The Resurrection of the Lord - Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9

04-05-2026Weekly ReflectionThe Faithful Disciple

Today we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection, the pinnacle of the Church’s entire liturgical year. As disciples, we know that Christ’s resurrection is not something that happened to him alone; his resurrection offers us the promise that all who believe in him will one day rise with him. But the new life Christ promises is not something we have to wait for the next life to experience! Everything we have been doing throughout Lent to prepare for today’s celebration also gives us a foretaste of the fullness of life we will share with him at our own resurrection.

By God’s grace, we have been inwardly renewed by Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Our minds and hearts have been lifted from the things of earth to the things of heaven. As disciples of the risen Christ, let us continue to “seek what is above,” deepening our own participation here and now in the life he won for us through his cross and glorious resurrection.

The scene in today’s Gospel offers us a helpful insight for evangelization. Peter and John run to the empty tomb. While John gets there faster, he waits outside and allows Peter to enter first. We can think of Peter as symbolic of faith (he is the one, after all, who confesses Jesus as the Christ (Mt.16:16)), and John, as symbolic of love (in our Gospel, John is referred to not by name, but as “the other disciple whom Jesus loved.”) Although Peter and John see the empty tomb and believe, our Gospel reading ends with this interesting detail: “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” I think what the text is showing us is that love and faith often precede understanding. In our efforts of evangelization, apologetics and theology have their place. But we must not forget that sometimes inviting someone to love and trust in the Lord – before they have all the answers worked out – is more effective than trying to help a person reason their way to faith by perfect explanations. Love and faith draw us to encounter the risen Lord, and understanding comes later.

CELEBRATE: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad” our psalm tells us. Today is the Solemnity of solemnities, the Feast of all feasts! Take some time to rejoice and give thanks for all that God has done for us through his death and glorious resurrection. Today nothing else should be on our “to do” list other than to celebrate well!