Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 32 : 4-5, 18-19, 20 and 22
For upright is the Lord’s word and worthy of trust is His work. The Lord loves justice and righteousness; the earth is full of His kindness.
But the Lord’s eyes are upon those who fear Him, upon those who trust in His loving-kindness to deliver them from death and preserve them from famine.
In hope we wait for the Lord, for He is our help and our shield. O Lord, let Your love rest upon us, even as our hope rests in You.
Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 2 : 36-41
Peter said, “Let Israel then know for sure that God has made Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified.”
When they heard this, they were deeply troubled. And they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What shall we do, brothers?”
Peter answered : “Each of you must repent and be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins may be forgiven. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise of God was made to you and your children, and to all those from afar whom our God may call.”
With many other words Peter gave the message and appealed to them saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who accepted his word were baptised; some three thousand persons were added to their number that day.
Liturgical Colour : White
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are now celebrating the great joy of Easter, which is so great that it overflows throughout the entirety of the fifty days of the Easter season, and particularly this week, which is the Easter Octave, which runs between the Easter Sunday and the Second Sunday of Easter, which is the Divine Mercy Sunday.
At this time of great joy, the Scriptures reminded us that we have to remain faithful and joyful servants of the Lord, but not just that, as we also have to be the faithful servants of our Lord, in being truthful and upright in our testimony and as true witnesses of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and abandoning and casting away all forms of falsehoods which the devil tries to plant in the hearts of men.
When Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke the truth with great courage to the people who ridiculed the apostles for being drunk after they spoke in tongues filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter testimonied and witnessed for the Lord before the thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem, and the power of the Spirit gave great courage to this man once riddled with fear and uncertainty.
The testimony of Peter was true and firm, and it showed to the people how mistaken they had been in their beliefs about Christ and on what the leaders and the elders of the people had tried to falsely portray the Christ as. The words of Peter and the angels of the Lord that appeared to the holy women rang true and shed light over the darkness of evil that veiled this world.
Why did the elders of the people try to deceive the people by lying to them about the resurrection of the Lord? And this even though the fact was that they were the ones most knowledgeable about the Scriptures and therefore should have been the ones who knew most about what the Lord will do through His Son the Messiah?
That is because of sins in the hearts of men. Even the supposedly most holy and learnt of the people of God could be corrupted by these sins, which blocked the light and salvation of God, as sins, especially that of pride, clouded the hearts and judgments of men, preventing them from taking part in the Lord’s plan of salvation and instead did their best to undermine the Lord’s good works through Jesus.
The elders and the chief priests feared that if Jesus was allowed to have His way, and if what He has done and shown the people is true, then their influence and power within the society and with the people of God will be undermined and destroyed. That is why they hated Jesus and always tried to be in His way as He performed His many good works, and even to the end, they mocked Him on the way to Calvary, on the cross, and even tried to undermine the good news of His glorious resurrection.
Such indeed, was the danger of the human pride and sins that inhabit our hearts. They can derail us from our path to God and close our senses from the ability to sense and understand the love that God has for us, which He had shown in perfection through His Son Jesus, in His life, His suffering and death, and ultimately, His resurrection from the dead.
Let us in this Easter season, as we celebrate the joy of life, a new life in the Risen Lord, also help one another to witness for the truth about the Lord and about our genuine and dedicated faith in Him. Let us preach the Good News of the Risen Lord and Saviour to all mankind, praising Him before all creations that more and more will come to believe and accept Jesus Christ as God, as Peter had once done with the great courage of the Holy Spirit.
May this Easter be a great, wonderful and blessed one for all of us. Let us rejoice and be glad in our Risen Lord. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Matthew 28 : 8-15
They left the tomb at once in fear, yet with great joy, and they ran to tell the news to His disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them on the way and said, “Rejoice!”
The women approached Him, embraced His feet and worshipped Him. But Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid! Go and tell My brothers to set out for Galilee; there they will see Me.”
While the women were on their way, the guards returned to the city, and some of them reported to the chief priests all that had happened. The chief priests met with the elders, and decided to give the soldiers a large sum of money, with this instruction, “Say that His disciples came by night while you were asleep, and stole the body of Jesus. If Pilate comes to know of this, we will explain the situation and keep you out of trouble.”
The soldiers accepted the money and did as they were told. This story has circulated among the Jews until this day.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 15 : 1-2a and 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11
Keep me safe, o God, for in You I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “O Lord, my inheritance and my cup, my chosen portion – hold secure my lot.”
I bless the Lord who counsels me; even at night my inmost self instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me; for with Him at my right hand, I will never be shaken.
My heart, therefore, exults, my soul rejoices; my body too will rest assured. For You will not abandon my soul to the grave, nor will You suffer Your Holy One to see decay in the land of the dead.
You will show me the path of life, in Your presence the fullness of joy, at Your right hand happiness forever.
Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 2 : 14, 22-33
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven and, with a loud voice, addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all foreigners now staying in Jerusalem, listen to what I have to say. Fellow Israelites, listen to what I am going to tell you about Jesus of Nazareth.”
“God accredited Him and through Him did powerful deeds and wonders and signs in your midst, as you well know. You delivered Him to sinners to be crucified and killed, and in this way the purpose of God from all times was fulfilled. But God raised Him to life and released Him from the pain of death, because it was impossible for Him to be held in the power of death.”
“David spoke of Him when he said : ‘I saw the Lord before me at all times; He is by my side, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced; my body too will live in hope. Because You will not forsake me in the abode of the dead, nor allow Your Holy One to experience corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life, and Your presence will fill me with joy.'”
“Friends, I do not need to prove that the patriarch David died and was buried; his tomb is with us to this day. But he knew that God had sworn to him that One of his descendants would sit upon his throne and, as he was a prophet, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah. So he said that He would not be left in the region of the dead, nor would His Body experience corruption.”
“This Messiah is Jesus and we are all witnesses that God raised Him to life. He has been exalted at God’s right side and the Father has entrusted the Holy Spirit to Him; this Spirit He has just poured upon us as you now see and hear.”
Alleluia! The Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour and God is risen, Alleluia!
Brothers and sisters in Christ, first I would like to share with all of you the joy of Easter, the blessings of the Risen Lord Jesus, who had died on the cross for us, and Risen in glory, overcoming the powers of death, and showing that death has no final say over all. Today is indeed a day of great joy, as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, that there is hope in all of us mankind.
For we who follow the Lord and His way, have died to our sins and to our past lives, as the Scriptures had mentioned, and then followed the Lord in His resurrection, and we were risen to a new life in Christ, filled with love, hope, and faith. Today is the day when Christ broke the hold of sin and death over all of us, we who had been once enslaved by the powers of sin, ever since our first ancestors disobeyed the will of God and followed their own will into destruction.
Christ is the dawn of new life and new hope, which God has given us as the perfect gift, the gift of Himself, to bring us away from our former lives in darkness and into the new purity that is worthy of God. In His resurrection, Christ washes away the darkness of sin and death and bring with Him a new light that will never be dimmed, and is the light of hope that is the beacon for all of us as we proceed towards the Lord, our final destination.
What is the significance of Easter and the Resurrection of our Lord? If Jesus Christ had just died for us on the cross and remain dead and buried, then we would have no hope at all, and there would be no salvation for us. It is precisely because Christ is the first of all and the first to rise from the dead, then we too have the hope to rise up from the ashes of our death and sinfulness, into a new life of hope in God, one that is filled with the hope of complete reunion and perfection in God.
Christ heralded the end of the long separation between God and His beloved creations, mankind by serving as the crucial and only link between us and God the Father. Through His cross, He had bridged the once uncrossable and impassable chasm existing between us and God. Through His resurrection, our redemption became a reality.
When Christ died, He passed into the realm of the dead, just as all those who were under the power of death. It was there too that countless people from the beginning of time awaited the coming of the Saviour who would release them from the enthrallment and tyranny of Satan and evil, and bring them into a new and eternal life of goodness with God.
This was the harrowing of hell, when Christ broke apart the chains holding those who were dead and righteous in their lives before God, freeing them from the dominion of death, and together with Christ, they went on to new life in God, in eternal bliss and happiness, having been reunited with God through the Resurrection of Jesus.
Such was the joy of the people who had long awaited the salvation that came through Jesus, and such was the joy of the angels and the saints of God when the Lord is Risen and show to the devil his final and utter defeat, the defeat of all his schemes and plotting against God and His beloved ones. This great joy is what we celebrate in Easter, and indeed in every time we come together to celebrate the Mass, that is in essence the celebration of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
This joy is because we celebrate life, the dawn of a new life, one that is no longer marred by sin and evil, but one that is firmly anchored in God and His love. Easter is about life, the celebration and joy for life. That is why we rejoice and give thanks to the Lord for this bright, new life He had granted us through the resurrection of Jesus His Son. Easter is a time for renewal and rejuvenation, when the coldness and bitterness of our past is gone, and replaced with the hope and fresh breeze of new life.
If Christ died without being risen after three days in the realm of the dead, then we would have had no hope, as we know that death would eventually claim us for our sins and trespasses. Instead, we know that because Christ was risen, He triumphed over death and conquered it, so that again, as I had mentioned, death does not have the final say over us.
But Christ did not just do this for us to take advantage on. We also have to accept Him as our Lord and Saviour for us to be able to take part in the salvation that Christ had brought upon us. That is the essence of baptism, which we also celebrate particularly on this holy and great day. We celebrate with those who had finally accepted Christ as their Lord and Saviour, and we praise God because more and more are brought to the light of God.
Baptism is in essence the celebration of Easter, because in baptism, our past sinfulness are washed away by the waters of baptism, and we are reborn again in Christ, who by His power makes us to be truly the children of God, and the inheritor of the vast goodness that God had promised us His beloved ones. Through baptism, like Jesus, we died to our old lives and sins, and we welcome a new life, risen together with Christ, a life that is hopefully filled with love, hope and faith in the Risen Lord.
Today we have to recall closely what happened on the day when we were baptised. For many of us, this is perhaps difficult since we are baptised when we were still infants, and therefore we could not recall the experience of our own baptism. For some of us, we are fortunate for we accepted the Lord when we were already at an age when we are able to make conscious decision and decide that we want to take the side of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, when we were baptised, the Lord claimed us as His own, and we were sealed with the seal of the Living God, none other than with the Most Sacred Name of the Holy Trinity. Baptism marked our moment of truth, when Christ who is Risen today brings us with Him to the glory of the new life and resurrection, and we are brought away from our past darkness and sinful lives.
But that does not mean that we should be complacent and leave it at as if we have already been assured the riches of the kingdom of God as our reward. Satan definitely will still try his best to persuade us back to return to his ways and will lure us with great pleasures of the world. Many have fallen along the way, even though they have seen the light of God. This Easter should serve as a reminder for us, that we have to be always vigilant and treasure what we have in the Risen Lord.
Let us help one another, that we may be ever closer to God, and let us reach out to the Lord, who had first reached out to us through Jesus His Son, who suffered for our sins and trespasses, wounded and scourged for our rebelliousness, died for our sake, and went to free those who were in darkness and brought them into the eternal light and peace in God. Let us help one another that all of us will be one in the Risen Lord.
May Almighty God and the Risen Christ, bless us on this wonderful day. Alleluia! Let our song of joy and praise resound throughout the earth, proclaiming our Risen Lord this day to all creations! Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
John 20 : 1-9
Now, on the first day after the Sabbath, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark, and she saw that the stone blocking the tomb had been moved away. She ran to Peter, and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and she said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid Him.”
Peter then set out with the other disciple to go to the tomb. They ran together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down and saw the linen cloths lying flat, but he did not enter.
Then Simon Peter came, following him, and entered the tomb; he too, saw the linen cloths lying flat. The napkin, which had been around His head, was not lying flat like the other linen cloths, but lay rolled up in its place. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in; he saw and believed.
Scripture clearly said that he must rise from the dead, but they had not yet understood that.
Alternative Reading
Matthew 28 : 1-10
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to visit the tomb. Suddenly, there was a violent earthquake : an angel of the Lord descending from heaven, came to the stone, rolled it from the entrance of the tomb, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his garment white as snow. The guards trembled in fear and became like dead men when they saw the angel.
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen as He said. Come, see the place where they laid Him; then go at once and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see Him there. This is my message for you.”
They left the tomb at once in fear, yet with great joy, and they ran to tell the news to His disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them on the way and said, “Rejoice!”
The women approached Him, embraced His feet and worshipped Him. But Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid! Go and tell My brothers to set out for Galilee; there they will see Me.”
Alternative Reading (for Easter Sunday Evening Mass)
Luke 24 : 13-35
That same day, two followers of Jesus were going to Emmaus, a village seven miles from Jerusalem, and they talked about what had happened. While they were talking and arguing about what had happened, Jesus came up and walked with them, but their eyes were not able to recognise Him.
He asked, “What is it you are talking about?” The two stood still, looking sad. Then the one named Cleophas answered, “Why, it seems you are the only traveller to Jerusalem who does not know what has happened there these past few days.” And He asked, “What is it?”
They replied, “It is about Jesus of Nazareth. He was a Prophet, you know, mighty in word and deed before God and the people. But the chief priests and our rulers sentenced Him to death. They handed Him over to be crucified. We had hoped that He would redeem Israel. It is now the third day since all this took place.”
“It is also true that some women of our group have disturbed us. When they went to the tomb at dawn, they did not find His Body; and they came and told us that they had had a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive. Some of our people went to the tomb and found everything just as the women had said, but they did not find a body in the tomb.”
He said to them, “How dull you are, how slow of understanding! Is the message of the prophets too difficult for you to understand? Is it not written that the Christ should suffer all this, and then enter His glory?” Then starting with Moses, and going through the prophets, He explained to them everything in the Scriptures concerning Himself.
As they drew near the village they were heading for, Jesus made as if to go farther. But they prevailed upon Him, “Stay with us, for night comes quickly. The day is now almost over.” So He went in to stay with them. When they were at table, He took the bread, said a blessing, broke it, and gave each a piece.
Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised Him; but He vanished out of their sight. And they said to one another, “Were not our hearts filled with ardent yearning when He was talking to us on the road and explaining the Scriptures?”
They immediately set out and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and their companions gathered together. They were greeted by these words : “Yes, it is true, the Lord is risen! He has appeared to Simon!” Then the two told what had happened on the road to Emmaus, and how Jesus had made Himself known, when He broke bread with them.
Liturgical Colour : White
Colossians 3 : 1-4
So then, if you are risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on earthly things. For you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, reveals Himself, you also will be revealed with Him in Glory.
Alternative Reading
1 Corinthians 5 : 6b-8
Do you not know that a little yeast makes the whole mass of dough rise? Throw out, then, the old yeast and be new dough. If Christ became our Passover, you should be unleavened bread.
Let us celebrate, therefore, the Passover, no longer with old yeast, which is sin and perversity; let us have unleavened bread, that is purity and sincerity.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 117 : 1-2, 16ab-17, 22-23
Alleluia! Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His loving kindness endures forever. Let Israel say, “His loving kindness endures forever.”
The right hand of the Lord is lifted high, the right hand of the Lord strikes mightily! I shall not die, but live to proclaim what the Lord has done.
The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing and we marvel at it.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 