Easter Monday Reflection: Witnessing the Risen Christ's Presence

Easter Monday — From Witness to Recognition: The Risen Christ in Word and Sacrament

MASS Introduxit vos Dominus
LESSON Acts 10:37-43
GOSPEL St Luke 24:13-35
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV

Beloved in Christ,

Yesterday the Church sang Resurrexi—“I am risen”—and the whole world seemed to tremble with the victory of Christ. But today, on Easter Monday, Holy Mother Church does not allow that joy to dissipate into mere memory. She prolongs it, deepens it, and—if we are attentive—interiorises it. For this is not simply the second day after Easter; it is the second day within Easter. The Octave is one single, unbroken day of glory.

And so we are brought, with deliberate intention, to the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, to St. Peter’s Basilica. Why here? Why today? Because the Resurrection is not an abstraction, not a myth whispered in corners, but a fact entrusted to witnesses—men who saw, who touched, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. The Church stands today upon the testimony of Peter, whose voice resounds in the Epistle: “We are witnesses.”

This is the first great note of Easter Monday: the Resurrection is a witnessed reality, not a private sentiment. Christianity does not begin in ideas, but in events; not in feelings, but in facts; not in speculation, but in testimony sealed by blood.

And yet, the liturgy presses further. It is not enough that Christ is risen; it must be asked: what does His Resurrection accomplish in us? For the Introit speaks not first of the empty tomb, but of a journey: “The Lord hath brought thee into a land flowing with milk and honey.” This is the language of Exodus, of liberation, of a people brought out from slavery into promise.

Here the Church reveals the second great note of this day: Easter is not only Christ’s victory—it is our deliverance.

The Collect makes this explicit: “O God, Who dost heal the sick world by the solemn gladness of the Passover… bring them into perfect liberty.” Mark this well: liberty. Not the false liberty of modernity, which is license to sin, but the true liberty of the children of God—the freedom to live in grace, to walk in truth, to be no longer slaves to death, to the devil, or to the tyranny of self.

This is why the ancient Church clothed her newly baptised in white garments throughout this Octave. These neophytes, still radiant with the waters of regeneration, were living icons of Easter. They had passed through the Red Sea; they had died and risen with Christ; they were, in truth, a new creation.

And here, beloved faithful, the liturgy confronts us with a question both simple and severe: are we living as the baptised—or merely as the accustomed?

For many of us were baptised long ago. The white garment has been laid aside; the memory has dimmed. Yet the reality remains. Easter is not a past event; it is a present state. If Christ is risen, then we must rise. If He lives, then we must live in Him.

The Gospel of Emmaus draws this into sharper relief. Two disciples walk away from Jerusalem—away from hope, away from the Cross, away from what they cannot understand. They speak of Christ in the past tense: “We hoped…”—not we hope, but we hoped. Their faith has collapsed into disappointment.

And Christ walks with them—unrecognised.

Here is the third great note of Easter Monday: the Risen Christ is present even when He is not perceived.

He walks beside them; He listens; He questions; He teaches. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He unfolds the Scriptures, showing that the Cross was not a defeat, but a necessity: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?”

And still—they do not know Him.

It is only at the table, in the breaking of the bread, that their eyes are opened.

Here the Fathers speak with one voice: this is no mere meal. This is the Eucharistic action. As at the Last Supper, so now: He takes, blesses, breaks, and gives. And in that moment—the moment of sacramental presence—they recognise Him.

Beloved brethren, this is not incidental. It is doctrinal. It is liturgical. It is existential.

We know Christ most fully in the Eucharist.

You may seek Him in ideas, in arguments, in emotions—but you will know Him, as they did, in the breaking of the bread. And this is why the Church, even in the very dawn of Easter, binds together Resurrection and Sacrament, glory and altar, victory and offering.

And what is the fruit?

“Was not our heart burning within us…?”

Ah—there it is. Not sentiment, but fire. Not vague warmth, but divine ignition. The Word opens the mind; the Sacrament inflames the heart; and the soul, once slow and heavy, becomes swift and radiant. They rise that very hour—that very hour—and return to Jerusalem. From flight to mission. From confusion to proclamation.

This, then, is the pattern of the Christian life:

To walk in darkness, to be met by Christ, to be instructed by His Word, to recognise Him in the Sacrament, to be inflamed with charity, and to return—changed—to bear witness.

And so we return, at last, to Peter.

The Communion antiphon declares: “The Lord is risen, and hath appeared to Simon.” Before the crowds, before the Church at large, Christ appears to Peter—the one who denied Him, the one who wept bitterly. Why? Because the Resurrection is not only triumph—it is restoration.

Easter is the victory of mercy.

Peter is not cast aside; he is reclaimed. Not rejected; but renewed. And upon this forgiven man, Christ will build His Church.

And here, at his tomb, the neophytes once stood in white, confessing the faith into which they had been reborn. And we, too, stand—whether in Rome or afar—called to the same confession, the same unity, the same charity.

The Postcommunion gathers it all into one luminous petition: “Make to be of one mind those whom thou hast fed with these paschal sacraments.”

One mind. One heart. One faith. One Lord.

Not the fractured, individualised religion of modern man, but the unity of the Mystical Body, born from the side of Christ, nourished by His Sacraments, and sustained in His Resurrection.

Therefore, beloved faithful, let us not merely celebrate Easter—let us enter into it. Let us live as those who have crossed the sea, who have left Egypt, who have been brought into the land of promise. Let the law of the Lord be always in our mouth, as the Introit commands. Let the fire of Emmaus burn within us. Let the Eucharist open our eyes.

And above all, let us stand with Peter—confessing, proclaiming, witnessing:

Christ is risen. Not as memory, but as reality. Not as symbol, but as life. Not for Himself alone—but for us.

Alleluia.

In the name of…

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