Happy Easter! The Lord is risen!  Jesus, the living One is with us always!  He is within us as eternal, tender, strong love... as living, certain hope. Jesus is our Easter: the profound motivation of our living,  our acting, our choosing...  our dying, of our starting afresh each day in newness.

Let us celebrate today, with a new awareness, in these dark and sad times, the certainty of Christ's victory over death. This is our vocation. We are called to the Resurrection, to live eternally in God! Death has been defeated by Christ's victory and this not only fills us with joy, light and hope, but it also gives us a certainty: every event we live, every moment of our lives, has a profound meaning because it is mystically inserted in Christ's Easter.

So today, we celebrate new life, the life of the risen. Jesus, the Living One, draws us with him into the dynamism of the life of the risen. It is the Feast of the seed that opens to bear fruit, the Feast of the turgid bud that opens to the warmth of the spring sun, but it is also the Feast of empty tombs, because every boulder is taken away by the power of love that triumphs.

In the Gospel passage given to us on this Sunday we hear of the encounter of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John with the Risen Lord: at an empty tomb. They saw and believed.

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala went to the tomb in the morning, when it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Mary then ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord away from the tomb, and we do not know where they have put him!" Peter then went out with the other disciple and they went to the tomb. They both ran together. They saw and believed.

This Scripture describes the dynamism of love: love moves and renews all things.  It tells us of the race of Mary, Peter and John at the dawn of the new day...  shining with splendor, wonder and amazement.

Mary is the first to leave the house when it is still night. It is dark in the sky, but it is also dark in her heart. She has nothing in her hands, only her love that rebels against the death of Love and a song, a canticle: "I will get up...I will go around the streets asking: 'have you seen the love of my soul?” (Song of Songs 3:2-3)

Peter and John are also crushed by a rock: pain for the death of the Master, but they remain together, they continue to believe in the fraternity wanted and loved by the Master.

They see and believe. "He is not here." What a beautiful expression!  He is alive, the Living One is not here, but is elsewhere. He is everywhere: he is in the heart of every person, in the often wounded life of every brother or sister, he is in the events of your daily life. He precedes us to Galilee, there in our daily lives, which often seem to us very limited.

Those who, like him, want new heaven and a new earth, know that those who live like him, making a gift of themselves, already experience eternal life, already see the beauty of the Resurrection every day in the world. Today is the Feast of new life, the Feast of the risen and the Resurrection is that experience of fulfillment we are all called to experience. It is our vocation to new life. Let us allow the Spirit to refine our sensitivity and make us capable of seeking "the things above" in order to "find God present in all things."  Easter is now; it is here.

Let us run towards the Risen One! Let us run quickly towards the Hope that does not disappoint. Then it will be Easter. May it be for me. May it be for you. Many wishes.