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. Now they could “understand the Scripture,” could teach us what He had told them—that He was “the Stone which the builders rejected,” that today’s Psalm prophesies His Resurrection and exaltation.

St. Isidore of Seville commented on the significance of the women being the first to hear the good news of the resurrection: “As a woman (Eve) was first to taste death, so a woman (Mary Magdalene) was first to taste life. As a woman was present in the fall, so a woman was present in beholding the dawning of redemption, thus reversing the curse upon Eve.” The first to testify to the risen Lord was a woman from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons.

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 believe.

The reality of the resurrection is the central fact of the Christian faith. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord gives us “eyes of faith” to know him and the power of his resurrection. The greatest joy we can have is to encounter the living Lord and to know him personally. So therefore, we can celebrate the feast of Easter with joy and thanksgiving for the victory which Jesus has won for us over sin and death.

I would like to Thank every one of you who participated in the 40 days of Lent—praying together and asking God’s Mercy for us. Together we shall always pray for each other. Please keep me in your prayers while I travel to India for my vacation, and be assured of my prayers for you. May the Risen Lord bless us and keep us always in His care.

Love and Prayers,

Fr. Charley