The unalterable regularity with which the celebrations of the Liturgical Year unfold, despite the fluctuations of earthly events, is a demonstration of the celestial majesty of the Church, always loftily surpassing the capricious ebb and flow of human passions.

Grand, but not indifferent, she uses the Liturgy to manifest herself as a solicitous Mother, reviving in her children the highest sense of Christian existence. And the apex of this motherliness is exercised in the celebration of Easter, upon recalling the principal event of the life of her Mystical Spouse in this world: the destruction of the sepulchral prison and passage from death to life.

What application can this incomparable episode have for the Church today and for us individually?

The impiety of the members of the Sanhedrin, who thought everything was ended when they sealed the tomb and guarded it with soldiers after the consummation of the deicide, contributed to exalting the greatest miracle in history: the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This happening, the most evident proof of His divinity, also became the greatest sign of hope in the promise of an everlasting life.

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church – the immortal Mystical Body of Christ – has often seemed defeated under the sepulchral weight of the most terrible trials. It has been abandoned, disgraced, persecuted, betrayed; and today it experiences moments of an apparent night…

However, the same supernatural force that brought about the Resurrection of Christ dwells in the Church, assuring her of constant victory over her enemies. Therefore, in a way incomprehensible to human perception, from the seeming “death” in which she lies, in the consideration of its detractors, she has always “resurrected” and will always “resurrect.”

The same is true in our lives, if considered from a Christian perspective. We can sweeten our hardships with many a legitimate lenitive, but none will be as sweet as the stance inspired by the figure of the Mother – image of the Church – at the foot of the Cross: there She stood, overflowing with hope in the Resurrection.

At times we go through trials, difficulties of all kinds, abandonment, betrayals, darkness… However, a restorative, “resurrecting” force also dwells within us: the grace of God, which should fill us with hope for eternity, especially in moments of pain, which acquire a new meaning, a noble sense, and a reason for supernatural joy with the expectation of a resurrection that is all the more glorious the greater our sufferings.

Thus, “Christ’s resurrection teaches us that no history is so marked by disappointment or sin that it cannot be visited by hope. No fall is definitive, no night is eternal, no wound is destined to remain open forever. However distant, lost or unworthy we may feel, there is no distance that can extinguish the unfailing power of God’s love.”1

This is the great lesson of Easter, the great consolation for righteous men who love God and His Church above all else: Christ died and rose again. The immortal Church – and also her children, who participate in this immortality as long as they do not lose hope – always rises again from its calvaries and its tombs, glorious as Christ in the radiant dawn of His Resurrection. 

Notes:

1 LEO XIV. General Audience, 8/10/2025.