Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004 Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 John 20:1-9	Listen to Audio

This is the night (morning, day) that all creation – the entire universe – has been waiting for. And now we know that the universe is immense and ancient beyond what anybody could imagine or understand in the past. One of my favorite pictures, and I see it every day because I put it on my computer desktop, is the recent ultra deep field photograph taken by the Hubble telescope that reveals galaxies being formed over 13 billion years ago, at such a great distance that it took their light that long to reach us. We are seeing these galaxies only about 600 million years after the Big Bang, which, as far as we can tell now, marks the creation of the universe.

I say this to put in perspective my first statement: this is the night (morning, day) that all creation has been waiting for.

Certainly, this is not cause for pride, as though the entire universe revolves around us. There may be countless billions of other worlds in this universe, inhabited also by servants of God – and perhaps by sinners as well. That is not given to us to know now – and it may never be. All we can know is what is here, and what we perceive and understand feebly from here.

But what we do know is that this Lord of an unimaginably vast and ancient creation loves us so much as to invite and empower us to share life with him for all eternity. What we do know is that on this world – we can’t speak for other worlds – on this world, God the Son mysteriously took on human flesh, became 100% a part of us, without holding back. And because of the sinful narrowness of our human vision, we couldn’t stand him. We did away with him. Yet, he did not let us go.

This night (morning, day) we celebrate the event in which the Lord of the Universe whispers to us the word that is true for ever: I love you. This grand universe is nothing without you. I want you to be one with me. For ever!

Can we believe that?

© Thomas Welbers 2004

Here are some useful links, which provide material for the study of these liturgical readings, and reflections on their message:

The Text This Week

Daily Word of Life

The Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University

Lectionary Resource for Catholics: Easter Vigil / Easter Sunday