St. Luke Byzantine Catholic Church

The Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord is celebrated on April 20th, this year.   

Liturgy:

 Sunday, April 20 - Resurrection Matin at 8:30am

                                 - Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom at 10:00am

The Paschal Sermon of Saint John Chrysostom is below.                                       

Three incredible wonders – not known from the beginning of time and beyond our natural understanding – are intertwined, and remain unbroken and immovable. For a triple-braid cord is not quickly ripped apart. These are: the virgin mother giving birth, the resurrection after the three-day passion, and the ascension of flesh into heaven. Time knows of a barren woman giving birth, but not without marital relation; it knows of dead who have come back to life, but not into life unending; it knows of a prophet taken up, but only as it were into heaven, that is ‘as if’, not in truth. For Elijah passed from place to place, but the Savior ascended, to whence he descended; while many men and women looked on, and grew weary gazing up at the sky, and angles bore witness to the spectacle, and disclosed the second coming; “And behold,” it is written, two men in white robes stood beside them and said; Men of Galilee, why do you stand there looking into the sky?”

Oh how much has the Good One accomplished for the salvation of wicked servants! He descended from heaven; he ascended into heaven; from heaven he will come again. How then, will he come? Not as some other divided hypostasis, but in the likeness of flesh, inhuman form; not however in a lowly manner as formerly – not sleeping in a boat, not detained by weariness from thirst next to a well, not seated on the colt of an ass – but carried by colts in the form of clouds; not bringing fishermen with him, but accompanied by a guard of angels; not standing before the judgement seat, but he himself will be judging the uttermost ends of the universe, granting judicial authority to the fishermen, as he himself taught the disciples, saying: “When the son of man will sit on this throne of glory, you will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” And to the Jews: “If I cast out demons by Beelzeboul, by whom then do your sons cast them out? For this reason, they will be your judges” – since those who were of the Jews, did not heed the things of the Jews, but preferred the sufferings of Christ, and the marks of their relatives, the slayers of the Lord. 

What a great wonder! What a strange tribunal: to see a fisherman judging, and a Pharisee being judged, a tent maker boldly sitting as judge, and a high priest groaning, being convicted. Why then were they slapping the Master’s face, and punching him around the head, until in the end they murdered the heir outside the vineyard? Why did they imprison Peter? Why did they torture Paul five time with forty lashes less one? Yet the admirable high priest Ananias commanded his servant to strike Paul’s mouth, the mouth of Paul, the mouth of grace, the mouth of truth, the plectrum of life, the noblest of all trumpets, the most harmonious of all harmonies, the instrument of Christ, the flute of the Spirit; for those things which are known through the Holy Spirit, Paul made public with his tongue. And so, I think David was characterizing Paul when he wrote: “My tongue is the pen of a swift-writing scribe.” What then did Paul say to Ananias, foreseeing this impending judgement? “God will strike you, whitewashed wall!” For a whitewashed wall is an ornamented tomb; an enemy without, and dead within. 

Troparion:

Christ is risen from the dead! By death he trampled Death; and to those in the tombs. he granted life.