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Our good bishops Easter Sermon:

Translation from polish



Beloved in Christ the Lord, we gather on this Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection in order to go in spirit to Christ’s tomb. When we visit the graves of our deceased loved ones, we go there full of sorrow. We remember those who have passed away. More than once, perhaps, a tear will well up in our eyes. A grave is a place of reflection. A grave is a place that evokes memories, longing. Today we go to the holy city of Jerusalem. We go to see the empty tomb in which our Lord Jesus Christ was laid.

The tomb, which on Friday was covered with a heavy stone; the tomb which for those closest to the Lord Jesus, for the Blessed Mother and the Apostles—exactly like the graves of our loved ones—was [sigh] a place awakening sadness. The thought of Christ’s tomb squeezed out many a tear during this short time, from Friday until Sunday morning. Today we go to this tomb and we find that it is empty, that Christ has come out of this tomb. And the emptiness of Christ’s tomb is the only emptiness in the history of humanity that fulfills.

The only emptiness that has meaning. An emptiness that becomes for us a source of hope. A source of hope that death does not mean the end, that death will not have the last word. We go, my dear ones, and we fill ourselves with emptiness, we fill ourselves with joy, because the conqueror of death, hell, and Satan lives. He triumphed despite the calculations of the godless Jews, who ordered Christ’s tomb to be covered with a heavy stone, so that his disciples would not accidentally come and steal the body. Dear faithful, this Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection makes us aware, however, of a very sad reality.

It makes us aware that a whole mass of people living today, a whole mass of contemporary Catholics, including those Catholics of tradition, have become like a grave. They have become a grave for Christ. A grave in which faith in Him has died. A grave in which hope for the resurrection has died. A grave in which love for the Risen One has died. We look around us and we see a world full of graves walking on two legs—people dead inside, people empty inside, people living without meaning and without hope.

Dear faithful, on this Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection, rejoicing in the victory of Christ, trusting that we too will become victors along with Him over death, hell, and Satan, it is impossible for us not to think of all those who rejected the Risen One. The past week was a very difficult week. This Holy Week, when we contemplate, we look at human perversity. The same people who on Palm Sunday shouted: "Hosanna to the Son of David," on Good Friday shouted: "Away with him, crucify him."

If we were to listen to the echo that carries through the world today, 2000 years after the death of the Lord Jesus, we would discover with horror that the echo filling the world today is the echo of that cry from Good Friday. Away with him, crucify him. Away with him, crucify him. And the rejection of Christ inevitably leads to spiritual death, because only Christ the Lord is the giver of life for our souls. How many spiritual corpses are around us today, those who will not rise from spiritual death, those for whom sin has become their daily bread. Those for whom blasphemy and mockery of God have become something ordinary.

We must pray, my dear ones, for these spiritual corpses, for these hearts that have become like a cold grave, for these hearts that are covered by a heavy stone—a stone they are unable to cast off themselves, for the casting off of which they need God's grace, they need a Savior, but they do not seek Him. They do not ask Him for help, and with each day, each hour, they plunge into ever greater hatred toward the true God. Dear faithful, today we all go, we pilgrimage in spirit to the holy city of Jerusalem, and we gaze into the emptiness of God’s tomb, but we also look toward Calvary, toward Golgotha, where on Friday the Savior, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, hung on the altar of the Cross, performing the sacrifice of atonement through which we were redeemed.

And those of you who have been to Jerusalem probably had the opportunity, while visiting the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, to notice and visit a very special place located at the foot of Golgotha: the Chapel of Adam. We remember, my dear ones, in the Gospel description of the Lord's Passion, we read that at the moment of the Savior’s death, a great earthquake occurred. So much so that rocks split, and that rock on which the Cross stood—Golgotha—also split. This crack is visible to this day. A crack from the summit where the Cross stood to several meters below, to the grotto—the grotto in which our forefather Adam was buried. This crack, which becomes a testimony of the redemption accomplished on the Cross.

Because when the rock split, the blood that flowed down from the Cross flowed further through the rock, all the way to the grotto where Adam rested, and washed his skull. Redemption, washing in Christ’s blood, without which there is no salvation. And though we pilgrimage in our souls to those places that are somewhere inaccessible, closed to Christian pilgrims by a state that is located where it wants to be, we pilgrimage there in spirit and we bow over these two relics, which are testimony, tangible proof of everything we read in the Passion. Golgotha and God’s Tomb are separated from each other by a dozen or so meters, but those dozen meters—that Good Friday path of Christ’s body wrapped in a shroud, that path from death to the tomb—is the most important path in the history of the entire world.

A path leading from death to life. And it depends only on you whether you will want to follow this path that was opened for you on Good Friday. It depends only on you whether you will want to walk after Christ, whether you are ready to go with Him through Calvary to the morning of the Resurrection. May we, my dear ones, not be fools; may we, in contemplating the mysteries of our redemption, in reflecting on this holy night—the only night that knows the hour, the exact hour of the resurrection—make a good choice, and rise.

The Resurrection, which we honor, is a call for us to rise, so that we no longer lie crushed by the weight of our daily lives, crushed by worries, sorrows, and fear, but we are to resurrect, and thus to rise. To rise in order to walk with Christ toward His kingdom, that kingdom which will have no end. The Roman Empire passed away, the Roman emperors who persecuted the Church passed away; all the great empires and kingdoms of this world have passed away. And Christ’s Church endures and will endure, because it is the work of God Himself. It is like an Ark. An Ark that allows us to find refuge, allows us to survive the flood of heresy, apostasy, and sin that floods the modern world.

My dear ones, let us therefore rise with Christ and walk with Christ toward that kingdom which will have no end. Everything in this world passes away, and you, one day, will be enclosed in a cold, dark grave, but it depends on you what happens afterward. It depends on you what your eternity will look like. It depends on you whether you will find yourself where you will gaze forever at the radiant face of the risen Christ, or whether you will find yourself where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth without end. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Praised be Jesus Christ.