From the Chaplain of the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society & the Divinum Officium Project:
Today’s Gospel, on this, the central day of our Catholic Christian Faith, paints for us a very vivid scene of what life must have been like for St. Mary Magdalene and the two other women who arrived to anoint the body of Jesus Christ. Christ, for them, was dead. Their Lord, whom they had chosen to follow, was thought to be no more. These pious Jewish women were about to perform the Jewish custom for one who had died – anoint the body and perfume it. These women loved Our Lord in his life, and followed Him to His death. In following these precepts of the Jewish law, they provide to us an example of service to Christ through good works and through humble repentance. In the death of Our Lord, they come bearing the sweetness of good works.
St. Mark gives us many details – the heavy, large stone, the large quantities of aromatic spices, and a young man seated by the tomb in dazzling white garments. And in the midst of these things, we find this young man (other Gospels say an angel) telling us the most important detail of all, and indeed, the greatest mystery of our faith - the mystery that the Son of God came mercifully to redeem us, to buy us back from the slavery of sin which we inherited from our first parents. As Adam, the first man, lost the gifts which God granted him in Eden, Christ, through his obedience to the will of God the Father, restored them to man.
Our Lord in death has gone lower than the worst of our sins. Not only did he pay the debt of sin, but He paid it super-abundantly, suffering out of love for each one of us. 3 days later, He rose victorious by His own power from the bonds of sin and death. This great day has indeed brought us back to immortal life – the life of God dwelling in our souls by His Grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the eternal life in the world to come. The resurrection of Jesus that we celebrate today is a pledge to us of our future bodily resurrection, when at Christ’s second coming, we will be reunited to our earthly bodies. Now, we are led back to our home above through the Lord’s resurrection.
This same young man, or angel, is very direct in stating: Christ is not here in the sepulcher. He tells the women to go and announce to His disciples, and to Peter, this great event – the event of Christ risen and living – Christ who will eat, drink, and speak with his disciples. Our faith in the resurrection of Jesus must impel us in the same way – to live lives of holiness and to be examples of Christian living to our culture and society. As the world hangs its head in a dismal culture of death, a world where life has no value and sin seems to have full control, we have the responsibility, as followers of Jesus, to give a lifelong witness of morality, innocence, modesty, holiness, and humility. In doing so, we follow Our Lord to His Cross, and rise with Him to a new life – a life of virtue, a life of Christian goodness.
St. Leo the Great, the Father of the Church and Roman Pontiff, once stated “O Christian, be conscious of your dignity! You are now made a sharer in the divine nature, so do not degenerate to merely natural standards!” As the human race seeks salvation in ideas, in earthly pleasures, and in money, we who are brought to new life in Christ through His resurrection, proclaim that Christ Jesus is the unique savior who has overcome the flesh, the world, and the devil through the Cross and the empty tomb. Sin no longer holds any power now that Christ has broken its bonds.
Therefore, let us keep this great feast of Easter as St. Paul exhorts us – in the leaven of sincerity and truth. May this Easter mark our desire to live for Him who is risen – truly risen! Alleluia!
