TWENTIETH LESSON
Easter Day: A Day of Gladness.
"This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us be glad, and rejoice therein."-PSALM Cxvii. 24.
My dear children, this feast has always been considered as the first and most solemn of all those the Church celebrates during the year. It is the day of our Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection. In the ancient law, there was also a feast of Easter, and this name, which signifies Passover, reminded the Hebrew people of the passage of the exterminating angel, and also of the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. Easter, in the new law, reminds all Christians, that Jesus Christ in His Resurrection has passed from death to life. The history of this marvellous event is as follows:
Our Lord's body had been already two days in the closed tomb. On the morn of the third day, Mary Magdalen and several other holy women went to the sepulchre to anoint the body of Jesus Christ. It was a custom amongst the Jews: and these pious women wished to offer this last homage after death, to Him whose lessons they had listened to, and whose virtues they had admired. As they walked along, they asked one another if it would be possible for them to open the tomb, for its entrance was closed by an enormous stone. Great then was their surprise when, on drawing near, they perceived the stone rolled back; a young man was sitting near the sepulchre; his face was all radiant with a celestial brilliancy; his clothes were white as snow; "Be not affrighted;" saith he to them; "you seek Jesus of Nazareth: He is risen, He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him. Go tell His disciples."
The holy women hastened to inform Peter, the chief of the apostles, and John, called in the Gospel the disciple Jesus loved. Both ran in great haste to the sepulchre; but the angel had disappeared, the tomb was empty, the burial cloth only remained. Overcome with terror at the Angel's apparition, announced by an earthquake, the soldiers appointed by Pilate to guard the sepulchre, had fallen down motionless; when they recovered their senses they fled in affright.
The two apostles hastened to tell the others of the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to prove the reality of this extraordinary event our Saviour made himself visible several times to his disciples, while they were assembled together.
The miracle of this resurrection, my dear children, is the most remarkable of all miracles, You will easily understand this. In the course of scriptural history, we are told that sometimes holy men, the prophet Elias for instance, had obtained from God the power of recalling life to the dead. Our Lord had also restored to life persons, either to show his power, or to give men a fresh proof of his love; but his own resurrection is still more miraculous. Yes, indeed, Jesus Christ rose from the dead by his own power, and he had foretold this miracle, when he said: "The son of man must be put to death, and the third day he will rise again. "
His enemies refused to believe in the fulfilment of his prophecy; they had already triumphantly exulted over Him when they saw Him nailed to the cross saying: "He saved others; Himself He cannot save; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him!"—Even the faith of His disciples was shaken. They regretted Jesus Christ as a righteous man, they mourned for Him as a friend; but they could hardly recognise a God in the being they had just seen put to death with so much suffering and ignominy. Therefore the news of the resurrection was received by them with no less surprise than admiration and joy.
My children, by His glorious Resurrection, Jesus Christ most effectually proved His power and His divinity. He did more than come down from the cross; He rose alive from the tomb in which He had been put. By this miracle Jesus Christ showed Himself to be truly God;—indeed, without it our religion would not have existed.
That is why the feast of Easter is considered by the Church as the most important one of the year. The faithful crowd the churches with more than ordinary eagerness on this holy day, and we see the ministers of our worship arrayed in their most beautiful vestments in honor of Easter. The prayers set apart to celebrate this feast are all canticles of joy. All Christian countries make this day a time of rejoicing, and in some, when friends meet, they congratulate each other in these words: "Jesus Christ is risen"!
My dear children, will you be content with merely praising our Lord for the great victory he has won over death? No, certainly not. From this mystery you must learn a grand and useful LESSON Jesus in all the mysteries of his life has no other purpose in view than our sanctification. If he vouchsafed to become as one of us by taking upon himself the nature of man, it was to raise us to him, to show us the perfect being that man was des-tined to be, and which he should strive to become. If Jesus died on the cross, it was to teach us how to die a holy death; and finally, if he rose from the dead, it was to open the gates of Heaven for us, and make us partakers of his resurrection.
But you may say, how can we hope to gain such a blessed destiny? Can we then die and rise again during this life? No, my children, but we can correct our evil propensities, destroy them, pluck them from our hearts; and replace them by the opposite virtues. A lazy, disobedient, violent child, may become meek, painstaking, and obedient. He can thus begin a new life. That is what St. Paul calls stripping off the old man and putting on the new one. This is, my children, the kind of resurrection Jesus Christ expects of you in this world, in imitation of His own.
But your resurrection to a life of grace, besides being real and true, must have another quality, in order to bear a resemblance to that of your blessed Redeemer; it must be permanent, as His was permanent, for He rose so as to "die no more."
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