only the persevering will find Jesus - easter tuesday 2015

Today is the third day of the octave of Easter.  Octave of Easter comes from the latin word octo meaning 8.  Octave means the 8 days of Easter starting from Easter Sunday and ending in the second Sunday of Easter.  If the 9 days novena is preparation for the feast, the 8 days octave is the prolongation of the feast.  There are only two feasts which have an octave – they are Christmas and Easter.

Today in our first reading Peter baptized 3,000 people in just one day.  Peter after speaking about the crucified Christ who was raised from the dead spoke of the need to repent and be baptized.  When Peter was asked “What are we to do, my brothers?”  Peter said to them in reply, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you.”

All of us I suppose have participated actively in the activities and rituals of the season of Lent.  On Ash Wednesday we started lent by the imposition of ashes on our foreheads – it was a sign of repentance.  We were told to fast and abstain, to do penitential acts especially every Friday, we were told to pray more often, to go to mass more often, to do the Lenten devotions such us the via crucis.  We were told to go to confessions and receive absolution from the priest, and we were told to do away with our vices and sinful habits.

We were especially encouraged to do works of charity to our neighbors, to do justice to our workers, to care for the poor and the neglected because we were told in the first letter of Peter that love covers a multitude of sins.  Many of us have done all these and some did even more.  Then last Easter Sunday we all renewed our baptismal promises, we promised once more to oppose Satan and his evil ways in our life, in our surroundings, in our society, and we promised once more to put God where God truly belongs – at the center of our lives and at the head of our many priorities and activities in life.

This is our way too of fulfilling the preaching of St. Peter on that day of Pentecost when he told his fellow Jews to repent, to do penance and to be baptized in the name of Jesus.  This is what Lent is all about, this what Easter is all about - to fulfill what Peter is asking from us because of what Jesus did for us – because of his dying for our sake, because of his rising to new life.

Now all we need is to sustain what we have started.  Today this is the lesson we can glean from our gospel.  It was only Mary Magdalene who remained to search for Jesus in the empty tomb and because of that persistence she found him.  Her perseverance teaches us that anyone who sincerely keeps searching for Jesus Christ will eventually find Him.  This is also the challenge for us this Easter and the rest of the year.  We must persevere in the good we have begun in the season of Lent.

Only the persevering will find Jesus in the end.