A beautiful hymn in the Divine Office contains the following lyrics: "Paschal triumph, Paschal joy, only sin can this destroy." Indeed, only sin can take away our Easter joy. So if we want to live in Easter, then let us keep dying to our selfishness, sin and fears, and instead walk in His light.

When Jesus was on the cross, He was carrying upon Himself the sins of the world and, most of all, the rejection of man towards God.  He bore the silence of God, which is what atheists experience, without God! Only when Christ was hanging on the cross and said, “into your hands I commend my Spirit” did the Holy Spirit take over the mission of our Lord and complete it through the ages.  The victory of Jesus was complete when the Father raised Him from the dead.  But the ultimate victory would be won by the Spirit of Jesus at work in us.  Only when we surrender our plans, our life and our vulnerabilities to the Father, will He then work in us and through us.

In His perfect love and mercy, Jesus forgave the sins of the apostles even before they betrayed Him. Following in His example, may we forgive those who hurt us. This is the greatest act of "washing" another's feet.

As members of the royal priesthood, we are the frontliners of witnessing in the world. We are called to live out the message of the Gospel, and to proclaim Jesus wherever we are. Meanwhile, the ordained ministry is to support the members of the royal priesthood - to nurture, strengthen and heal with the Sacraments.

Jesus came as the King of Peace into Jerusalem. Even Pilate recognized this. Jesus came to bring peace, seating on a humble donkey. The people recognized His symbolic gesture and so proclaimed Him as the One who would bring peace to the nation. He came to make us all kings by submitting to God. Jesus lived out what He taught at the Sermon on the Mount. His teaching was not just words but rooted in the way He lived. Jesus was a reconciler. By His death, He reconciled man with God, and not just man with man. He was truly a man of peace when confronting His enemies. Jesus gave peace to those who believed in Him. How did He find strength to act with compassion and forgiveness?

God is always faithful to His covenant, even when we are not faithful to Him. If the Lord abandoned the people for a while, it was to bring them back to realization and repentance. But God was ever ready to bring them back when they returned to Him. Such is God’s faithful love for His people. God had prepared a lasting covenant beyond even what Isaiah prophesied. It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ who will establish the everlasting Covenant. The Lord in today’s gospel claims total identification with His Father. In action, Jesus acted like the Father, and on His Father’s behalf. Indeed, the ultimate proof that Jesus is truly the Son of God is His Father’s vindication of His works and words by raising Him from the dead after a most scandalous and humiliating crucifixion on the cross. When we also act in union with Jesus in mind, heart and will, we too, like Jesus, will also be in union with God.

Reconciliation is not the work of man - it is the work of God. God always reaches out to us. Saint Paul was well aware of this when he said: "It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation." As we are reconciled and loved unconditionally by God, can we extend the same reconciliation and love to those who have hurt us?

All that God wants of us is sincerity of heart. Sacrifice and holocausts might be good to demonstrate our love for God but they could also be used as an attempt to hide our lack of love for God and give the impression to others that we are sorry for our sins and that we love God. What the Lord asks of us is perfect love. When we are sincere in love and perfect in love, then we will do all things with love and for love. Our external worship and the actions we do come from a heart of love. We love only because God has first loved us. We love only because God’s love is in our hearts. This is why we want to share that love with others. And when we do that, our love is always free and comes from a deep gratitude inside us. Not that we feel we are better than others but we feel grateful that God has loved us and blessed us with His grace to do good. When we love in that manner, there is no pride, ego or comparison with others.

Jesus is the perfect sacrifice simply because He does God's will. He took upon the human body and emptied Himself of His divinity, in order to show us what it means to do the will of God. Let us keep in mind that the only holocaust we can truly offer is ourselves.

When we do not get what we want, we think that God does not care for us. We want God to do our bidding and pander to our whims and fancies. So when we have to go through suffering, we blame God. And if God does not restore our fortunes, we turn away from Him. Why do we lose faith in God? It is forgetfulness. The second reason why people harden their hearts is because of sin. When sin accumulates, we harden our hearts to goodness and truth. Thirdly, people harden their hearts because of pride. Intellectualism is the greatest pride of humanity today. We think we have the answer to everything and everyone presumes he is right. When we are arrogant and think so highly of ourselves, we harden our hearts to truth and goodness.