Jesus is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

JESUS IS RISEN! ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA! Fr. Benny Mekkatt, CFIC

“He is not here, for he has been raised.” Jesus is Risen Alleluia, Alleluia. After forty days rigorous

preparation, today we come to the culmination of this liturgical season and begin a new glorious season

of joy and peace. Today we come together to enter into a new life with the risen Lord, to renew our

baptismal commitment to the Lord and to become a new creation to walk with the Lord, the crucified,

died and risen one. Easter is the greatest and the most important feast in the Church. Easter is the

center of our faith. That is why St. Paul says “If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith

is empty and our preaching is senseless.” (I Cor. 15:14.) Easter, the feast of the resurrection, gives us

the joyful message that we are a ‘resurrection people.' This means that we are not supposed to lie

buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits and dangerous addictions. It gives us the good news that no

tomb can hold us down anymore - not the tomb of despair, discouragement, doubt nor death. Remove

the stones that is holding us in the cave and come out to the true freedom of resurrection. There is

salvation for all of us in our Risen Lord.

In the post resurrection stories, we Jesus accompanies the broken hearted and discouraged disciples to

redirect and encourage them. Though almost everyone abandoned Jesus during his time of passion, he

doesn’t abandon and blame them. Rather, he returns looking for them and joins them in their agonies

and abandonment to empower them to be his messengers in the world. The same risen savior

accompanies us in our struggles and difficulties. The living presence of the resurrected Lord gives us

lasting peace and celestial joy amid the boredom, suffering, pain and tensions of our day-to-day life.

Even in the midst of the pandemic affecting the entire world, Jesu wants to fill us with hope and love.

“Peace be with you” was his salutation to his disciples on all post-resurrection appearances. Easter gives

us the assurance that Good Friday is not the end: Easter reminds us that every Good Friday in our lives

will have an Easter Sunday, and that Jesus will let us share the power of his resurrection. Each time we

continue to hope – even when our hope seems unanswered – we share in the power of Jesus’

resurrection. Finally Resurrection is about seeing our world in a new way. Early that Easter morning,

Mary did not find what she was looking for, the dead body of Jesus. But she found something better

than she could have imagined: the risen Jesus. Sometimes, the things we think we want most are not

granted to us. What we get instead is an experience of God’s new ways of working in the world. That’s

the power of the resurrection. When those moments come, we must spread the news--just as Mary

Magdalene did: We have seen the Lord!

Wish you all a Blessed and Happy Easter!