Easter 2025
Fr. Dwight Campbell
04/20/2025
EASTER 2025
Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D.
He is Risen!
Today we celebrate, liturgically – within the context of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – Christ’s Resurrection from the dead on that first Easter Sunday, after His crucifixion and death on Good Friday, and after spending three days in the tomb.
The heart of Christianity is Christ’s Resurrection. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, says St. Paul, “our faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:7).
Moreover, Jesus – and His Resurrection from the dead –is the key, the basis, for our future resurrection, on the Last Day.
St. Paul attests to this truth in his Epistle to the Romans: “For if we have grown into a union with Him through a death like his [i.e., through Baptism, when we die and rise with Christ], we shall also be united with Him in the resurrection [from the dead]” (Rom. 6:5).
This all begins with Baptism, when we become members of the Church, Christ’s Mystical Body; we are joined to Him, who is our Head, as St. Paul teaches.
And this is made possible by Christ’s Resurrection.
By rising from the dead, Jesus embraces His whole Body, all His members, all of us who have been baptized.
This means that we now have confident hope that if we live according to Our Lord’s teachings, we will one day share in the glory of Christ’s Resurrection – when Jesus comes again in glory, on the Last Day, we will rise from the dead and receive a glorified body like His – a body that will experience no hunger or thirst, no sickness or disease, no suffering or death.
Our hope to share that future glory flows from the new life we received at Baptism – that share in God’s own divine life which was made possible by Christ’s suffering, death and Resurrection.
But our hope in the future resurrection of our bodies is not based only on Baptism; it is based also on the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, the Holy Eucharist; for Jesus tells us: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you; whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn. 6:53-54).
St. Paul, the Great Apostle to the Gentiles, affirms the necessity of the Eucharist when he says: “we, though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17) – that is, Jesus, who says, “I am the living bread that has come down from heaven” (Jn. 6:51).
Do you want to rise, in a body glorified, when Christ comes again on the Last Day? Then you must receive His glorified Body and Blood in the Eucharist!
This is why going to Mass every Sunday and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is so important. In fact, every Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead; that’s why we are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday!
The third century holy Martyrs of Abitene, a city in North Africa (which is now Tunis), give a beautiful witness to this truth.
In the year 303 the local ruler gave them an ultimatum: “Stop going to Mass or be put to death!” They responded: “We cannot live without Sunday Mass and the Eucharist; therefore we choose to die rather than give up Sunday Mass!”
And they were put to death – martyred – for their fidelity to Sunday Mass and their unwavering/steadfast faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is our very life; we cannot live without Him.
AND it is the pledge of our future resurrection on the Last Day – because the Eucharist is the Risen, Glorified Body and Blood of Jesus – the PLEDGE of our future resurrection.
Now, our hope in the future resurrection and life of glory also depends on living the Gospel; in fulfilling the vows we made (through our godparents) at Baptism – and which we will renew in this Easter Sunday Mass: to reject Satan, to reject sin, and to live for Jesus Christ; to live holy, pure and to godly lives;
AND to love – as Jesus loved, in imitation of Him, our supreme model in our life of faith as His followers.
St. Paul says that all of us are made members of His body (cf. 1 Cor. 12:17), “but individually members of one another” (Rom. 12:4).
This is precisely why the Holy Eucharist is the sacrament of unity; and this is why we call the reception of the Eucharist Holy Communion – com – union – means union with: union with each other through being united with Christ — by receiving His Body and Blood.
Fundamentally, this is a union of love – of Christian love, charity.
And the Eucharist is the great Sacrament of Love, because the Eucharist IS Jesus – in Person – His Body and Blood, His soul and divinity.
Jesus IS the love of God incarnate.
At the Last Supper, He commanded His Apostles: “Love one another, as I have loved you” – “AS I have loved you.”
HOW did Jesus love them? HOW did He show His love for us? We can sum it up in a few words: sacrificial, self-giving love.
Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, suffered and died for us, out of love for us: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3;16).
That’s what Christian love, or charity is.
Here the Eucharist is a key element. Why? Again, it is the great Sacrament of Love, which gives us the strength to love as Jesus loved;
to practice charity, sacrificial, self-giving love, like Jesus – to sacrifice ourselves for our neighbor’s good;
even to lay down our lives for one another, as Jesus did for us.
On this Easter [Sunday], let us heed the words of St. Paul: “If we have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, not the things of the earth. Your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, shall appear [in glory, on the Last Day], then you will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:1-4).