Christ is risen!

“This is the day which the Lord has made: let us be glad and rejoice therein.” (Psalms 117:24), says one of the verses of the Matins of Resurrection. It is the holy and blessed night of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. […]

On Easter night, the Christian understands from the Gospel account that the absence of the body of Christ the Savior is healing, beneficent, and full of hope. He is replaced by the resurrected Christ who abolishes the limits of death. The Christian understands that his/her life is no longer a prisoner of the physical death, but that it finds a new starting point toward a way of being divine. The absence of the material body of Jesus makes the Christian feel a higher, graceful presence that will lead him/her toward the transfigured humanity of the Savior Jesus Christ, of whom St. Cyril of Alexandria speaks and which is no longer limited by our fallen and sinful world. The Christian understands that, due to the work of the Son of God, another reality opens before him/her - that of the Kingdom of Heaven. […]

The Church is constituted through the Divine Liturgy and the Holy Sacraments are its arms. We, as a Church, live in the Divine Liturgy the overlapping and interaction of the two plans – that of eternal life and of the renewed earthly life. (…) In the Divine Liturgy man is led toward something else, to the endlessly rich and new communion through Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Man’s life begins to be shaped according to the image of God, entering in communion with the Holy Trinity and other people.

(excerpts from Pastoral Letter – Easter 2020)

The model of our mission in the Church is like that of the Son of God. Just as the Son is sent by the Father to the world for our salvation, so are we sent by the Son in mission to proclaim the Gospel of salvation. Our mission is the mission that God accomplishes. The work of the Church is trinitarian - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In order to accomplish this work of forgiveness of sins, the acting of the Holy Spirit is needed. Without the trinitarian sign on our mission, it remains truncated and partial.

(except from the homily pronounced at the Vespers of Resurrection)

The spirit of Gospel is a historical one. We see this in the choice of Matthias to replace Judas by drawing lots by the Holy Apostles. ‘Therefore, it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.’ The apostles have known the Lord in the body and propose two candidates to fulfill the same conditions as they. The Gospel is therefore a historical testimony of the works of God, of His incarnate Son, to whom the Holy Apostles witnessed. (...)

The same historical sense will prove the Holy Fathers of the Church of the century. IV - V which will permanently fix the canon of the books of the Old and New Testaments, a choice based on the practice already established in the Church from apostolic times. They use several criteria by which the authenticity of biblical accounts can be proven - apostolicity, continuity and concordance.

(except from the homily pronounced on Monday of Bright Week)