Easter Sunday
Acts 10: 34a, 37-43 - Colossians 3: 1-4 - John 20: 1-9
There are many stories about the Resurrection in the four Gospels. Taken together, all the stories convey the faith of the disciples that Jesus is alive. Through God’s power, life has triumphed over death. The disciples and the women are given the mission to communicate this good news.
In today’s gospel Mary arose “early in the morning to go to Jesus’ tomb. She found it empty, and reported the fact to the disciples. The stone has been moved, wrappings have been left behind, and burial cloths as well. The notion that what has been taken is clearly alive.
Even today, the Easter message to all of us is the same as it was to Mary Magdalene and to Peter and John. If God’s glory is to be revealed, it is up to us to say so and to prove it by our beliefs. Despite the darkness and evil that surround us: wars that take the lives of many; poverty that grips more than half the human race; discrimination that divides the human family, Easter reminds us that God specializes in turning the bleakest moments into opportunities for resurrection.
Easter celebrates a new beginning, our certitude of new life. May we choose that life.
To conclude, I offer “Mary Magdala’s Easter Prayer” by Ron Rolheiser:
I never suspected
Resurrection
and to be so painful
to leave me weeping
With joy
to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb
With regret
not because I’ve lost you
but because I’ve lost you in how I had you ───
in understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh
not as fully Lord, but as graspably human.
I want to cling, despite your protest
cling to your body
cling to your, and my, clingable humanity
cling to what we had, our past.
But I know that . . . if I cling
you cannot ascend and
I will be left clinging to your former self
. . . unable to receive your present spirit.
May we receive the present spirit of Easter, our risen Jesus, alive in our midst!
Sr. Mary Ann Collins, OP