Daily Reading for April 4 • The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter
Christ’s resurrection is life for the dead, pardon for sinners, glory for the saints. And so the holy prophet invites every creature to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection: we should rejoice, he says, and be glad on this day which the Lord has made.
The light of Christ is day without night, day without end. Understanding that day to be Christ, Saint Paul says: “The night is far gone, the day is at hand.” “The night is far gone,” he says, it is not approaching; for he wishes you to understand that when Christ’s light draws near, the darkness of the devil is put to flight, and the shadows of sin do not approach; the old gloom is dispelled by the endless brightness, and the insidious approach of wrongdoing is halted.
Christ is the Son-day, to whom the Father-day has whispered the secret of his divinity. He is the day who says through the mouth of Solomon: “I have made an undying light rise in the heavens.”
And so, my brethren, we ought all to rejoice on this holy day. No one should separate himself from the general rejoicing because he has sins on his conscience; no one should refuse to take part in the public worship because of the burden of his misdeeds. However great a sinner he may be, on this day he should not despair of pardon, for the privileges granted by this day are great. If a thief should be thought worthy of paradise, why should not a Christian be thought worthy of forgiveness?
From Maximus of Turin (c. 380-c. 465), quoted in Seeking Life: The Baptismal Invitation of the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009).