Each year, Holy Week guides us into the very heart of our faith. Holy Thursday night, at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we live again the reality of Christ’s final meal with the apostles. That was not simply a form of emotional thank you and farewell. 

 

In a sense the whole ministry and life of Jesus was summed up in that meal as He instituted the Eucharist; His true presence to last for all ages resides in the external expression of common earthly elements of bread and wine. Joined to the Eucharist was the institution of the priesthood received by the apostles to offer, in His very person, His body and blood to the Father for our sins.

 

The Eucharist and the priesthood are then joined to Good Friday. At the Good Friday ceremony of the Veneration of the Cross, we read the account of Christ’s suffering and death, and we are reminded that Jesus truly died after horrific suffering. His death was the offer of His body and blood on the cross for God’s forgiveness and for our eternal freedom from sin.

 

This hymn of faith comes to its crescendo on Holy Saturday night and Easter Sunday. We celebrate not simply the death of the Son of God for us but the final victory over death itself. Jesus is raised from the tomb through the power of the Holy Spirit in the mystery of the unity of God the Trinity (Rm 8:11). Joined to us as the head of the human race, we are offered a share not in some imagination but in the reality of rising from the dead for glorification and eternal life with God.

 

In the midst of the joys and the many sorrows of life, this story of salvation should strengthen our hope. We have been given, in the person of Jesus Christ, the object and goal of our very existence. Jesus is with us through all the ages, and we are strengthened and called to follow Him faithfully in every moment of our life.

 

In our age and our society, there are constant and growing challenges for us who believe. But Easter faith gives us guidance and reassurance, particularly on two points: the reality of the resurrection and the meaning of the body.

 

Faith in the reality of the resurrection has always been a challenge. It is a promise and a reality beyond our earthly experience. For many, beginning with Doubting Thomas, it seems unreal because it is too good to be true. Why risk being hurt and disappointed by giving ourselves to such a dream?

 

St. Paul had to address this doubt in his own time. He wrote emphatically to the Church in Corinth, “If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith.” (1 Cor 15:12-14).

 

Easter reminds us that we have been made to rise with Jesus after death.

 

But the whole story of Jesus’s suffering, death and resurrection is also a lesson for us about our bodies. The words of Jesus at the Last Supper — “This is my body” — tell us that the Eucharist is the True Presence of Jesus. The bread becomes His body, the wine becomes His blood. 

 

On the cross, Jesus truly suffered in the body. After three hours He truly died in the body. His body was buried to await his resurrection in the body on Easter Sunday. The point is that Jesus shares with us the fullness of human nature. Like Him, we are persons consisting of body and soul. 

 

Our current age envisions our identity to be only our spiritual and thinking nature. The body is simply the encasement of who we are. In that line of thinking therefore, the body can be altered, changed or even disposed of at our pleasure. 

 

Our faith tells us otherwise, and Easter reminds us of the greatness of our dignity. It reminds us of the sacredness of the human body, which is meant to rise from the dead. Easter reminds us of just how much God loves us.

 

A Blessed Easter to all!