Sunday Homily, 5 April 2026 - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

Alleluia, the Lord is risen!  He is truly risen, alleluia!  May he who loved us to the end and served us by his death now bring you to the fullness of life by love and service of God and neighbour, alleluia!

The bright glory of this day is undimmed by anything whatsoever.  This is the Lord’s day.  And so, with love and concern, our minds will still be on the world’s sad events.  We’re aware that there are hot spots around the world at the best of times.  But it does seem that more and more are being drawn into open conflict.  Wars and feuds are like that: they’re a bit like a vacuum, collapsing allegiances and relationships, that is, until someone makes peace.

On a day as great as this, we recognise that war-makers rely on our mortality to wage war.  Death is the threat and consequence of not yielding to power.  So it is that something like 500,000 people have lost their lives in Ukraine, and another 5,000 with more to come in the Middle East.  Those who have died of late, on our watch, total one Canberra: we pray God he forgives their sins so that it may be Easter for them too.

War-makers’ reliance on mortality is about seeking a level of power which allows sufficient coercion of non-allies.  As the ancient Romans might say: cross us and we’ll cross you.  This is the impasse of warfare, literally a dead-end.  But once death comes, an enemy has no more threats to make.  There is simply an end to hostilities and the enemy faces consequences.

So, what happens when Life himself hands the enemy the one thing it uses against us?  What happens if our death-wielding foe loads himself with Life?  This is where we find ourselves on this great Easter day.  The Lord of life, the one through whom all things were made, freely gave his life.  Jesus gave himself up to death and so rises to deathless life.

We know that Jesus was free to the end.  We’re told Jesus bowed his head and gave up the spirit.  Though he was stretched out and pinned, his head he could move and with it signalled the giving of his life.  No one took his life from him.  Life gives life; death feeds on death.

What happens when the death-devouring enemy swallows Life?  Death itself dies and the enemy has no more weapons to use.  In a word, there is peace.

This is the gift of Easter, the peace which the world cannot generate for itself.  When the risen Lord appears to his disciples, his first words are about peace.  This peace was won because he, Life, gave the enemy himself.  And we can live for Jesus and as he lived by giving life rather than taking it or threatening it, that is, by love and service of God and neighbour.  In this peace and by it alone, shall we have the kind of life we seek, the kind of life we need.

The risen Lord’s offer of peace comes with the responsibility to make peace, the vocation to love peace.  The world will go its way; the enemy will convince some of us that prosperity comes by exposing and exploiting mortality.  But we may have none of that.  Instead, as those espoused to peace, we pursue allegiances and service, loyalty and friendship.

The Lord has risen to deathless life.  Nothing troubles him but our troubles.  He has no pains but our pains.  And we are his, espoused to the peace of his kingdom, where he lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  Alleluia!

Fr Paul Rowse, OP

Parish Priest