Monday, April 17, 2017

Apr 17 - Easter Monday

+ This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.

We celebrate today the first day within the octave of Easter! An octave celebration, we recall, is a continuation of the original celebration as if it were still going on: and so for the Catholic world every day this week will be a re-presentation of Easter Day, Easter Sunday!

If this is the case, then why will all our first readings this week be of Pentecost Day and the events thereof?

For two reasons: 1) the proclamation of Easter is very short, poignant and earth-shattering: JESUS – who was put to death – HAS BEEN RAISED FROM THE DEAD! HE LIVES! - NEVERMORE TO DIE AGAIN! and this changes everything!

2) But in his wisdom Jesus took another 50 days to prepare his Apostles – the Eleven (now) - to go out and proclaim this very astounding, powerful, yet simple truth.

And PENTECOST was the day when finally they understood it all (when the Spirit came upon them) – and they began to preach and teach this gospel message regarding Jesus – the Risen Lord – who indeed was the long awaited Messiah – to the ends of the earth as they had been instructed by him to do.

Therefore, the Easter fact and the Pentecost message are intimately linked; this is also where we come in – we who have responded to the apostolic mission and have chosen to believe in the message, to enter an interpersonal friendship with Jesus and to be plugged into the life and sacramental system of the Church he established on Pentecost.

And so, we rejoice today that God can truly be our hope, our joy and our peace! – and that he empowers us to bring these to others, all others, for he has poured out upon us the promised gift of the Holy Spirit!

The “other news” – the “real news” of the secular world – tells us that we are now living in very dangerous, unstable, and potentially life-threatening times – more than ever before – but we must be convinced that the “good news” of gospel victory and triumph can transform even these ominous storm clouds into clouds of encouraging clouds, silver-lined of springtime, sunshine and flowers – the symbol of a new time of global serenity and peace!  

Amen! Alleluia!        


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