By Fr. Andrew Kelly
EASTER SUNDAY – MARCH 31, 2013
The Holy Saturday Vigil and Easter Sunday worship space is filled with beautiful flowers and glorious music. This is such a contrast to the Easter Gospels of Luke 24:1-12 and John 20:1-9.
Those stories are filled with perplexity, doubt, despair, disbelief and an empty tomb. The scene is quite dark and dismal.
For belief in Jesus’ resurrection, faith and the Scriptures are essential. The beloved disciple in John’s Gospel is what faith looks like. “[A]nd he saw and believed …” that definitely an action of God had occurred.
The women in Luke’s Gospel witness to the role of the Scriptures in Easter faith when they are referred to Jesus’ words:
“Remember how he told you …Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.”
The worship space may be filled with aromatic floral color and full-throated Alleluias.
But if faith is lacking in God’s powerful Word, the Easter festivities easily become what Shakespeare’s Macbeth described: “…it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
It is amazing what Alleluias mean and sound like when sung in faith anchored in God’s holy Word.
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)
Scripture Readings for March 31 to April 7
Sunday
Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Col 3:1-4 or 1 Cor 5:6b-8
Jn 20:1-9 or Lk 24:1-12 or Lk 24:13-35
Monday
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Mt 28:8-15
Tuesday
Acts 2:36-41
Jn 20:11-18
Wednesday
Acts 3:1-10
Lk 24:13-35
Thursday
Acts 3:11-26
Lk 24:35-48
Friday
Acts 4:1-12
Jn 21:1-14
Saturday
Acts 4:13-21
Mk 16:9-15
Sunday
Acts 5:12-16
Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
Jn 20:19-31
