Daily Gospel for Sunday, 5 April 2015

Daily Gospel for Sunday, 5 April 2015
Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord
Saints of the day:
St. Vincent Ferrer, Priest (1350-1419) 
Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord
Acts of the Apostles 10:34 Then Kefa addressed them: “I now understand that God does not play favorites,
37 You know what has been going on throughout Y’hudah, starting from the Galil after the immersion that Yochanan proclaimed; 38 how God anointed Yeshua from Natzeret with the Ruach HaKodesh and with power; how Yeshua went about doing good and healing all the people oppressed by the Adversary, because God was with him.
39 “As for us, we are witnesses of everything he did, both in the Judean countryside and in Yerushalayim. They did away with him by hanging him on a stake;[a] 40 but God raised him up on the third day and let him be seen, 41 not by all the people, but by witnesses God had previously chosen, that is, by us, who ate and drank with him after he had risen again from the dead.
42 “Then he commanded us to proclaim and attest to the Jewish people that this man has been appointed by God to judge the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets bear witness to him, that everyone who puts his trust in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”[Footnotes:
Acts 10:39 Deuteronomy 21:23]
Psalm 118:1 Give thanks to Adonai; for he is good,
for his grace continues forever.
2 Now let Isra’el say,
“His grace continues forever.”
16 Adonai’s right hand is raised in triumph!
Adonai’s right hand struck powerfully!”
17 I will not die; no, I will live
and proclaim the great deeds of Yah!
22 The very rock that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone!
23 This has come from Adonai,
and in our eyes it is amazing.
Letter to the Colossians 3:1 So if you were raised along with the Messiah, then seek the things above, where the Messiah is sitting at the right hand of God.[a] 2 Focus your minds on the things above, not on things here on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. 4 When the Messiah, who is our life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory![Footnotes:
Colossians 3:1 Psalm 110:1]
Holy Gospel According to Saint John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Miryam from Magdala went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she came running to Shim‘on Kefa and the other talmid, the one Yeshua loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!”
3 Then Kefa and the other talmid started for the tomb. 4 They both ran, but the other talmid outran Kefa and reached the tomb first. 5 Stooping down, he saw the linen burial-sheets lying there but did not go in. 6 Then, following him, Shim‘on Kefa arrived, entered the tomb and saw the burial-sheets lying there, 7 also the cloth that had been around his head, lying not with the sheets but in a separate place and still folded up. 8 Then the other talmid, who had arrived at the tomb first, also went in; he saw, and he trusted. 9 (They had not yet come to understand that the Tanakh teaches that the Messiah has to rise from the dead.)
Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord
Commentary of the day:
Saint Maximus of Turin (?-c.420), Bishop 
CC Sermon 53 on Psalm 117; PL 57, 361 
“This is the day of gladness and joy”
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 117[118],24). It is not by chance, brethren, that today we read the Psalm in which the prophet invites us to rejoice and be glad and in which holy David invites all creation to celebrate this day. For today Christ's resurrection has opened the resting-place of the dead; the Church's newly baptised members have rejuvenated the earth; the Holy Spirit has shown us heaven. Hell, now opened, gives up its dead; its youth renewed, the earth buds forth those who are risen; and heaven opens wide to welcome those who mount up towards it. 
The thief has gone up to paradise (Lk 23,43); the bodies of the saints enter the holy city (Mt 27,53)... At the resurrection of Christ all the elements, moved by a kind of momentum, are raised towards the heights. Hell hands over to the angels all those whom it was holding captive; heaven presents to the Lord all those it has received... Christ's resurrection is life for the dead, pardon for sinners, glory for the saints. Thus great David calls all creation to celebrate Christ's resurrection and encourages it to leap for joy and gladness in this day the Lord has made. 
Yet you will ask..., heaven and hell have not been included in the daylight of this world, so can we expect these elements to celebrate a day that completely misses them? But the day the Lord has made penetrates all things, contains all things and encompasses at one and the same time heaven, earth and hell! Christ's light is not blocked by walls nor broken by the elements nor darkened by shadows. The light of Christ is truly a day without night, a day without end. It shines forth everywhere, radiates everywhere, remains everywhere. ____________________________