Easter Message

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

“Christ is risen!” There is an ancient Christian custom called the Paschal Greeting.  This custom is preserved in many parts of the world.  It is like saying “good morning” to someone. Like all greetings, it is meant to elicit a friendly response. A person first says, “Christ is risen,” then the other responds by saying: “He is risen, indeed.” There are variations on the wording of the greeting and response, but you get the idea.

 The greeting tells us something about the way Christians, both ancient and modern, understood and appreciated the significance of the Paschal Victory of Christ over death. The Easter event is first of all the joyful news that is exchanged gratefully by the assembly of believers. This is a news that cannot be fully experienced alone. Believers share the news with each other, just like the first disciples of the Lord shared the news when they first heard it.  Christ did not suffer the Cross and die, and then rise again just for me, or just you. He did it for each one, and when we profess this truth in a greeting, our very dialogue is a profession of faith in the reality of the Church as the assembly of those who live in the unity of faith in the redemptive work of the Savior. The dialogue that is the Paschal Greeting witnesses to the fact that the “you and I” of daily experience are suddenly a “we” in the light of Christ Risen.

At the Easter Vigil, and during the Masses of Easter Sunday, the news is announced, and the faithful respond joyfully. As in the days of Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, the news consoles and uplifts. The Lord whom we know was Just and Merciful, and who was unjustly and mercilessly condemned to death on the Cross, is risen. Death has not defeated Him, and the path to life He preached and exemplified is fully vindicated. This news fortifies our hope that the love of God we have experienced in the person and message of the Lord truly breaks through the circled orb of the world. The light of eternity shines onto us as a manifestation of the triumph of truth and goodness and beauty. What we had often grown tired of hoping could be truly possible for our lives, is shown to be transcendently real.  This is the grace of faith and hope, crowned by the gift of charity generated in the hearts of believers.

But this ancient greeting, so simple yet so profound, signals for us also that this news cannot be contained only within the confines of the Church. It must be announced to the world. Here, the point is that believers must look beyond their own pews, into the wider world, in order to make known that hope is truly reborn in the rising of Christ from the dead. So, if we say “Christ is risen,” to someone who does not belong to any religion, or who finds him or herself agnostic before the issue of God’s existence and goodness, we invite a response. It may not be the same response initially that we get in Church. Maybe someone will say: “Really? How do you know?” Although, for politeness, most non-believers might just say “that’s nice.” And in recognizing the many different kinds of responses we might get outside the Church to our greeting, we come face to face with our task in the New Evangelization. How do we respond to an uncertain response? How do we show and say that the experience of the risen Christ is marvelously real, and that it is possible for us to hope again in the goodness of human life, and in its final destiny in the goodness and mercy of God? The world is a sad place without this news, and without this conviction that in the end, by God’s grace, life triumphs over death. It is up to us to renew the springs of hope that course through our culture.

In a world where death seems so often to reign unchallenged, may the light of the Risen One fill your days, your families, and your loved ones with new hope in the unstoppable triumph of life and mercy.

“Christ is risen!”

“He is risen, indeed!”

Amen.

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