Dear Brothers and Sisters, as evening approached on Easter Sunday, Jesus came and stood among His disciples and greeted them with Peace.  He then showed them His hands and His side.  And although He still visibly bore the terrible wounds inflicted on His Sacred Body by the sins of the world, He revealed them now not as rebuke to humanity but as an offer of the kind of lasting peace that only He could give. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters. Peter and the other disciple ran together to the Tomb and saw the linen cloths on the ground.  Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of Scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.  But now they saw, and they believed. Later that same day the Risen Lord appeared to them in the flesh with greetings of peace and forgiveness of sins. 

Remember what He told you when He was still in Galilee: that the Son of Man had to be handed over into the power of sinful men and be crucified and rise again on the third day!

Dear Brothers and Sisters, as we reflect on the Great Mystery that is the Eucharist and the Holy Mass my thoughts turn to the words of Pope Saint John Paul, written in the Year of the Eucharist 2004.

Dear brothers and sisters: The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for the Lord has anointed me!