Easter Sunday

Reflection

I grew up during the 1950s.  I remember Easter not so much because it was a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead but because it was an occasion on which we purchased new clothes and wore them for the first time on Easter Sunday.  Our local church, like churches in other places, was a show of new clothes and excited children who could not wait to get home after Mass and dig into their Easter baskets.

I wonder about all this now that I am in my 70s.  What were we being told?  Maybe there was something in what we did as children that prepared us for the essential meaning of Easter.  In early Christianity, catechumens were baptized at the Easter Vigil Mass were made to leave behind their old clothes before entering the pool of water to be baptized.  After their baptism, they would come out of the water and dress in white, a sign of their new status as Christians who had been washed clean of sin and who now celebrated the newness of their lives as Christians.

Could it be that we, as children, were being prepared to understand that Easter was a celebration of our own rebirth and the newness of life that we had received in our baptism?  A reminder that we celebrated more than a doctrine of faith that declared that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Indeed, a celebration of our newness in Christ, who had liberated us from sin.

Prayer

God our Father, who dressed us in new life at our baptism, help us this day to remember and to celebrate not only Your Son’s rising from the dead but also our rebirth to new life.

Fr. David Théroux, S.S.E. ’70, Instructor in the Religious Studies Department

Scripture

First Reading: Acts 10:34a, 37-43

Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8

Gospel: John 20:1-9 or Luke 24:1-12

Daily Scripture readings can be found online at the USCCB website