In our celebration of the Mass, the Risen Lord is in our midst, no less than he was 2,000 years ago. He is inviting us, just as he invited Mary Magdalene, and his Apostles and disciples, to move beyond a mundane optimism that will ultimately fail us, and to embrace instead an authentic Easter faith in his Resurrection. Pope Francis reminds us that ‘the grave is the place where no one who enters ever leaves. But Jesus did emerge for us; he rose for us, to bring life where there was death, to begin a new story in the very place where a stone had been placed.’
