Faithful across the Columbus diocese celebrated the Resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday, April 5. Parishes offered several Easter Masses, commemorating Christ’s triumph and ultimate victory over death.
Bishop Earl Fernandes celebrated an Easter morning Mass at Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral, the diocese’s mother church.
The sacred liturgy celebrated by the bishop included a proclamation from the Gospel of St. John recounting Ss. Mary Magdalene, Peter and John the Evangelist finding Christ’s tomb empty early in the morning on a Sunday thousands of years ago.
In place of the Creed, the rite of renewal of baptismal promises took place during the Mass.
Faithful promised to reject Satan and sin and professed their faith in the Trinity. The congregation was subsequently sprinkled with holy water.
The following is Bishop Fernandes’ homily given during Easter Sunday Mass:
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I wish you and your families a Happy and Peace-filled Easter as we celebrate the Victory of our Risen Lord! “Christ, our Paschal lamb, has been sacrificed!” On this Easter Day, the newness of the Resurrection rings forth in these words from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. The central symbol of salvation history – the Paschal Lamb – is identified with Jesus.
It is to this Jesus to which Peter bore witness in our First Reading from Acts. Peter had denied Jesus three times during His Passion, but in St. John’s Gospel, on the evening of the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to the Apostles, and breathed on them, saying “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He brought them from death to life. The Spirit drove out the “old yeast” and transformed the Apostles into the “fresh batch of dough”, from cowards to bold witnesses.
Peter is now preaching to Cornelius and his household, all of them Gentiles about Jesus. Peter has been called by the Spirit to visit Cornelius. Cornelius, a God-fearing man, had a vision of an angel and summoned Peter to his home. The Risen Lord seemingly spoke directly to Cornelius, assuring him that his ‘prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God’.
Could Cornelius be counted among the children of Abraham? Could he too be called to faith and the promises of the new covenant made through Jesus? Peter begins to test the waters, explaining who Jesus was. He tells Cornelius: “He went about doing good, curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil.”
We could think of the Gerasene demoniac or the so-called epileptic boy out of whom Jesus cast out demons. We can recount how Jesus also healed the paralytic but also forgave his sins. The Gospels related his healing of the woman with the curved spine; the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the healing of the lepers; the restoration of sight to the blind man. All these people in one way or another were kept captive by the devil, by sin, or by illness.
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The drama of captivity versus freedom, which marked Israel’s time in Egypt and again its time in exile in Babylon, also exists in Jesus’ exchanged with the Jewish leaders in John’s Gospel, shortly after He has forgiven the woman caught in adultery. Jesus tells them, “The truth will set you free.” They retort, “We are Abraham’s children, and have never been anyone’s slaves.” To which Jesus replies: “Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but if the Son sets you free, you will truly be free.”
This is the heart of the Easter Gospel. Christ comes to set us free. The story of Easter is not the end but a new beginning. It is not like a film where it appears that the main character is defeated or mortally wounded and then comes back for a rousing victory. When watching a film, like the Avengers Infinity War or Endgame, at first, there were those who were upset that the star characters were turned to dust, but then they came back, and people wiped their tears away! The discouraged face the future with fresh hope! When we make it through a dramatic film, we breathe a sigh of relief, put away our paper tissues or security blankets, discard the left-over popcorn, and usually, we go back to our routine.
No. Easter is something new… not the end of the story but a new beginning! With the Resurrection, do we then carry on as normal just like after watching a movie, as if nothing had happened as if everything is back to normal? We cannot. Today is more than a day to get dressed up nicely and to be with family. Just ask those who were baptized last night.
Msgr. Lane is a historian. When we watch a movie together, as soon as we start the film, he asks, “So, how does it end?” But our story is just beginning and will never end. We have the possibility of living forever.
We cannot go back to “normal” or to our routine. Easter changes everything. Our chains, too, have burst. Last night during this Easter Vigil, the deacon chanted: “This is the night, when Christ broke the prison bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld.”
We face the question: If He has set us free, how do we make use of our liberty?
Regarding the power of sin in our lives, we know we need conversion. We have spent the whole season of Lent doing penance and being converted. We have resolved to be better and to do better; however, being a Catholic or a Christian is not first and foremost about being a better human being. Rather, to be a Catholic or a Christian, through baptism, is to be made a new human being. The opposite of sin is not virtue but freedom – the freedom Christ has won for us. Virtue is a fruit of freedom, not the other way round.
Saint Paul puts it this way: “For freedom Christ has set us free…stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”. (Gal 5:1). Our way of life must change as our story continues.
Easter Sunday doesn’t mark the end of a sad story. It constitutes the beginning of a new exodus, an exodus from everything in our existence that blocks the life and power of Christ to be at work in us. It is an exodus from “old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness” and a new beginning of goodness “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
The Opening Prayer for Mass prayed that we might “through the renewal brought by [God’s] Spirit, rise up in the light of life”. This is why Christ fought such a fierce battle for our sakes, why He allowed himself to be so disfigured that he “lacked human semblance”. The victory He won is for everyone. That is what Cornelius and his whole household learned as they came to faith and baptism. It was a hard-fought victory. May it not have been won in vain for us!
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Every Easter Sunday morning, we hear the Gospel of the Resurrection – the Lord’s dialogue with Mary Magdalene; the racing of Peter and John to the tomb; Peter rushing in and John stopping to gaze upon something marvelous:
The shroud our Lord left behind. The facecloth is rolled up in a separate place. It provides the image of the Lord of Life rising from death with ordered peace, putting death aside, tidily folded, like pajamas for which he has no further need. In the same way, Brothers and Sisters, Christ enables us to leave death behind, and to enter into life. The Resurrection enables us to truly live.
We don’t need dramatic gestures. The life of the Spirit in us develops organically. However, growth is assured; for the grain of wheat, cast into the earth once for all, is bringing forth a generous harvest, which we see in our Diocese – the Catholic population has nearly doubled in 4 years; the number studying for the priest has nearly tripled; nearly 500 people were baptized last night and many others received confirmation. Young people are returning to experience life in community, not the virtual life offered through screens.
Yes. Christ is alive! Let us take strength from this new springtime to be part of it, that by our lives, lived in union with the Risen Lord’s, the world may be nourished. As our country celebrates its 250th anniversary, may we use our new freedom in Christ wisely and well as instruments of peace. This is the task of our lives, fundamentally speaking – to bring the peace of the Risen Lord to our world!
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; therefore, let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of purity and truth, freed to live freely in time and eternity. For He is Risen! He is truly Risen! Alleluia!