EASTER SUNDAY – CYCLE C – 2016

INTRODUCTION

1. It is the Solemnity of the Resurrection, of the triumph over sin and death of our beloved Lord Jesus. 
2. Glory and praise to the victor, because he accepted the humiliation of the cross,  the Father has given him a name over every other name.  JESUS IS LORD.

THE BOOK OF THE ACTS

During the Easter season the first reading will be taken from the Acts of the Apostles. 

• The book of the Acts is found in our Bibles after the Gospels. 
• The Gospels are the proclamation of Jesus  
• The Actos narrate: 
  • The fulfillment of the promise of Jesus with the coming of the Holy Spirit who will guide the newly born Church and also the Church of all times. 
  • The birth of the Church in Pentecost    
  • The expansion of the Church until the ends of the earth. 
• The author is Luke as we can see on reading the beginning of the Gospel and the beginning of the Acts.   
•  It was written around the last third of the first century, after the composition of the Gospel by Luke. 
• It is addressed to the Christian communities established by Paul. 
• Luke uses all the information that existed in the Christian communities, but he does so in his own style. 
• The Acts were written in Greek    
• Although basing his narrative on historical events Luke offers us a theological reflection of these events. 
• The theology of the Work of Luke (Gospel and Acts) 
  • The theological presentation of the journey that the Father had programmed, that was accomplished by  Jesus, the Son of God, prophet and savior, in his earthly ministry.  
  • Is continued now by the glorified Christ   
    • Through his Spirit. 
    • By means of the prophetic testimony of the Church.  
       
      FIRST READING Acts 10: 34a.  37-43
      Peter speaks to Cornelius household about Jesus  

• The Baptism of John was the initial point of what Peter is about to recount. 
• Jesus was anointed, at his baptism with the Holy Spirit and power. 
• Jesus went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil  
• They (the apostles) are the witnesses of all of that. 
• But their leaders killed him hanging him on a tree.  
• God raised him, and he was seen by some witnesses, who ate and drank with him after his resurrection.  
• He commissioned them to preach in his name.  
• Everyone who believes in him will receive the forgiveness of sins through his name.  
  What a simple, synthetic, and beautiful description of Jesus, which describes our faith!  
   
  RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps  118
  THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE LET US REJOICE IN IT AND BE GLAD.  
  Give thanks to the Lord, who is good,
  whose love endures forever! 
  Let the House of Israel say 
  God’s love endures forever.  
   
  The Lord’s right hand strikes with power  
  The Lord’s right hand is raised
  I shall not die but live
  And declare the deeds of the Lord.
   
  The stone the builders rejected  
  Has become the cornerstone. 
  By the Lord has this been done
  It is wonderful in our eyes.   
   
  SECOND READING   Colossians  3:1-4
• Christ has died to redeem us, to liberate us, to save us from our sins.  

• On the cross he has destroyed the power of evil and together with him we have died to sin.  
• Thus if we have died to sin, and have been born to a new life through baptism 
• Let us not seek the things that separate us from Him. 
• Because he has taken us with him to the Father.  
• Our life is hidden with Christ in God.    
• What a wonderful text in which the author describes what baptism does in us. 
   
  GOSPEL   LUKE 24:1-12
  Luke like the other evangelists explains to us how the followers of Jesus, men and women, had the experience of the risen Lord.   

• The first day of the week    
  • The day after the Sabbath or day of repose…  
  • With Jesus everything is new.   
  • The first day brings to our memory the freshness, and newness of creation. That first day when God said “let it be…”     
  • We are looking now to a “new creation”   
• The tomb  
  • They go to the tomb, they had seen where the men put the body of Jesus. They go to give him the honor and love which women know how to give.  
  • Although they see that the stone had been removed, they enter. It seems that they do not remember the words of Jesus explaining to them that he would come to life again.  
  • They do not understand, they do not know what to think or to do. The dead body of Jesus is not there.  
  • The empty tomb… the only physical witness of the resurrection. All of us have to accept with joy and faith the truth of the resurrection.   Trusting in the truth of his words, the words of Jesus, and in the words  of the first witnesses of our faith.  
• Two men in dazzling garments, in another Gospel they are called angels, messengers of God.   
  • They ask the women, why do you seek among the dead the one who is alive? Probably they could ask us the same question today. 
  • We feel more comfortable with what we have always heard and done  than with the darkness, and also de light, of faith in the Risen Lord. 
  • Faith that calls us to accept in our life the challenges Christ is inviting us to.    
  • They also felt more secure if they could have found the dead body of the Master.  
  • The men remind them the words of Jesus when he was living among them: The Son of man has to be handed over by the sinners and be crucified, but he will rise on the third day. 
• The women and the eleven
  • On hearing the men they remember the words  Jesus had told them before his death.
  • So  they go in haste to tell the eleven. 
  • The men listen to them, but they think that those are stories caused by their feelings, their sorrow because they could not find the body of the Teacher.  
  • Only Peter goes to the tomb, in case what the women said was true. He sees everything as the women said but he could not see Jesus, and he returns puzzled. 
    It has been very good for all of us, disciples who have lived after them, that the eleven and the others doubted so much about the truth of the resurrection.    
     
    After 200 years we continue to experience the difficulty in truly believing in the resurrection and in its consequences.  The Lord is truly risen and has made of us new creatures, he has given us the possibility of reconciliation, and has open for us the way to return to the Father.  
    
    
    
     

Let the missionary pray with Christ, praying; travel with Christ travelling; eat with Christ eating; drink, with Christ drinking; sleep with Christ sleeping; suffer with Christ suffering; preach with Christ preaching; rest with Christ tired and live with Christ dying, if he wants to enter into life with Christ reigning. Venerable Maria Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, The Apostolic Missionary, 31.

 

I tell myself: A Son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man on fire with love, who spreads its flames wherever he goes. He desires mightily and strives by all means possible to set the whole world on fire with God's love. Nothing daunts him; he delights in privations, welcomes work, embraces sacrifices, smiles at slander, and rejoices in suffering. His only concern is how he can best follow Jesus Christ and imitate Him in working, suffering, and striving constantly and single-mindedly for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 494.