10 EASTER’s ECHOES

1. Easter of Resurrection, because “he died and rose again” (1 Thes 4:14). When we confess Christ risen, we do not simply say that his tomb was found empty, but that he lives to give us life. When every trial is transformed into grace, every sadness and suffering into joy, every sin into forgiveness. When we free ourselves from all our slavery, and we too pass from death to life, it is the Easter of Resurrection.

2. Easter of Glory, because “it was necessary for Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory” (Lk 24:26). Even if our struggles very often end in failure, even if our dreams do not come true, even if our sacrifices seem sterile, we can cry out that death is not the absolute end of life; what we have sown with effort and love in our life will become the Easter of glory.

3. Easter of the Lord, because the disciples said: “We have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:25). And calling Him “Lord” means that He is the foundation, the purpose and the destiny of man, of the world and of history. In His resurrection, Jesus Christ re-lives fully, and lives everything for God and for men; and this is the life that Jesus communicates to his own. He is the salvation already present and the future salvation in its fullness, because He is the Lord.

4. Eucharistic Easter, because they recognised “in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35). A bread that does not stimulate for a moment, but gives life forever. Jesus is encountered in the Eucharist and from there Jesus speaks to the heart and fills it with his grace. When one experiences the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the eyes of the heart open and one sees God in everything, like the disciples at the Easter of Emmaus.

5. Easter of Life, because Christ “is risen from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). The life of the believer is not anguished solitude, but an experience shared with the Risen One. Now we know that we come from God, that we are made in his image and that our vocation is to reproduce the characteristics of Christ (Rom 8:29). We cannot seek among the dead the One who is alive.

6. Easter of Sanctification, because the risen Christ has offered “the forgiveness of sins” (Jn 20:22). Christ wanted the Church to be a sign and instrument of forgiveness and reconciliation that was obtained for us at the price of his blood for a holy Easter.

7. Easter of Joy, because the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord (Jn 20:20). Christians are not the people of a dead man, but the people of the Risen One. Easter joy gives true meaning and sense to all human life. Hope and joy are the characteristics of man’s spiritual life. Despite the crosses and sufferings of life, the end will always and inevitably be the victorious joy of Easter resurrection.

8. Easter of Peace, because the risen Jesus repeated: “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:21). It is possible to bring peace, to offer peace, an overflowing peace that always comes from the possession of God and his grace and that manifests itself in the serenity of the soul, in the integrity of the body, in full happiness, in the guarantee of heaven. Peace with God, peace with brothers, peace with oneself, peace with creation, because Christ is our peace.

9. Missionary Easter, because the risen Jesus said: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21). For those who live with the Easter, their faith cannot remain indifferent to the world, to society, to the peripheries, to the Church. We are a missionary Church “going out” towards the world and men following the command of Jesus: “Go into all the world” (Mt 28). The Church of the Lord is all the more a Church when it is more open to the evangelisation of the world for a proper Easter of resurrection.

10. Communitarian Easter, because “Jesus came and stood among them” (Jn 20:19). The community is the community of each and every person with Christ. He always unites! Community life does not consist in being together or collaborating as members of a team who carry out a task of a social or apostolic nature but in being truly united with Christ and among oneself. The community makes Christ present for an Easter of resurrection.

Rev. Prof. Merlin Rengith Ambrose

(Executive Secretary, Commission for Canon Law, CCBI)