(Audio recorded live, 20 April 2025)

Readings:

Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Ps. 118; Col. 3:1-4; Jn. 20:1-9

For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. Yet, He is Risen, alleluia, truly He is Risen, alleluia! This year, Easter for both Orthodox and Roman Catholics is on the same day. Nearly one thousand years ago, there was a schism in the Church between the East and the West. But, in the modern age, Pope St. John Paul II refered to the two churches as a single set of lungs. Just as we all have two lungs, a left side and a right, both breathe through a single breath. That breath is the Holy Spirit, breathing life into Creation and throughout the entire catholic community. Both churches have valid apostolic succession, both churches have a valid priesthood, both have valid sacraments, both preach Christ crucified, and together both proclaim today Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen, alleluia. Or as is said in Slavonic: Christos voskrése! Voístinu voskrése!

The Holy Spirit seeks to unite us in Christ. The same Spirit was in the mouth of St. Peter, who testified that Jesus was the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead, who by his own death and resurrection, has opened the gates of heaven through the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, we are all called to repentance so that we might turn away from sin and death, and approach the Light of Christ. Lent is a season of penance in preparation for the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Last week, all the crosses and statues were shrowded in darkness and the church was bare like the wilderness; this week, the church is decorated with flowers, a sign of God’s Creation and an image of all things springing back to life. The Paschal Candle stands tall, with its light shining bright—the Light of Christ. This same light has been handed on to each of us through baptism, which makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ, sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.

Lent is a time of looking inward—a time to make corrections to our life. Easter is a time for rejoicing. The Resurrection is the single most significant event in human history. We see how all the disciples were dejected and downfallen after the death of Jesus, but on the third day, that all changed. They remembered that he said he would rise.

The night of the Last Supper, Jesus says to his disciples, “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt. 26:41). In a world heavily influenced by atheism, materialism, and greed, it takes great faith to rise above those distractions. Many find themselves chasing after money or the latest products or consumed by screens and media. I say “consumed,” because we are either consumers or being consumed. It is a vicious cycle and only faith can deliver us from it. But, faith is a theological virtue. Often we see people with a lack of faith. Materialists, for example, want hard evidence or proof of God’s existence. Those who have faith, however, listen to the story of Creation and see God’s imprint on all that He has made, particularly on every human being made in his image and likeness. Those who study DNA recently made an interesting connection. There is a code in our DNA written in acid called ATCG that creates a chain sequence. That sequence repeats a certain number of times: every ten, five, six, and five times. If we were to match these numbers to the equivalent letter in the Hebrew alphabet we would have the letters YHWH, which is translated Yahweh. In other words, the Creator signed his name in each and every cell of our body. Indeed, “God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.”

I suppose an atheist would say that sequence of Hebrew letters is simply a coincidence. But, as St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” And so, we are left with a situation. What do we as people of faith have to do to help those without faith? This may come as a shock, but since faith is a theological virtue, that means the only one who can give us faith is God. And so the solution is simple. Jesus taught us to ask, to seek, and to knock. Sometimes, we have to do the asking for our brothers and sisters so that they may seek. Sometimes we need to do the knocking so that they may feel invited to ask. God does all the work, if only we pray for one another.

My friends, the more the world pulls us down, the harder it is for us to look up to God. We are not called to be slaves to the world, but the world will easily enslave us if we let it. We need an escape hatch; we need Jesus. And the way we grow in our relationship with Jesus is through the sacraments. Jesus entrusted to his disciples everything we would need to live this life. From baptism, to reconciliation, to confirmation, to holy communion, to marriage, to holy orders, and anointing of the sick, Jesus has given us a sacrament for every stage of our Christian life, indeed, for every day, if only we commit ourselves to him.

Our commitment to Christ must go beyond a simple acknowledgment. The Church encourages us to lead a life of faith. It is a life that begins in Church, it is a life that continues with our regular worship and celebration of the sacraments, it is a life that never ends, provided we keep the commandments. All this is possible because Jesus submitted himself to the Cross, not for his sake, but for ours. As he said the night of the Last Supper, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:13). Yet, this is exactly what Jesus has done for each of us.

And so, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate the mystery of Christ rising from the dead this Easter, may the Lord increase our faith, so that we, like the women in the gospel, may announce all these things to all the others in our life. Let us be missionaries for Christ, leading one another to a deeper relationship with him. And let us pray that the Lord may increase the faith of others, most especially our family and friends who struggle. May it not be a stumbling block to them, but rather a bridge to the Church, which is gateway to the sacraments and our own experience of the Divine. And may the Holy Communion we share, unite us with our fathers, and all those who handed on the Good News that Christ is Risen! Truly, He is Risen! Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! Have a most blessed and a very happy Easter.