By Martin Jumbam
Mother Church celebrates Sunday, March 31, 2013, as Easter Sunday in the Church’s year C. In the entrance antiphon we pray: “I have risen: I am with you once more; you placed your hand on me to keep me safe. How great is the depth of your wisdom, alleluia!” “This day was made by the Lord; we rejoice and are glad, Alleluia!” This refrain from the Responsorial Psalm of this day’s Holy Mass gives us the true spirit of Easter. It is a spirit of hope and abiding joy, as the Church continues to give witness to the central fact of the early preaching of the Apostles: “Jesus is risen. He is the Lord.” The glorious resurrection of our Lord is the central reality of our Catholic faith. It is Christ’s victory over sin and death. Without this victory over death, says Saint Paul, all our preaching would be in vain (1 Cor 15: 14-17). It is because of Christ’s resurrection that our own future resurrection is secured. We must therefore lift up our minds and our hearts to the Lord who, as the Psalmist exclaims, is always good and expresses a love for us that has no end (Ps.117).
The first reading of this day is from Acts of the Apostles in which we hear Peter formally opening the mission of the preaching of God’s Word to the nations. His address to Cornelius and his household is the first preaching to non Jews. In it, Peter acclaims God as being impartial, accepting all those who believe in him, Jew and Gentile alike. The second reading, from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, tells us that our hearts, minds and souls should be turned towards heaven, where Christ the Saviour is seated at the Father’s right hand. The Gospel of John tells us the story of the empty tomb that leads the Apostles to understand and to believe in Christ’s resurrection. “Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of the scripture; that he must rise from the dead (Jn 20:9).”
First Reading: Acts of the Apostles 10: 34; 37-43.
Peter addressed Cornelius and his household. ‘You must have heard about the recent happenings in Judaea; about Jesus of Nazareth and how he began in Galilee, after John had been preaching baptism. God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil. Now I, and those with me, can witness to everything he did throughout the countryside of Judaea and in Jerusalem itself: and also to the fact that they killed him by hanging him on a tree, yet three days afterwards God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen, not by the whole people but only by certain witnesses God had chosen beforehand. Now we are those witnesses – we have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead – and he has ordered us to proclaim this to his people and to tell them that God has appointed him to judge everyone, alive or dead. It is to him that all the prophets bear this witness: that all who believe in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth Book of the New Testament, written between 70 and 90 AD by the author of the Gospel according to Luke. Acts is an account of the early preaching about Jesus Christ, the growth of the early Christian community, and the spread of the Christian message. It covers the period from the Ascension of Christ and the Pentecost, to the visit of Saint Paul to Rome, where he was placed under house arrest.
The early chapters of Acts draw a beautiful picture of the Christian community of Jerusalem as they pray together, practice common ownership of property, and preach together. The author attributes the vitality and activity of Christianity to the Holy Spirit, which plays a prominent part in Acts of the Apostles. Three of the key ideas that run throughout Acts are that Christ fulfills promises of the Old Testament, that salvation comes through him, and that the Christian community is the new chosen people.
The very composition of Acts focuses attention on the present, and on spreading Christianity “to the ends of the earth”. Thus, Acts is a fairly detailed account of early Christianity in its progress from Jerusalem to Rome.
In the passage selected for our meditation, we see Peter preaching to a much wider audience than before as he opens the mission and message of Christ to the nations of the world. This is his first address to non-Jews. It begins with the central idea that God is impartial: he wants all men and women to be saved through the proclamation of the Gospel. He tells Cornelius, the first Gentile convert in the history of Christianity, that God has chosen some of them as special witnesses of his resurrection. Christ himself tells his Apostles “You are witnesses of these things,” therefore go and preach repentance and forgiveness in my name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Lk 24: 47-48). That is why Peter and his fellow apostles have to go beyond the confines of their Jewish community and proclaim the message of our Lord’s death and resurrection to humanity as a whole. He demands complete commitment to Jesus, vindicated now that God has raised him to life.
Let us give thanks to God for this day that he made. We rejoice in it and are glad. Alleluia. Let us pray. “Lord Jesus Christ, by your cross and resurrection, you have destroyed death and brought life to those in the grave. May your blessed passion be the joy of the whole world and may the glory of your rising from the tomb ever be our song, O Saviour of the world, living and reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.”
Second Reading: Colossians 3: 1-4.
Since you have been brought to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
The letter to the Colossians is one of what has been referred to as Saint Paul’s “Captivity Epistles,” so called because he wrote them when he was in prison; the others being his letters to the Ephesians, to the Philippians and to Philemon. Early Christian tradition considers that Paul wrote this letter to the Colossians during his first Roman imprisonment in the period between 61-63 AD.
In Saint Paul’s time, Colossae was a small city in Asia Minor, about 100 miles inland from the port of Ephesus in what is modern day Turkey. Most of the inhabitants of this region were Gentiles, although it also had a sizeable Jewish community. The origins of the Church of Colossae lie in Saint Paul’s long stay in Ephesus during his second apostolic journey, when as a result of his preaching, as we hear in Acts of the Apostles (19:10), “all the residents of Asia heard the world of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.:
Among those who listened to Saint Paul and is thought to have probably founded the Colossian Church was a man called Epaphrasus who himself was, at least for a little while, a prisoner with Paul in Rome. He had apparently traveled to Rome to inform Paul of the state of the church in Colossae, especially in light of the heresy that was developing within that church.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians was therefore aimed at addressing some of these concerns raised by Epaphrasus. In the short passage the church has selected for our meditation this day, Saint Paul urges his converts to look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is. The theme of this letter is Christ, head of his body the Church. Because of the victory Christ has won for us, Paul says that we, his Church, can never be tied to human powers, standards and regulations. Our hearts and minds should therefore be turned towards heaven rather than towards earthly things.
Let us pray: “Almighty and ever living God, you sealed a covenant of reconciliation with us in the mystery of Christ’s passing from death to life. May we come to everlasting joy by a holy keeping of these Easter festivities. We ask this through Christ our risen Lord. Amen. Alleluia!"
Gospel: John 20: 1-9.
It was early on the first day of the week and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been moved away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. They have taken the Lord out of the tomb’ she said ‘and we don’t know where they have put him.’ So Peter set out with the other disciple to go to the tomb. They ran together, but the other disciple, running faster than Peter, reached the tomb first; but did not go in. Simon Peter, who was following, came up, went right into the tomb, saw the linen cloths on the ground, and also the cloth that had been over his head; this was not with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had reach the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed. Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
The glorious resurrection of the Lord is the key to interpreting his whole life, and the ground of our faith. Furthermore, the guarantee of our future resurrection is secured upon the resurrection of Christ, because although we were dead through sin, God, full of mercy, moved by the infinite compassion with which he loved, gave us Christ and he raised us with him (Eph 2: 4-6). Easter is the celebration of our redemption, and therefore the celebration of thanksgiving and joy.
Our Lord’s glorious resurrection is, of course, the central reality of our Christian faith and the Church has preached this reality from the dawn of Christianity. We believe that Christ died; he rose from the dead and is alive. Without this victory over death, says Saint Paul (1 Cor. 15: 14-17), all our preaching would be useless and our faith in vain.
Christ’s resurrection is the great light for the world. As Christ himself said: I am the light; the light for all ages, for every society, for each and everyone of us. Last night, as we participated in the liturgy of the Easter vigil, the Church at the outset was in total darkness, the darkness in which we plunged ourselves without Christ, without the revelation of God. Then, in an instant, the chief celebrant proclaimed the exhilarating wonderful news: “May the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.” And from the light of the Easter candle, symbolizing Christ, all the faithful received the light and the darkened church was now illuminated with the beautiful light of the Easter candle and the candles of all the faithful assembled. It is that light the Church floods the entire earth with this day and always, illuminating the world that lies in the darkness of sin.
The resurrection of Christ is a powerful call to all of us to be light and to carry the light to others. So at Easter, we celebrate much more than the resurrection of Christ. Cameroonian priest, Father Stephen Forbi, of the Society of Jesus, tells us, in his beautiful book, Harden Not Your Hearts, that Easter is not only the celebration of life over death, it is also an invitation to us all to open the closed doors of our hearts so Christ can walk into our lives and free us from the prison of greed and anger, in much the same way as God freed Christ himself from the imprisonment of the tomb. Easter invites us, continues Father Stephen Forbi, to open our hearts and trust in Jesus as our helper, Saviour and comforter. Easter invites us to open our hearts and love once more because when our hearts were closed like the tomb, we rejected Jesus and hated and gossiped about our neighbour.
Let’s open our hearts and let others too walk into our lives. Easter is the time for us to pick up the broken pieces of our lives and start all over again with the firm conviction that Christ will not abandon us. Easter is good news for us Christians that nothing can destroy us – no pain, no sorrow, no sin, no rejection should make us lose heart anymore. Easter is the birthday of Christians into life. So, concludes Father Stephen Forbi, let us open wide the doors of our hearts to love, trust and hope. Christ is risen and he is alive! Alleluia!
Let us pray: “We give you heartfelt thanks, most merciful Father, for receiving us as your own children and for incorporating us into your holy Church: and we humbly ask that, as partakers of the death of your Son, we may also be partakers of his resurrection, be inheritors of your everlasting kingdom; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. Alleluia!”
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