I know it’s hard to see life differently these days when so much in the world seems to be spinning out of control. We can be overwhelmed by life before us. But let’s not forget we’re celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. We’re living in a day the Lord has made. Like the beautiful stain glass window above, God has brought light into our darkness.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, an early saint, says in a sermon: 

“The reign of life has begun, the tyranny of death is ended. A new birth has taken place, a new life has come, a new order of existence has appeared, our very nature has been transformed! This birth is not brought about by human generation, by human will power or by the desire of the flesh, but by God.

Let me explain it in clear language. Faith is the womb that conceives this new life, baptism the rebirth which brings it into the light of day. The Church is its nurse; her teachings are its milk, the bread from heaven is its food. 

It’s brought to maturity by the practice of virtue; it’s wedded to wisdom; it gives birth to hope. Its home is the kingdom; its rich inheritance the joys of paradise; its end, not death, but the blessed and everlasting life prepared for those who are worthy.

We’re living in the day the Lord has made – a day far different from those made when the world was first created and which are measured by the passage of time. This is the beginning of a new creation. On this day, as the prophet says, God makes a new heaven and a new earth. 

On this day is created the true human being, made in the image and likeness of God. This day the Lord has made is the beginning of a new world. This day, the prophet says, is not like other days, nor is this night like other nights. 

But still we have not spoken of the greatest gift it brings us. This day destroyed the pangs of death and brought to birth the firstborn of the dead.

I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God. O what wonderful good news! For our sake he became like us in order to make us his brothers and sisters, now he presents to his true Father his own humanity in order to draw all of us up after him.

What is this new heaven? It is the firmament of our faith in Christ. What is the new earth? A good heart, a heart like the earth, which drinks up the rain that falls on it and yields a rich harvest.”

Strange, haunting words to hear in the jumble of daily news reports from the world of wars and politics. So different from the words and images we swim in these days. Faith is a womb, he says, bringing life and hope. We’re living in the day the Lord has made. 

He brings an “Alleluia” to your mind.