Easter Sunday

Think about these words from the Creed: “And [He] rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”. The fulfilment of the Scriptures has been a constant theme of the events of Holy Week. The great psalms of the Passion, especially psalms 21 and 68, provide many of the texts we have heard in the Gospels: “they have pierced my hands and my feet”; “for my garments they cast lots”; “In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink”; and most poignantly of all: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Our Lord’s sufferings were very public. His enemies could stand before Him as He hung dying on the cross and they also used the words of psalm 21: “He trusted in God that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him then, if He delight in Him”.

Yet these psalms, although they are so full of anguish and loss, actually end in confident trust in God. They are written, not about the Suffering Saviour, but out of His own mouth, as though composed by Him. And so indeed, in a sense, they are. For the truth about the fulfilment of Scripture is not that Our Lord had to do certain things to prove His credentials, but that all the prophecies which were about Him remained obscure and mysterious until their proper and full meaning was at last revealed by Him. That is the way in which Our Lord Himself “expounded the Scriptures” to the disciples on the way to Emmaus on the evening of that first Easter Day, explaining to them how “it was necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and so enter into His glory.”

It is Our Lord’s victory over sin and death that we are celebrating today. And yet again, thanks to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist provides us with insight into this great and wonderful mystery. The Introit of today’s joyful Mass begins with words from an ancient Christian version of psalm 138, using the words as spoken by our Saviour: “I have risen, and I am with you still; You have laid your hand on me.” The Lord has been raised from the dead. He first descended to the realm of the dead to share in their fate, but in order to set them free. In yesterday morning’s Office of Readings there was a reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday, which describes with powerful imagination the scene when, after His death, the Lord went to our first parents who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. It reads: “The Lord goes in to them holding His victorious weapon, His cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees Him, He strikes His breast in terror and calls out to all: “My Lord be with you all.” And Christ in reply says to Adam: “And with your spirit.” And grasping his hand He raises him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”

For all of us, like Adam, were doomed never to see the light again. The curse of sin had closed the gates of paradise. We were all condemned to the darkness and pain of eternal loss far from God. Yet Our Lord, taking psalm 138 as His theme, gives shape and meaning to the following mysterious words: “Whither shall I go from your Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, (the underworld of the dead,) You are there!.. … Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” This is the meaning Our Lord now breathes into those words: “I am your God, O man, who became your son, who for you and your kin now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise!” It is for this reason that He has had to die: to enter the world of the dead, not to be joined to them – but so that they might be joined to Him. He has already become man, He already shares our sinful nature, but not in order to share our everlasting shame; no – He has taken all this upon Himself to lead us out of darkness into light, in short, so that we might be able to share His life, who first for us endured our death.

This we also recalled last night at the Easter Vigil, during that surely most intoxicating moment in the whole Church year, when, out of the darkness of night, we heard proclaimed the resurrection of the Son of Man, by the light of the Candle which represents the risen Christ here on the Sanctuary for the next fifty days. For, yet again, in order to explain how the darkness of sin and death have been definitively shattered by Christ’s light, that Proclamation, known as the “Exsultet”, again uses more words from the same psalm 138, saying: “This is the night of which it is written: the night shall be as bright as the day”, for where Christ comes, darkness must simply give way. When Christ entered the realm of darkness, what did He do but shatter the darkness with His light? And then His resurrection is the fulfilment of this shattering of death and darkness. There can be no more eternal death from now on. For the Son of God says to His Father: “It was you who knit me together in my Mother’s womb”. It was by becoming Mary’s son that the Son of God became Adam’s son. It was only thus that He became Adam’s Saviour, and Saviour of all his descendants, ourselves included. Therefore Mary plays a special part in this great and joyful mystery of the redeeming resurrection of her son. This is why the Church in Rome where in ancient times the Pope celebrated Mass today is Our Lady’s principal Church, St. Mary Major. That is also why the Church has frequently interpreted the first words of today’s Introit as addressed to Our Lady: “I have risen, and I am still with you.” Often in ancient stained glass and artwork Our Lord is shown on this Easter morning greeting His blessed Mother with these same words.

On the Cross Our Lord had spoken to His Mother, but the words were hardly a comfort, for He was bidding her farewell, and giving her into St. John’s keeping. Today He speaks to her to tell her “I have risen, and I am still with you, Alleluia!” Now the Gospels do not tell us of an Easter appearance by Our Lord to His blessed Mother, but are we to assume from that silence that such a visit did not take place? It seems hardly credible. Yet why do we not then know of it? Perhaps it is because in all instances, we know only what the Holy Spirit judges to be necessary for our enlightenment. The words of our Lord to His Mother from the Cross were intended to let us all know that we now have His Mother for our own. What took place between them after his Resurrection was, perhaps something that we shall know only when we at last see Him face to face in the glory of the General Resurrection, when we shall be like Him, for we shall then see Him as He really is.

It is through Mary, then, that the Son of God can make the words of the psalmist His own. And so, then, can we. “Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed,” as we heard in the Exsultet. Had we been eternally lost in hell, we could hardly have said those words of ps. 138: “I thank you for the wonder of my being” to our Creator. It would surely have been better for us if we had never been born, had Christ not come as our Redeemer and given us His Mother as our very own. On Good Friday, our Lady must have been pierced with sorrow to be given care for us sinners whom she received and accepted at the foot of the cross. But now, in the light of her Son’s victory, and in the knowledge that He has come to her and exclaimed that joyful greeting, “I have risen, and I am still with you”, surely she rejoices as never before, and rejoices evermore. And why, therefore should we not rejoice too, that our Mother in heaven is rejoicing at her Son’s victory, for this victory is also her redemption as well as ours? And so we will greet her during throughout Eastertide with that lovely anthem, which we will so happily sing once again at the end of the Bidding Prayers: “Regina Caeli, laetare, alleluia… O Queen of heaven, rejoice, Alleluia! For He whom you were worthy to bear, Alleluia! Has risen as He said, alleluia!” Therefore with confidence we can ask her who is God’s mother and ours to: “Pray for us to God, Alleluia!”