Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
REFLECTIONS TODAY
Alleluia! Alleluia! Jesus is risen! This is the night when the tomb is found empty. There is no sense looking for Jesus among the dead. Jesus is the living One who will die no more (Rom 6:9). Tonight, we complete our Paschal Triduum. We have received the commandment to love one another with the corresponding challenge of laying down our life for each other. We have also received the Spirit handed over to us by Jesus, empowering us to continue the mission Jesus has begun.
Now, we welcome Easter this night when life has triumphed over death, and when death is swallowed up in victory (1 Cor 15:54). The Gospel passage from Luke narrates how the women are told by two men in dazzling garments that Jesus is no longer there in the tomb and that he has been raised. As for us, where do we seek Jesus now? Where do we look for Jesus? Is the kind of life we live truly reflective of Easter grace? Do other people find Jesus alive in us?
First Reading • Gn 1:1, 26-31a [or 1:1—2:2]
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.”
God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.”
God also said: “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food.” And so it happened. God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.
Gospel • Luke 24:1-12
At daybreak on the first day of the week the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.
Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the Apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.