HOMILY
Easter – April 5, 2026
Welcome on this day of Resurrection – this day that lies at the heart of our lives as Christians. … Welcome to our Cathedral Church. … Welcome to our Catholic family – to our brothers and sisters from different Christian religions and faith traditions – and especially, welcome to our Jewish broth
ers and sisters who are celebrating Passover during these sacred days that we treasure in our Church. … It is good that we are here together. … This is the day the Lord has made!
With the entire Church of Scranton, we first give thanks today for the blessing of all those who have opened their hearts to the risen Lord and responded to his call to discipleship. Here in our Cathedral and in parishes throughout our Diocese, in numbers that we have not experienced in years, well over three hundred catechumens and candidates were baptized and received into full communion in the Catholic Church. How blest we are by their presence and commitment to journey with Christ and with us, his Church.
Yet, for all that this day of resurrection imparts to our lives of faith, sadly, its joy is tempered as we acknowledge the suffering endured by so many of our brothers and sisters. Wars are raging in Iran, throughout the Middle East, for four years in Ukraine, and in far too many places to name around the world. At this very hour, men and women in our armed forces are in harm’s way as they seek to secure a more peaceful existence for all. Right here, in our own land, immigrants – our neighbors and friends – fear for their very well-being as their hopes for a better life for themselves and their families are dashed. Antisemitism, fueled by hatred, has once again raised its ugly head. And amid such upheaval and pain, we have our own stories to tell of the crosses that we carry – crosses made of grief and loss, illness, addiction, loneliness and sin.
In the face of such heartbreak, these sacred days beckon us to turn to the only place that enables our broken world and lives to find forgiveness, healing, hope and peace: the Paschal Mystery – the Easter miracle – the promise won for us through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus!
Years ago, Pope Benedict offered these profound words that speak to the hope we all seek in life and that prompts us to be present here today. “Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence.” … Hope, then, for the Christian – for me and you – does not emerge from the absence of suffering and pain in our lives. Hope grows from a relationship with the risen Jesus and our belief that, out of love for us, the power of God enabled his cross and death to give way to life and resurrection. This relationship, this love, brothers and sisters, is pure gift!
But my friends, the Word of God also reminds us that while we seek the risen Jesus’ promise of hope and peace, these are not gifts to be selfishly acquired solely for our own well-being. No – the resurrection of Jesus compels us to move beyond ourselves. In Saint Matthew’s gospel proclaimed during the Easter Vigil, the women, who go to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus and discover that it is missing, while told first, “Do not be afraid,” are directed to “Go and tell his disciples” that the Lord has been raised from the dead. And in this morning’s gospel from Saint John, Mary of Magdala runs to Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved to inform them of the empty tomb. The gift of Easter, beginning in the very first moments following the resurrection, is received by the followers of Jesus and then, with urgency, shared with others still consumed with grief and pain.
The great theologian Karl Rahner put this divine mission entrusted to the first believers into perspective. “The Risen Christ is not a being in the clouds but the hidden presence of God in the midst of our everyday life, raising the world from its suffering.”
Like the first believers to experience the resurrection, we too, strengthened by the presence and grace of the risen Jesus within us, are given the same mission to raise God’s people from suffering and pain. In a world torn apart by sins of greed, hatred and an absence of respect for the human person, it is incumbent upon us as Christians to give life to the presence of God and to proclaim the good news of God’s mercy. … We believers in the risen Jesus are called to care for the lost and abandoned, the immigrant and the refugee, the life that is different than our own, the marginalized and ridiculed, the imperfect and forgotten. … We are called to welcome into our Church all those who seek a fuller life through faith in Jesus. … And we are called to love, to forgive and to work for peace in our families, among our friends and in the world that God has given to us.
Easter, then, is not simply the warm and reassuring presence of the risen Jesus that wells up within our hearts during this hour of prayer and worship. No – it is much more. Decades ago, William Sloane Coffin, the renowned and sometimes controversial American Protestant clergyman spoke of a concern for the ways in which so many of us have come to understand Easter: “Too often, Easter comes across very sentimentally– airy and sweet. But there is nothing sentimental about Easter. Easter represents a demand as well as a promise, a demand not that we sympathize with the crucified Christ, but that we pledge our loyalty to the Risen One” in whom we find the fullness of life, a pattern for our own and the gift of eternity.
Brothers and sisters, the promise of Easter is that Jesus lives among us. Assured by our Holy Father, Pope Leo, that “love has conquered sin forever and life triumphs over death,” may we open our hearts to the consolation and peace that only Jesus can give. And may we go forth from this cathedral blessed with hope, to continue to encounter and proclaim the resurrection – in our families and neighborhoods – in the uncertainty of our wounded world – and especially in the suffering souls who look to us for signs of the risen Jesus’ love and mercy.
This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad!