After the burial of Jesus, the Holy women returned and prepared spices and ointments. The next day, the chief priests and Pharisees made the sepulchre secure with guards, sealing the stone. When the Sabbath was passed, the Holy women brought sweet spices that they might anoint Jesus. But Jesus rose early the first day of the week, and there was a great earthquake, and an angel descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone. The guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men. On arriving at the sepulchre the holy women found the grave empty; Mary Magdalen ran to tell the Apostles Peter and John, while the other women were told by an angel that the Lord had arisen from the dead. Peter and John hasten to the sepulchre, and find everything as Magdalen has reported. Magdalen too returns, and, while weeping at the sepulchre, is approached by the arisen Saviour Who appears to her and speaks with her. On the same day Jesus appeared to the other Holy Women, to Peter, to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and to all the Apostles excepting Thomas. A week later He appeared to all the Apostles, Thomas included; later still He appeared in Galilee near the Lake of Genesareth to seven disciples, on a mountain in Galilee to a multitude of disciples, to James, and finally to His disciples on the Mount Olivet whence He ascended into heaven. But these apparitions do not exhaust the record of the Gospels, according to which Jesus showed Himself alive after His Passion by many proofs, for forty days appearing to the disciples and speaking of the kingdom of God.
By his Real Presence in the Eucharist Christ fulfils his promise to be with us "always, until the end of the age" (Mt 28:20). As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "It is the law of friendship that friends should live together. . . . Christ has not left us without his bodily presence in this our pilgrimage, but he joins us to himself in this sacrament in the reality of his body and blood" (Summa Theologiae, III q. 75, a. 1). With this gift of Christ's presence in our midst, the Church is truly blessed. As Jesus told his disciples, referring to his presence among them, "Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" (Mt 13:17). In the Eucharist the Church both receives the gift of Jesus Christ and gives grateful thanks to God for such a blessing. This thanksgiving is the only proper response, for through this gift of himself in the celebration of the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine Christ gives us the gift of eternal life.
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. . . . Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. (Jn 6:53-57)
