Catholic Daily Reflections: Easter Season 2021
About this ebook
Catholic Daily Reflections: Easter Season 2021 is available in a variety of forms. See our website for electronic or audio/video versions or to sign up for our free daily email at: www.mycatholic.life. The eBook version here offers an easy way for you to daily ponder the holy Gospel during the Lenten season.
Below is a sample reflection for Easter Sunday to give you a preview of our approach. May God bless you on your journey of personal conversion!
Sunday, April 4, 2021
A New Day has Dawned
Easter Sunday (Year B)
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. (see Psalm 118)
Our Easter celebration has begun! Happy Easter!
In many parts of the world, Easter comes in spring. It’s the time of year when nature itself brings forth the beginnings of new life. The tulips begin to rise from the cold and dormant earth, the leaves begin to bud on the trees, transforming the forest into a sea of green, and the Sun begins to shine with a new radiance, sending warmth at its rising each morning. Creation itself reflects the glory and splendor of the Resurrection of Christ in many ways.
The death of winter reflects the death of Christ and the silence of the tomb experienced on Holy Saturday. Everything goes dormant. Vegetation appears to die, and even the animals and insects retreat into various forms of hibernation and immobility. However, at the appointed time, as the warmth of the sun rises anew, nature itself is called forth from the death of winter into the new life of spring.
The cold winter would be deeply depressing if it were to remain forever. Just imagine if scientists were to tell us that the forthcoming winter was a unique one in that it would now remain forever. Never again would we see the warmth of spring or summer. Never again would we see the insects, plants and leaves on the trees. What a hopeless situation that would be!
But God speaks to us in many and varied ways, and one such way is through the cycle of nature. New life is certain! The warmth will return after the winter freeze, nature will rise and the earth will sing again.
If the Father in Heaven is so diligent about caring for the natural creation, how much more does He care for the re-creation of humanity? How much more would He have cared for the Resurrection of His own divine Son? How much more does He care for our entrance into the new life won for each of us by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?!
Allow the beauty of creation to be a sign to you of a reality that is infinitely greater. Allow yourself to be drawn into the newness of life that is bestowed upon you by your sharing in the Resurrection of Christ. To rise with Him means you are to become a new creation.
Reflect, today, upon the above line from the Responsorial Psalm for today’s Mass. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.” The “day” we rejoice in is the new life God wants to bestow upon your soul here and now. It’s a new day, a glorious one, a transformed one, a resurrected one. New life must begin now and must become continually new and glorious as we journey deeper and deeper into the glory of the Resurrection. Ponder this “new day” and allow our Lord to bestow it upon you through the power of His glorious Resurrection from the dead.
My resurrected Lord, my hope is in You! Alleluia, You are alive and You have conquered all sin, all death, all evil. You bring forth new life to all who turn to You in their need. My Jesus, I do turn to You and abandon myself to You in Your death so that I may rise with You in Your Resurrection to new life. Breathe into me this gift of new life and allow me to begin anew. Jesus, I trust in You.
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About the author
“John Paul Thomas” is the pen name this priest picked in honor of the Apostles Saints John and Thomas and the great evangelist Saint Paul. This name also evokes the memory of the great Pope Saint John Paul II.
John is the beloved Apostle who sought out a deeply personal and intimate relationship with his Savior. Hopefully the writings in this book point us all to a deeply personal and intimate relationship with our God. May John be a model of this intimacy and love.
Thomas is also a beloved Apostle and close friend of Jesus but is well known for his lack of faith in Jesus’ Resurrection. Though he ultimately entered into a profound faith crying out, “my Lord and my God,” he is given to us as a model of our own weakness of faith. Thomas should inspire us to always return to faith when we realize we have doubted.
As a Pharisee, Paul severely persecuted the early Christian Church. However, after going through a powerful conversion, he went on to become the great evangelist to the gentiles, founding many new communities of believers and writing many letters contained in Sacred Scripture. His letters are deeply personal and reveal a shepherd’s heart. Paul is a model for all as we seek to embrace our calling to spread the Gospel.