Today is the greatest of all days!  Today, I say, and yet it has been a week since the celebration began! 

Yes, even a week later, today is the greatest of all days.  For eight days Holy Mother Church has celebrated this day, and on this Divine Mercy Sunday, the Eighth Day, Easter Day finally comes to an end.

Why the extension, why the pomp, why the jubilation?

It is the Feast of feasts, it is the source of our hope and the cause of our joy.  It is our consolation and our peace.  It is the event that makes us who we are.  It is meet and just that we celebrate today with all that we are and all that we have.

With all that, there is something to give us pause.  The text above is not the traditional cry, the ancient Paschal greeting used by our ancestors in the faith to proclaim the great event.  These words from St John’s Gospel do not have the note of triumph that we associate with this day, but it describes exactly what happened on this day:

Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.  For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

The contrast between our welcoming of Easter and the first Easter experienced by those closest to Jesus could not be greater.  We begin with joy, they began with sorrow.  We begin with light, they began still in darkness.  We immediately proclaim victory, they were still in the throes of defeat.

And for those reasons: 

They did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

At the very beginning, Magdalene, Peter, the disciples on the road to Emmaus: 

…did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

John, who saw and believed–trusted, clung to–still, by his own testimony:

…did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Thomas — so important to us on Divine Mercy Sunday — Thomas who would not believe until he had seen certainly:

…did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

If they did not at first understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead, it should make us ponder whether or not we understand.

We accept, we embrace, we profess and we proclaim, but until we understand, there is some darkness that remains in us and surely we see it everywhere even in the midst of our feast.

Thanks be to God that just as He did for them, He does for us!  

He who rose from the dead does not remain hidden. He shows Himself and calls us each by name in that personal encounter with the Risen Lord, for them in his glorified body, for us in His Church and in her sacramental life.  This is most especially experienced in the Holy Eucharist, the “breaking of bread” witnessed by the Emmaus two, wherein He helps us to understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

On this Easter Day as we celebrate the very day the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, we at Sycamore Trust give thanks to all who support us in our work of proclaiming the Risen Lord Jesus and His saving Truth at our beloved Notre Dame!  We pray that the Regina Coeli will watch over her university, those who govern her and all associated with her so that they may ever rejoice in truly understanding the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead!