THE JOY OF EASTER:
THE RISEN CHRIST IN AND WITH US!
The Lord has risen from the dead, as he had foretold. Let there be happiness and rejoicing for he is our King forever, alleluia (Entrance Antiphon).
The true joy of Easter has its origin in Christ, in the Risen Lord who has triumphed over sin, death, evil and the devil, and who is in our soul in grace.
That is why if we have Our Lord in our soul, we should always “Rejoice, never lose your peace and joy. Serve the Lord with gladness (Ps 99:2). There there is no other way to serve him. In the words of St. Josemaria:
You are enjoying a few days of great happiness, and your soul seems to be filled with light and colour. And funnily enough; the reasons for your joy are the same ones that at other times disheartened you!
It is always the same: it all depends on the point of view. ‘Laetetur cor quaerentium Dominum!’ — when you seek the Lord, your heart always overflows with happiness (St. Josemaria, Furrow, 72).
Besides, as St Thomas Aquinas expressly writes: that who wants to make progress in the spiritual life needs to have joy (St Thomas, Commentary on the Letter to the Philippians, 4, 1). Why? Sadness makes us weak and produces a paralysis in us. That is why we need to seek Our Lord always in our soul and if by chance we have lost Him through our fault, let us cast away sadness from us and recover the true joy in the Sacrament of Confession.
Let us ask Our Lady’s help, she who is unreservedly open to the joy of the Resurrection … She recapitulates all joys, lives the perfect joy promised to the Church: ‘Mater plena sanctae laetitiae’ she is, and with every reason her children on earth, turning their eyes toward the Mother of hope and the Mother of grace, invoke her as the Cause of their Joy — ‘causa nostrae laetitiae’ (Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete in Domino, 9 May 1975).
Cause of our joy, pray for us!