Homily for Easter Sunday

April 5, 2026
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Matthew 28:1-10

Matthew’s Gospel account of the empty tomb and the encounter with the Resurrected Lord that we have just proclaimed includes a detail that grounds the truth and power of the Resurrection of the Lord in reality: “Jesus met [the women] on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.” Why did they embrace his feet? The feet are the parts of the body closest to the ground. As we recall, it was the feet of the Apostles that were washed on Holy Thursday. Feet ground a human being in reality. Feet represent the human condition, never totally clean, highly sensitive and always in need of cleansing. Today’s actions by the women in the Gospel reveal that in Jesus, our human condition is redeemed and cleansed. 

Their embrace of His feet follows upon their discovery of the empty tomb and the encounter with the angel who urges them not to be afraid. We no longer need to be afraid of death because of the Resurrection of Christ. Not only does death have no more power, but also nothing can keep or seal off the power of God’s life in a tomb or any other place in which we might attempt to conceal it. No human deception or plan, no physical barrier or obstacle, can hold back the power of the new life of the Resurrection offered us in Jesus Christ.

At the end of the account of Jesus’ Passion and death in Matthew’s Gospel which we proclaimed on Palm Sunday, Pilate speaks to the Chief Priests and the Pharisees after they had asked him to secure the tomb so that Jesus’ disciples might not steal His body. Pilate responded: “The guard is yours; go, secure it as best you can.” There is no securing anything from the love of God in the world. All attempts to do so are futile because God’s mercy given in Christ is more powerful than sin.

The wisdom of this world, the passions of anger and sensuality, of fear and of death, attempt to keep the tomb locked with Christ within and us outside and away from Him through resentment and revenge. Those whom this fallen world esteem as wise attempt to control the narrative of Christ’s Resurrection. They attempt to keep the blackmail of death and sin alive. Yet nothing can hold back the love of God manifest in Christ Jesus, Risen from the Dead. The wisdom of this world, the old “yeast of malice and wickedness,” is destined to fail.

At the Easter Vigil last evening, Pope Leo XIV preached, “On Easter morning, the women, overcoming their grief and fear, set out. They wanted to go to Jesus’ tomb. They expected to find it sealed, with a large stone at the entrance and soldiers on guard. This is sin: a very heavy barrier that imprisons us and separates us from God, trying to kill his words of hope within us. ”

The new life, the new being, that Christ gives us in the Resurrection changes human beings forever. The new life, the new being means that the old ways will not work anymore. There has been a radical change not only in Jesus but, because of Him, also in us who are to live with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, a change that the pompous forces of the devil are powerless to seal, conceal, or undo. Christ has forgiven us that we might forgive others.

This Easter day which the Lord has made, and every day, are forever changed. Stones and guards, deception and sin, and the spiritual tombs in which we often try to bury ourselves cannot keep the awesome power of Christ from liberating us from evil. Christ cannot be chained; Christ cannot be bound. Christ cannot be buried; for Christ is not dead. He is raised from the dead and He is alive. Christ is risen, alleluia! He is truly risen, alleluia!