EASTER SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD
5th April 2026
Lectionary Readings: Acts 10:34.37-43; Ps. 118: 1-2.16-17. 22-23; Col 3:1-4 or 1 Cor 5:6b-8; Jn 20:1-9 or Matt. 28:1-10
Theme: Rejoice! Easter People
The gospel reading for today, John 20:1-9 and the1st reading Acts 10:34. 37-43, are not only focusing on the Good News, the fulfillment of the Scripture, but also giving us another dimension of reflecting upon it. In Acts 10:34–43 Peter shares the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ with Cornelius and other gentiles. He gives a beautiful summary of the gospel, from Jesus’ liberating ministry to his death, resurrection, and exaltation as Lord of the living and dead. In the Gospel of John 20:1-9, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and speaks of his resurrection and sends her out to tell the news to the disciples.
Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels! Jesus Christ, our King, is risen! Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, Christ has conquered! Glory fills you! Darkness vanishes forever! (cf. Roman missal of 1970) The Exsultet is a hymn intoned during the Easter Vigil after the procession with the Paschal Candle before the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word. It is used in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Churches, as well as other Christian Denominations. It gives one a great feeling and my first experience was singing it inside the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem the place where Jesus was Resurrected. Yet darkness has not vanished! With the exoneration of Pilate and the Romans for the crucifixion of Jesus and the blame laid on the Jews, a seed of darkness was sown that grew and swelled into the dark ominous clouds of smoke that was the Shoah. The Commanding Voice issuing from these ashes will be to our own detriment if not heard and acknowledged. So, on this great festival day of the Church, our joy cannot be complete unless we remember the sins we have committed in Jesus’ name. Amidst our joy, let us shed tears like the red drops of wine that were spilled from the Seder cup in memory of all the Egyptians lying dead on the seashore.
It is difficult to publicly admit sin, especially for the hierarchy in the churches. Central to “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah” (1998) is the distinction between the “Church as such” and “Christians.” It is “the children” who have sinned! Nor is the causal link between the history of catholic anti-Judaism and the Nazi hatred of Jews confessed. Cardinal Cassidy, head of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, and the principal author of “We Remember” did admit to a group of Jewish leaders in May 1998 that “the ghetto, which came into being in 1555 with a papal bull (letter), became in Nazi Germany the antechamber of the extermination.” For more than three hundred years until the reunification of Italy in the 19th century, the ghetto, at the foot of the Vatican, held Jews in squalid conditions. In 1796, French troops liberated many Italian ghettos but after the defeat of Napoleon, Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) ordered the walls of the ghetto to be rebuilt. Across the street from what served as the gate of the ghetto stands the Church of ‘San Gregorio alla divina Pieta’. A Hebrew script under the crucifix quotes the Jewish prophet Isaiah — “All day long, I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and faithless nation that has lost its way” (cf. Isaiah 65:2) — but misuses the quote to give it an anti-Semitic twist.
The Second Vatican Council with its proclamation of Nostra Aetate, paragraph 4 and subsequent documents signal a major reversal in the church’ attitude to Jews i.e., God’s covenant with the Jewish people has never been revoked (cf. I.3, Notes’85) and Jesus was and always remained a Jew (cf. III.20, Notes ’85). These statements are in sharp contrast, for example, to the deeds of Pope Paul IV
(cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_IV) and the goals of a pro-Nazi faction in the German Protestant Church who redefined Christianity as a Germanic religion whose founder, Jesus, was no Jew, but rather fought valiantly to destroy Judaism (cf. S. Heschel). Vatican II is but a beginning. Recent events of the past years alert us to the fact that much is left to be done before there is a real metanoia in the churches.
We are Easter People: our search for God is meant to be an active search, not a passive one. Let us be open and avoid any biases or racism so that we can show to the whole world and genuinely demonstrate that Jesus is the source of eternal life for all peoples.
For Reflection and Discussion:
- Am I part of the Easter People? 2. In our Celebration of today am I still looking into the empty tomb? 3. Do I still see the Jews as causing the death of Jesus?
Bibliography: J. Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews (New York, 2001); S. Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton, 2008); A. J. Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (New York, 2006); Nostra
Aetate: http://www.nostreradici.it/enaetate.htm; Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism: http://www.ewtn.org/library/curia/rrjjews.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_IV
This week’s Sunday Liturgy Commentary was prepared by
Dunhill Malunar Timkang, Jerusalem – Holy Land, Bat Kol Secretary
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