Easter 2025 "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen."

LUKE 24:6

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” We cannot celebrate Easter if we continue to be dead; if we remain prisoners of the past; if in our lives we lack the courage to let ourselves be forgiven by God who forgives everything; if we fail to change, to break with the works of evil, to decide for Jesus and his love. If we continue to reduce faith to a talisman, making God a lovely memory from times past, instead of encountering him today as the living God who desires to change us and to change our world. A Christianity that seeks the Lord among the ruins of the past and encloses him in the tomb of habit is a Christianity without Easter. Yet the Lord is risen! Let us not tarry among the tombs, but run to find him, the Living One! Nor may we be afraid to seek him also in the faces of our brothers and sisters, in the stories of those who hope and dream, in the pain of those who we suffer: God is there!"

Pope Francis on the Resurrection

Easter Vigil

Pope Francis, Vatican

16 April 2022

"Easter proclaims that nothing is impossible with God and that His love can overcome all obstacles."

Saint Francis of Assisi

We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery - the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”. We are not looking for a shallow joy but rather a joy that comes from faith, that grows through unselfish love, that respects the “fundamental duty of love of neighbour, without which it would be unbecoming to speak of Joy”. We realize that joy is demanding; it demands unselfishness; it demands a readiness to say with Mary: “Be it done unto me according to thy word”.

JOHN PAUL II

ANGELUS

Adelaide, Australia; Sunday, 30 November 1986

"Easter reminds us that God's love is stronger than any suffering or darkness we may encounter."

Saint Padre Pio

The Resurrection

"That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking with each other and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognising him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said the them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going father, but they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, for it is towards evening and the day is now far spent." So he went to stay with them. When he was table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognised him. And he vanished from their sight.

They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven who were gathered together, saying, " The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

LUKE 24:13-35

"The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Christian faith and the source of our eternal hope."

 Saint Leo the Great

Pentecost

Why is Easter the longest Liturgical Season?

The Octave of Easter is not the end of the Easter season. Easter the most significant liturgical season in the Church's Year, even more significant than Christmas, lasts for fifty days, ending seven full weeks after Easter Sunday with Pentecost Sunday.

"Easter is a season of profound transformation, a time when the old gives way to the new and the broken is made whole. It is a reminder that God's power is made perfect in weakness, and that His grace is sufficient for all our needs."

Saint Faustina Kowalska

On this day when we celebrate the life given us in the resurrection of the Son,

let us remember the infinite love of God for each of us:

a love that overcomes every limit and every weakness.

May the light of the resurrection illumine our minds and convert our hearts,

and make us aware of the value of every human life,

which must be welcomed, protected and loved.

URBI ET ORBI

Pope Francis; Easter 2024