“This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.” (Ps 118:24) Why? Because the sun is no longer darkened and everything is illuminated; the curtain in the Temple is no longer torn, the Church is revealed; we are no longer holding palm branches, and we are surrounding the newly baptized.

“This is the day the Lord has made”… This now is the day in the real sense of the word, the triumphant day, the day consecrated to celebrating the resurrection, the day when we adorn ourselves with grace, the day when we share the spiritual Lamb, the day when we give milk to those who have just been born, the day when Providence’s plan for the poor is realized. “Let us rejoice and be glad in this day.”

This is the day when Adam was freed, when Eve was delivered from her pain, when savage death shuddered, when the power of rocks was broken, when the bars of the tomb were torn away…, when the unchangeable laws of the powers of hell were abrogated, when the heavens were opened because Christ, our Master, rose. This is the day when, for the good of humankind, the green and fertile plant of the resurrection has multiplied its offshoots all over the world, as in a garden, when the lilies of the newly illumined have opened…, when the crowd of believers rejoices, when the martyrs’ crowns again grow green. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

 
Saint John Chrysostom