“Christ Lives in Us”
To speak of the Resurrection is no small thing.
It would help, of course, if one could first visit heaven—or if one could sit down, face to face, with the Risen Lord himself. But that is not how God chose to reveal this mystery.
Instead, the Resurrection comes to us through credible witnesses: women and men who accompanied Jesus in his life and ministry, witnessed his passion and crucifixion, saw the empty tomb, who encountered Jesus alive, who touched his wounds, who ate with him, and who were forever changed by that encounter.
And their testimony is not distant or abstract. The Jesus they encountered is not a different Christ from the one we know today. The Jesus we claim to know and believe in now is the same Risen Lord of Life.
This is what the Church proclaims tonight. This is what the Church dares to believe.
Throughout this Holy Week, I have been reflecting on the inseparable nature of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the integral reality of the paschal mystery and on the equally inseparable bond between the Risen Christ and his Church. These are not separate ideas. They belong together.
God is not a solitary being. God is communion—an eternal exchange of love. And in the Resurrection, that divine life is not kept at a distance from us. It is shared.
So we must ask the question that stands at the heart of Easter faith: What does it mean for the Risen Lord of Life to live in us?
It means, first, that the Resurrection is not only something that happened to Jesus long ago. It is something that happens to us, and in us, now.
St. Paul tells us that through Baptism we were buried with Christ, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life. The Resurrection is not simply a promise for the end of time; it is a power already at work in the Church, a Power and Life already stirring in each of the Baptized believers.
Christ does not rise and then leave us behind. The Risen Lord remains united to his Body. Just as the Son is never separated from the Father and the Spirit, so Christ is never separated from the Church. Where the Church lives faithfully, Christ lives.
This means that Easter is not only proclaimed from the pulpit or at the altar. The Risen Christ lives in us; is a Reality in our daily life.
If Christ truly lives in us, then death does not have the final word—not in our world, not in our communities, not in our own hearts. Sin, fear, despair, violence, and division do not get the last word. Love does. Mercy does. Life does.
To say that Christ lives in us is to say that we are not left to navigate the darkness alone. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells within the Church, giving us courage when we are afraid, perseverance when we are weary, and hope when the future seems uncertain.
And this is why the Resurrection always sends the disciples out. No one who truly encounters the Risen Lord remains unchanged—or silent.
The women run from the tomb. The disciples leave the locked room. Fear gives way to mission. The Church is born not from certainty or strength, but from our encounter with the Risen Lord of Life.
So tonight—whether in the darkness of the Vigil or the light of Easter morning—the Risen Christ asks us not only, “Do you believe?” but also, “Will you live as if this is true?”
Will we live as a people shaped by Resurrection hope?
Will we be a Church that bears witness—not only in words, but in lives transformed by mercy, forgiveness, and sacrificial love?
Will we allow the life of Christ in us to become visible in the way we treat one another, especially the poor, the suffering, the forgotten?
This is the quiet but astonishing claim of Easter: Christ lives! Christ is risen! And the Risen Christ lives in us.
May we live as those who share in the resurrection of Jesus. In Baptism Jesus ‘raises us up’. Let us stand and walk with the dignity of the redeemed as credible witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Alleluia. Alleluia.
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