of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi

The mystery of the childhood and hidden life of Jesus Christ, which we contemplated during the Christmas season, finds its full flowering and mature fruit in the Paschal mystery. The shoot of the root of Jesse has become a great tree; a new spring of life has blossomed on earth. And this miracle happens first and foremost in the hearts of believers.
The Resurrection of Christ is the event that lies at the source of the liturgical year: all the other feasts derive from it. The Christian faith, in fact, is founded on the redemptive death and Resurrection of Christ. As Saint Paul states, if Christ had not risen, our faith would be in vain and we would be more to be pitied than all men. "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died" (cf. 1Cor 15,15-20).

In him risen, we too can rise to a new life, freed from sin and death. This event is so great, so decisive for the history of humanity that just one day cannot be enough to celebrate it. The Church then extends the celebration of Resurrection Sunday for eight days, commemorating the various meetings of the Risen Christ with his disciples day by day. This week is called "in albis", because in the first centuries of Christianity those who, already adults, had received baptism during the Easter Vigil wore the white robe (alba) given to them during the rite for the entire week.
Even the Eighth, however, was not enough to recall the great mystery. Here, then, is the institution of the Easter Season considered as a continuous celebration, for the duration of fifty days, from the Sunday of the Resurrection to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, with which the "time of the Church", the time of our daily life, begins. Christian testimony in the world.
While during Lent the Church practices fasting, suspends the sound of the organ, the singing of the hallelujah and covers the liturgy with penitential signs, in Easter time it resumes all the signs of celebration and exultation. The Alleluia is the song of joy that occurs most frequently: it is like a perfume spread over all the liturgical texts.
Even the Easter season, however, requires a particular "asceticism" from the believer, no less demanding than the Lenten one: it is precisely the asceticism of joy. It is not a paradox, as it might perhaps seem, because the joy that the risen Christ offers us - and that the liturgy tirelessly proposes to the Christian - is not a simple sensitive, emotional enjoyment, in favorable circumstances, but a vibration of the spirit in the face of reality supernatural; participation in the bliss of God. It is the joy of true love, of love free from the slavery of sin, free to give of oneself, free from the old worldly mentality. It is the joy of resurrected life, of holiness.
This joy is not something we can procure on our own or find by chance at a turning point in our path, but it is a treasure that we must discover and cherish. It is, in short, the fruit of that faith, of that hope and of that ardent and faithful love that the pious women testified by going to the tomb of Christ at dawn on the first day, while the whole atmosphere in them and around them was still made dark and heavy by the drama of Good Friday: «After the Sabbath passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Salome bought aromatic oils to go and anoint him. Early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb at sunrise" (Mk 16, 1-2). And they met the risen Jesus.
In this attentive and silent journey of the pious women at the beginning we can see the conclusion of the very long journey that God made humanity undertake to snatch it from the power of darkness and transfer it to the kingdom of the Son of his love (cf. Col 1,13) . We pass from the night of death to the Endless Day.
Light is the true protagonist of Easter, as of Christmas: the pure light of dawn; blazing light of the angel who sits next to the tomb; light of faith, love and joy that invades the depths of the morning myrophores, called to become the first heralds of the Resurrection. The Holy Vigil had already solemnly announced it in the "liturgy of light" with the lighting of the Paschal candle at the "new fire": Lumen Christi!
A new day has dawned for humanity and the universe, another first day of their existence. Just as the Let there be light pronounced by God had transformed the primordial chaos into a firmament teeming with stars, so now, through the resurrecting Christ, God pronounces his Word of life and blessing on the world immersed in the darkness of sin and begins the transformation of humanity and of all creation in that new reality which will be fully visible at the end of time, but which from now on grows silently in the secret of hearts.
The Church therefore invites every creature to joy and thanksgiving: «This is the day that the Lord has made: let us rejoice in it and rejoice! Alleluia!" (Ps 118, 24).
The Easter liturgy joins the hallelujah which incessantly resonates in the celestial Jerusalem of which the sacrificed Lamb himself is the illuminating lamp (cf. Rev 21,23), since the light emanates precisely from the glorious wounds of the Risen One. He says the angel to the pious women: «You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He is risen... You will see him, as he told you" (Mk 16, 6).
Like the pious women, we too can set out every day as if it were the dawn of that "first day" and open our gaze to the glorious light of Christ, indeed, to the Light that is Christ himself, singing with our lives: Christ, my hope is risen! He is resurrected in me, to everyone's joy.
For everyone, in fact, the renewed celebration of the paschal mystery constitutes a reconfirmation and increase of baptismal grace, a reimmersion in the death and resurrection of Christ through the renewal of baptismal promises. It is a new encounter with the Lord that calls for a response of faith and simple love, without reservations: just as those who have the true, evangelical spirit of childhood can give.
It is on this aspect that the liturgy of the Second Sunday of Easter - or Sunday in albis - which is also, by will of Pope John Paul II, invites us to question ourselves, the "Feast of Divine Mercy".
The spirit of childhood, the simplicity of "newly born children" (1 Peter 2,2) is not, however, to be confused with naivety or carefreeness. Instead, it is rather the result of a long asceticism of stripping, interior simplification and self-denial.
The liturgy of the Word wisely chosen by the Church for this Sunday gives us a convincing demonstration of this. Alongside the passage from Peter's first letter which invites us to "desire pure spiritual milk", that is to nourish ourselves with everything that can maintain purity in our heart, there is the evangelical page which describes the apostle's "journey of faith". Thomas. A realistic and rational man, he relies excessively on the sensitive data of knowledge: he wants to see, he wants to touch, to experiment. He is the true type of contemporary man, scientific, technical, skeptical towards everything that is beyond his control. And Jesus has the patient goodness to adapt to his needs, but, in his great mercy, he transforms that sensitive contact into a contact of grace: «Put your finger here and look at my hands; stretch out your hand and put it on my side" (Jn 20, 27). Thomas' hand is burned in the furnace of divine charity, his gaze clears and sees beyond appearance. «He replied: “My Lord and my God” (V. 28). Now he sees in the light of faith and, consequently, his love towards the Master becomes a blazing flame. Now he has reached the maturity of the believer and has acquired the true fortitude that overcomes the world (cf. 1 John 5,4 ff.).
Every day, in listening to the Word of God and in the Eucharist - the pure spiritual milk of which the apostle Peter speaks - we too are given the opportunity to touch the glorious wounds of Christ and to be purified and vivified by them. It is a contact that does not satisfy the senses, but illuminates the heart and makes it capable of that pure act of faith that makes Jesus pronounce a new - the last - beatitude: "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!" (v. 29). In the face of the experimental and perpetually dissatisfied man of science who lives alongside us, we should truly be an embodiment of this bliss.
Celebrating Easter with this awareness of faith also means knowing how to contemplate the glory of God in the universe and, even more, seeing the seal of belonging to the divine lineage shine on the forehead of every man. Then, despite the gathering darkness of evil that still presses from every side, we can and must remain firm in faith and serene, because Christ in us, the hope of glory (cf. Col 1,27), is the light that does not goes out and also illuminates the tortuous paths of history, marked by very sad events of violence and death.
Jesus knew how difficult it would be for his followers to keep this hope intact while walking along the desolate streets of the world, in the midst of a humanity sick with anguish or blinded by the light of false values. For this reason he, while returning to his Father in heaven, did not abandon us, did not leave us orphans, but remained with us. The Easter liturgy, from week to week, helps us to discover his presence alongside us as a Wanderer and Pilgrim (cf. Luke 24,13ff), as a Good Shepherd (cf. John 10,1-18), as a humble Beggar ( Jn 21,1:14-XNUMX), who walks with every generation, until the end of the world.