Something as completely unexpected and indeed unimaginable as the resurrection of Jesus provoked the predictable ways to defuse the story. There were those of course who had everything to lose if word got round about the resurrection - politically, culturally, religiously. The story had to be killed and “plausible deniability” had been the way forward for those threatened by and afraid of this story getting around. But, as two thousand years is testimony to, the story has never been suppressed.

On Easter we celebrate on behalf of all the world God's love that embraces all the world. We celebrate for that boy, for all the dead and for ourselves, the living who are promised a share in the life of Christ who rose.

Easter Sunday is the pivot of our Christian lives. In it, we celebrate the transformation any reckless and destructive elements in our past lives, the blessedness in which we live now and the basis for our confidence in God’s blessing four futures. In the Resurrection of Jesus, we mark 0ur entry into the life of God in a way that fully changes us and, despite our fears and misgivings, assures us of our entry into a new way of being - our life in God through the transforming power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The first Mass to celebrate the Easter Rising is on the evening of Easter Saturday and recalls the details of those who’re the first witnesses of the Resurrection - the women in Jesus’ following - something unfortunately forgotten by many in the Church when it comes to acknowledging the central and essential role of women in Christian proclamation form the first moment of declaring the Gospel.

Good Friday is a special gift to us. This is the day when we can move more intimately into God’s presence and find in our own experience just what relief god gives us when our resources are spent and we feel God forsaken as Jesus did at Calvary. The only place for us to go in such a state apart from angry resentment is to surrender into God’s hands. That’s the gift and grace to pray for on Good Friday.

Today is also a day of commitment to be a sign of God's love. God felt it worthwhile for Jesus to die in order that I might know love. My life is worth giving in the day-to-day as well as, if necessary, in death so that others may know that love.

Today - Holy Thursday - is mostly celebrated for its being the founding moment for our most familiar sacrament- the Eucharist. But what it is just as noteworthy for - and the readings take this topic as the centerpiece in the Gospel for this event - is the way Jesus focuses on service as the hallmark of Christian living and witness. Jesus' washing of the feet of his disciples tells them and us today what Jesus most wants of his disciples and of his followers today.

Our sharing Eucharist is a service -- a service to the world. We can wash its feet, and we can bring it with us as we share union with Christ. It's all one and the same.

In today’s Gospel we hear the account in John’s Gospel of the nuts and bolts of the bitter betrayal and actual abandonment of Jesus by Judas but also by his apostles. It is no less empty and tragic for how familiar it is to us many hundreds and two thousand years later. Our prayer today iso wait in that darkness and allow God to restore our faith and confidence that God’s love and power will triumph despite how desperate and dark the times and circumstances seem.

We are moving further into the depths of Holy Week and Jesus’ destiny as the savior of the world who gives his life that we all may share more in the life of God. Here we see the culmination of all that John’s Gospel has done to describe the contrast between life and death, light and dark that Jesus’ person and message embody.