Happy Easter. One day isn't enough for us in the church to celebrate Easter this first week, what we call the Octave of Easter, these first eight days. This being the eighth of those eight days. We've celebrated Easter every day as if it was Easter. That joy will continue beyond what we call the Easter Octave into the Easter season.

Because this event of Easter is something so great that one day isn't enough. In fact, we're invited to to discover in a new way the meaning of of Sunday as the celebration of the Lord's Resurrection. I saw this week on social media. Apparently some priest had said, there's one of those things I thought to myself, I wish I had thought of that, he said.

After his Easter 10:00 mass, he said, I just want everybody to know that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every Sunday at 10 a.m., every Sunday at ten a am. And I thought, what a great announcement. But I also thought to myself, it's so important that we who are here today get that. Every Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and of all the many reasons why Sunday is so important to us as Catholic Christians and why attending the Holy Mass is so important to us on Sundays.

If this is not at the top of the list, it needs to be near the top. It's the it's the it is the Christian feast every Sunday. Every Sunday. And when we hear those words, Alleluia! We fasted from those words all of lent. And so now that we're hearing them again, I encourage you to allow those words every Sunday to recall the joy of the risen Lord.

And I also invite you to consider why we need to celebrate every Sunday. Think about your week this last week. I won't ask you to raise your hands, but was there a moment that you got irritated that you were frustrated that something got to you? Was there a moment that you forgot that Jesus is risen? Was there a moment when something seemed so big it seemed like it couldn't be conquered?

Okay, I had moments like that. I'll raise my hand, I need this, we need this. One day out of the year doesn't do it for us. Maybe if it did, the Lord wouldn't ask us to require us or command us, or invite us, or however we want to think of it to attend every Sunday. We need this so that every Sunday we can be renewed in this light.

Throughout the Easter season, we will have the Easter candle burning brightly in our sanctuary. We have preserve the Easter Fire from the Easter Vigil mass. We will preserve that all year in our side shrines. Our Easter candle will be lit from that Easter fire. As you see this candle, I invite you to rediscover the power of this light to conquer the darkness.

And so our gospel takes us first to Easter Sunday. On the first day of the week, the doors were locked. The disciples were afraid with good reason. Again, having studied recently the the Shroud of Turin just to see the brutality of the crucifixion reflecting accurately Roman practices of the first century. They were rightly fearing that the same thing that happened to our Lord would happen to them.

They were bound in fear. The doors were locked. Jesus came and stood in their midst, very important witness to the fact that he is a glorified and risen body. This was not a resuscitation. It was something unique in history, a resurrection we call it. It was the same body, but different, transformed, not limited by the properties of ordinary bodies, thus capable of appearing before be, appearing within doors that were locked.

And notice his first words. Very important. He's just died and risen. First words of the risen Lord to his apostles. Peace be with you, and I invite you today to allow those words to be spoken to you, spoken into you all that might not be at peace in your life, because that is the invitation of the risen Lord.

Peace be with you. He comes to bring us peace, the right ordering of our relationships with God, with our self, with others, with creation, living in the truth, living according to justice. Peace is the fruit of the risen Lord. Peace is the desire of every human heart. As he says, peace be with you. It speaks into our deepest desires.

And he reveals that he is the one who fulfills those desires. Peace be with you. Then he shows them his hands and his side. It's the same body, super important. Our Lord is not a ghost, a spirit who appears. His body is risen. That's very significant in our own culture, which is tending to relapse. It's nothing new into dualism.

The idea that that our bodies and our true selves are somehow not the same. The risen, glorified body of our Lord is an affirmation of the importance of our bodily existence. It's an affirmation that God has an eternal plan for our bodies. It's the basis of our belief in the resurrection of the body. It's why we as Catholics bury our dead differently, because the body matters.

After death and a dualistic worldview. There's no purpose to the body after death. Dump it wherever you want to dump it. It doesn't matter. But in the Christian vision, the body, the literal body will rise from the dead. God has an eternal plan for your body and the resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate affirmation of that plan. And he shows him his hands and his side.

And he gives them the gift of the spirit, receive the Holy Spirit. And he institutes the sacrament of confession. The sacrament of penance. Again, super important. This is what are our Lord's first actions after he rises from the dead. We should take note. These things are important to receive the Holy Spirit who sins you forgive our forgiven them.

Who sins you retain are retained. And so it's easy for us to get caught up in that thinking. Why do I have to go to confession? Why do I have to go to a priest? Well, maybe because it was the very first thing that Jesus did after he rose from the dead. Maybe it's important because he gave the authority to forgive sins to his first priests, the apostles.

Let me give thanks to God that that Thomas wasn't there when our Lord appeared. And we thank the Lord for his doubt, for his skepticism, because we can relate to that, particularly in our modern era, where we want everything proven to us. Thomas is a great witness to the resurrection. 

I don't believe I don't care that I trust you guys, and I know you guys. I don't care that you're all telling me the same thing. I won't believe until I put my hands in the nail marks. 

And so our Lord appears the following Sunday, which is really beautiful because this gospel literally is a gospel, then not only of Easter Sunday, but of this Sunday, the second Sunday. And our Lord appears and he shows them his hands and his side.

He speaks directly to Thomas into his disbelief. And Thomas so beautifully says, my Lord and my God. 

Saint Gregory the Great notes Thomas saw one thing, but he believed another. He saw a man risen from the dead, and he believed that man was the eternal Son of God. Thomas leads the way for us. And how faith is something that doesn't violate our reason, but fulfills it and allows our reason to go beyond our limits.

My Lord and my God, we're invited to keep alive the power of the Easter season, not just during these 50 days, but throughout our entire life. We need this season to be renewed, and I invite you to to consider with me, to rediscover with me that basic meaning of Sunday as a mini Easter, that very simple fact that every Sunday we celebrate the Lord rising from the dead.

And every Sunday we are invited to be renewed in the power of the resurrection.