​            We are still at the summit of our Liturgy as we observe the Easter Octave. After forty days of not singing Alleluia this Easter week is saturated with Alleluias. We are like the thirsty who after wandering through a dry desert come upon an oasis and can’t have enough of the gushing water. We keep singing Alleluia. We can’t have it enough. Alleluia – Praise the Lord. The Easter is the reason for this though what unfolded in Colombo on Easter Sunday has left us in shock and with tear-filled eyes. How can we repeat the verse of the Psalm: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love is everlasting’? How can we say with conviction the Opening Prayer for his Mass: ‘God of everlasting mercy’? How can we still sing Alleluia? How can we still praise the Lord?
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Followers of the most persecuted religion in the world. What happened last week in Sri Lanka is a reminder that in such advanced world of the twenty-first century Christians are a target not of some isolated, random attacks but a carefully crafted extermination. After two millennia the words of St John from the Book of Apocalypse, which we have just heard, are still valid and fresh as they were when our Christian sisters and brothers were persecuted by the pagan Roman Empire: ‘My name is John, and through our union in Jesus I am your brother and share your sufferings, your kingdom, and all you endure.’
Can you hear my fellow Christians what John is saying? He says that he shares our suffering but in the midst of that suffering we have something else in common, it is our kingdom, the kingdom which Jesus Christ has established by his death and Resurrection.
When we witness the destruction of the lives of our fellow Christians, when we witness the expulsion from their homeland, when we witness the destruction of their homes and churches we could succumb into thinking that the Christian world is crumbling. However in the midst of destruction and annihilation St John says to us: ‘your kingdom,’ the kingdom of your Lord and Savior is there. It is not in worldly power and prestige but in the resemblance to Jesus who said: ‘If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too.’
Again we pause at the suffering of our fellow believers; despite the Easter Week we are more like the disciples of the Lord from the Gospels going to the tomb with heavy hearts and red and swollen eyes. That’s why on this Divine Mercy Sunday we need these words of the Risen Lord, who walking into the upper room where the fear overcame the disciples, said: ‘Peace be with you. Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.’ The Lord who hanging on the cross forgave his executioners entrusts us with the mission of forgiveness so we can fully resemble him both in suffering and forgiveness.
            Let us take consolation in the words Jesus spoke to St John who was imprisoned ‘on the island of Patmos for having preached God’s word and witnessed to Jesus’: ‘Do not be afraid; it is I, the First and the Last; I am the Living One. I was dead and now I am to live for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of the underworld.’
            It is the Resurrection of Jesus which assures us that ‘a light shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.’ Darkness can reject the light of Christ but darkness cannot extinguish the light of Christ. When our church was in darkness we sang at Easter Vigil: ‘Christ the light,’ let us hold onto this proclamation now. May our paschal faith enable us to see the light of Christ shining from the many graves of our fellow Christians who are like ‘a wheat grain which falls on ground and dies in order to yield a rich harvest.’
            Let us also preserve their memory in our hearts and history. In a church, I saw a fresco of the crucified Jesus by whose side stood a feminine figure, the Church. She was holding up a chalice to collect the blood flowing from the pierced heart of Jesus.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Like that precious blood, collect and treasure the memory of the sacrifice of those Sri Lankan Christians, and so many thousands of other Christians, martyred for their faith. In this way what an early Church writer Tertullian observed will happen again in our times: ‘The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.’ Their sacrifice is our strength.

​As a child I used to spend some of my summer holidays with my maternal grandmother. The little timber cottage in the middle of the meadows and fields just a short stroll from the forest was all a little boy needed to turn his time into the most exciting adventure. A few years ago while vising my relatives I went to see the house. It was still there. The meadows and fields, and the forest, were still part of the landscape. However the feeling was not the same. Something was missing. I realized that the place was empty without my grandma. Though practically blind she made my holidays special.
            My Dear Fellow believers! I think that most of us could recall a similar situation; this overwhelming feeling of emptiness when someone or something important to us is missing. It can be the emptiness left by someone we loved. It can come from betrayal, misunderstanding or envy. It can be triggered by the loss of a job, failing health, shattered plans or dreams. It can happen to us when we realize our sinfulness, lack of integrity, when we are disappointed with ourselves. This emptiness can come from the disappearance of that lively and simple faith we once enjoyed as children or absence of comfort we used to have when we turned to God, when we worshiped in our faith communities.  All these situations become for us an empty tomb. We may attempt to run there like Mary of Magdala, Peter and John did in our Gospel reading, hoping that what was familiar to us, what was treasured by us, can be in some form still found there. Yet the tomb is empty. It is empty of what was old, what was familiar to us, what was before. A German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche even said: ‘God is dead.’ However what I hear in these words is a cry of profound desolation. Similar cry I can hear in our society which claims to be secular. However I don’t think that our society is secular. It may not be church going. I may ignore God. However the void needs to be filled somehow rather.
It is filled when people start expecting of other people or things to provide them with what only God can provide. We can lay people with a burden which is heavier than the cross Jesus Christ carried. It happens when we expect from people the love, forgiveness, perfection which can only be found in God. It is a crushing burden we place on people when we expect them to replace God for us.
The void we discover in us we may also attempt to fill when we expect from the things which possess or desire to possess, to give us security, hope, joy and fulfillment which can ultimately come only from God.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! There was a time when the Son of God was in a tomb. We call it Holy Saturday. However Holy Saturday ended when Jesus Christ was raised. The Sunday which followed ‘unlocked for us the path to eternity’ as we prayed in our opening prayer for this Mass of the Resurrection. I am moved and strengthened by this prayer because it captures that the mighty work accomplished by the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not forced upon us. Rather it is a path marked by growth in faith in the midst of our ups and downs.
On Easter Sunday Jesus was risen but his disciples were still followers of Friedrich Nietzsche as they believed that ‘God was dead’ because the Resurrection of Jesus was not accomplished in the spotlights or in front of the mass media. The first Easter Sunday morning was for the disciples as dark and empty as Holy Saturday. The tomb to which they rushed was not a sign of hope yet. It was just a further expression of the emptiness they had in them. However the Spirit of God begins to manifest his work. The disciple Jesus loved, the one who followed Jesus from the beginning of the Lord’s mission until his redeeming death on the cross, starts putting the pieces of Jesus’ teaching and the sight of the empty tomb together. What is the result? ‘He believed.’ He hadn’t seen Jesus risen yet but he had come to believe in the Resurrection. We haven’t seen the Lord either but from one generation to another was pass on the Good News which turns the emptiness into which we run every now and then into the joy of the presence of the Risen Lord and the new life, ‘this path to eternity.’ We repeat, treasure and celebrate that at the outset of our Christian religion is what St Peter announced to Cornelius as we could hear it in our First Reading: ‘People killed Jesus by hanging him on the tree, yet three days afterwards God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen…We are those witnesses – we have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead.’
In the light of that message of the Resurrection I am grateful for those lovely holidays I had as a child. Although I miss my grandma like I miss my dad who died many years ago I know that they were my grandma and dad not my God. The emptiness left by them is now filled with the Risen Lord. What my loved ones gave me is a taste of more I am given every day by my God and Lord.
I pray this Easter Sunday for you my Dear Sisters and Brothers so that if you experience some form of emptiness in you these days you may believe that the Risen Jesus wants to fill it with his presence and new life like this empty chalice will be soon filled with his precious blood.
Happy Easter. Christ is risen. Alleluia.

​            In recent years we have been able to witness a powerful reaction of various communities around the world in response to manmade or natural tragedies. The silent marches, peaceful rallies, night vigils are a moving insight into our humanity revealing our empathy at our fellow human beings’ suffering.
My Dear Fellow believers! Good Friday has brought us together to adore Jesus hanging on the cross. The words of the ancient prophet Isaiah capture what Jesus looked like that first Good Friday: ‘As the crowds were appalled on seeing him – so disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human.’ We remember that it was a grievous injustice done to him. The Roman Governor Pontius Pilate in his judgment made it clear that the accusation against Jesus had no merit: ‘I am going to bring him out to you to let you see I find no case.’ But when he realized that his stand could cost him his career he gave in to the demands of those who gathered in front of his palace.
So, are we here rallying against that injustice? Our Lord tells us something different in the words he addressed to the women of Jerusalem who mourned and lamented for him when he was carrying his cross: ‘Do not weep for me; weep rather for yourself and for your children… For if men use green wood like this, what will happen when it is dry?’ Can you hear that the scourged and burdened with cross Christ on the way to the Calvary spoke of himself as a green tree. He who was doing the will of his Heavenly Father, he who loved all human children of his Heavenly Father to the very end, wanted those women and us as well, to see what he was put through as life giving. He repeated what he said before: ‘No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my free will.’ If he wanted to defend himself he could did it with his one divine and powerful word.  He didn’t need Peter’s sword to protect him. That’s why even if we pity Jesus for his fate the prophet Isaiah moves our empathy to adoration: ‘The crowds will be astonished at him, and kings stand speechless before him, for they shall see something never told and witness something never heard before.’
These words came to me some years ago when in an old Church in Europe I discovered a cross with a smiling figure of Christ. First I was astonished and speechless. I even thought that it was something wrong. But as I was gazing on this unusual crucifix I remembered a story of a mother and her daughter drowning in a river. When some people came to their rescue the woman pushed the child up. Seeing the child being saved there was a smile of relief on her face despite being sucked to her death by the river current. That ancient crucifix wasn’t scandalous but it was powerfully preaching to worshippers and hopefully to tourists as well the depths of God’s love for us revealed in Jesus Christ. Later when I did some research I discovered that the most ancient crucifixes didn’t focus on suffering of Jesus. They presented the crucified Lord as Priest vested for Mass. They presented the crucified Lord as King robed in his royal regalia.
Today as we gather to celebrate the Passion of the Lord I invite you to gaze upon ‘the One whom they have crucified’ not as a victim but a conscious Priest making of himself the sacrifice for our sins.
Today as we gather to celebrate the Passion of the Lord I invite you to gaze upon ‘the One whom they have crucified’ not as a victim but a conscious King who came not to be served but to serve.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Take from this Liturgy the smile of the Crucified Lord. It is the smile which tells volumes about God’s love for you and me, for us.

​As I stand before you at this holy celebration of the Lord’s Supper my mind is still filled with images of the burning Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I am deeply sad at the horrific damage done to this ancient church but there is another image which keeps coming to me. It is an image of a community of Catholics kneeling in one of the streets of the French Capital beautifully chanting the Rosary as they witness their cathedral, the mother church of their diocese in flames.
            My Dear Fellow Believers! At the outset of the most sacred three days of the Paschal Triduum: Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday we come together, like those Catholics in Paris, because of what Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ has done for us by his Passion, Death and Resurrection.
In the First Reading from the Book of Exodus we were given a glimpse of those final hours before the People of God were led out of Egyptian slavery. God invited them to turn their waiting for deliverance into a celebration of Passover. The consummation of the roasted lamb and the bitter herbs marked that night of God’s wonders and power, but it wasn’t just for that one night. God envisaged it as a yearly ceremony for his people: ‘This is to be a day of remembrance for you, and you must celebrate it as a feast in the Lord’s honour. For all generations you are to declare it a day of festival, for ever.’ That’s why every Jewish woman and man as they sit at the table to celebrate Passover can say: I am among those who left Egypt. As I pray and eat the Passover I experience the power of God’s mighty arm right now, right here.
Some fourteen centuries after that first Passover and the glorious Exodus there was a Passover celebration in Jerusalem of which both St Paul in our Second Reading from the Letter to the Corinthians and St John from the Gospel Reading wrote about. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, ‘knew that the hour had come for him to pass over from this world to the Father.’ This new pass over of the Son of Man was too in the midst of plagues like those which devastated Egypt, in fact the most deadly plagues of all: sins. This new pass over of the Son of Man was not passing by the sin controlled people and events but rather walking into the lion’s den, the sin’s den. Was Jesus out of his mind? St John gives us an explanation: ‘Jesus had always loved those who were his in the world, but now showed how perfect his love was.’ God who knelt and washed the dirty feet of his creatures gave them also a new meal made of bread: ‘This is my body, which is for you’ and wine: ‘This is the new covenant in my blood.’ Then he said: ‘Do this as a memorial of me.’
There were twelve men with Jesus there. As Jesus consecrated the bread and wine into his Body and Blood as he consecrated them into priests of the New Covenant. They were the first to consume Jesus’ Body and Blood, they were the first to embrace the transformation into what they consumed and they were also the first of the long tradition of bishops and priests to share this precious and life giving Eucharist with their sisters and brothers in faith. Tonight as we meditate on the mystery of the Eucharist and Priesthood pray my Sisters and Brothers for your bishops and priests. As they give the Eucharist to their communities may they also make of their lives a gift to their communities.
As I meditate on the life-giving Eucharist I wander what would happen on this coming Sunday if tonight your parish priest instead of giving you the Holy Communion would give each of you ten grand. I am pretty sure that on Sunday the queue to this church would stretch for miles. Is it because the pile of notes is seen as life-changing and life-giving? Though surrounded by such mentality we pray for a Christian mentality. Let’s listen again to the opening prayer for this Eucharist: ‘O God who have called us to participate in this most Sacred Supper.’ It is God himself who has called us to be here and he did so for a purpose: ‘that we may draw from so great a mystery the fullness of charity and of life.’
A couple of weeks ago there was an unusual ceremony in Assisi, the town of St Francis. The body of a fifteen year old boy who died of leukemia in 2006 was transferred from a cemetery to one of the churches there. The boy’s name was Carlo Acutis. Last year Pope Francis recognized that Carlo lived his life heroically as a Christian, thus he is called now Venerable. Rather a strange nickname for a teenager, isn’t it? As soon as a miracle attributed to him is confirmed he will be beatified and even canonized. This boy was rather determined about his lifestyle: ‘To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan.’ Why did he want to be close to Jesus? Was he dissatisfied with his life? Nothing of the sort. He loved life. He was passionate about computers, sport etc. He was popular among his friends. It was his funeral that revealed why he wanted to be close to Jesus. The church was filled not only with his relatives, friends, teachers and classmates. There were migrants, homeless, the poor, struggling families. They came because this boy, who came from rather a wealthy family, was spending the money he was given not on himself but on the people in need. On weekends he asked his mother to drive him around Milan to distribute his gifts to the needy. Carlo understood that he needed to be close to Jesus to act like Jesus. He drew strength from the Eucharist which he called: ‘My highway to heaven.’ He was at the Eucharist every day because as he simply put it: ‘The more Eucharist we receive, the more we become like Jesus.’ When informed of his advanced cancer he said: ‘I offer all the suffering I will have to suffer for the Lord, for the Pope and the Church.’
Venerable Carlo Acutis at such young age grasped the depth of wisdom of the great bishop St Augustin who some sixteen centuries earlier while distributing Holy Communion was saying to the people: ‘Receive what you are. Become what you receive.’
Amen.

​This Sunday we begin the week which eludes our familiar structures of time and space. We call it Holy Week but it will end on Thursday, which we call Holy Thursday. On the evening of the coming Thursday we will enter the Most Sacred Three Days of the Paschal Triduum: Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. We will be coming to church a number of times during the Paschal Triduum but in fact it is one long celebration spread over three days, not three celebrations. It is one saving event we will enter on the evening of the coming Thursday. What ahead of us is not easy to contain in our familiar structures of time and place. That’s why the Church invites us to enter this holy time with faith and trust in the Lord.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! At the culmination of that sacred time of the Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, at Easter Vigil, when we give glory to our God for the event of our salvation, we will be looking at the new flame of the Paschal Candle. Than we will hear the words: ‘May this flame be found still burning brightly by the Morning Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever.’
            My Dear fellow believers! We who love the Lord Jesus, we who treasure what he has done for us by his death and Resurrection, we call him our Morning Star. Our faith moves us to echo what the old Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, said when his was able to speak again upon the birth of the son who was promised to him by the Angel Gabriel: ‘The loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the rising sun from on high.’ It wasn’t made up by the old man. For centuries the Jewish people were treasuring a belief that when Messiah would come from the East. They believed also that the first place he would visit would be the Jerusalem Temple. Some thirty three years after prophesy of Zechariah the people who were around the Temple could hear some noise coming from a mountain ridge called the Mount of Olives: ‘Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.’
 The Mount of Olives is the ridge east of Jerusalem. If one wants to enjoy the sunrise in Jerusalem he needs to look towards the Mount of Olives.
So those in Jerusalem attracted by the signing, as they riveted their eyes upon the Mount of Olives, could see, like they had seen the Sun many mornings before, a figure appearing as he was approaching the summit from the other side. It was Jesus Christ, the Rising Sun, the Morning Star, the Messiah coming to the Holy City. However his appearance was different to the sunrise the people of Jerusalem were accustomed to see every morning. The Sun would appear over the Mount of Olives and it would continue its rising higher and higher. Jesus after appearing on the summit began descending in order to reach the Holy City and the people who needed his salvation. We are these people too. He, our Rising Sun, was descending to the valley located between the Mount of Olives and the hill on which the Temple was built. He did this so that all of us who at some stage of our life feel like walking in the valley of darkness could say with confidence after the psalmist: ‘If I should walk in the valley of darkness no evil would I fear. You are there my Lord.’
The Gospels tell us that after that wonderful entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the days which followed were the days of darkness. The disciples of Jesus found themselves in darkness when their Master was taken away, when their dreams and expectations were shattered, when their own weakness, cowardice, sins and selfishness surfaced. Some of them run away, but as we follow carefully the unfolding events to the Holy Week and Easter Triduum we discover a small community of disciples which followed Jesus right to the hill of Golgotha. Their following didn’t have the same joyful character which we could see in the crowds on Palm Sunday, nevertheless the love with which Jesus loved them was their light. They continued following Jesus. They were his Mystical Body on earth.
Over two millennia the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, has been a number of times on the Mount of Olives enjoying praise and appreciation of others. However the Church has also been a number of times in the situations of darkness when some thought that it would be the end of the Church. However God has always raised people like St Francis to rebuild the Church holding unto the love Jesus has loved us.
My dear fellow followers of Jesus. As we enter this holy time draw from the sacred Liturgies, which mark this time, the grace of faith, hope and love.  Let us hold fast to Jesus’ love for us, the love which costed him his life. I pray to our Blessed Mother for each of us so that like her we may treasure and ponder all these events in our hearts. I pray also so that like her we may fill our conversations, whether at home or school, workplace or club, with the events which are ahead of us this mysterious week.