Easter Sunday Sequence

Christians, to the Pascal Victim offer sacrifice and praise.
The sheep are ransomed by the Lamb:
And Christ, the undefiled,
Hath sinners to his Father reconciled.
Death with Life contended: combat strangely ended!
Life’s own Champion, slain, yet lives to reign.
Tell us, Mary: say what thou didst see upon the way.
The tomb the Living did enclose:
I saw Christ’s glory as He rose!
The angels there attesting:
Shroud with grave-clothes resting.
Christ, my hope, has risen: he goes before you into Galilee.
That Christ is truly risen from the dead we know.
Victorious King, thy mercy show!

John 20: 1-11 (11-18): Two Tomb Stories.

Mary Magdalen shows her huge love for Jesus by leaving her home early in the morning, whilst it was still dark, being first at what was the ‘sealed and guarded tomb’. She hurries back to Peter and John, two significant disciples always, more especially at the recent last supper, to come and behold the empty tomb. Peter goes straight into the tomb, always going for the juggler. John goes in after him, tells us he sees and believes.

Later in the day Mary returns to the tomb, still distressed and weeping. She thinks she is speaking to the Gardener and pleads with him as to where the body of Jesus has been laid, and that she will take him. Instead, it is the Risen Jesus she is speaking to. He asks her ‘Why are you weeping??? Whom are you looking for????’ Jesus addresses her by Name. ‘Mary’. She responds immediately ‘Rabbuni’, a term of endearment for a Teacher.

Mary Magdalen is no longer looking for the dead Jesus. The Risen Jesus asks her not to hold on to him but to go and tell the disciples, that he is risen from the dead, and goes before them into Galilee, Galilee of the Nations. He proclaims our common Fatherhood by saying he is going to ‘my Father and your Father’. He commissions Mary Magdalen to be the first person to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead.

Timothy Radcliffe has this to say: ‘On Easter Sunday the Word rose from the dead. After the Ascension, when Jesus is no longer among us as a human being among others, then WE are the ones who go on breaking the silence of humanity’s tombs’.

A very fitting follow up would be listening to Pope Francis speak his traditional Easter message, ‘Urbi et Orbi’ ( for the city and for the world), around 11am ( Irish time ) which comes immediately after the 10am Eucharist, celebrated this year from Frieburg, by our Dominican brother.

We ask ourselves are we really an Easter People? Most of the ‘Stations of the Cross’ in our Convent Chapels and in our Churches end with the entombment of Jesus. This year Howth Parish has introduced a beautiful 15th Station. The Resurection. For those living in Dublin it would be the place to go for 8pm on Good Friday.

The Resurection of Christ is the greatest witness to God’s mercy, how do we respond?? Surely by shedding the Light of The Living God on all situations of pain, tragedy, climate failure, hunger, inequality, loss of dignity, slavery, human trafficking etc. Living as Hope filled People at all times and in all circumstances we acclaim:
‘A Íosa fuair tú bás ar ár son
D’eirigh tú ó’n marbh
A Íosa fuair tú bás ar ár son
Tiocfaidh tú arís.

Catherine Campbell OP