigil liturgy, especially when it is done
well.
Those Christians who depict the cross without the body of
Christ on it are making a very important point. The cross was the high point of
Jesus’ gift of himself to the Father for our sake, but he is no longer there
and it was his entry into glory with the Father which gives the cross its
validity. Otherwise, it would have been a journey into nothingness.
Because of the Resurrection, the disciples, who were at
first paralysed with fear of being arrested as accomplices of Jesus, suddenly
made a complete turnaround and began boldly to proclaim that Jesus, who died on
the Cross, was alive and with them. And when, in fact, they were arrested,
persecuted and imprisoned, it became a cause of rejoicing that they were now
even more closely related to the life experience of their Lord, sharing in his
sufferings that they might share in his glory.
A call for change
Easter, however, is not only concerned with recalling the resurrection
of Jesus or its impact on the first disciples, but also with the meaning of
this event for our own lives and for our faith. The celebration of Easter (and
the days of Holy Week leading up to it) are a call for us to change—and perhaps
change radically—as Jesus’ own disciples changed.
The sign that we are truly sharing in the risen life of Jesus
is that our lives and our behaviour undergo a constant development. We not only
believe, we not only proclaim, but we do what we believe and
what we proclaim.
Proclamation and witness
The theme of today’s Mass includes both proclamation and witness. In the
First Reading, we see Peter speaking after the baptism of Cornelius and his
family, the first gentile Christians. He is speaking about his own experience
and sharing that experience with the listening crowds. For the true disciple of
Jesus, there is a close and indivisible relationship between experiencing and
proclaiming. Because of Peter’s experience of knowing with utter conviction
that Jesus, who died on the Cross, is now alive, he is so filled with joy that
he simply must share that joy with others—so that it can be theirs, too.
We find a similar theme in both of the Second Readings
(there is a choice of readings) and the Gospel. Paul was a Pharisee, a
dedicated Pharisee and a man of integrity. He persecuted Christians because he
saw in them a dangerous deviation from the Jewish Law and Jewish traditions.
Then he, too, had that sudden experience when the Risen Jesus revealed himself
while Paul was on his way to Damascus to bring the Christians (whom he saw as
heretical Jews) into line.
That experience, as we know, brought about a total change in
Paul’s life. It gave him a totally new vision of things and especially of the
meaning of Jesus’ life and message. For the rest of his life, he used all his
energies, the same energies he once used against Christians, to help
others—Jews and non-Jews alike—to know, love and follow Jesus, his Lord.
Empty tomb
In John’s (and Luke’s) Gospel, we have the experience of the empty tomb
as the sign of Jesus’ resurrection to life. Mary Magdalen saw the stone rolled
back (it was so heavy; who could have managed to do such a thing?) and she went
running to the disciples. Peter and the “other disciple, the one whom Jesus
loved” went to see for themselves. They ran to the tomb and, although the
“other disciple” got there first, out of deference, he let Peter go in before
him. They saw, they understood, and they believed. Until that moment, John’s
Gospel says:
…for as yet they did not understand the scripture [the
Hebrew testament], that he must rise from the dead.
The disciples on the way to Emmaus will also be made to
recognize that the positive meaning of the sufferings of Jesus can be found in
the Hebrew Testament for those who can see and understand (see Luke’s Gospel
for the afternoon Masses).
Not just resuscitation
It is important, however, to be aware that the Resurrection is not
simply the resuscitation of the body of Jesus after he died on the Cross. No
one saw the Resurrection because there was nothing to see.
The crucifixion is a historical event, but the Resurrection is a faith event.
The Risen Jesus enters a completely new way of living; the post-Resurrection
texts all indicate that. He is not recognised at first by even his intimate
friends; he is everywhere that his disciples happen to be, and his new Body—the
means of his being visibly present among us—is the community of his disciples.
We are, quite literally at this time, the Body of Christ.
We see the beginnings of this in the next part of John’s
Gospel that we will read during the first week of Easter. Peter and the
‘beloved disciple’ went back to their companions to tell them of their
discovery. But Mary Magdalen, from whom seven demons had gone out, and who was
now totally devoted to Jesus as her Lord and Master, stayed behind. She was
distraught. Her beloved Master was not only dead; his body was now missing. In
the tomb she saw two angels, representing God’s presence, who asked her why she
was crying.
A familiar voice
At that very moment, she turned and saw Jesus but did not recognise him.
This is a constant feature of post-Resurrection apparitions. Jesus is not
recognised; he looks just like an ordinary person, any person. In this case,
Mary thinks he is the gardener, and wonders if he is the one who has taken away
the body of Jesus. When he calls her name, “Mary”, she immediately knows who it
is. Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus had said:
The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear
his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has
brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him
because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run
from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.
(John 10:3)
Mary then begins to cling passionately to Jesus, not wanting
to let him go. But she has to let go—she is clinging to the ‘old’ Jesus. The
Risen Jesus is going into glory with the Father. He will return, but in a very
different way. From now on he will be found in all those who call themselves
his disciples and who are united together as one Body—the Church and all its
constituent local churches.
And Mary, too, runs back to the disciples proclaiming her
personal experience:
…[she] announced to the disciples, “I have seen the
Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.
(John 20:18)
The Gospel doesn’t say that she had ‘seen Jesus’, but that
she had “seen the Lord”, i.e. the Risen Lord. And that is what evangelisation
is about: it is not just the handing on of doctrines, but the sharing with
others our experience of having seen the Lord in our own lives and inviting
them to have the same experience.
The same mission
The celebration of Easter reminds us that we have the same mission as
Peter and Mary Magdalen and the other disciples of Jesus. First, as the optional
Second Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians indicates, Easter calls
for a radical conversion, a radical purging on our part. In the celebration of
the Pasch, the Jews used to throw out all the leavened bread they
had and replace it with freshly baked unleavened bread.
Because of the fermentation process that leavened bread
undergoes, yeast was regarded as a corrupting agent. So Paul tells us that we,
too, as we celebrate our Christian Passover, are to become:
…a new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened [in
other words, free from all the corrupting influences in our life]. Therefore,
let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and
evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
And, to go back to the First Reading from the Acts of the
Apostles, Peter emphasises the importance of Jesus’ disciples not only
experiencing the joy of their Risen Master and Lord, but also of sharing that
experience and joy with as many people as possible. It is something we must do
also. Not to share our Easter joy and what it means to us is to leave Easter
only half celebrated. For the true Christian, in fact, every day is an Easter
Day lived joyfully in the close company of the Risen Lord.
Witnesses
Peter says:
God raised him on the third day and allowed him to
appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses…
They were those who witnessed Jesus’ preaching and healing,
his arrest, execution and death, and also his being raised again to life.
And so Peter describes them as:
…[we] who ate and drank with him after he rose from
the dead.
Is that not something that we, too, do every time we take
part in the Eucharist—to eat and drink with the Risen Jesus? And what message
comes from that? Have we satisfied our Christian responsibility just by being
in church on Sunday?
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify
that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead…that
everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
There we have our mission.
Putting it in language that may be more easily understood
today, Peter is saying that Jesus, and the way of life he proposes, is the
yardstick by which people are to measure themselves, and not just as
Christians, but as human beings. To attach oneself totally to the Way of Jesus,
a way of Truth and Life, is to bring about a deep reconciliation with God and
with all our brothers and sisters. It is to bring freedom, justice and peace
into our world, and prepare us for the day when we all become one in our
Creator God, the Father of Truth and Compassionate Love.
______________________________________________
*The Gospel was essentially written
backwards. The trigger to its being written was the experience that Jesus the
Rabbi had risen from the dead and was with God in glory. That experience, in
turn, led to reflection on what at first seemed tragedy, disaster and
failure—namely, the trial, suffering and death of Jesus. The resurrection threw
a totally different light on the Passion and Death of Jesus and led to a very
different understanding of what was happening.
These reflections, in their turn, led to a reconsideration
of the public life of Jesus—his teaching and what was now seen to be part of
that teaching: his healing, forgiveness of sinners, the expulsion of evil
spirits and giving life to the dead.
Last of all, came the stories about the origins of Jesus,
the Infancy Narratives.
The longest part of Jesus’ life, between his childhood and
the beginning of his Public Life, remained totally hidden to us, apparently not
relevant to the main story.
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Sunday,
April 20, 2025
Easter Sunday
Let us invoke the Holy Spirit
Lord Jesus Christ, today
your light shines in us, source of life and joy. Send the Spirit of love and
truth, so that, like Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John, we too may discover and
interpret in the light of the Word, the signs of your divine presence in our
world. May we welcome these signs in faith that we may always live in the joy
of your presence among us, even when all seems to be shrouded in the darkness
of sadness and evil.
The Gospel: John 20: 1-9
A Key to the Reading:
For John, the Evangelist,
the resurrection of Jesus is the decisive moment in the process of his
glorification, indissolubly linked with the first phase of this glorification,
namely his passion and death.
The event of the
resurrection is not described in the spectacular and apocalyptic details of the
synoptic Gospels. For John, the life of the Risen One is a reality that asserts
itself silently, in the discreet and irresistible power of the Spirit.
The fact of the faith of the
disciples is announced, "While it was still dark" and begins through
the vision of the material signs that recall the Word of God.
Jesus is the great
protagonist of the story, but he does not appear personally. The Text:
Now on the first day of the
week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw
that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
So she ran, and went to
Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them,
"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they
have laid him."
Peter then came out with the other
disciple, and they went toward the tomb. 4 They both ran, but the other
disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; 5 and stooping to look in, he
saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter
came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, 7
and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but
rolled up in a place by itself.
8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also
went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not know the scripture,
that he must rise from the dead.
A Subdivision of the Text for a Better
Understanding:
•
Verse 1: introduction and events prior to the
description of the situation;
•
Verse 2: Mary’s reaction and the first
announcement of the newly discovered fact;
•
Verses 3-5: the immediate reaction of the
disciples and the interaction among them.
•
Verses 6-7: verification of the event announced
by Mary;
•
Verses 8-9: the faith of the other disciple and
its relationship with the Sacred Scriptures.
A Moment of Interior and Exterior Silence
to open our hearts and make room within for the Word of God:
A Slow Re-reading of the Whole Passage;
•
I too am in the garden: the empty sepulchre is
before my eyes;
•
I allow Mary Magdalene’s words to echo within
me;
•
I too run with her, Peter and the other
disciple;
•
I allow myself to be immersed in the joyful wonder
of the faith in Jesus Christ, even though, like them, I do not see him with my
bodily eyes.
The Gift of the Word to Us
•
Chapter 20
in John: this is quite a fragmented text where it is clear that the editor
has intervened several times to put the stress on some themes and to unify the
various texts received previously from preceding sources, at least three
sources.
•
The day
after the Sabbath: it is "the first day of the week" and, in
Christian circles, inherits the sacredness of the Jewish Sabbath. For Christians
it is the first day of the new week, the beginning of the new time, the
memorial day of the resurrection called "the day of the Lord" (dies Domini).
•
Here and in verse 19, the Evangelist adopts an
expression that is already traditional for Christians (e.g.: Mk 16: 2, 9; Acts 20: 7) and is older that the expression that later became
characteristic of the first evangelization: "the third day" (e.g.: Lk 24: 7, 46; Acts 10: 40; 1Cor 15: 4).
•
Mary
Magdalene: This is the same woman as the one present at the foot of the
cross with other women (19: 25). Here she seems to be alone, but the words in
verse 2 ("we do not know") show
that the original story, worked on by the Evangelist, told of more women, as is
true of the other Gospels (cfr Mk 16:
1-3; Mt 28: 1; Lk 23: 55-24: 1).
•
However the synoptics (cfr Mk 16: 1; Lk 24: 1), do
not specify the reason for her visit to the sepulchre, seeing that it inferred
that the rite of burial had already been carried out (19: 40); perhaps, the
only thing missing is the funereal lamentation (cfr Mk 5: 38). In any case, the fourth Evangelist reduces to a minimum
the story of the discovery of the empty sepulchre so as to focus the attention
of the reader on what comes after.
•
Early,
while it was still dark: Mark (16: 2) says something different, but from
both we understand that it was the very early hours of the morning, when the
light is very weak and still pale. Perhaps John stresses the lack of light in
order to contrast symbolically the darkness-lack
of faith and light-welcoming of
the Gospel of the resurrection.
•
The stone
had been taken away from the tomb: the Greek work is generic: the stone had
been "taken away" or "removed" (different from: Mk 16: 3-4).
The verb to "take away" recalls Jn 1: 29: the
Baptist points Jesus out as " Lamb who takes away the sin of the
world." Perhaps the Evangelist wishes to recall the fact that this stone
"taken away," flung away from the sepulchre is the material sign that
death and sin have been "taken away" by the resurrection of Jesus?
•
So she ran
and went to Peter and the other disciple: Mary Magdalene runs to those who
share her love for Jesus and her suffering for his atrocious death, now made
worse by this new discovery. She turns to them, perhaps because they were the
only ones who had not run away with the others and remained in contact with
each other ( cfr 19: 15 e 26 - 27 ). She wants to share at least with them this
final pain of the outrage committed against the body.
We see how Peter and the "beloved disciple" and
Magdalene are characterized by a special love that unites them with Jesus: it
is indeed reciprocal love that makes them capable of sensing the presence of
the loved person.
•
The other
disciple, the one whom Jesus loved: is someone who appears only in this
Gospel and only beginning with chapter 13, when he exhibits great intimacy with
Jesus and deep understanding with Peter (13: 23-25). He appears at every
decisive moment of the passion and of the resurrection of Jesus, but remains
anonymous and many theories have been advanced on his identity. He is probably
the anonymous disciple of the Baptist who follows Jesus together with Andrew
(1: 35.40). Since the fourth Gospel never speaks of John the apostle and
keeping in mind that this Gospel of recounts details clearly known to an
eyewitness, the "disciple" has been identified with John the apostle.
The fourth Gospel has always been attributed to him even though he may not have
materially written it, yet the origin of this particular tradition is that this
Gospel and other writings are attributed to John. This also explains why he is
someone who is somewhat idealized.
•
"The
one whom Jesus loved": It is clear that this is an addition not from
the apostle, who would not have dared boast of having such a close relationship
with the Lord, but from his disciples who wrote most of the Gospel and who
coined this expression after reflection on the clearly privileged love between
Jesus and this (cfr 13: 25; 21: 4. 7). Where we read the simpler expression
"the other disciple" or "the disciple," obviously the
editors did not make the addition.
•
They have
taken the Lord out of the tomb: these words, which recur in verses 13 e 15,
show that Mary was afraid that body-snatchers had taken the body, a thing
common then, so much so that the Roman Emperor had to promulgate severe decrees
to check this phenomenon. In Matthew (28:11—15), the chief priests use this
possibility to discredit the fact of the resurrection of Jesus and, eventually,
to justify the lack of intervention on the part of the soldiers who guarded the
tomb.
The Lord: the
title "Lord" implies an acknowledgement of divinity and evokes divine
omnipotence. That is why this term was used by Christians for the risen Jesus.
Indeed, the fourth Evangelist uses this term only in Paschal stories (see also
20: 13).
•
We do not
know where they have laid him: these words recall what happened to Moses,
whose place of burial was unknown (Dt 34:
10). Another implicit reference is to the words of Jesus himself when he says
that it is impossible to know where he was going (7: 11, 22; 8: 14, 28, 42; 13:
33; 14: 1-5; 16: 5).
•
They both
ran, but the other disciple outran Peter…but he did not go in: This passage
shows the anxiety that these disciples were living through.
The fact that the "other disciple" stopped, is
more than just a gesture of politeness or respect towards someone older, it is
the tacit acknowledgement that Peter, within the apostolic group, held a place
of pre-eminence, even though this is not stressed. It is, therefore, a sign of
communion. This gesture could also be a literary device to move from the event
in terms of faith in the resurrection to the following and peak moment in the
story.
•
The linen
cloths lying and the napkin…rolled up in a place by itself: although the
other disciple did not go in, he had already seen something. Peter, crossing
the entrance of the sepulcher, discovers the proof that no theft of the body
took place: no thief would have wasted time to unfold the body, spread the
cloths in an orderly fashion (on the
ground would be translated better by "spread out" or "laid
carefully on the floor") and then to roll up the napkin in a place by
itself. Such an operation would have been complicated also because the oils
with which the body had been anointed (especially myrrh) acted like glue,
causing the cloths to stick perfectly and solidly to the body, almost as what
happened to mummies. Besides, the napkin is folded; the Greek verb can also
mean "rolled," or it could indicate that that piece of light cloth
had, in large part, preserved the form of the face over which it had been
placed, almost like a mortuary mask. The cloths are the same as those cited in
Jn 19: 40.
Everything is in order in the sepulcher, even though the
body of Jesus is not there, and Peter was well able to see inside the sepulcher
because the day was breaking. Different from Lazarus (11: 44), then, Christ
rises abandoning completely his funerary trappings. Ancient commentators note
that, in fact, Lazarus had to use the cloths again for his definitive burial,
while Christ had no further use of them because he was not to die again (cfr Rm 6: 9).
•
Peter…saw…the
other disciple…saw and believed: at the beginning of the story, Mary also
"saw." Although some translations use the same verb, the original
text uses three different verbs (theorein
for Peter; blepein for the other
disciple and Mary Magdalene; idein,
here, for the other disciple), allowing us to understand that there is a growth
in the spiritual depth of this "seeing" that, in fact, culminates in
the faith of the other disciple.
The anonymous disciple had certainly not seen anything
other than that which Peter had observed. Perhaps he interprets what he sees
differently from others because of the special relationship of love he had with
Jesus (Thomas’ experience is emblematic, 29: 24-29). In any case, as indicated
by the tense of the Greek verb, his is still an initial faith, so much so that
he cannot find ways of sharing this experience with Mary or Peter or any of the
other disciples (there is no further reference to this).
However, for the fourth Evangelist
the double "see and believe" is quite meaningful and refers
exclusively to faith in the resurrection of the (cfr 20: 29), Because it was
impossible to believe truly before the Lord had died and rose (cfr 14: 25-26;
16: 12-15). The double vision- faith, then, characterizes the whole of this
chapter and "the beloved disciple" is presented as a model of faith
who succeeds in understanding the truth about God through material (cfr also
21:
7).
•
As yet
they did not know the Scripture: this obviously refers to all the other
disciples. Even for those who had lived close to Jesus, then, it was difficult
to believe in Him, and for them, as for us also, the only gateway that allows
us to cross the threshold of authentic faith is knowledge of the Scriptures
(cfr Lk 24: 26-27; 1Cor 15: 34; Acts 2: 27-31) in the light of the events of the resurrection.
A Few Questions
•
What, in the concrete, does it mean for us
"to believe in Jesus the Risen One"? What difficulties do we
encounter? Does the resurrection solely concern Jesus or is it really the
foundation of our faith?
•
The relationship that we see between Peter, the
other disciple and Mary Magdalene is clearly one of great communion in Jesus.
In what persons, realities, institutions do we today find this same
understanding of love and the same "common union" founded on Jesus?
Where can we read the concrete signs of the great love for the Lord and
"his own" that inspired all the disciples?
•
When we look at our lives and the reality that
surrounds them, both near and far, do we see as Peter saw (he saw reality, but
holds on to them, that is, to the death and burial of Jesus) or do we see as
the other disciple saw (he sees facts and discovers in them signs of new life).
Let us Pray
with a hymn taken from the letter of Paul to the Ephesians (paraphrase of
1: 17-23).
The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give you a spirit of wisdom and
of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts
enlightened,
that you may know
what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of
his power
in us who believe,
according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ
when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the
heavenly places,
far above all rule and authority and
power and dominion, and above every name that is named,
not only in this age but also in that
which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet
and has made him
the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him
who fills all in all.
Closing Prayer
The liturgical context is of great importance in
praying this Gospel and the event of the resurrection of Jesus, which is the
hub of our faith and of our Christian life. The sequence that characterizes the
Eucharistic liturgy of today and of the whole week leads us to praise the
Father and the Lord Jesus.
Christians, to
the Paschal Victim offer sacrifice and praise. The sheep are ransomed by the
Lamb; and Christ, the undefiled has sinners to his Father reconciled. Death
with life contended:
Combat strangely ended!
Life’s own Champion,
slain, Yet lives to reign.
Tell us Mary:
say what you see upon the way. The tomb the living did
enclose; I saw
Christ’s glory as he
rose! The angels there attesting;
Shroud with grave-clothes resting. Christ, my hope, has
risen:
He goes before you into Galilee.
That Christ is
truly risen from the dead we know. Victorious king, your mercy show.
We may conclude our prayer also with this lively
invocation by a contemporary poet, Marco Guzzi:
Love, Love, Love!
I wish to feel, live and express all this Love,
Which is a joyful commitment in the
world and a happy contact with the others.
Only you free
me, only you release me. And the snows fall to water the greenest of valleys in
creation.
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