Epistle.
1 Corinthians v. 7, 8.
Brethren:
Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new mass, as you are unleavened. For Christ, our pasch, is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Gospel.
St. Mark xvi. 1-7.
At that time:
Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought sweet spices, that coming they might anoint Jesus. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they come to the sepulchre, the sun being now risen. And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back, for it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed with a white robe: and they were astonished. And he said to them: Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen, he is not here; behold the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee; there you shall see him as he told you.

Sermon LXI.
Easter Joy.

HÆc dies, quam fecit Dominus:
Exultemus, et lÆtemur in ea.
—Psalm cxvii. 24.
[USCCB: Psalm cxviii. 24.]
"This is the day which the Lord hath made:
Let us be glad and rejoice in it."

So sings the Psalmist. So sings the church today in Holy Mass, and every Christian heart beats with the response: "Let us be glad and rejoice."

A happy Easter, then, to you all, my dear brethren! A happy Easter to the old, to whom, in the natural course of things, many returns of this blessed day cannot come! A happy Easter to the young, rejoicing in all the freshness and vigor of youth, and confidently looking forward to many renewals of Easter joys! A happy Easter to the rich, upon whom God has bestowed an abundance of worldly goods! And a thrice happy Easter to God's own special friends, the poor! Thus holy church bids all be glad and rejoice, for to-day Christ is risen, the Saviour of us all.

The joy of Easter, my dear brethren, like that of Christmas, is all-pervading. We feel it in the air we breathe, we see it in the sparkling eye and radiant countenance of the child. The quick and hearty salutation of our friends, "A happy Easter to you!" increases our own joy, for we perceive that all about us are sharers with us in this great gift of the risen Christ.

But the joy of Easter differs from that of Christmas in this: that the latter brings to us the glad tidings of the coming of the true King, the strong and valiant leader of the mighty host of Israel, and our hearts leap with joy as we go forth, with buoyant step and strengthened arm, and fight the great battle of life. Easter joy is the joy of victory, for our gallant Leader, the strong Son of God, has gone before; he has overcome the enemy, and death is swallowed up in victory.

Yes, Christ has fought the battle and won. But there remains for us a battle to be fought, but not an uncertain one; for we have received virtue from the victory of Christ, and by following him faithfully, by keeping our eye fixed steadily on the banner of Christ—the banner of the cross—our victory, too, is certain.

This, then, is why Easter time gladdens the heart of every true Christian, for it brings with it the assured hope of final victory over sin, which is the sting of death, by a glorious resurrection.

But, my dear brethren, mid all these rejoicings may there not be some poor soul among us who does not participate in the joys of Easter time? Some soul for which Christ on Good Friday poured forth the last drop of his Sacred Blood, but which to-day finds itself estranged, nay, even in a hostile attitude towards its only true friend? Oh! would to God there were not even one such ungrateful soul in the whole world. But, alas! I fear there are many upon whom our loving Saviour, the risen Christ, must look this day as his declared enemies; some wretched souls over whom hangs the thick, black cloud of mortal sin, unrepented and unforgiven, and through which the bright rays of God's infinite love cannot penetrate. Yet even these need not despair; the joys of Easter time may still be theirs, for the same loving and sword-pierced Heart of Jesus is still ready to be reconciled with them. Oh! if there be such a one present here this morning let him take courage, come at once to the tribunal of penance, become one of the friends of the risen Christ, and share with us the joys of Easter.

And those who have been, but are no longer, strangers to God's grace, persevere, I exhort you, during the short space of this life in the friendship of our crucified Lord, and yours, too, will, like his, be a glorious resurrection.

Let us, then, my dear brethren, on this happy Easter day elevate our hearts to God in humble thanksgiving for all his benefits, and let us unite with the holy church in the prayer of the office for to-day. God! who, through thine only-begotten Son, hast on this day overcome death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life, we humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us, thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continued help we may bring the same to good effect. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Sermon LXII.
Easter And The Love Of God.

This is the day which the Lord hath made:
let us be glad and rejoice therein.
—Psalm. cxvii. 24.
[USCCB: Psalm cxviii. 24.]

Familiar words these, my brethren, and for ever associated in our minds with this greatest of all Christian festivals. Frequently on this day and through its octave does the church repeat them to us; they sound now continually in our ears. And no doubt they find some echo in our hearts. Yes, we are glad, we do rejoice; surely no one who can call himself a Christian could hear unmoved the outburst of our triumph and exultation yesterday as the "Gloria in Excelsis" was intoned in the Mass, telling us that the lion of Juda has conquered, that God has arisen and that his enemies are scattered, that he has put death and hell under his feet. For the moment at least we would say with St. Paul: "O death! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting? Thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

But as the newness, the freshness of the Easter joy and triumph passes away, does not another feeling come and mingle with it? A feeling of awe, almost of dread, comes upon us, like that terror which came upon the guards at the sepulchre as they saw the angel who rolled away the stone, of whom St. Matthew says that his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; like that fear which came even on the holy women as they saw the two angels in shining apparel standing at the empty tomb; and upon the Apostles themselves when Jesus stood in their midst soon after; for the evangelist tells us that they were troubled and frighted, in spite of his words giving them peace and telling them not to be afraid.

Indeed, I think there was no one of those who saw our risen Lord, except his glorious and Blessed Mother, whose love was so perfect that it quite cast out this fear. And still more is it in our poor and imperfect hearts; we cannot shake it off. How many are there of us, unless, indeed, those innocent ones who have not yet known what sin is, who, if this were really and truly the morning of the resurrection, and the risen one could be seen by those who should seek him, would arise gladly and run to meet him, and fall in loving adoration at his feet?

If we can in our inmost heart feel that we would, we have reason indeed to be glad and rejoice to-day. But to feel so there must be something in us besides that thrill of triumph and of victory which overpowers us as the splendor of the resurrection first breaks upon our souls. There must be a true, fervent, and deep love of the God who to-day comes so near to us; a hatred from the bottom of our hearts and souls of all that in the least degree separates us from him; there must be, beside faith, also hope and charity, such as the saints have had—that hope which knows that he loves us and has forgiven us, that charity which would make us die sooner than offend him again. And these we have not because of our sins.

Yes, it is sin which casts the shadow on our Easter; it is the love and affection for it which still remains in us; it is that compromising spirit which is even at our best times holding us back, keeping us from fully loving, trusting, and giving ourselves up to God, for fear that we might lose something by doing so; it is this that makes us afraid to approach him and to share in his joy. As for mortal sin, that, of course, takes the happiness of Easter away altogether; to one who is in its darkness the thought of meeting God brings, and can bring, no thought of joy. But even venial sin brings its dread with it, too. And what is the remedy for this dread? It is very simple. It is only to try now to begin to love with our whole hearts him who has loved us, and given his life for us; whose delight is to be with us and to have us come to him; to keep nothing back from him—in short, to live here in our feeble measure the life we hope to live in heaven. This is the way, and the only way, for us to enter now as we would wish into the joy of our Lord.

This is the day which the Lord hath made:
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
—Psalm. cxvii. 24.
[USCCB: Psalm cxviii. 24.]

The festival of Easter is, above all things, my brethren, a day of joy. Just as we love the sunshine more after days of cloud and tempest, so also is our joy keener and more intense when it follows sorrows.

It is for this reason that the joy of Easter is greater than that of Christmas, or of any other season of the Christian year. For we have been passing through a time of sorrow. We have beheld in Passion-tide our dearest Lord in suffering. We have beheld him as the King of Martyrs, worthy of the title, because his pains were so far in excess of anything that mere man has ever suffered or could ever suffer. We have seen him in his agony in the garden, when the sins of the whole world and of all time were presented to his vision and pressed heavily upon him, filling his Sacred Heart with deepest grief. We have called to mind his betrayal by his trusted friend and disciple; his arraignment before impious and unjust judges; his cruel condemnation and death. Despised and rejected by his own chosen people whom he had come to save, a robber and murderer preferred before him, we have beheld him abandoned to the tortures of the heathen soldiers, scourged, and spit upon, and crowned with thorns, and finally led forth to die a malefactor's death upon the cross.

And worse than all is the thought that he was forsaken by those whom he held most dear, those whom he had chosen to be his special friends and disciples, and who had been his constant companions in his public ministry. They all forsook him and fled, leaving him to die.

Then we have followed him along the sorrowful way of the cross; we have meditated deeply upon his three last hours of agony; we have almost heard his deep, expiring groan as he rendered up his soul to the hands of his Father.

Now, if we have thus learnt well the lessons of Passion-tide, the joy of Easter will come to us in all its fulness. If we have pondered well the depth of humiliation to which our Lord subjected himself in his death upon the cross, we shall well realize the greatness of his triumph to-day. The joy that filled the hearts of the Apostles, of the holy women, and, above all, the Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Lady when they knew that the Lord had risen indeed will be ours to-day, and we shall cry out in the words which the church puts into our mouths: "This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us rejoice and be glad in it": for "the Lord is my strength and my praise, and is become my salvation." Therefore, to-day the voice of praise and of salvation "is in the dwellings of the just throughout the world."

"For the right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength"; the right hand of the Lord—that is, his almighty power—has raised up Jesus from the dead. He has risen glorious and triumphant, and in his glory and triumph all mankind are sharers. For by his resurrection he has overcome death and opened unto us the gates of everlasting life. He has triumphed over sin, which brought death into the world, and which was the cause of his death. His resurrection, therefore, means our deliverance from sin and death, and is a pledge to us of that life which he will give to his faithful ones.

Surely, then, we can have no greater cause for rejoicing than this. Pray, then, my brethren, that your hearts may be filled with the true spirit of Easter joy. "Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full; and your joy no man shall take from you."