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The Gospel we just heard is from Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse.” It seems to me that the Church, here in the Easter season, has us revisit Jesus’ last conversations before His passion, much like if a close friend or family member died, we might think back to the last conversations we had with them before their passing.

Well, this last week was pretty nice for me. I finally felt like things let up a bit, from Easter, and Christmas really, I feel like I have been running pretty hard for the last six months or more… In fact this week I finally got back to a project I started back in July.

Today’s Gospel is the same story as last week, Jesus appears to His disciples in the Upper Room on the day of the Resurrection, His Easter Sunday appearance, the only difference is last week we heard from John, and this week we hear the same story as told by Luke.

Happy Easter! Today is the last day of our Easter Octave - since Easter is so important we celebrate it with solemnity for 8 days, and then we keep celebrating just with a little less solemnity for 42 more days. Easter Season is 50 days to show it is more important than Lent, I hope everyone is enjoying their celebrations.

Happy Easter everyone! Easter is our most important celebration of the year. It’s more important than Christmas - without the Resurrection, the birth of Jesus would have been just the birth of another baby. It’s more important than our celebration of the Last Supper - without the Resurrection, the Last Supper would have been just another Passover meal. It’s more important than our Good Friday celebration of the Lord’s Passion - without the Resurrection, the crucifixion would have been just the murder of another prophet.

This year my spiritual read for deeper reflection on the Passion has been from the mystic Luisa Piccareta, a book called The Hours of the Passion Of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In it she goes hour by hour through the Passion we just heard. It is 116 pages, I started it last year, got about half way through, picked it up again this year, and it has been really good for reflection, but really striking, even painful to read and pray with.

Thanks for coming to Mass tonight, it’s the beginning of a beautiful three day celebration of the central mystery of our faith, namely the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.