Good morning people of God! Christ is Risen! Today I would like to wake you up with this traditional paschal or Easter greeting of the Eastern Church. I will announce to you, Christ is Risen, and I would like you to respond, He is Risen indeed. Christ is Risen! Thank you.
Today of course is Easter Sunday, and we are celebrating the reason why we are Christians. Jesus Christ has defeated death and He has indeed risen from the grave. So for the next few weeks at Sunday Mass through Pentecost, instead of hearing a reading from the Hebrew scriptures, we will hear about the beginnings of the Church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.
In our Gospel this morning we hear of Mary of Magdala, that's Mary Magdalen, finding the empty tomb and running to find Peter, broken hearted because they have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they've put Him. Peter and the other Disciple, who is John the author of the Gospel, found the tomb empty, but we are told they did not yet understand the scripture that He had to rise from the dead. But over time they do come to understand as we hear from Peter in the Acts of the Apostles.