Pope's Intentions
Universal: Creation:
That people may learn to respect creation and care for it as a gift of God.
Evangelization: Persecuted Christians:
That persecuted Christians may feel the consoling presence of the Risen Lord and the solidarity of all the Church.
Easter Monday
Commentary of the day
Saint Gregory the Great (c.540-604), Pope, Doctor of the Church
Homilies on the Gospels, 21, 6-7 (trans. ©Cistercian publications, Inc., 1990)
« Go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has been raised form the dead, and he is going before you into Galilee ; there you will see him.’ » (Mt 28,7)
It is aptly said of our Redeemer that: “He is going on ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, as he said to you.” Galilee is interpreted: “the passing has been completed.” In truth our Redeemer had now passed from his passion to his resurrection, from his death to life, from punishment to glory, from corruption to incorruption. After his resurrection he was first seen by his disciples in Galilee, because we will happily see the glory of his resurrection later if we now pass from vice to the height of virtue. There is a “passing” to be accomplished: because he who was proclaimed at the sepulchre has to be seen in another place…
There were two lives. One we know about; of the other we are ignorant; one is mortal, the other immortal; one is corruptible, the other incorruptible; one ends in death, the other in resurrection. But the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1Tim 2,5), came. He took upon himself the one, and revealed to us the other; the one he bore by dying, and the other he revealed by rising. If he had promised resurrection of the body to us who knew this mortal life, but did not visibly manifest it, who would have believed his promises?