This Sunday is the octave day of Easter, and Divine Mercy Sunday. By way of observations about and reflections on our Mass readings, I would like to make three brief points.

First, the resurrection makes possible for us the Christian life, understood as the life of faith, hope, and love. In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells us to have faith in him because of the Apostles' witness to his resurrection. In our second reading, St. Peter speaks of this same faith, and relates it to hope and love also. What are faith, hope, and love, and how are they related to the resurrection and to each other? Let me suggest, for those who are interested in further thought about these questions, a (re)reading of Pope Benedict XVI's two encyclicals, on hope (and faith), from late last year, and on love, from a couple of years ago.

Second - and complementing the first point - the resurrection makes possible for us Christian life, understood as the life of believing what the Church believes and teaches, participating in the liturgy and receiving the sacraments, acting in accord with the Church's moral doctrine (based on revelation and reason together), and praying. Our first reading, from Acts, begins: "They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers." One might say that these practices of the first Christians correspond to the four pillars of Christian catechesis and life that I have mentioned, and that serve as the structural framework of the Catechism (each of its four parts concerns one of these four pillars). "The teaching of the apostles" is what the Church believes and teaches. "The communal life" is morality in relation to God and neighbor. "The breaking of bread" is the Church's liturgy and the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. And, of course, "the prayers" are Christian prayers, both common and private. For those who would like to explore these four pillars of Christian life in detail, there is the Catechism, and also the Compendium of the Catechism.

Third, the resurrection is God's great act of mercy, and insofar as Christian life - whether understood as the life of faith, hope, and love, or as the life of belief, liturgy/sacraments, morality, and prayer - is founded on the resurrection, it is therefore founded on God's mercy. We could not, of our selves, by our own, natural powers, live the Christian life. And, of course, our nature is disordered as an effect of the fall of our first parents. But all that God asks of us, he mercifully gives to us, in our risen Lord Jesus Christ. One might therefore say also that the Christian life is itself God's merciful gift to us. Let us receive it with gratitude, joy, and devotion.