2nd Sunday of Easter - Year C

What does Easter mean to you? How much joy does this season of grace bring to your heart?If it brings none, it means that you have not yet accepted into your life the greatest gift from God the Father—the Risen Jesus. It is in the Risen Jesus that we pass from death to life. By “death” here, we don’t mean physical death, but the loss of God forever—that is the true death. Physical death is only a passage: from this life, with all its problems and suffering, to a life where there is only peace and everlasting joy. And we can only make this passage through Jesus raised from the dead.

To pass from death to life with Jesus does not only mean entering heaven after we die. Even now, in this life, we can live either in death or in life. That is, if we attach our hearts to worldly things and make them our gods, we are living death—because our joy and purpose are bound to something we know we must one day part with. On the other hand, if God holds first place in our lives—if we choose Jesus before all else, if we accept the greatest gift ever given, which is the risen Christ—then we are living true life. Because the joy we have—or better, the peace of heart—we receive from Him can never be taken away, not even by death.

“Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last, I am the Living One. I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the realm of the dead.”This is the message of St John in today’s second reading.

In the first reading, we see that the power of Jesus is now at work in the apostles: “Many signs and wonders were performed among the people by the hands of the apostles…” Peter, who once feared even his own shadow and denied Jesus three times, is now filled with the Spirit of Jesus to the point that many sick people hoped that even just his shadow might fall upon them—and that alone was enough to heal them.

Jesus wanted His victory over death and sin to reach the ends of the earth and the end of time, and so He established the Church. From the very beginning of His public ministry, He made this intention clear, especially when He called His disciples, from whom He chose twelve and named them apostles—and among them, He chose Peter to be the head of the Church. Therefore, we cannot choose Jesus while rejecting the Church.

To the Church, Jesus gave the tools it would need to carry out its mission. The greatest of these tools are His Word and the sacraments. So when someone says they don’t need to go to confession to have their sins forgiven, they should reflect on what Jesus says in today’s Gospel:“Peace be with you!... Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you retain, they are retained.”Jesus linked true peace to the forgiveness of sins. It was not the Church that gave itself the power to forgive sins—it was Jesus who gave it that power. Therefore, yes, to have grave sins forgiven, one must go to confession, if that is possible.

Likewise, some say that they don’t need to go to church to pray—that they can pray from home. Yet notice that Thomas couldn’t believe in the resurrection because he wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them. There is no such thing as a private, isolated faith. The gift of faith in the risen Christ is not given to individuals alone, but to us as a believing community. Someone who does not feel the need to go to church to take part in the Eucharist has not yet understood Christian faith. Personal prayer and prayer in groups are very important, but they must never be separated from the Mass, and should always lead us to it.

Lord Jesus, you who, out of love for us, accepted the will of the Father and suffered and died for us on the Cross—but because you are God, you had the power to lay down your life and to take it up again—we ask you: strengthen us in faith in your resurrection, so that we never lose hope when we see evil in ourselves or around us, but that we may live through you and for you, forever. Amen.