Easter Sunday this year was very special. Every Easter of course provides a special opportunity to rejoice and to celebrate by remembering the foundation on which our faith rests, the resurrection of Jesus, but this Easter was different for me because of something that happened last November.
On November 17th of last year, I celebrated Easter Sunday Mass. On the last day of a pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan, I had the opportunity to celebrate Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher inside the tomb of Christ. This came as a wonderful surprise to me, since I was not the “official priest” of the pilgrimage. We rose very early that morning just like Mary Magdalene had many centuries ago, and also as she did, we went to the tomb of Jesus. We arrived before 6am. At 6:30 sharp, the small wooden door of the tomb was closed behind us and thirty pilgrims remained inside. I celebrated Mass on the white marble slab that covers the original burial stone where Jesus’ body was placed.
The tomb is very small and divided into two chambers. The outer chamber, the Chapel of the Angels, is reached by passing through a small door. A small candle burns there marking where angels announced the resurrection. An even smaller passageway leads pilgrims from the Chapel of the Angels into the inner chamber where only three or four people fit at once. This smaller chamber is the tomb proper.
I led the Liturgy of the Word in the Chapel of the Angels, and then entered the inner chamber for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. A few pilgrims were able to take turns entering into the inner chamber during Mass, including my mother who came with me as a pilgrim.
The Mass had to conclude in less than thirty minutes for the next group of pilgrims to enter, so I must unfortunately say that I felt rushed through it all. Despite the rush, the experience has remained and I continue to draw tremendously from it.
This Easter Sunday morning, a beautiful thought came to mind. In the act of celebrating the Eucharist in the tomb in November, Jesus manifested himself to us pilgrims, as bread and wine became His body and blood, in the very same place where he manifested Himself to the world as risen from the dead. In a certain way, celebrating Mass in the tomb of Jesus was an experience of witnessing the resurrection in the place where it happened.
As a priest, I have been at many death beds. I often meditate on that second when a person is still alive, followed by the next second when the person is dead. That moment when a person ceases to breathe appears to last an eternity. At the resurrection of Jesus, the opposite happened. At one moment, he was dead, and then he was alive. The moment of the consecration while celebrating the Eucharist at the tomb of Jesus allowed me to experience the resurrection, which does indeed last an eternity.
All pictures are mine, all rights reserved. Jerusalem, 2015.
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