Readings:
Acts 10:34, 37-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-9

Chants

Jesus is nowhere visible. Yet today’s Gospel tells us that Peter and John “saw and believed.”

What did they see? Burial shrouds lying on the floor of an empty tomb. Maybe that convinced them that He hadn’t been carted off by grave robbers, who usually stole the expensive burial linens and left the corpses behind.

But notice the repetition of the word “tomb”—seven times in nine verses. They saw the empty tomb and they believed what He had promised: that God would raise Him on the third day.

Chosen to be His “witnesses,” today’s First Reading tells us, the Apostles were “commissioned...to preach...and testify” to all that they had seen—from His anointing with the Holy Spirit at the Jordan to the empty tomb.

More than their own experience, they were instructed in the mysteries of the divine economy, God’s saving plan—to know how “all the prophets bear witness” to Him (see Luke 24:27,44).

Now they could “understand the Scripture,” could teach us what He had told them—that He was “the Stone which the builders rejected,” which today’s Psalm prophesies His Resurrection and exaltation (see Luke 20:17; Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:11).

We are the children of the apostolic witnesses. That is why we still gather early in the morning on the first day of every week to celebrate this feast of the empty tomb, give thanks for “Christ our life,” as today’s Epistle calls Him.

Baptized into His death and Resurrection, we live the heavenly life of the risen Christ, our lives “hidden with Christ in God.” We are now His witnesses, too. But we testify to things we cannot see but only believe; we seek in earthly things what is above.

We live in memory of the Apostles’ witness, like them eating and drinking with the risen Lord at the altar. And we wait in hope for what the Apostles told us would come—the day when we too “will appear with Him in glory.”

_____

St. Gregory of Nyssa
from Homily for the Pasch

Here is a wise saying: "The day of prosperity makes one forget adversity" (Sir 11,25). Today the first sentence passed against us has been forgotten – more! not just forgotten but cancelled! This day has wiped away completely all remembrance of our condemnation. In former times childbearing took place in pain; now we are born without suffering.

Formerly we were no more than flesh, born of the flesh; today, what is born is spirit, born of the Spirit. Yesterday we were born mere children of men; today we are born children of God. Yesterday we were cast out of heaven to the earth; today, he who reigns in the heavens makes us citizens of heaven. Yesterday, death reigned because of sin; today, thanks to him who is the Life, righteousness regains its might.

In former times one man opened for us the gates of death; today, the one man brings us back to life. Yesterday, life was lost to us because of death; but today, Life has destroyed death. Yesterday, shame caused us to hide ourselves beneath the fig tree; today, glory draws us towards the tree of life. Yesterday, disobedience expelled us from Paradise; today, our faith causes us to enter it.

Once again the fruit of life is held out to us to be enjoyed as much as we wish. Once again the stream of Paradise, whose water irrigates us through the four rivers of the gospels (cf. Gn 2,10), comes to refresh the whole face of the Church… From now on what are we to do but imitate the mountains and hills of the prophecies in their leaping for joy: "Mountains, skip like rams; hills, like lambs of the flock!" (Ps 114[113],4). "Come, then, let us sing joyfully to the Lord!" (Ps 95[94],1). He has broken the power of the enemy and raised up the great trophy of the cross… So let us say: "The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods!" (Ps 95[94],3). He blesses the year by crowning it with his bounty (cf. Ps 65[64],12) and he gathers us together in spiritual chorus in Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory for endless ages. Amen.

St. Maximus of Turin
from Sermon 36 (PL 57, 605)

Today, as yesterday, let our joy break out, my brethren. If night's darkness has interrupted our rejoicing then the holy day is not complete... for the brightness shed by the joy of the Lord is eternal. Christ shone upon us yesterday and today his light shines out again.

"Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today" says the blessed apostle Paul (Heb 13,8). Yes, Christ has become our day. He was born today for us, as God his Father declares through the voice of David: "You are my son; today I have become your father" (Ps 2,7). What are we to say? That he did not once father his son but himself engendered day and night...

Yes, Christ is our 'today': living splendor that never sets, he does not cease to set alight the world he sustains (cf. Heb 1,3) and this eternal refulgence seems but a day. "A thousand years in your sight are like a single day" exclaims the prophet (Ps 90[89],4).

Yes, Christ is that single day because God's eternity is single. He is our today: the past, once gone, does not pass him by; the future, as yet unknown, holds no secrets for him. Sovereign Light, he embraces all things, knows all things, at all times he is present and possesses them all. Before him the past cannot dissolve nor the future hide... This day is neither the one when he was born of the Virgin Mary according to the flesh nor the one when he came forth from the mouth of God his Father according to his divinity, but it is the moment when he was raised from the dead. "He raised up Jesus," says the apostle Paul, "as it is written in the second Psalm: 'You are my son; this day I have begotten you" (Acts 13,33).

How truly he is our day when, springing up from hell's thick darkness, he sets mankind alight. How truly he is our day, this man whom the dark designs of his foes could not blacken. No better day than this could have welcomed the light: both day and life it has restored to all the dead. Old age had laid men out in death; he has raised them up again in the renewed vigor of his today.