Resurrection, Léonard Limo Sin [Web Gallery of Art]
The Easter Vigil in
the Holy Night
Readings (New
American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings
(Jerusalem
Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
At the Mass during
the Day
Readings
(Jerusalem
Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Note that the above links also give alternative gospels that may be read on Easter Sunday.
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. 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.’ Then Peter
and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two
were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb
first. He bent
down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon
Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings
lying there, and the
cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but
rolled up in a place by itself. Then the
other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and
believed; for as yet
they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
John 20:1-9 from The Gospel of John
I
remember as a young priest, maybe in the summer of 1968 about six months after
my ordination, celebrating Sunday Mass in the chapel of the Irish Sisters of
Charity (now the Religious Sisters of Charity)
in Stanhope Street, Dublin, where I had made my First Holy Communion on 20 May
1950. The beautiful chapel is no longer there.
I
remember clearly that my mother was at the Mass and that I preached about the
Resurrection, probably quite eloquently and certainly with conviction.
However,
it was only when my mother died suddenly less that two years later that I got
any real grasp of what the Resurrection is. Within hours of receiving the news
at breakfast time in New York, where I was studying, I felt its truth in my
very being.
I
preached again about the Resurrection in the presence of my mother's remains at
her funeral Mass, again with conviction and maybe with some eloquence as
before. But my conviction, my faith in the Resurrection, was now rooted in my
heart, not just in my head.
After
the Mass my father, a man of deep quiet faith who went to Mass every day of his
life right up to the day of his own sudden death in 1987, told me that he had
felt utterly desolate going into the church but now felt at peace. A cousin's
husband thanked me for speaking about what really matters. Nearly 40 years
later a fellow Columban, who had been present while
a seminarian, told me that he still preaches in his funeral homilies in Japan
whatever I had said at my mother's funeral Mass. I really have no idea what I
said but I remember vividly the change in my understanding of the Resurrection
during those days.
Anniversary of 1994 genocide in Rwanda
But the hope that the Death and
Resurrection of Jesus is not only for us as individuals. It can bring hope and
reconciliation to a whole nation. In 1994 in Rwanda, an overwhelmingly Christian
nation, more than half of its then between seven and eight million people
Catholics, between 500,000 and 1,000,000, mostly members of the minority Tutsi
people, were slaughtered between 7 April and the middle of July.
In the video above a man who lived through it, probably as a child, says outside a church in Kigali, the country's
capital, Today's Mass was about Resurrection. And I believe that one
day the souls of the people we lost will resurrect. Sister Mujawayezu Marie
Anastasie, a survivor of the genocide, says, I think now that
things are like before, even better than before. People are good to each other,
talking. People trust each other. For what I see it seems OK but I do not know
what's inside a person's heart.
Sister Mujawayezu's words express some
uncertainty but trust and hope win out. This is a fruit of the Resurrection,
that God's love has conquered evil and death. And the Rwandan Genocide was the
result mainly of neighbour killing neighbour. There have been reports and
photos in the media in recent years of individuals who had killed other individuals
not only asking forgiveness of someone they had widowed but working with that
widow to enable her to have a livelihood.
It is acts such as these that remind us
of the truth of the Resurrection, of the presence of the Risen Lord among us,
still carrying the scars of his Crucifixion, as the people of Rwanda who have
asked for forgiveness or who have forgiven their former enemies still carry the
scars of 1994.
Syrian refugees in Lebanon [Wikipedia]
The civil war in Rwanda was
short and brutal. That in Lebanon lasted from 1975 to 1990 with an
estimated 120,000 deaths and about a million leaving the country. Today it is
affected by the ongoing civil war in neighbouring Syria.
The people of Lebanon are
Arabs, nearly 40 percent of them Christian. Most of those are Maronite
Catholics who have always been in full communion with Rome. The vast majority
of Christians in the Middle East are Arabs, in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Palestine,
Syria. They are descended from the very earliest Christians. Islam originated
nearly six centuries after the death and Resurrection of Jesus.
Like the people of
Rwanda, the people of Lebanon carry the scars of their civil war. But the
Christians there also carry the living grace of the Resurrection of Jesus. I
have used the video below a number of times before but I know of no more joyful
proclamation of the Resurrection than Jesus is Risen, sung here in
Arabic in a shopping mall in Beirut three years ago at Eastertime.
No translation is
necessary, though you can switch on the English captions. You can see the look
of surprise on the face of a Filipina taking caring of a child and the look of
delight on the face of a young Muslim woman.
The truth and joy of the
Resurrection being proclaimed in Arabic by professional singers in a mall in
Beirut, Lebanon
Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia!
He is risen as he said, Alleluia!
Happy Easter!
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