Dear Friends, Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia! What a joy to keep experiencing the Risen Lord all around us this week, and realize that during the Octave of Easter all creation is charged with the 'Grandeur of God,' as Hopkins put it.
My grandfather and an older brother were both named Octave. My brother Octave used to remind us, whimsically, that each of us had but one day dedicated to us, but he had a whole week named Octave.
The empty tomb is there now. The Apostles and earliest Christians gathered on that spot to celebrate the Eucharist until the year 70 A.D. when Rome completely leveled Old Jerusalem, Including the Holy Sepulchre. They built a pagan temple over the spot to the Goddess Aphrodite. Christians were not able to worship there any more until the three hundreds when the first Christian emperor, Constantine, and his Mother Helena, found the true Cross and the Holy Sepulchre with the help of local Christians. They in turn levelled the Pagan temple and built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the spot where Jesus was laid to rest. This Church has survived attacks through the centuries by Persians, Muslims, Turks. It was fought over and recovered by Crusader Knights. Today the Holy place remains.
Eight years ago, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the resident Franciscans arranged for our party to celebrate Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre early in the morning. About 80 of us were there in the heart of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Christ was laid to rest.
It’s just so amazing! To be right there. It was during Mass that that something awesome happened. Just near the empty tomb is the flat rectangular anointing stone. Pilgrims come and press their hands and foreheads to the stone where the body of our Lord was anointed and prepared for burial. Then just a few yards away, the empty tomb itself. Inside, the tomb can only accommodate four persons at a time.
The shelf upon which the body was placed in the tomb served as the altar for our Mass. One bishop, two deacons and I were the only ones who could fit into the tomb. During Mass, the rest of the pilgrims were gathered around the entrance to the tomb. They could not see into the tomb but could hear and respond to the prayers.
Then at the Lamb of God, an awesome revelation happened when the bishop raised the Body of Christ aloft, walked out of the tomb and proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”
The reality profoundly touched me with the sweetest awareness that this is the spot from which our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, on Easter Sunday.
He upended all the forces of sin, doubt and darkness and restored us to God’s intimate friendship.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen indeed.
Amen.
