Fifth and final day of the 2025 “Lenten Talks” at the Parish of San Cosme and San Damián, Burgos. It comments on the events of Easter Sunday: Having risen early on the first day of the week, (Jesus) appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast seven demons. She went to announce this to his companions, who were mourning and weeping. When they heard him say that he was alive and that he had seen him, they did not believe her. Then he appeared in the form of another man to two of them who were walking in the countryside. They, too, went to announce this to the others, but they did not believe them. Finally, Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were reclining at the table, and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:1-15).

The Lenten talks end, and the liturgy culminates its upward journey with the celebration of Easter Sunday. It is the final piece of the Easter puzzle, the finishing touch that gives meaning to Holy Thursday, the Friday of the Cross, and the Saturday of Silence. But this is not just a glorious ending: it is the beginning of a new life, of a new way of being human inaugurated by Christ.

The Gospel accounts show us that the risen Jesus appears to his disciples in a real, corporeal, tangible way, albeit with a different kind of life. He is not a spirit, nor an illusion. He eats, he speaks, he allows himself to be touched. But he is no longer subject to time or space. His glorious body is not like that of Lazarus or the son of the widow of Nain, who died again. Jesus has conquered death forever.

This unprecedented event radically transforms the apostles. From fearful and hidden men, they become bold witnesses of a truth that surpasses them, but which they can no longer deny. And what they see, what they touch, what they hear, is not an idea or a doctrine: it is a Person. It is Jesus, who lives, who acts, who calls.

The resurrection inaugurates a new era: that of authentic Christianity. Not a sociological or traditional religion, but a living relationship with Christ. As Benedict XVI wrote: “One does not begin to be a Christian through an ethical decision or a grand idea, but through the encounter with an event, with a Person.”

This personal encounter with the living Christ, with his grace that dwells in the soul, transforms everything: our way of seeing, of living, of loving. It introduces us to the Trinitarian dynamism, transforms us into children in the Son, into new men and women. Grace is not an energy to achieve more things, nor a moral magic wand. It is the very life of God within us.

That is why the true Christian shines. It radiates. It transforms his environment. “Faith is transmitted through envy,” a journalist once said: when we see someone filled with Christ, happy, joyful, luminous… we desire the same. Today, more than ever, the world needs Christians inhabited not by habit, but by grace.

And at the end of this Easter journey, Mary. Our Lady of Sorrows becomes our Glorious Lady. She, who maintained hope on Holy Saturday, now becomes Queen of Heaven. In her, we see the fullness of what grace can do in a human being.

As Saint Josemaría said: “Nothing perfects personality as much as correspondence to grace. Strive to imitate Our Lady, and you will be a man or woman of one piece.”

Day One: Easter or Nothing: The Heart of the Christian Faith

Day Two: Dying to Self, Being Born to Love

Day Three: The Christian Sacrifice

Day Four: Christian Hope

Day Five: More Than Human