Christ our Passover is risen.  Alleluia! Let us rejoice and be glad. Alleluia!

The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection – Eugène Burnand

This is the liturgy’s insistent call today: let us rejoice with Jesus, the blessed by the Father, who has been raised to life after three days in the tomb.  He endured humiliation and suffered grievously for our sakes, but his faithfulness has been repaid, for now he is back to life. His is a new life, for he will not die again.

The Risen Jesus is our consoler

The Risen Jesus is at our side, sharing with us his new life, the life of the blessed, where the promises of the Beatitudes are fulfilled. He walks at our own pace, patiently listening to our woes and struggles, as he did during his long journey at the side of the two disciples of Emmaus. He does not promise to shield us from problems, nor to solve our difficulties for us: he promises to be always at our side to help us, to encourage us to live our life in the spirit of the Beatitudes.

Peace and mission

This is what he did when he met the disciples for the first time after the Resurrection. It was their first meeting after their desertion at the beginning of the Passion. They were all together for the simple reason that they were afraid of the Jews. Jesus enters, and instead of words of reproach he tells them, Peace be with you. He then repeats the same greeting, to make sure they understood that he was bringing them peace in their fears, reassurance in their self-doubt.

He then says something even more surprising: ‘As the Father sent me, I also send you’. At the moment when they were most aware of their weaknesses and of their inability to be faithful to their mission, Jesus shows such trust as to share with them what was most precious to him, the mission given to him by the Father.

No wonder this was the message that was uppermost in the minds and hearts of the Apostles as they went about fulfilling this mission: Jesus who was once dead is now risen! We know this because we have met him after he was risen.

We have shared the sorrow of the passion and burial of Jesus. Now let us ask for the grace to share his joy and that of his mother.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Alleluia, alleluia!