Friday in the Octave of Easter

Readings: Acts 4:1-12; Psalm 118:1-2.4.22-24.25-27a; John 21:1-14

Again, Happy Easter! Christus resurrexit! Christos anesti! Despite everything that might weigh us down or cause despair, we hope because Jesus rose from the dead. Because He lives, we can live because, by the power of the Spirit, He can live in us!

Just as Jesus discovered the price of love was death- though, by His resurrection, He proved love is stronger than death- it wasn’t too long before Peter and John discovered the cost of following Christ. Apart from healing in the name of Jesus, these two were arrested and charged with proclaiming the Lord’s resurrection.

When arraigned before the Jewish authorities, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, boldly proclaimed the same Jesus they had condemned to death as the resurrected savior of the world. It was by His power he healed the handicapped man.

When charged with being a Christian, Peter didn’t make a case to the contrary and then anxiously wait to see if he was convicted. Rather, he pled guilty, loudly proclaiming His guilt. By what power or name did I heal the crippled man? The name of Jesus. You know, the guy you had killed!

Jesus Appears on the Shore, by James Tissot, 1886

Proclaiming Christ risen and reigning is the mission entrusted to all 266 of Saint Peter’s successors. You don’t need a doctorate in Church history to know that some of these did a lousy job carrying out this mission. Some even served as counter-witnesses. Thankfully, it’s been centuries since such an unworthy man has walked in the shoes of the Galilean fisherman.

Even during his short pontificate, Leo XIV has boldly proclaimed the Gospel during a time chaos and upheaval. I am quite certain he’s quickly learned, as Peter and John did, the good news is not always well received. Like Peter, this requires proclaiming it more boldly! This the Holy Father has done with persistence, serenity, and gentleness.

In Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Saint Paul VI plainly declared:

Evangelizing is. . . the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection (sec. 14)

In our Gospel today, we can see Peter’s jumping into the water as a kind of baptism and the meal the disciples ate with the Risen Lord as a Eucharist. Indeed, baptism should set someone running from the font to the Lord’s table, eager to partake of the saving sacrifice, the medicine of immortality.

Never forget that you are called to share what you receive here. You receive Christ. You are to share Christ. Because you are a member of Christ’s Body, your mission, your deepest identity, your reason for existing is to proclaim Christ.

Monday in the Octave of Easter

Readings: Acts 2:14.22-33; Psalm 16:1-2.5.7-11; Matthew 28:8-15

Today is not the Monday after Easter. Nor is it Monday of the First of Week of Easter. Today is Monday in the Octave of Easter. Today is Easter!

The Church observes the entire first week of Easter as one day. For those of us who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the hymn, antiphons, and psalmody could easily become numbingly repetitive. Yet, somehow, they don’t, given the enormity of what we celebrate.

What do we celebrate? Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. The Lord’s rising from the tomb is so mind-bending that over nearly two millennia there have been no shortage of theories about what this might mean.

When it comes to Christ’s resurrection, I tend to take it fairly literally. Apart from there being difficulty in some account of recognizing Jesus risen from the dead, there is nothing in Sacred Scripture that indicates the Lord’s resurrection is to be taken in any way other than how it is described by those who claim to be eyewitnesses.

In our Gospel this evening, the two Marys have no difficulty recognizing Jesus, whom they encounter while running to tell the other disciples about the empty tomb. Seeing Him, they worship. Unlike when disciples fell at His feet during His earthly ministry, when He raised them up, He lets these two disciples worship Him in awe.

It is the sense of awe they express that causes the Risen Lord to reassure them by telling them not to be afraid. Due to its spontaneity and sincerity, the worship the two women offer is nearly perfect. It has both immanent and transcendent dimensions. Jesus is concretely “there,” they hug His feet, but He is resurrected and glorified.

While the two disciples went on their way to tell the others, not just that they found Jesus’ tomb empty but that they had seen Him risen, the quandary of the empty tomb had to be dealt with by the chief priests and elders. This leads to the first and even now persistent explanation: Jesus’ disciples took His body from the tomb, placed it somewhere else, and told everyone He rose from the dead. On this account, Christianity is built on a great fraud.

What does it mean to say Jesus rose from the dead? Well, in epistemological terms, it is a justifiable belief as is any belief that is not an outright impossibility, not a logical contradiction. On the contrary, insisting that it is utterly impossible for someone who is dead to come back to life is a bit of a fallacy. But when examined in this way, even a believer is forced to admit that the probability is low.

It is important, therefore, for belief to be bolstered by experience. To experience the Risen Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence, is a sine qua non of being Christian.

While it needs to be deeply personal, one does not have to be a mystic, like, say, Saint Teresa of Avila, to have an encounter with the Risen Christ. In the Eucharist, the Lord’s presence, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the agent of transubstantiation, is mediated to us under the appearance of ordinary bread and wine.

It is this mediation that makes the Eucharist real, tangible, empirical, edible and drinkable. All the sacraments are mediate (i.e., “real”) experiences of the Risen Lord.

Sometimes there is a desire to argue so fervently about the reality of what transubstantiation effects that the only way the bread and wine can make Christ really and truly present is dismissed. Here’s the truth, if sacraments are not both signs and symbols, they are nothing. This isn't to assert anything other than the bread and wine (elements chosen by Christ Himself) are the media used by the Holy Spirit to make Christ truly present.

In the other sacraments, the Spirit uses different media- water and oil, etc.- to effect the Lord's true presence.

Typically, a sign is something that stands in for something else. But the sacraments are “efficacious” signs, meaning they are what they signify. What they signify is really a who, Jesus Christ. This why we can say something like, “The Eucharist is not merely a sign.”

Sacraments are also symbols. “Symbol” comes from the Greek word symbolon. In Greek, symbolon refers to a token that is broken in half and used for the sake of recognition. In ancient times, a symbolon gave someone the right to be accepted by the party that owned the other half.

In the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit transforsm, transsubstantiates, the ordinary elements into Christ and our receiving these connects us to Christ, transforming us into His Body. In many ways, as theologian Henri de Lubac noted, it makes more sense to call the Eucharist Christ’s mystical Body and the Church His true body. After all, it is the Church, His Body, that serves as His hands, His eyes, His heart, His feet in the world. The Church is the sacrament of salvation in and for the world.

Like the two Marys, our worship of the Risen Christ should be spontaneous and heartfelt as we recognize His immanence in breaking of the bread, while at the same time being in awe of this great mystery in which we participate by grace. The Eucharist is the primary place to encounter the Risen Lord until He returns.

Urbi et orbi- Easter 2026

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
LEO XIV

Dear brothers and sisters,
Christ is risen! Happy Easter!

For centuries, the Church has joyfully sung of the event that is the origin and foundation of her faith: “Yes, Christ my hope is arisen / Christ indeed from death is risen / Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning” (Easter Sequence).

Easter is the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred. It is a victory that came at a very high price: Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die — and die on a cross — after suffering an unjust condemnation, being mocked and tortured, and shedding all his blood. As the true immolated Lamb, he took upon himself the sin of the world (cf. Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18–19) and thus freed us all — and with us, all creation — from the dominion of evil.

But how was Jesus able to be victorious? What is the strength with which he defeated once and for all the ancient adversary, the prince of this world (cf. Jn 12:31)? What is the power with which he rose from the dead, not returning to his former life, but entering into eternal life and thus opening in his own flesh the passage from this world to the Father?

This strength, this power, is God himself for he is Love who creates and generates, Love who is faithful to the end and Love who forgives and redeems.

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As it happens, this is the 4,300th post on Καθολικός διάκονος.

The Resurrection of the Lord

Readings: Acts 10:34a.37-43; Psalm 118:1-2.16-17.22-23; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

One of the reasons many people find Christ’s resurrection incomprehensible is that, living in a highly reductive culture, it is thought to be something merely to be believed rather than something to be lived. Christ rising from the dead should never be reduced to merely another fact in the world. Resurrection is a mode of being more than it is a belief.

In baptism, you died, were buried, and rose with Christ to new life. As our reading from Colossians clearly states: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”¹ By looking at your life, could others tell this?

Especially for those, like me, who were baptized as adults, is your new life different from your old life? Are you still conformed to this age, or has the Holy Spirit transformed your mind and your heart?

In few moments, you will renew your baptismal covenant with God. Preparation for this renewal is what Lent is for. This is the moment you were to be preparing for these past six weeks. Are you prepared? Are you ready to re-commit to living resurrection?

Easter is not about remembering an event that happened a long time ago in a land far away. It is not a historical commemoration. It is a commitment, a recommitment, a renewal. Who knows, maybe even a transformation?

As those resurrected, we seek what is above even as we live day-to-day. Far from calling us to evade and avoid the world, life in Christ calls us to a deep engagement with the world. It calls on each of us to testify that Jesus Christ “is the one appointed by God.”²

In the passage from Saint John’s Gospel, nobody sees the risen Lord. All that is revealed to them is an empty tomb in which they find rolled up burial cloths in one place and the cloth that covered Jesus’ head across the chamber.

Hence, Mary Magdalene, Peter and John (who is the disciple whom Jesus loved) are puzzled. “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”³ Nearly 2,000 years later, it is still difficult to understand what it means that Christ rose from the dead.

If you remember the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we also heard from Saint John’s Gospel. We heard about Jesus’ raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. When Jesus told His disciples that they were heading back to Judea upon learning that His friend had died, the reaction was, “Are you kidding me? We left there because they were going to kill you.” It was Thomas, sadly tagged as “doubting Thomas,” who, as Jesus pointed them southward, said, “Let us go die with him.”⁴

It may be easier to comprehend what it means to die with Christ than it is to grasp what it means to live in Him. It stands as a near certainty that Lazarus’ life was never the same after the Lord raised him from the dead. In like manner, our life, after Christ raised us from the waters of baptism should be different.

As to their discovery of the empty tomb prior to having any direct encounter with the Risen Lord, there were various possibilities as to why the tomb was empty. Mary Magadelene points to the most obvious one: someone has taken Jesus’ body and put elsewhere. From then until now, the question, Where is Christ? becomes perennial.

If Christ had not died, had not been raised, did not ascend, and did not send the Holy Spirit, then there would be no possibility of encountering Him today. The Eucharist is the most profound encounter with the Risen Christ. This is why if you really grasped what happens in the Eucharistic sacrifice, no one could keep you away from Mass.

Christ is not content merely to be close to you. He wants to be in you to live through you. It is by means of the sacraments, the Masterworks of the Holy Spirit, that He can do this- if you let Him, if you want Him to. Do you want Him to? That is the question on verge of renewing your baptismal commitment.

Where is Christ today? It is both His desire and His intent to be made present by His Body, the Church, comprised of those who eat His flesh and drink His blood. Mass comes from the Latin missa. Missa indicates, not being dismissed, but being sent. It is also related to missio, or mission. At the end of each Mass, we are sent forth on a mission.

This sending is a big part of what the makes the Church apostolic. An apostle, in Greek, is one who is sent. Our mission? Having encountered and received the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, sent forth to make Him present wherever you go.

If the Eucharist is the primary place to encounter the Risen Lord, then the only irrefutable proof that He is risen and, therefore, that the bread and wine are His body and blood, are the lives of those who partake.

Easter is about resurrection, transformation, conversion, about life coming for death. It’s springtime and we see this now happening everywhere you look. Today, Resurrection Sunday, let us go forth to proclaim that Christ is risen! He is truly risen from the dead. Therefore, everyone who believes in Him, “will receive forgiveness of sins through His name.”⁵

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1 Colossians 1:3.^↩
2 Acts 10:42.^↩
3 John 20:9.^↩
4 John 11:16.^↩
5 Acts 10:43.^↩

Triduum- Holy Saturday

The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1521

On Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord's tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his Descent into Hell, and awaiting his Resurrection.

The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass, with the sacred table left bare, until after the solemn Vigil, that is, the anticipation by night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for paschal joys, the abundance of which overflows to occupy fifty days.

Holy Communion may only be given on this day as Viaticum (Roman Missal. Holy Week. Holy Saturday)

Triduum- Good Friday- Seventh of Jesus' Seven Last Words

Reading: Luke 23:46- Father into your hands I commend my spirit.

At the graveside, we commend our sister or brother, not to the earth, but to God. Just as “Do this in memory of me” means much more than a remembering- it is a calling-to-mind to make present- to commend means more than to just hand-over or leave. You commended yourself to God by dying and rising with Christ to new life through the waters of baptism.

Commendation also means something like giving charge to one who is worthy of trust. So, when our Lord commends his spirit to the Father, He gives himself over to the One who is eminently trustworthy.

The life of the disciple of Christ, who is not greater than the Master, is not merely a via Delarosa, it is a death, even a crucifixion, a kenotic emptying-out of oneself for others.¹ When will we learn that happiness and fulfillment do not come from relentless pursuit of self-interest but is realized by seeking the good of the other?

But who is this mysterious other? The other is certainly the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, and even the dead. Further, the other is the sinner, the ignorant, the doubtful, the sorrowful, the injured, the unjustly accused and condemned. The other is also one’s spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends, and fellow parishioners. The other is the immigrant, the addicted, the outcast.

The Crucifixion, by Thomas Eakins, 1880. Wikimedia Commons

The Christian term for this other is “neighbor.” It is by redefining who our neighbor is that reveals the revolutionary nature of our Lord’s teachings as given in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Being a Christian means intentionally making yourself a neighbor, especially to someone in need. Needs are both material and spiritual. What better way to tell someone who is thirsty about Jesus than by giving him something to drink?

In Spanish, the word for neighbor is vecino. This is closely related to the English word “vicinity.” Hence, it points to the reality that far from being an abstract concept, your neighbor is someone in proximity to you, someone in your vicinity.

Just as it is easy to love humanity because “humanity” is an abstraction but difficult to love all those who annoy, inconvenience, or make you uncomfortable, it is easy to have neighborly feelings toward people far away for whom you can do little or nothing but hard to help the person who crosses your path and needs some assistance.

Sins of omission are real. Indifference in the face of need is almost always a temptation. This is why we must resist what Pope Francis dubbed the “culture of indifference.”² The culture of indifference is an aspect of what Pope Saint John Paul II called the “culture of death.” John Paul II did not propose a “culture of life” to counteract “the culture of death.” Rather, he called for a “culture of love.”³

To commend also means to recognize and reward outstanding service. You commend yourself to God by promoting what Pope Francis called,

The true ordo amoris. . . that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception⁴

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1 Galations 6:14.^↩
2 Pope Francis, Morning Meditation in the Chapel of Domus Sanctae Marthae, 8 January 2019.^↩
3 Pope John Paul II. Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, sec. 12 and sec. 101.^↩
4 Pope Francis. Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States of America, 10 February 2025; Luke 10:25-37..^↩

Triduum- Good Friday

"He mounted the Cross to free us from the fascination with nothingness, to free us from the fascination with appearances, with the ephemeral."

Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani