By Fr Marius O’Reilly
I want to wish you a very happy Easter – Alleluia!
Today is the day that makes sense of your faith. Today is why you are reading this, why I am a priest etc. If today didn’t happen and it’s all a lie we might as well pack up and go home, or as St Paul says in 1 Cor 15,14: “and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain.” We would be the greatest fools. We would be following a dead man.
If however Jesus has risen from the dead, then it changes everything. You and I have a future! All the difficulties of this life are nothing compared to the glory that awaits us. If Jesus did rise from the dead then we have to make Him our Lord and God, and put Him front and centre in our lives.
Venerable Fulton Sheen spoke about what happened at the tomb. You will recall that the guards are paid to tell a lie: that the disciples came when they were asleep and stole Jesus’ body. Now if they were asleep and the disciples came and moved that very large stone, would it not have woken them up? If they were asleep how did they know who came and took the body? The story makes no sense.
Think about the disciples, would they have left everything, gone to the ends of the earth, knowing it would cost them their lives if it was all a lie? 500 of them had seen Jesus after His resurrection, and they knew they had to risk everything to tell the world the good news, to give people hope, to bring love and joy to the world. To get people to Heaven.
In our Gospel, it was enough for St Peter and St John to see the clothes lying on the floor to believe. Let us truly believe dear friends. Allow the risen LORD more into your heart. Let Him flood your heart with love and joy. The more we believe the more it changes our life, but it takes work and effort.
The world needs you to believe too, so that it can know there is hope, there is goodness and light. There is a future!
Are you prepared to risk everything to let others know?