28 March 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” Matthew 28:6
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” The first words the Church hears on Easter are a summons to a city sitting in darkness. Isaiah speaks to a Jerusalem that has been ruined and emptied: “For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” The prophet sees sons and daughters coming home from far away, the wealth of the nations streaming in, camels from Midian and Sheba bringing gold and frankincense, flocks offered on God's altar. On Easter morning the prophecy finds its true meaning. The light that has come is not a sunrise over a city but a Person risen from the dead. The Syro-Malabar Church celebrates the Uyirppu in the night or before dawn precisely for this reason: the darkness of the church is broken by light, and the people who sat in the shadow of death see the glory of the Lord. Every candle in our hands this night is a small fulfilment of Isaiah: nations coming to the light, and the sons and daughters of the Church gathered from everywhere, from Kerala to the farthest diaspora, singing the same Alleluia.
Then the Church sings with Hannah. She was the barren wife who wept in the temple, mocked by her rival, misunderstood even by the priest. God gave her a son, Samuel, and she poured out her joy: “My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God.” Her song is a song of reversals: the bows of the mighty are broken, the hungry are fed, the barren woman bears seven. And at its centre is a line that only Easter fully explains: “The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.” “He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes.” Mary of Nazareth would echo this song in her Magnificat. On Easter God does the greatest reversal of all: the one who was condemned is vindicated, the one laid in the dust of the tomb is raised, the crucified is made Lord. Paul draws the consequence for us: we who were baptised into his death are to live as people raised from the dead. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” “No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.” “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Easter is not only something that happened to Jesus; it is something that has happened to us.
The Gospels tell the morning in two voices. In Matthew the women come to see the tomb; there is a great earthquake; an angel rolls back the stone and sits on it, and the guards become like dead men. The angel says: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” In John it is still dark when Mary Magdalene comes and finds the stone removed. She runs to Peter and the beloved disciple; they race to the tomb, and the other disciple “saw and believed”, though he saw only the linen wrappings lying there and the cloth rolled up in a place by itself. Then the most tender scene of all. Mary stays outside weeping. She does not recognise Jesus and thinks he is the gardener. He calls her by name: “Mary!” And she turns and says, “Rabbouni!” The Risen Lord is not a ghost or a memory or an idea; he is the same Jesus who knows his own by name, risen in his own body, the body that bore the wounds. He sends her as the first messenger of Easter: “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’.” The Church has called her the apostle to the apostles. The Resurrection is a real event in history, witnessed by many: an empty tomb, a stone rolled away, and above all meetings with the living Lord. It is also more than history: Christ has passed through death into a new life in which he will never die again, and he draws us with him.
How a family can follow the Uyirppu, step by step (the order and hours differ between dioceses; follow your parish). First, the gathering in darkness: late on Saturday night or in the early hours of Sunday the people gather in the church, often with the lights off, holding unlit candles. Second, the proclamation: the priest announces the Resurrection of the Lord. In many parishes the curtain is drawn back or the image of the Risen Christ is lifted from the tomb where the crucified Lord was laid on Friday, and the light spreads from candle to candle until the whole church shines. Third, the bells and the hymn of glory: the bells, silent since Pesaha, ring out, and the people sing the hymns of the Resurrection. Fourth, the procession: the image of the Risen Lord is carried around the church with candles, crosses and umbrellas, and the people follow singing; in some places it is accompanied by the joyful sound of bells and fireworks. Fifth, the Holy Qurbana of the Resurrection, the first Qurbana of Easter, in which we receive the living Body of the risen Lord. Sixth, the greeting and the meal: people greet one another with the Easter joy, and families go home to break the fifty days' fast together, often with appam and stew or meat curry, and to share with the poor. The fast was never an end in itself; its whole purpose was to bring us here, to the empty tomb and the living Lord. A practical word: take a moment at home to bless the table with the water blessed on Great Saturday, and let the head of the family say: Christ is risen. And let all answer: He is truly risen.
Theme: “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”
The light risen over Jerusalem, Hannah's song of reversals, our new life in Christ, and the Lord who calls us by name.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” Isaiah 60:1
“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”” John 8:12
Apply: Let your Easter joy be visible today: greet, visit, share.
“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.” 1 Samuel 2:6
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” 1 Corinthians 15:20
Apply: Thank God today for one place where he has lifted you from the dust.
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11
Apply: Leave one sin in the tomb this Easter and plan a good confession this week.
“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1
“Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).” John 20:16
Apply: Tell one person today, in your own words, why you believe Jesus is alive.
The tomb is empty, the light has come, and the Lord who was crucified calls us by name.
Live as people raised from the dead, and go and tell: I have seen the Lord.
Take-home resolution: This Easter, greet everyone with ‘Christ is risen’, share your table with someone alone, and pray the Queen of Heaven daily until Pentecost.
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is risen! He is truly risen! This night the darkness of the church was broken by light, and we heard Isaiah say: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” The light that has come is not a sunrise. It is a Person. Jesus is alive.
We sang with Hannah: “The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.” She sang it for a child born to a barren woman. We sing it for the Son raised from the tomb. God has done the greatest reversal of all: the condemned is vindicated, the crucified is Lord.
The women came to the tomb in the dark. The stone was rolled away, and the angel said: “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” The tomb is empty, not because someone took his body, but because he is risen in his body, the same body that bore the wounds.
And Mary Magdalene, weeping in the garden, thought he was the gardener. Then he said her name: “Mary!” And she knew him. That is Easter: not an idea, not a memory, but a living Lord who knows his own by name.
Paul tells us what this means: “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Easter happened to Jesus, and through Baptism it has happened to us. Let us not go back to the tomb we have left. Let us walk in newness of life.
Today we break the fast. Let us do it with joy, and let no one be alone at Easter: share your table, visit the lonely, forgive the one who hurt you. And like Mary Magdalene, let us go and tell someone: I have seen the Lord. Christ is risen! Alleluia! Amen.
Children, Jesus is alive! On Easter morning his tomb was empty, because God raised him from the dead.
Mary Magdalene was crying, and Jesus called her by her name: ‘Mary!’ Jesus knows your name too!
Today let's say to everyone we meet: ‘Jesus is risen! Alleluia!’
Lord Jesus Christ, you are risen from the dead, and death no longer has dominion over you. Glory to you! You broke the bars of Sheol, you rolled away the stone, and you called Mary by her name in the garden. Call us by name, too, and turn our weeping into joy. Make us dead to sin and alive to God; let us walk in newness of life as children of the light. Fill your Church in every land with the gladness of this day, and bring us at last, with all the saints, to the feast that has no end. Glory to you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen. Alleluia!
The tomb is open, and the Church answers with light. Isaiah calls a darkened city to rise and shine. Hannah sings of the Lord who “brings down to Sheol and raises up”. Paul asks how those who died to sin can go on living in it. Two Gospel passages are listed for this day: Matthew's angel on the stone, “He is not here”, and John's morning in the garden, where a weeping woman hears her own name. The readings move from a promise of light, through a song of reversal, to a new way of living, and end with a person who has seen the Lord. The key words are rise, light and I have seen.
Setting.
Many scholars think that chapters 56–66 of Isaiah come from the years after the return from Babylon, when Jerusalem was poor, half rebuilt and disappointed. Chapters 60–62 are the bright centre of this section. The prophet speaks to the city as to a woman sitting on the ground in the dark, and calls her to stand. These words are God's promise to Zion, and the Church reads them with Israel, seeing their fullness in the risen Christ.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” (60:1)
The order matters. The city does not shine in order to earn the light. The light has come first, and that is the reason she is told to rise. Easter has the same order.
“For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.” (60:2)
The darkness is still there when the promise is spoken. The Resurrection also happened “while it was still dark” (John 20:1).
“Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” (60:3)
“They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” (60:6)
Matthew surely has this verse in mind when the wise men from the East bring gold and frankincense to a child (Matthew 2:11). The gifts lead to praise.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council opens its teaching on the Church with these words: Christ is the light of the nations (Lumen Gentium 1). The Catechism adds that the Church has no other light than Christ's, and repeats the image favoured by the Fathers: the Church is like the moon, all of whose light is reflected from the sun (CCC 748). The promise was given to Zion and has not been taken from her (CCC 839–840). In the risen Lord, the Church sees how far that promised light reaches.
Setting.
Hannah had no child. Her husband's other wife, Peninnah, had children and taunted her year after year. At the shrine of Shiloh she prayed so silently that the priest Eli thought she was drunk (1:13). God gave her a son, Samuel, and she brought him back to serve the Lord. This song is her prayer on that day. It stands at the head of the story of Israel's kings, and it is far larger than one mother's joy.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God.” (2:1)
The source of her joy is the Lord, even before Samuel. The son is not named once in the song.
“The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.” (2:6)
This is the verse that makes the song an Easter song. All life and all death are in God's hand, and Sheol is no border to him. Later Israel would come to believe more clearly in the resurrection of the dead, and on this morning the Church hears these words fulfilled.
“He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.” (2:8)
“Dust” is the word of Genesis and of the grave. God's habit of lifting the lowly is the same habit that lifted his Son from the tomb.
“he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.” (2:10)
How the Church reads it.
Mary's Magnificat is clearly built on this song: “lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52) is the same movement. The Catechism names Hannah among the women through whom God showed his faithfulness to his promises, choosing those considered powerless and weak (CCC 489). St Augustine, in The City of God, reads the song as a prophecy of Christ and the Church (in substance).
Setting.
The question of v. 1 is one that any preacher of grace will meet: if God's mercy is greater than sin, why stop sinning? Paul answers with baptism. On this Easter morning the reading goes on past the verses on the burial and lets us hear what follows: the risen life has to be lived, in the body, on an ordinary day.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” (6:1)
“By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (6:2)
Paul's answer is a question about what is even possible. A dead person does not return to the old address. Mercy does not make sin small; it ends sin's claim on us.
“but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.” (6:13)
The word “present” is the language of offering. The baptized bring their eyes, hands and tongues to God day by day. The Holy Qurbana is where we learn this offering.
“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (6:14)
This is a promise. Paul does not mean that God's law is bad or that commandments have ended: “the law is holy” (7:12). He means that the power to obey does not come from the commandment alone. It comes from grace, which changes us from within and makes our works truly good.
How the Church reads it.
At the start of its teaching on life in Christ the Catechism takes up v. 11: incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (CCC 1694). It also says honestly that the inclination to sin remains in the baptized, as a struggle in which they can prevail by the grace of Christ (CCC 1264). So v. 12 is still needed after the font. The Catechism adds that justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new share in grace (CCC 654).
Setting.
In Matthew two women go to the tomb, and they go to see it, having sat opposite it when he was buried (27:61). No one expects anything. A guard has been posted and the stone sealed (27:66). What happens next happens without any human help. Matthew does not describe the moment of the rising itself, and no Gospel does.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.” (28:2)
The angel sits on the stone as on a throne. The stone is not moved to let the Lord out, for no one sees him leave. It is moved to let the witnesses look in.
“For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.” (28:4)
A striking turn: the living guards look dead, and the dead man is alive.
“But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.” (28:5)
“He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” (28:6)
Two small words carry much: as he said. The Resurrection does not surprise his own word. And the first thing the angel does with these frightened women is invite them to look, because faith has a place on the map and the tomb is empty. The POC places “come and see” in v. 7.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the Resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified (CCC 639), and that the empty tomb, though not a direct proof by itself, “was still an essential sign for all” (CCC 640). In every Holy Qurbana we announce what the angel announced: he who was crucified is alive.
Setting.
John alone tells us that the place of the crucifixion had a garden with a new tomb in it (19:41), and he alone tells this meeting in full. Here it is “still dark”, and darkness in John is never only a matter of the clock. Mary Magdalene comes, finds the stone removed and draws the only conclusion anyone would draw: someone has taken the body. The first response to the empty tomb is grief.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.” (20:1)
The first day: creation began with light on a first day, and now the same day opens again.
“Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;” (20:8)
He does not see the Lord. He sees cloths lying in order and an absence, and love reads the signs. The next verse says that they did not yet understand the scripture: faith came first, and understanding followed.
“Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!”” (20:16)
The whole Gospel has been saying this: “the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name” (10:3). She did not recognize his face, but she recognized the voice saying her name.
“But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (20:17)
For the first time in John he calls the disciples his brothers. After the Cross, his Father has become their Father. St Augustine notes that he does not say “our Father”: he is Father by nature to the Son and by grace to us (in substance).
“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”;” (20:18)
The first Easter sermon has five words in English. Every witness since has only repeated them.
How the Church reads it.
St Gregory the Great says that Mary stayed and kept seeking when the others left, and so she was the one who found (in substance). St Thomas Aquinas calls her “apostle of the apostles”, a title the Holy See took up in 2016 when it raised her memorial to a feast. The Catechism explains the strangeness of the meeting: the risen body is the same body, and yet it has new properties, no longer bound by earthly life as before (CCC 645–646). It also rejects the idea that the disciples' faith produced the Resurrection: they were discouraged and doubting, and it was the Resurrection that produced their faith (CCC 643–644).
Why do the Gospels differ in their accounts of Easter morning?
The number of women and angels and the order of events differ from one Gospel to the next. The evangelists each selected and arranged what they received from the witnesses, always telling us the honest truth about Jesus (Dei Verbum 19). They all agree on the heart of it: the first day of the week, women at the tomb, the tomb empty, the Lord alive and seen. Independent witnesses often differ in details like these, and such differences do not touch that heart.
Why did Mary not recognize him at once?
She saw the same Jesus, but his body was now glorified (CCC 645). The same thing happens on the road to Emmaus and at the lake. Recognition comes when he gives it: here, by a word.
Could the Resurrection be a way of saying that the disciples' faith came alive again?
No. These accounts show people who did not expect it: Mary looks for a stolen body, and some doubt on the mountain. The Catechism teaches that it is impossible to read the Resurrection as a product of the apostles' faith; their faith, under grace, came from the direct experience of the risen Jesus (CCC 644).
The Syro-Malabar Church celebrates the Uyirppu in the night or before dawn, so that the darkness of the church can be broken by light, as Isaiah says. The season of the Resurrection, Qyamta, now runs seven weeks until Pentecost, and the first word of today's first reading comes from the same root as the name of the season. The Great Fast is over. In many of our homes, from today until Pentecost, the Queen of Heaven (Regina Caeli) takes the place of the Angelus, and with it we greet Mary, whose faith kept watch through the dark. Let every home hear the words of Mary Magdalene: I have seen the Lord.