OMELIE / Omelie EN

31 mar 2024

31/03/2024 – Easter Sunday - B

31/03/2024 – Easter Sunday - B

Reading 1 ACTS 10,34. 37-43 Psalm 117 Reading 2 COL 3,1-4 Gospel JN 20,1-9 (LK 24,13-35)

Peter is giving us his testimonial in his first announcement of the Gospel in the house of the pagan Cornelius: he not only has seen the risen Jesus, but ge has also eaten and drunk with Him. The apostle's conclusion is truly important: “he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name”. Jesus has risen for us, for our salvation, so the sins may not accuse us anymore in front of God and may not carry us far from the Father.

“Believe in Him” is also the advice Saint Paul is giving us by telling us “seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God”. It is good and a source of joy to look outside of this earth, where everything or most things make us sad, but above all desire “what is above” is freedom from selfish instincts which tie us to material things.

Let us keep an eye on Jesus, who by now is where the Father is waiting for us too when we will have finished our run on this earth. Let us look at Jesus, who, even though He is carrying the signs of the passion, is showing us the pure and spiritual joy and He is making us part of it. We continue to suffer on this earth, we suffer also for the difficulties in following His commandments and live His friendship, but today the certainty that our cross is not carried by us for nothing is renewed.

Our crosses are like the suffering of Mary of Magdala. She thinks there is no remedy for her pain: she is certain that men’s wickedness wins over our goodness and also every plan of God’s. Peter and the other disciple, who run towards the tomb, even if they cannot solve or answer the doubts and the surprise, do not share Mary’s cry. Instead, a new life starts for them, because starts to grow shyly in them the germ of faith.

Easter is always a beginning. Jesus risen from the dead lives beyond our life where everything is under the fear and the pain of death and so of being useless. At the same time He is here with us in a different way, He is not under the possibility of corruption anymore, so we are freed from desperation and the feeling of emptiness. Because of His resurrection we renew the hope, the joy, the certainty that our life has new possibilities, kept by God Himself in His heart.

Today’s feast is the first, the greatest and the most festive men could celebrate on the face of the earth. And it is the feast which puts in the hearts a certainty and a joy which go beyond the boundaries of the feast itself, to remain in the heart and make it a source of actions and initiatives which make happy the families and the places men live in.

The singing of the Hallelujah is accompanying us the whole year, to remind us God loves us and that for Him our life has an eternal value, so He has won over death by giving us a new life which already knows the eternity of His love.