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Easter Sunday (C)

April 20, 2025

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Kyrie

Gloria

Collect

O God, who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection
may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Acts 10:34a, 37-43

Peter began to speak to those assembled in the house of Cornelius. 36 “You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ— he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 “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. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Responsorial Psalm Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23

R/. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.

Second Reading I Cor 5:6b-8

Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 8 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.

Sequence Victimae paschali laudes

Christians praise the Paschal Victim Offer thankful sacrifice. Christ the Lamb has saved the sheep; Christ the Just One paid the price, Reconciling sinners to the Father. Death and Life fought bitterly For this wondrous victory; The Lord of life who died Reigns glorified! O Mary, come and say What you saw at break of day. "The empty tomb of my living Lord! I saw Christ Jesus risen, and adored!" Bright angels testified, Shroud and grave-cloths side by side! "Yes, Christ my hope rose gloriously. He goes before you into Galilee." Share the good news, sing joyfully: His death is victory! Lord Jesus, victor King, show us mercy. Amen. Alleluia!

Alleluia Cf. 1 Cor 5:7b-8a

Gospel Jn 20:1-9

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 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.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings 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 understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

Catena Nova

"O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory?" Christ is risen, and you are overthrown! Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen! Christ is risen, and the Angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and Life reigns! Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the tombs! For Christ being raised from the dead, has become the first-fruits of them that slept. To Him be glory and dominion through all the ages of ages! (St. John Chrysostom)

We awaken in Christ's body as Christ awakens our bodies, and my poor hand is Christ. He enters my foot, and is infinitely me. I move my hand, and wonderfully my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him (for God indivisibly whole, seamless in his Godhood.) I move my foot, and at once He appears in a flash of lightning. Do my words seem blasphemous? - Then open your heart to Him And let yourself receive the one who is opening to you so deeply. For if we genuinely love him, we wake up inside Christ's body Where all our body, all over, every most hidden part of it, is realized as joy in Him, and He makes us utterly real. And everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, is in Him transformed and recognized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in His light.
We awaken as the Beloved in every last part of our body. (Symeon the New Theologian)

This is the day that knows no evening, the day whose sun will never set again. Once that sun went down but now, once and for all, it has ascended above the heavens, leading death itself captive. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad. And what about you? Do you watch daily at the threshold of wisdom’s house, fixing your eyes on the doorway and keeping vigil like Mary Magdalen? She kept vigil at the tomb and if you do you will find what she found. Jesus, like wisdom, hastens to make himself known to those who long for him. While it was still dark Mary came to watch at the tomb and she found Jesus! He was standing there in the flesh! Perhaps you think that you can know him only in the Spirit. Yes, you can be sure of finding his spiritual presence. If he observes you persevering prayer, he will come to you in this way. So, say to the Lord what Mary did: “My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks for you”. But you can also find him even in the flesh. Recall his own words: “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters you did for me!” If your eyes are opened by faith you can see the Lord in these brothers and sisters! You can reach out to them and care for them and not let them go away unaided. How can you help them? You can help them to a more alive faith so they too see the face of Christ in one another—even in you. (Guerric of Igny)

Christ was in the tomb; the whole world was sown with the seed of Christ’s life; that which happened thirty years ago in the womb of the Virgin Mother was happening now, but now it was happening yet more secretly, yet more mysteriously, in the womb of the whole world. Christ had already told those who flocked to hear Him preach that the seed must fall into the earth, or else remain by itself alone. Now the seed of His life was hidden in darkness in order that His life should quicken in countless hearts, over and over again for all time. His burial, which seemed to be the end, was the beginning. It was the beginning of Christ-life in multitudes of souls. It was the beginning, too, of the renewal of Christ’s life in countless souls. (Caryll Houselander)

Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depth of human nature, as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise God in the name of all the creatures that ever were or ever will be. I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me....When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God. (Thomas Merton)

Christ is risen because by death he has conquered and delivered Earthly existence at its very core. And, in rising, he has retained this core. And so he has remained. When we confess him as risen to God in Heaven, we are saying that he is withdrawing from us his concrete transfigured humanity for a little while, and we are saying, moreover, that there is no longer a chasm between God and the world. Christ is already at the very heart of all the lowly things of the Earth that we are unable to let go of and that belong to the Earth as mother. He is at the heart of the nameless yearning of all creatures, waiting – though perhaps unaware that they are waiting – to be allowed to participate in the transfiguration of his body. He is at the heart of Earth’s history, whose blind progress amidst all victories and all defeats is headed with uncanny precision toward the day that is his, where his glory will break forth from its own depths, thereby transforming everything. He is at the heart of all tears and all death as concealed rejoicing and as the life that gains victory by its apparent death. He is at the heart of one’s handing something to a beggar as the secret wealth that is bestowed on the giver. He is at the heart of the miserable defeats of his servants as the victory that is God’s. He is at the heart of our weakness as the power that is allowed to appear weak because it is invincible. He is even at the heart of sin as the patient mercy of everlasting love that remains until the end. As the most secret law and the innermost nature of all things, he is what still triumphs and prevails when all other laws appear to be dissolving. He is with us like the light of the day and the air to which we pay no attention, like the secret law of a movement, a law that we do not grasp because the duration of the movement that we can experience is too short to allow us to detect its underlying formula. But he is here, the heart of this Earthly world and the secret seal of its everlasting promise. (Karl Rahner)

Christ died and rose once for all, and for everyone, but the power of the Resurrection, this Passover from slavery to evil to the freedom of goodness, must be accomplished in every age, in our concrete existence, in our everyday lives. How many deserts, even today, do human beings need to cross! Above all, the desert within, when we have no love for God or neighbor, when we fail to realize that we are guardians of all that the Creator has given us and continues to give us. God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones. So this is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives, too; and let us become agents of his mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation, and make justice and peace flourish. And so we ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace. Yes, Christ is our peace, and through him, we implore peace for all the world. (Pope Francis)

Homily

It's almost as hard to believe she didn’t recognize him as it is to believe he rose from the dead early [that] morning, on the first day of the week. When she saw the stone had been moved away; after she ran off to Simon Peter and the other disciple to tell them what she found; after the two of them came and went, while she stayed outside the tomb, weeping (cf. G). It’s hard to believe the rest of the story.

How the gospel goes on to say she soon spotted someone near the tomb coming toward her, someone who asked her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for (G)? And, hard to believe, she thought it was the gardener. But it wasn’t. Not until he called her by name -- Mary – did she know who it was.

So we might well ask, “How could she fail to recognize him?” After all, she was his disciple in Galilee. . .[where] he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (I), casting from her seven demons. And she was among the women who followed him from Galilee to Jerusalem, one of the few who stood with him to the end, by the cross. How is it that she, the first witness of the resurrection — the Apostle of the apostles as she will be called — how is it that she did not know him? Even when he appeared later that evening to the Eleven, they knew him. The marks on his hands and his feet were a dead giveaway. But not Mary Magdalene: not at first.

Now you might think there’s an easy answer to this. She didn’t recognize him for one simple reason: no one in their right mind would think a man crucified three days ago would be found alive this morning. After all, we tend to see only what we expect to see, and little else. People look right through what they don’t think should be there, even when it’s staring them in the face. Still, I don’t believe that’s a good enough answer to why she, of all people, failed to see who was standing there, right in front of her.

Perhaps it has something to do with the little exchange between them, before she knew who it was, when Jesus called her Woman. It’s at that point she fails to recognize him. For she was still in the realm of the familiar, of custom, of what she would expect from any man. But when he calls her by name, Mary, all of a sudden she knows who it is. For something made him address her differently, more freely, less bound to the past. He was changed and all of a sudden she changed too — suddenly open to seeing and hearing something new. They saw each other differently.

Now I’m sure there was a time in your life when some change made people wonder if it was really you who said or did this or that. When something that lay buried deep inside you got out, and people had no idea what to make of it: to the point they might have said, "He's not himself." "She 's like a different person." And you felt unrecognized even by those closest to you.

In times like these we’re ripe for new ways of relating to others, and others to us: for changing the ways we perceive them and they us -- as Jesus changed his perception of the Magdalene from “Woman” to “Mary” and she her perception of him, from the gardener to Rabbouni and finally to Lord (G).

And in moments like these we might well insist others no longer cling to familiar expectations of us, but let go of them and respect what’s changed about us — indeed to welcome it and help us leave former ways behind and “ascend” to new ones. For when a person moves away from something that has died about them toward something new, it’s not right when others think of you as before. And those who are open to it will see you in a different light, and let you speak and relate to them in new ways: as Mary did Jesus, and Jesus, Mary.

While those who insist on clinging to what you were before will never recognize you for what you’ve become. Even Mary Magdalene soon fell into former ways. As soon as she recognized Jesus, she ran to embrace him, to something familiar. But he told her, Do not hold on to me (G). See, things were different between them now. She had to relate to him on a whole new basis: one that required she let go of what he was before.

So it seems Easter is all about a God who transforms us. A God who calls us to leave empty tombs behind where we no longer belong, where we can no longer stay wrapped in what we’ve outgrown: a God who calls us to be healed of unclean spirits that oppress us, to a new and more abundant life, a God who asks us to clear out the old yeast so that [we] may become a new batch [of dough] (cf. II).

So we can truly celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (II): the very bread we’re about to break transformed into Body, and wine into Blood -- given to us who eat and drink with Christ after he rose from the dead (cf. I): Body and Blood recognized by those who are open to seeing the change in them. For the Eucharist is the sacrament of our transformation, the sign of God’s power to turn us from the old ways of death to ones that give life: just as our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed (II). Who lives and reigns, forever and ever.

Renewal of Baptismal Promises

Intercessions (cf. Pope Francis; Urbi et orbi)

God of undying life, by your mighty hand you raised up Jesus from the grave and appointed him judge of the living and the dead. Bestow upon those baptised into his death the power flowing from his resurrectionn that we may proclaim near and far the pardon and peace you give us. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Antiphon

Offertory Hymn

Behold the end of night and dawn of day: Why have you stood at the grave, O Mary? Great darkness covered your mind, So you asked the angel: Where has Jesus been placed? Behold, his disciples who hastened to the tomb saw a sign of his Resurrection in the burial wrappings and the cloth and remembered what was said about him in the Scriptures. Therefore, we who believe through them praise you, O Christ, the Giver of Life.

When Mary saw two angels inside the grave, she was seized with fright. She did not recognize Christ but thought him the gard’ner. She said to him: Sir, where have you placed the body of Jesus? She knew from his voice that he was the Savior, and she obeyed him when he said: Touch me not, for I am going to my Father. Tell this to my disciples.

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