What is resurrection? It does not form part of our experience, and so the message often remains to some degree beyond our understanding … The Church tries to help us understand it by expressing this mysterious event in the language of symbols in which we can somehow contemplate this astonishing event.

First of all, there is light … Where there is light, life  is born, chaos can be transformed into cosmos. The resurrection of Jesus is an eruption of light. With the resurrection, the Lord’s day enters the nights of history … This Light alone – Jesus Christ – is the true light, something more than the physical phe­nomenon of light. He is pure Light: God himself, who causes a new creation to be born in the midst of the old, transforming chaos into cosmos … Let us pray to the Lord that the fragile flame of the candle he has lit in us, the delicate light of his word and his love amid the confusions of this age, will not be extinguished in us, but will become ever stronger and brighter, so that we, with him, can be people of the day, bright stars lighting up our time.

The second symbol of the Easter Vigil – the night of baptism – is water … Christ descended into the sea, into the waters of death, as Israel did into the Red Sea. Having risen from death, he gives us life. This means that baptism is not only a cleansing, but a new birth: with Christ we, as it were, descend into the sea of death, so as to rise up again as new creatures. The other way in which we encounter water is in the form of the fresh spring that gives life, or the great river from which life comes forth … In baptism, the Lord makes us not only persons of light, but also sources from which living water bursts forth. We all know people like that, who leave us somehow refreshed and renewed; people who are like a fountain of fresh spring water … Thanks be to God, we find them con­stantly even in our daily lives: people who are like a spring … Let us ask the Lord, who has given us the grace of baptism, for the gift always to be sources of pure, fresh water, bubbling up from the fountain of his truth and his love!

The third great symbol of the Easter Vigil is … the singing of the new song – the alleluia. What happens when a person is touched by the light of the resur­rection, and thus comes into contact with Life itself, with Truth and Love? He cannot merely speak about it. Speech is no longer adequate. He has to sing … Year after year, we sing it as our song, because we too, through God’s power, have been drawn forth from the water and liberated for true life. While, strictly speaking, she ought to be sinking, the Church sings the song of thanksgiving of the saved … Once Christ is risen, the gravitational pull of love is stronger than that of hatred; the force of gravity of life is stronger than that of death … The Lord’s saving hand holds us up, and thus we can already sing the song of the saved, the new song of the risen ones: Alleluia!

Pope Benedict XVI

Homily #120412 ( 10min) Play – On Easter Sunday Jesus appeared to the disciples and they thought that they were seeing a ghost because they did not understand and trust Our Lord’s words that He would rise again. Jesus helps them by eating in front of them and showing them his wounds to let them know that He completely overcame the power of death, letting them apprehend the magnitude of His victory when the clouds of doubt and defeat where weighing upon the early Church. Let us remember this Easter joy when we witness the many tribulations and seeming defeats for the Church that will inevitably come.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Thursday of Easter Week – Wkdy – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: act 3:11-26
Resp: psa 8:2, 5, 6-7, 8-9
Gsp: luk 24:35-48

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Homily #120411 ( 06min) Play – Fr. Ignatius preaches on the Resurrection and how Christ is preparing the disciples for the radical faith needed to carry out the mission for which He has destined them. So too we are given a share in His mission of evangelizing the world and must make good use of the graces He gives us for this.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Wednesday of Easter Week – Wkdy – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: act 3:1-10
Resp: psa 105:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9
Gsp: luk 24:13-35

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Homily #120410 ( 10min) Play – Our Lord is called a Rabbi, Teacher, by both His enemies and His friends. He spoke openly for the truth and died for the truth. But, Fr. Angelo preaches on how He was more than a teacher because He spoke with an authority beyond the scribes and Pharisees because He embodied, or really incarnated, the truth in Himself and the resurrection of this body is therefore His greatest teaching moment. By listening to His words of truth we too will rise from bodily death to eternal life to be with Him and His Father.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Tuesday of Easter Week – Wkdy – Form: OF
Readings: 
1st: act 2:36-41
Resp: psa 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22
Gsp: joh 20:11-18
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Through the tender mercy of our God when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness…(Lk 1:78-79)

Lauds II

The darkness flees, and dew-kissed earth Sings welcome to the waking day;

Hope holds to Christ the mirror high To catch the Dayspring’s healing ray!

You fill with light this sacred time, Give tears as well to purify;

Give flames of love to purge our hearts; In us your mercy magnify.

The hidden wound whence flow our sins, Wash clean by bathing in the tide;

Remove the things that, of ourselves, We cannot reach, or put aside.

The Day draws near when all re-blooms — Your Day, O Christ, life-giving Lord!

We too will joy, by your right hand From death’s dark tomb to joy restored.

To God, the loving Trinity, Let earth and sky adoring bend;

And evermore from hearts renewed Let songs fresh sprung of praise ascend. Amen.

Sorry, Computer Failure, Homily was not captured - Jesus said that He was going to be handed over to His enemies to be crucified. But He also said that he would rise again. Today we celebrate the joy of His Resurrection that after the sadness of the crucifixion and the seeming finality of that, the finality of death, and yet He breaks free from the grip of death and gives us the hope of doing the same. Fr. Angelo exhorts us to seek peace  by having faith in Christ’s promises.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Holy Saturday (Easter Vigil) – Solemnity – Form: OF
Readings:
First: Genesis 1:1–2:2
Resp: Psalms 104:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12, 13-14, 24, 35
Second: Genesis 22:1-18
Resp: Psalms 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11
Third: Exodus 14:15–15:1
Resp: Exodus 15:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 17-18
Fourth: Isaiah 54:5-14
Resp: Psalms 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13
Fifth: Isaiah 55:1-11
Resp: Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6
Sixth: Baruch 3:9-15, 32–4:4
Resp: Psalms 19:8, 9, 10, 11
Seventh: Ezekiel 36:16-28
Resp: Psalms 42:3, 5; 43:3, 4
Epistle: Romans 6:3-11
Resp: Psalms 118:1-2, 16, 17, 22-23
Gospel: Mark 16:1-8

Homily #110425 ( 07min) Play – It is only in the Name of Jesus you will be healed and find salvation.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Monday of Easter Week – Ordinary Form
Readings:
1st Reading: Acts 2:14, 22-33
Responsorial Psalm: 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11
Gospel: Matthew 28:8-15

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Homily #110424 ( 17min) Play – Jesus Christ is Risen – Alleluia!
Ave Maria!
Mass: Easter Sunday (Option 1) – Ordinary Form
Readings:
1st Reading: Acts 10:34, 37-43
Responsorial Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
2nd Reading: Colossians 3:1-4
Gospel: John 20:1-9

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Homily #110306 ( 09min) Play – Quinquagesima Sunday is the last Sunday before Lent and is a preparation for it. In today’s Gospel Our Lord tries to prepare His disciples for the scandal of the crucifixion by warning them before hand that it is coming as well as to give them the hope of the following resurrection.  Father likens this hope to an enlightenment as exemplified in the receiving of sight of the blind man later in the same Gospel.
Ave Maria!
Mass: Quinquagesima Sunday – Form: EF, Esto Mihi
Readings:
1st: 1co 13:1-13
Gsp: luk 18:31-43

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Homily #101124 ( 07min) Play – Fr. Bonaventure relates today’s Gospel to the Martyrdom of  St. Andre Dung Lac and his companions where “And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake. ” They suffered these persecutions but also the hope of resurrection “But a hair of your head shall not perish.”
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Andre Dung Lac and his companions – Memorial – Form: OF
Readings: Wednesday in the 34th Week in Ordinary Time
1st: rev 15:1-4
Resp: psa 98:1, 2-3, 7-8, 9
Gsp: luk 21:12-19

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