A JOYFUL EASTER TO YOU
The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived in our Christian community. The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event. After his Resurrection, over a period of 40 days, Jesus showed himself to many people and gave them ample proof that He was alive. By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion. Yet at the same time this real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he will.
Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was in the case with the raisings from the dead that Jesus had performed before Easter. These actions were miraculous events, but the persons raised by Jesus' power returned to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they would die again. Christ's Resurrection is essentially different. In his risen body He passes from state of death to another life beyond time and space. His body is filled with the power of the holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state.
Saint Paul tells us about the meaning and saving significance of Christ's resurrection."If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is null and void, and so is your faith; and we turn out to be lying witnesses for God, because we bore witness that he raised Christ to life"(1 Cor.15:13-15).
The truth of "Jesus' divinity" is confirmed by his Resurrection. Christ's Resurrection is closely linked to the Incarnation of God's Son, and is its fulfillment in accordance with God's eternal plan. By his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life reinstates us in God's grace. Finally, Christ's Resurrection is the source of our future resurrection. The risen Christ "the first-born from the dead"(Col 1:18) lives in the hearts of his faithful.
The joy of the Resurrection fills our hearts and urges us to share it with all our brothers and sisters, for indeed, something wonderful has happened not only to Jesus but also to us. Jesus' Resurrection is the foretaste and guarantee of our resurrection…Jesus' Resurrection fills us with joy and hope.
Fr.Cipriano Bontacchio