“Do not be afraid…I know what you are looking for…come and see.”

The Church throughout the world echoes the angel’s message to the women: “Do not be afraid!
I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been
raised… Come, see the place.”
This is the culmination of the Gospel; it is the Good News par excellence: Jesus, who was
crucified, is risen! This event is the basis of our faith and our hope. If Christ were not raised,
Christianity would lose its very meaning; the whole mission of the Church would lose its impulse,
for this is the point from which it first set out and continues to set out ever anew. The message
which Christians bring to the world is this: Jesus, Love incarnate, died on the cross for our sins,
but God the Father raised him and made him the Lord of life and death. In Jesus, love has
triumphed over hatred, mercy over sinfulness, goodness over evil, truth over falsehood, life over
death.
That is why we tell everyone: “Come and see!” In every human situation, marked by frailty, sin
and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words, but a testimony to unconditional and
faithful love: it is about leaving ourselves behind and encountering others, being close to those
crushed by life’s troubles, sharing with the needy, standing at the side of the sick, elderly and
the outcast…“Come and see!”: Love is more powerful, love gives life, love makes hope blossom
in the wilderness.
With this joyful certainty in our hearts, today we turn to you, risen Lord!

Rising to New Life
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.”
Easter is the great celebration of victory of life over death. Ours is an Easter religion. We do not
deny or turn away from the evils that surround us: the wars that have killed so many people in
our century; the poverty that grips more than half of the human race; the hunger that kills
millions every year and ruins the lives of millions more; the discrimination that divides the human
family into contending parties.
We do not deny these miseries, but we refuse to surrender to their power because of our faith in
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Suffering will be vindicated; death will be overcome; a new life
will arise: that is the Easter message of the paschal mystery.
“Let us feast with joy in the Lord.” Just as Christ passed through death to resurrection, so too
will we pass through our suffering to the glory of a new life.
There is no room for despair: our Easter faith tells us that God will “raise us up and renew our
lives.”