Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord

He saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Mary Magdalene finds the stone rolled away and runs to tell Peter and John. They run to the tomb. John arrives first but waits. Peter goes in first - that is Peter, always first through the door. He sees the burial cloths lying there and the cloth that had covered Jesus' head rolled up in a separate place. Then John enters. He saw and believed.

The folded cloths matter. A man leaving in a hurry does not fold his linens. The grave was not robbed. It was vacated. Deliberately. Calmly. The one who lay there got up, set things in order, and left. Death could not hold him.

Brother, the Resurrection is not a metaphor. It is not a symbol of hope or a spiritual teaching about new beginnings. It is the claim that a dead man's heart started beating again, that his lungs filled with air, that he walked out of a sealed tomb and left the grave clothes folded behind him. If this happened, everything changes. If it did not, Paul says, our faith is in vain and we are the most pitiable of people.

Every decision you make as a Catholic man stands on this fact. Your marriage vows are grounded in eternity because of the Resurrection. Your suffering has meaning because of the Resurrection. Your death is not the end because of the Resurrection. Take this away and your faith is a lifestyle preference. Put it back and your faith is the ground under your feet.

Peter will stand up in the reading from Acts and preach the first Christian sermon: God raised him on the third day. We are witnesses. That is what Peter became - a witness. Not a theologian or a philosopher. A man who saw a thing and could not stop talking about it.

Colossians says: if you were raised with Christ, seek what is above. The Resurrection is not only something that happened to Jesus. It is something that happens to you. You have been raised. You are a new creation. Live like it.

Today is the feast. Celebrate it. Feast with your family. Let the alleluia ring. Do not hold back the joy.

But also: tell someone. Peter's first act after the Resurrection was to preach. Yours does not have to be a sermon. Call someone who has drifted from the faith. Text a friend who is struggling. Say the words out loud: he is risen. Mean them. Be a witness. That is what Easter makes you.

Lord, he is risen. You are risen. The tomb is empty and the cloths are folded. I believe it - not as metaphor but as the fact on which my life stands. Make me a witness today. Give me one person to tell and the courage to say it: he is risen. Alleluia. Amen.