Resurrection

SUNDAY 19TH APRIL 2026: THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER.

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Supper at Emmaus or The Pilgrims at Emmaus, Rembrandt 1648, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.

Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”     Luke 24:32.

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Today’s gospel is one of the most famous events in Scripture. Do you remember the risen Jesus’ instruction to his followers? “And when they came together, he gave them this order: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift I told you about, the gift my Father promised” (Acts of the Apostles 1:4). And yet here are two men, followers of the Lord, leaving Jerusalem, directly disobeying the Risen Lord’s clear order! One might ask why, as no explanation is given in Scripture, but one can hazard a guess: they were terrified that what had happened to Jesus would happen to them if they became known as his followers. But without one word of censure, the risen Jesus, unrecognizable to them for some reason, simply approached them, joined them as they walked along, and began to explain the moments in Holy Scripture which prophesied his death and resurrection – and generations of scripture scholars would give their eye teeth to have been on that walk with them! They were, of course, transfixed with what he had to say, as they remarked afterwards, so much so that they seem to have almost begged him to stay with them and dine with them. This he did, and just as he broke bread with them, he vanished from their sight (except, of course, he hadn’t: he was there in the consecrated bread he was breaking at that moment..). They, now filled with the strength and presence of God, returned immediately to Jerusalem and couldn’t wait to share their good news with the others. No longer scared, no longer mice, but men, but men who had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Their courage would not last long…

Today’s first reading is also evidence of the new, real, strength God gave them. This passage, from the book of Acts, occurred immediately after the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the terrified followers of Jesus, probably locked away in what became known as the Upper Room, or the Cenacle. None of them could bear the thought that what had happened to the Lord might well happen to them as his followers. And can you blame them? That initial excitement of seeing the Risen Lord did not readily translate into the bravery that would face death. Take one good look at the man in the Shroud of Turin to see the brutal treatment he endured, the marks of the nails, the scourging, the evidence of the crown of thorns, and on and on. This was punishment of the cruelest possible nature. It meant that the entire Christian church was locked away securely in that Upper Room, afraid to show themselves lest they too be crucified. If God’s Holy Spirit had not descended upon them, you would not be reading this, there would be no Christian presence in the world, humanity would have been left to its own fate (the Jewish people not being interested in propagating their belief in God). But God had other plans.

Today’s second reading from the First Letter of St. Peter echoes last week’s reflection on Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. You will remember the incident with the saintly bishop who saved Jean Valjean from being thrown back into prison for stealing the bishop’s silverware. In saving him, the bishop declared he had ransomed Valjean’s soul for God, so that from now on he was of God. St. Peter says, “you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb”. We were all born to be children of God, not for some other debased ideal such as wealth or power or self-glorification. No: we are called to reflect God’s beauty and goodness in our lives, reflected in the glory of Jesus’ example of self-giving to the end. So today’s Scripture should produce in us what Jesus’ presence did to those two people running away to Emmaus: Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us? Please God, that should be the exact same reaction today, 2000 years later, with us all, not running away to Emmaus, but to union with God in heaven!

Disputation of the Sacrament, Raphael 1510, Stanza della Segnatura, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City State.

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SUNDAY 5 APRIL 2026: THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD: THE MASS OF EASTER DAY.

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The Face of the Risen Lord? Image on the Shroud of Turin, Turin, Italy.

It is said to be the most studied artifact in history! See Shroud. 

“So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.”               John 20:3-7.

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Today we celebrate the most profound reason that we call ourselves Christian: Jesus defeated death itself. The age-old enemy of life was itself destroyed and Jesus invites each of us to join him; not that we will not die – even Jesus himself endured that heavy burden – but he brought back the tremendous hope that not all is ended at that moment. Life continues! And the life we expect to live after death will reflect the life we have lived here on earth, be it good, bad or indifferent. And as Christians we hope, pray and attempt to live a life that is good in the eyes of God. And the highly controversial picture above may be the actual proof of life after death! That ghostly image, a negative of the actual image on the Shroud of Turin, is recorded on barely visible marks on the top of ancient linen which, by one calculation, would need a momentary burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation requiring billions of watts of light energy, far exceeding the capabilities of any known UV source even today, to have made that image. Additionally, the radiation would have to produce light without generating heat, as the accompanying heat would have vaporized the cloth instantly. In other words, after years of research and hypotheses, experts are still debating what could have produced that image. But after 2000 years of men and women believing in the Resurrection, it is certainly reassuring that we might well have proof of such a unique event, And the fact that this artifact has baffled our most advanced minds in this 21st century is a great comfort. I can’t help thinking that Our Lord left behind this mystifying image with our present questioning and skeptical day and age in mind! Who knows? But there it is, challenging us to believe that where the Lord went, we might follow.

The gospel today is taken from John, the last gospel to be written, the experts assure us. The earliest is Mark, and those same experts claim that the empty tomb was where Mark laid down his pen and stopped (The other verses which follow in Mark’s gospel are additions from different authors, we are told, though are still canonical, that is to say, true). It is also supposed that the John who wrote today’s gospel is the same John as entered the tomb once Peter had gone in. In other words, he is writing directly from his memory of the event. And the careful description of the burial cloths is an intriguing element. Many claim the gospel writer is actually describing the Shroud of Turin! And who folded them up so carefully? (By the way, the smaller, second, cloth is thought by many to be the Sudarium of Oviedo). That both objects have survived for 2000 years is itself miraculous! But if true, and there are many reasons to say that, then each is direct evidence of the Resurrection for a multitude of reasons offered by scientists. Some of these have actually converted to the Faith as a result of their studies of the Shroud.

So this relic is probably the most important evidence of the most important event in human history! And today we celebrate the defeat of death, humanity’s oldest enemy. It is on this day that our Greek-speaking Christian friends say from midnight on Holy Saturday and throughout Easter Sunday, the traditional greeting: “Christos Anesti” (Χριστός Ανέστη), meaning “Christ is Risen,” to which the response is “Alithos Anesti” (Αληθώς Ανέστη), “Truly He is Risen”. This is so much more Christian than our rather lame “Happy Easter”, especially as the word “Easter” is not even Christian! But putting language aside, we know that Christianity is based on the event we celebrate today. Without it, who knows what the world would be like? Almost certainly not as good as it is now, wars and plagues notwithstanding! Tom Holland’s brilliant book “How the Christian Revolution Remade the World” (2019), is a convincing argument of the overwhelming influence of today’s event has had over the last 2000 years. All of us can truthfully say, I believe, that without the event we celebrate today, life would be far more brutal and desperate than it is now. So it is with the profoundest humility and gratitude we can all say:

Χριστός Ανέστη! Christ is Risen! Αληθώς Ανέστη! Truly He is Risen!

Or, with true Christian conviction and faith, Happy Easter!

The Resurrection, Piero della Francesca c.1465, Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, Italy.

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