29 March 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malabar Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.” Romans 7:4
Christ is risen! The Church keeps this whole week as one great day of Easter, and on its first weekday she reads what happened in Jerusalem while the women were running to tell the disciples. Two reports leave the same empty tomb. The women carry the truth to the disciples; some of the guard carry it to the chief priests. And there the truth is buried under money: the soldiers are given “a large sum of money” and told, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’” St Augustine asked, with a smile, what kind of witnesses these were: if they were asleep, how did they see who took the body? (in substance). Matthew adds that “this story is still told among the Jews to this day,” speaking of an account that circulated in his own time, not passing judgment on a people. The first witnesses of the risen Lord, Mary Magdalene, Peter, John and the apostles, were themselves Jews, and the Church, following the Second Vatican Council (Nostra Aetate 4), never blames the Jewish people for the death of Christ. What the passage shows is something every age knows: the truth of the Resurrection can be paid to be silent, but it cannot be paid to stay dead. The tomb was empty because the very body that was crucified had been raised, glorious and alive (Catechism 640, 645).
St Paul explains what the Resurrection does to us. He uses a picture from marriage: a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if he dies she is free to belong to another. “In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.” In Baptism we died with Christ; now we belong to the risen Lord as a bride belongs to her husband. The old life of “sinful passions” bore “fruit for death”; the new life bears fruit for God. “But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” Easter is not only a fact about Jesus. It is a new belonging for us: we are his, and he is alive.
How do we keep Hevoro week? Hevoro means white. In the early Church those baptized at Easter wore their white garments through this whole week, and the Church still treats the eight days from Qyomtho to New Sunday as one feast. On Easter night our Church proclaimed the Resurrection and shared the peace of the risen Lord with all the people; this week that joy is carried into ordinary days. Go to the Holy Qurbono on as many days as you can. Greet one another with the Easter greeting: “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” At home, light the lamp in the evening and sing or say an Easter hymn instead of the Lenten prayers; let the children tell what they saw in church at Easter. Visit or call the sick and the elderly who could not come to the Easter services, and share Easter food with someone who has little. Next Sunday is New Sunday, when the Church hears of the Lord's appearance to Thomas.
Theme: “You have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead.”
On Monday of Hevoro week: the story money bought, the new belonging, and the fruit we bear for God.
“For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit.” Psalm 16:10
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” 1 Corinthians 15:20
Apply: Greet three people this week with “Christ is risen!” and tell one why it matters to you.
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
“Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4
Apply: Renew your baptismal promises quietly this week before the Holy Qurbono.
“They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.” Psalm 1:3
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Apply: Keep one good habit begun in Lent through the whole Easter season.
The tomb is empty because the crucified body was raised in glory.
In Baptism we died with Christ so that we may belong to him and bear fruit for God.
Take-home resolution: Live this Hevoro week as people who belong to the risen Lord: at his altar, in honest speech, and in works of mercy.
Dear friends, Christ is risen! Today's Gospel shows two reports leaving the empty tomb. The women run with the truth; some of the guard are paid to say: his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep (Matthew 28:13).
St Augustine asked how sleeping witnesses could know who took the body. The truth of the Resurrection can be paid to be silent, but it cannot be paid to stay dead. The tomb was empty because the body that was crucified had been raised, glorious and alive.
St Paul tells us what this means for us: you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God (Romans 7:4). In Baptism we died with him; now we belong to him.
This is Hevoro week, the white week, kept as one great day of Easter. Let us come to the Holy Qurbono, greet one another with Christ is risen, visit those who could not come to church, and let our lives bear fruit for God. Amen.
Children, Christ is risen! On Easter morning some soldiers were paid money to tell a false story about Jesus. But nobody can stop the truth: Jesus really is alive! This whole week is Easter. Can you say to everyone at home today: Christ is risen? And they will answer: He is risen indeed!
Lord Jesus Christ, you are risen from the dead, and no money or lie could keep your tomb closed. Through your Body given for us we have died to the old life, so that we may belong to you. Make our lives bear fruit for God in the new life of the Spirit. Give us courage to tell the truth of your Resurrection, and gladden all who are sad this Easter with the light of your rising. You live and reign for ever. Amen.
Hevoro week is kept as one great day of Easter joy. On its first weekday Paul tells the baptized that they now belong to the one who has been raised, and that they may bear fruit for God. Matthew shows the other response to the same morning: a report that is paid to change. One reading says what the Resurrection does to a life, and the other shows how far some were willing to go to keep it out.
Setting.
Paul has just said that the baptized have died to sin (chapter 6). Now he goes one step further, and speaks to “those who know the law” (7:1). The law he means is the Law of Moses, which, he insists a few verses later, “is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (7:12). His question is not whether the Law is good but whether it has the power to give life. On its own it can name sin but cannot give the strength to overcome it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead” (7:4)
“Through the body of Christ” most naturally means his body given up on the Cross. The goal is not independence but belonging. The Christian changes from one bond to a better one.
“But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (7:6)
“Written code” is gramma, the letter, as in “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Paul does not mean that Christians may now do as they please. The next chapter says that the just requirement of the law is fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit (8:4).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the Old Law is holy and is the first stage on the way to the Kingdom, but that it shows what must be done without of itself giving the strength to do it (CCC 1962–1963). It calls the New Law “the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ” (CCC 1966). St Augustine, in his work On the Spirit and the Letter, argues from this teaching that the commandment without grace cannot bring us to life, and that with grace it is fulfilled in love (in substance). None of this sets Christians above the people of Israel, to whom, as Paul says, the Law and the promises belong (Romans 9:4).
Setting.
These verses complete the story of the guard that began on Holy Saturday (27:62–66). The women have just left the tomb, have met the risen Lord and are on their way to the disciples (28:8–10). Matthew deliberately cuts from them to the soldiers: “While they were going, some of the guard went into the city.” Both groups are carrying news from the same tomb.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened.” (28:11)
The first to report what happened at the tomb to those in power are the soldiers. So the truth was told before it was hidden.
“You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’” (28:13)
St Augustine, preaching on the Psalms, gently mocks the story: if they were asleep, how can they say what happened (in substance)? Sleeping witnesses are no witnesses. The very claim admits that the tomb was empty.
“So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.” (28:15)
St Justin Martyr, in the second century, also knows of this claim (Dialogue with Trypho 108). Yet the phrase should not be turned against the Jewish people, then or now (see the question below).
How the Church reads it.
The Church's confidence in the Resurrection does not rest on an argument about guards. It rests on the witness of those who met the risen Lord (CCC 642). Still, the empty tomb remains a real sign (CCC 640), and even the story told here against the Resurrection takes for granted that the tomb was empty. The Church reads the passage above all as a warning about what people can do to a truth that is inconvenient, a warning to Christians first of all.
Does verse 15 blame the Jewish people for not believing?
No. Matthew describes a particular group of leaders and a particular story. The first believers in the Resurrection, the women, the Twelve, and Paul himself, were all Jews. The Second Vatican Council teaches that what happened in the Passion cannot be charged against all Jews then alive or against the Jews of today (Nostra Aetate 4), and the Catechism says the same (CCC 597–598). Many scholars think that Matthew writes at a time of painful disagreement in the late first century, and we should read his words with that in mind.