'An encounter with a Person, with Christ, dead and Risen.' Sunday Reflections, Easter Sunday

Resurrection of Christ

Francesco Bassano [Web Gallery of Art]

The notes on Web Gallery of Art state: Resurrection of Christ was commissioned for the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore (Church of the Most Holy Redeemer) - built in thanksgiving for deliverance from the plague that decimated Venice from 1575 to 1576, in which some 46,000 people died. 

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 (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

          

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel John 20:1-9 (New Revised  Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

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.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

John 20:1-9 in Filipino Sign Language

At the great feasts of the Church, Easter, Pentecost and Christmas, I find myself tongue-tied. I look to others to express something of the meaning of these celebrations. Here is the Regina Coeli talk that Pope Benedict XVI gave on Easter Monday 2007. I have highlighted parts of his address in which the Pope calls each of us to proclaim the Gospel in our daily lives. He also reminds us, as he did so often, that our Christian faith is not born from the acceptance of a doctrine but from an encounter with a Person, with Christ, dead and Risen.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are still filled with the spiritual joy that the solemn celebrations of Easter truly bring to believers' hearts. Christ is risen! The liturgy devotes to this immense mystery not only a day - it would be too little for such joy-, but at least 50 days, that is, the entire Easter Season, which ends with Pentecost.

Easter Sunday, moreover, is an absolutely special day which extends for the whole of this week until next Sunday and forms the Octave of Easter.

In the atmosphere of Paschal joy, today's liturgy takes us back to the sepulchre where, according to St Matthew's account, impelled by their love for him, Mary of Magdala and the other Mary went to ‘visit’ Jesus' tomb. The Evangelist tells us that he comes to meet them and says: ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me’ (Mt 28: 10).

The joy they felt at seeing their Lord was truly indescribable and, filled with enthusiasm, they ran to tell the disciples.

The Risen One also repeats to us today, as to these women who stayed by Jesus during the Passion, not to be afraid to become messengers of the proclamation of his Resurrection. Those who encounter the Risen Jesus and entrust themselves docilely to him have nothing to fear. This is the message that Christians are called to spread to the very ends of the earth.

The Christian faith, as we know, is not born from the acceptance of a doctrine but from an encounter with a Person, with Christ, dead and Risen.

In our daily lives, dear friends, there are so many opportunities to proclaim this faith of ours to others simply and with conviction, so that from our encounter their faith can grow.

And it is more urgent than ever that the men and women of our age know and encounter Jesus, and, also thanks to our example, allow themselves to be won over by him.

The Gospel says nothing about the Mother of the Lord, of Mary, but Christian tradition rightly likes to contemplate her while with joy greater than anyone else's she embraces her divine Son, whom she had held close when he was taken down from the Cross. Now, after the Resurrection, the Mother of the Redeemer rejoices with Jesus' ‘friends’, who constitute the new-born Church.

As I renew my heartfelt Easter greetings to you all, I invoke her, the Regina Caeli [Queen of Heaven], so that she may keep alive in each one of us faith in the Resurrection and may make us messengers of the hope and love of Jesus Christ.

Deacon singing the Exsultet [Wikipedia]

The Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation sung at the beginning of the Easter Vigil after the blessing of the Paschal Candle, contains these remarkable words: 

O certe necessárium Adæ peccatum,

quod Christi morte delétum est!

O felix culpa,

quæ talem ac tantum méruit habére Redemptórem!

'O truly necessary sin of Adam,

destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!

'O happy fault

that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!'

Scottish poet Edwin Muir (1887-1959) captures something of the meaning of this in his poem One Foot in Eden, which is included in the poetry section of the Breviary used in Australia, England & Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

One Foot in Eden

One foot in Eden still, I stand

And look across the other land.

The world’s great day is growing late,

Yet strange these fields that we have planted

So long with crops of love and hate.

Time’s handiworks by time are haunted,

And nothing now can separate

The corn and tares compactly grown.

The armorial weed in stillness bound

About the stalk; these are our own.

Evil and good stand thick around

In fields of charity and sin

Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root

As clean as on the starting day.

Time takes the foliage and the fruit

And burns the archetypal leaf

To shapes of terror and of grief

Scattered along the winter way.

But famished field and blackened tree

Bear flowers in Eden never known.

Blossoms of grief and charity

Bloom in these darkened fields alone.

What had Eden ever to say

Of hope and faith and pity and love

Until was buried all its day

And memory found its treasure trove?

Strange blessings never in Paradise

Fall from these beclouded skies.

Music for Easter


Regina Coeli
Gregorian Chant

Regina Coeli
Setting by Tomás Luis deVictoria, sung by Voces 8

Regina caeli, laetare, alleluia;

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia,

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

℣. Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, alleluia.

℟. Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.

Oremus.

Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi, mundum laetificare dignatus es: praesta, quaesumus, ut, per eius Genetricem Virginem Mariam, perpetuae capiamus gaudia vitae. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. ℟. Amen.

The musical setting is of the words in bold. During the Easter Season these are sung or recited at the end of Compline, the Church's Night Prayer.

The whole text is recited instead of the Angelus during the Easter Season, traditionally at noon and at 6pm, and sometimes at 6am or early in the morning.

Below are the words in Irish and in English.

Déan gairdeas, a Bhanríon na bhflaitheas, alleluia,

Óir an Té arbh fhiú thú é a iompar, alleluia.
D’aiséirigh sé mar a dúirt, alleluia,

Guigh orainn chun Dé, alleluia.

R. Déan áthas agus gairdeas, a Mhaighdean Mhuire, alleluia,

F. Óir d’éirigh an Tiarna go fíor, alleluia.

Guímis

A Dhia a dheonaigh áthas a thabhairt don domhan trí aiséirí do Mhic, ár dTiarna Íosa Críost, tabhair dúinn, impímid ort, trí idirghuí na Maighdine Muire, a Mháthair, go bhfaighimis gairdeas na beatha síoraí. Tríd an gCríost céanna ár dTiarna. Amen.

Queen of Heaven, rejoice. Alleluia.
For He, whom thou wast worthy to bear. Alleluia.
Has risen as He said. Alleluia.
Pray for us to God. Alleluia.

V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary. Alleluia.
R. Because the Lord is truly risen, Alleluia.

Let us pray

O God, Who by the Resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, hast been pleased to give joy to the whole world, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may attain the joys of eternal life. Through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Setting by William Byrd

Sung by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, England

At the Mass during the Day

Antiphona ad communionem    Communion Antiphon 1 Cor 5:7-8

Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus, alleluia;

Christ our Passover has been sacrificed, alleluia;

itaque epulemur in azymiz sinceritatis et veritatis, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

therefore let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread if purity and turth, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

An Easter Song from Beirut, Lebanon, 2011

Lebanon is a country that has suffered greatly through wars. The Civil War lasted from 1975 to 1990 with great loss of life. Another war occurred in 2006. But above is a joyful proclamation in Arabic of the Resurrection of Jesus recorded at Easter 2011 in a shopping mall in Beirut. The population of Lebanon is estimated to be 6.8 million. 54 per cent are Muslims and about 40 per cent Christians. More than half of these are Maronite Catholics, in full communion with Rome. The rest are Catholics of other rites and members of various Orthodox churches. The video too may remind us that most of the Christians in the Middle East are Arabs and descendants of the earliest Christians.. 

May the joy of the Resurrection shown by these singers who had lived through wars be a sign of hope for us at this Easter in the midst of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic that has made it impossible for most of us to celebrate our greatest Christian feast in church.

The Resurrection

Passignano [Web Gallery of Art]

'And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush . . .' Sunday Reflections, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Moses before the Burning Bush, Domenico Fetti, 1613-14

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 20:27-38 [or 20:27, 34-38] (NewRevised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus(.) [and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man  shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless;  then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’]

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’

Fr William Spicer (1949 - 2009)

Seven years ago a Columban colleague of mine, Fr Willie Spicer, died suddenly in Ireland at the age of 59. And in a very real sense he preached at his own funeral. The homilist, Columban Fr Michael Scully, a very close friend of Father Willie because of their many years in Japan, told a remarkable story of how central the Resurrection was in the late priest's preaching at funerals and of how a man was led to the faith by this. Here is part of the homily of Father Scully. I have highlighted some passages.

Over that period of eight or nine years Willie and I enjoyed a game of golf together on a regular basis even though we lived quite far apart. Willie was pastor at the Church in Chigasaki City in the Diocese of Yokohama; I was assigned to a church in the Archdiocese of Tokyo about 80 miles away from where Willie lived. Sometimes before our game of golf I would stay overnight at Willie’s house.

On one of those occasions I noticed a painting which I had not seen before on the wall of his living-room. So, I asked him where he got the painting. ‘There is a story behind that’ was his answer. I would like to tell that story as Willie told it to me. These are his words: ‘About a year ago I did a funeral Mass here in Chigasaki Church. And, as usual, during the homily I emphasized that death was not the end of everything; and then went on to talk of Christian hope in the resurrection of the dead’. At this point, Willie paused and turned towards me: ‘I think it is meaningless’ he said, ‘to preach a homily at a wake or funeral Mass if we don’t make some mention of the resurrection of Christ and our own hope in the resurrection. Isn’t that what our Christian faith is all about? It’s because of that faith that we are on mission!’

Those words of Willie were for my benefit, but, needless to say, I was in complete agreement with what he said. However, Willie’s story did not end there. ‘You know’, he said ‘after that funeral Mass an elderly man approached me and said to me “Today was the first time I ever heard a talk like the talk you gave at the Mass. Until now, I had never heard of the resurrection of the dead – and somehow, it makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to hear that homily. If I had a chance I’d like to study the Catholic faith. Do you know if there’s a Catholic Church close to where I live?” And Willie continued, ‘That was about a year ago – something that I did not know at that time was that that man was an artist who lived about a hundred miles away. That painting came from him to me as an expression of thanks – thanks for my homily at the funeral Mass, but also as an expression of profound gratitude for the fact that he was studying the Catholic faith, and in hoping to be baptized in the not too distant future in a church close to where he lives’.

I have told this story because I believe that if Willie Spicer had a chance to speak to us today, he would say to us: ‘It’s all right to feel sad and to grieve on this occasion. I would feel the same way if I were in your place. But, don’t be carried away by sadness and grief. Today’s sadness and grief cannot compare with the joy and the happiness and the glory that will be ours if we but believe that the God who loves us, loves us so much that He gave His only Son for us’.

The Resurrection, Passignano, 1600-25

Pinacoteca, Vatican [Web Gallery of Art]

Today's First Reading and the Gospel - they are always related by a common theme - look at the Resurrection. In the story of the martyrdom of the seven brothers in the Second Book of Maccabees the fourth brother When he was near death, he said, ‘One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life! (2 Maccabees 7:14). 

The Gospel also has a story of seven brothers, in a situation put to Jesus by some Sadducees, a group that didn't believe in the resurrection, that strains credulity. This gives Jesus the opportunity to teach about the resurrection: And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Ireland

I don't go along with the idea that seems to have crept in in recent years of a funeral Mass being 'a celebration of the life' of the deceased. There certainly is a place for celebrating a person's life during the wake or, in the Philippines, during the novena held  in the home of the one who has died or when the family and other mourners gather to eat after the burial. Rather I see the funeral Mass as an occasion above all to pray that the one who has died will share fully in the life that God desires for everyone,

Preface I for the Dead puts it this way:

In him [Christ] the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, 
that those saddened by the certainty of dying 
might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come. 
Indeed for your faithful, Lord, 
life is changed not ended, 
and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, 
an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.

Father Willie Spicer emphasised that belief in the Resurrection and the hope it gives when preaching at funerals. In Japan probably at every funeral Mass he celebrated there were people present who weren't Christians. To them he was proclaiming the central truth of our Christian faith. In the case of the artist he spoke about  that proclamation of our faith and of the hope of the resurrection spoke to his heart and led him to Jesus the Risen Lord.

In November we remember and pray for the dead in a special way. The readings in this Sunday's Mass can lead us to reflect on the reality that one day each of us will be remembered and prayed for by others. May the Collect for the first of the three Masses on The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, 2 November, help us in this:

Listen kindly to our prayers, O Lord, 
and, as our faith in your Son, 
raised from the dead, is deepened, 
so may our hope of resurrection for your departed servants 
also find new strength.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
one God, for ever and ever.

Antiphona ad Communionem        

Communion Antiphon Cf. Ps 22 [23]:1-2

Dóminus regit me, et nihil mihi déerit;

The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want

in loco páscuae ibi me collocávit,

Fresh and Green are the pastures where he gives me repose,

super aquam refectiónis educávit me.

near restful waters he leads me.