What did the night of Easter witness? God had died. God’s dead body was in the tomb and His separated soul was freeing the just from the Limbo of the Fathers in Hell. But early on Easter Sunday morning, during the still of that holy night – this morning! – God rose from the dead! This is the great mystery of which the night alone was witness. How blessed the Easter night, which was alone worthy to see the Victory of Life over Death!

Jesus is Risen! Alleluia! The Church thrills with

joy at the Victory of her Savior. On the third day after His true death, Our Lord, by His own divine power, reunited His soul and body. The life that He assumed in His Resurrection is new life, the life of glory. He will never die again. His Resurrection is permanent because the glory of His beatified soul overflows now into His Sacred Body. Thus, He now has a glorified Body!

Jesus’s glorified Body still bears the scars of His wounds. He has chosen to leave them there. He could have healed them. St. Thomas Aquinas, whose patron saint doubted and then loved those wounds so much, tells us that the scars of Christ’s Passion shine forth in His glorified Body with a certain beauty and radiance. Before His appearance was marred and grotesque; now He is comely with glory! His wounds are now trophies of Victory! He has conquered sin and death forever!

Jesus’s Resurrection is our justification. His Glory is our new life. In baptism, we have died and risen with Him. We no longer are captives to sin, no longer slaves of the devil in Adam. Now we are set free by the healing wounds of Jesus, which shine forth so beautifully on His Risen Body! We have risen with Jesus! This is our new Life! This is the fullness of the mystery of the Sacred Night. This is the Eighth Day of Creation, the Sacred Day of Eternity, which will witness the resurrection of all those justified by faith in Christ! This is the Day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in It!

Fr. Joseph Previtali