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April 21, 2025Christ our hope is risen, alleluia. He has conquered death forever. And we are freed forever from sin and the fear of death. Whoever believes in him will be saved. This is the announcement of Easter day that the Church joyfully repeats again this year to the whole world.
We celebrate Holy Easter in the Holy Year of the Lord dedicated to the theme of hope. The risen Christ is our trustworthy hope. Anchored in him we walk as pilgrims toward the full manifestation of the kingdom of God that begins here on earth when we are united in the name of the Lord.
The first image that Easter communicates to us comes from the Gospel we have heard. Jesus surprised everyone. Jesus always surprises us. Jesus surprised Mary Magdalene, who had gone to the tomb to honor the body of her friend Jesus who died in that atrocious way. The tomb is empty. Jesus surprises Peter and John who run to the tomb and find it empty. John is the first among the disciples to sense that something wonderful had happened. When he sees the empty tomb and the folded garments, the Gospel tells us: he saw and believed. Keep these two words in mind: see and believe. They are the words of Easter: there is a sign to see and there is the path of faith in the risen one that opens before us.
Jesus surprises us too even today. He is present among us today, in the Eucharist, in his proclaimed word, in the unity of believers, in the Church, in the poor. Let us be surprised by the Lord; we too see the signs of the presence of the risen Jesus, and we believe in him. Certainly, the most beautiful sign of the risen Jesus is our unity. We are from many different countries and yet we are all Christians, and we form one body in Christ: Jesus before his passion had prayed for this: that they may all be one.
The Acts of the Apostles tell us the story of Saint Peter speaking to Cornelius, to whom he tells the experience they had of the risen Lord: the risen Jesus is not a ghost; Jesus rises in his body, victorious over evil and death; he is the Lord of heaven and earth, redeemer of the world. Peter and the other disciples met the risen Christ, they touched his hands, they heard his voice, they ate with him. It was not an idea of Jesus that rose, not even just a message of his; He appears in person, with his body marked by the wounds of the passion: he has conquered evil and death. We announce Jesus as our Pasch, the hope of the world.
Finally, we welcome the announcement of Saint Paul: "If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God". Here is an important question: are we truly risen with Christ? How do we know and experience it? We have been baptized in the death and resurrection of Christ, for this reason we, even if we live on this earth, are in reality already united with Christ risen. Baptism makes us participants of the risen Lord.
Dear brothers and sisters, on this day we want to remember in particular our baptism, we are all baptized, we are united to Christ forever and we form one body. Never forget that we are all baptized, risen with Christ. Christ risen lives in us and we in Christ. Baptism describes our deepest identity: we are Christians, we belong to Christ.
The Apostle Paul invites us to seek the things above, the things of heaven. Heaven is not really the alternative to the earth, but it is the meaning and destiny of the world. Likewise, the resurrection definitively overcomes the division between the spirit and the flesh, since Jesus inaugurates in his body the resurrection of the flesh: this means that everything we experience on earth is destined to be transfigured in heaven.
We know how different it is to live daily life, human relationships thinking that everything is destined to die, or to live thinking that everything is destined to rise again and live forever. What great respect we must have for our bodies, for ourselves and for others if each of us is destined to the resurrection. Seeking the things above as Saint Paul invites us to do means living the world down here knowing that everything is destined to be transfigured in Christ risen. With the resurrection of Christ, in fact, we are given an infinite dignity.
So let us begin to live on this earth as resurrected people: when in the Our Father prayer we ask that “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, we ultimately ask that the earth become heaven and that heaven be reflected on earth, in our hearts and in our communities.
Dear Sisters and brothers, this is Christian hope. Christ is our hope. And we pilgrims of hope follow Christ and want to bring to everyone the joy and peace that come from the risen Christ.
May Our Lady of Arabia, Mother of the Risen Lord, always keep us united to Christ and united among ourselves, that we will be witnesses of the risen Lord to the world. Amen.
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