Easter: He Has Been Raised! And We Have Been Raised With Him!
(catholic.org) By Deacon Keith Fournier
Everything is different now because that Tomb is empty. We have been capacitated, through the Resurrection, to begin living our lives in a new way. Have you have heard the old adage, used often in a disparaging way, "He´s so heavenly he is no earthly good." I propose this Easter morning that it misses the mark completely. We Easter people are called to be so heavenly- to live our lives so attractively - that we bring GoodnessHimself to the earth.
Because He has been raised, heaven has come to earth and earth can now come to heaven. Because He has been raised, the new creation has already begun. The seed of the kingdom is manifested in the Church which is His Risen Body, the sign of the new heaven and new earth
CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) – "Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth; For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory." (Col. 3: 1- 4)
In the Epistle reading for our Mass during the day on this great Feast of Feasts, Easter Sunday, the Apostle Paul reminded the early Christians – and reminds all of us who stand with them in the continuing redemptive mission of the Lord – of an aspect of our celebration. Not only has the Lord whom we love been raised but we who have been baptized into Him have already been raised with Him!
At the Great Easter Vigil the new flame was lit. As a deacon, I had the honor of carrying the Paschal candle into the dark sanctuary proclaiming "Christ our Light". Candle by candle, the light of the Resurrection illuminated the world around us as He who is the Light of the World fills it with His radiance.
The wonderful Vigil Liturgy proceeded through the Old Testament readings and into the New Testament - unfolding the great plan of a loving God who did not leave us in Sin but sent His only Son into the world to save us and set us free! This world which He had created in love through the Word is being re-created from within through the Saving Incarnation, the life, death and Resurrection, of the Word made Flesh. The one whom the Scriptures proclaim as the first born of the new creation burst forth from the tomb and began a new Creation.
Throughout the world, Catechumens, those being prepared through catechesis (instruction in the faith) for Baptism and the Easter sacraments - and the Candidates, Christians of other communities whose Baptism the Holy Church recognizes, being prepared along with them for the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist, were incorporated into the Church, the Risen Body of this One who has been Raised; the One in whom we have been raised.
The palpable joy of Easter flooded Christians throughout the world as we witnessed the power of God mediated through those saving waters of Baptism, the Oil of Chrism and the reception of the most Holy Eucharist, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Tears flowed like a river and the cold hearts of many of the faithful were enkindled once again by the great Easter Flame.
Now, on this Mass of Easter day we begin the Octave, the eight days, feasting on the readings which Holy Mother Church sets out on table. We will hear the marvelous post Resurrection accounts and follow the extraordinary change which occurred in the early Apostles as the power of this Resurrection fashioned them into a living witness for the faith. We will to celebrate Easter for fifty days until we celebrate the next great Feast, the Feast of Pentecost. Alleluias will permeate our worship – and are meant to inform our lives. That is because, in the words of the great western Church Bishop, Augustine, "we are an Easter people and alleluia is our song."
He has been raised and we have been raised with Him!
Everything is different now because that Tomb is empty. We have been capacitated, through the Resurrection, to begin living our lives in a new way. Have you have heard the old adage, used often in a disparaging way, "He´s so heavenly he is no earthly good." I propose this Easter morning that it misses the mark completely. We Easter people are called to be so heavenly- to live our lives so attractively - that we bring GoodnessHimself to the earth.
He has been raised and we have been raised with Him!
Because He has been raised, heaven has come to earth and earth can now come to heaven. Because He has been raised, the new creation has already begun. The seed of the kingdom is manifested in the Church which is His Risen Body, the sign of the new heaven and new earth. That Holy Place of Habitation where all men and women are called to be set free from the Law of sin and death, live and graze, being fed on His Word and nourished on His Body and Blood, be healed by His Oil of Mercy and prepared for eternity.
He has been raised and we have been raised with Him!
As we follow Peter and John, whose story we heard proclaimed in our Gospel lesson for this Easter Sunday, we will witness the power of the Resurrection at work in the lives of ordinary men and women who become extraordinary by living their lives in Him. No longer afraid, these witnesses of the Resurrection, in the words of the Acts of the Apostles, "turn the world upside down with their preaching." They became so configured to the Lord that they lived and died like Him, for the sake of the world which is being re-born now, because he has been raised. So can we!
He has been raised and we have been raised with Him!
The implications of the Resurrection unfolded for them as they reflected on His saving life and death and yielded to the work of the Holy Spirit in their own lives. So it can be with us as well. Time became for them a tutor, no longer a tyrant. Because the sting of death, sin, had been defeated, it became for them a portal into eternal life and communion with the One who has been raised. So it is for each of us who now bear His Name. Time invites us into a field of choice where we can progress in freedom and become configured to the One whose Holy Resurrection we celebrate.
He has been raised and we have been raised with Him!
Easter is more than a Day, it is a Way; A Way of living our lives differently now in Him. We are invited to do that by living them in His Church, which is His Body, for the sake of the world. That world created through Him out of love but which was lost due to sin. He came among us and began creation anew. That is what we celebrate today. Death has been defeated by His Saving Death. In His Resurrection, we now live no more to die. Darkness has been scattered by the Light which breaks forth from that empty tomb and is meant to infuse our daily lives with the radiance of Resurrected love.
He has been raised and we have been raised with Him!
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The Risen Jesus is Our Hope
Because Jesus is physically alive, his Church is visible. Because Jesus is corporeal, the sacraments are visible aqueducts of his divine life. Because Jesus physically transcends time and space, he remains with us in the Eucharist as the "medicine of immortality" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1405). The empty tomb and the neatly folded burial cloths illustrate that redemption is not only for the soul, but for the body as well.
CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (CATHOLIC ONLINE) - The resurrection of Jesus is a reality beyond doubt. The liturgical season of Easter fills us with immense joy and profound hope. However, each time we contemplate the gospel passages detailing the resurrection of Jesus we are faced with a sense of strangeness. The barriers of time and space no longer apply to him. The Lord appears and disappears with shocking suddenness. He continually demonstrates his physical reality. The Apostles and the disciples see him, hear him, and eat with him. Thomas is told to touch his wounds. The stone rolled away from the entrance, and the carefully folded burial cloths direct our gaze to the physical. He has truly risen.
The disbelief and uncertainty evidenced by those who saw him testify to an apparent strangeness in the appearance of the newly risen Christ. Slowly they came to recognize him, but they still struggled with doubt. Their response shows us that although the risen Jesus is the same Jesus that died on Calvary; his physical reality is now different than before. The body of the risen Lord is indeed his physical body, but he now moves about with a glorified body.
Repeatedly the gospels stress that something extraordinary has occurred. The Lord is tangible, but he has been transformed. His life is different from what it once was. His glorified body transcends the limitations of time and space. For this reason, he can pass through the closed door of the Upper Room, and appear and disappear as he desires. At times his disciples cannot recognize him precisely because their physical reality moves within time and space, and the Lord's physical reality is no longer subject to time and space, although he exists within time and space.
The clarity of the physical reality of the risen Jesus provides us with the certainty of the existence of the Lord and the veracity of everything that he has taught us. The empty tomb and the neatly folded burial cloths illustrate that redemption is not only for the soul, but for the body as well.
Applied to our practical daily living, the reality of the Risen Jesus fills us with profound peace. There is no need to worry or to fear. He is truly with us. With Jesus, we know that we are journeying, not to the sunset, but to the sunrise. We enter into a new relationship with God when we really believe that God is as Jesus told us that he is. We become absolutely sure of his love. We become absolutely convinced that he is above all else a redeeming God. The fear of suffering and death vanishes, for suffering and death means going to the one God who is the awesome God of love. In reality, our life long journey is a journey to the eternal Easter in Heaven.
When we truly believe, we enter into a new relationship with life itself. When we make Jesus our way of life, life becomes new. Life is clad with a new loveliness, a new light and a new strength. When we embrace Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we develop a personal relationship with him, we realize that life does not end, it changes and it goes from incompletion to completion, from imperfection to perfection, from time to eternity.
When we truly believe in Jesus, we are resurrected in this life because we are freed from the fear and worry that are characteristic of a godless life; we are freed from the unhappiness of a life filled with sin; we are freed from the loneliness of a life without meaning. When we walk with Jesus and follow his way, life becomes so powerful that it cannot die but must find in death the transition to a higher life.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead makes our entire journey to eternal life tangible, real, certain, and credible. Because Jesus is physically alive, his Church is visible. Because Jesus is corporeal, the sacraments are visible aqueducts of his divine life. Because Jesus physically transcends time and space, he remains with us in the Eucharist as the "medicine of immortality" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1405). Because Jesus has truly risen from the dead and ascended to the Father, we await with joyful hope his return in glory.
Nevertheless, despite the victory of Jesus over death, the attack of evil continues.
The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is unique. His death on Calvary completes and surpasses all the other sacrifices of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, Christ´s reign is to be fulfilled with his Second Coming in glory. Until that day occurs, Satan continues his attack even though he has been already conquered definitively by Christ´s
sacrifice on Calvary (cf. CCC 671).
In our own times, it is not hard to notice an ever-increasing presence of evil powers in the world. The battle continues and it seems as if humanity is out of control.
The perversions of a world that has rejected the Savior of the world continues to carry much of humanity down the blind road of self-destruction. The crisis of our age is rooted in the presumption that we can decide for ourselves what is good and evil without reference to God.
The reality of the risen Jesus fills us with peace and consolation because he is truly with us. His resurrection assures us of his final victory over evil. The genuineness of Easter keeps us from worry, fear, and discouragement. It sustains us in times of trial and it opens the heart to the expectation of eternal life. However, this Easter should inspire us to be apostles of life because Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
"We are the people of life because God, in his unconditional love, has given us the Gospel of life and by this same Gospel we have been transformed and saved. We have been ransomed by the ´Author of life´ at the price of his precious blood. Through the waters of Baptism we have been made a part of him, as branches which draw nourishment and fruitfulness from the one tree. Interiorly renewed by grace of the Spirit, who is the Lord and giver of life, we have become a people for life and we are called to act accordingly" (Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II, #79.1)
The culture of death makes itself manifest in numerous ways throughout our modern world. Abortion, euthanasia, excessive use of capital punishment and continuous wars are a concern to us all. However, of all of these terrible manifestations of the culture of death, abortion is the worse of them all.
If we can destroy innocent human life inside of the womb of a mother, and this no longer shocks us or concerns us, then nothing else will ever shock us or gain our concern.
If a society can justify the killing of an innocent unborn child, then there is no limit as to what else a society can justify regarding any other person.
This is why if we really desire to have respect for the sick, the elderly and the dying; if we really want to curb the incorrect use of capital punishment; and if we truly desire lasting peace throughout the world, the first thing that we must assure is the right to life of the unborn child.
As long as abortion remains an unchecked course of action, violence and injustice will continue to submerge the world in a continual spiral of chaos.
The Church must not, and cannot remain silent.
The issue of abortion becomes obscured when it is lumped together on an equal basis with every other social issue that concerns us. Wisdom allows us to make objective distinctions and carefully understand the causes and effects of sinful human behavior on society.
Ideologies only polarize the Church and obscure the efficacy of its mission here on earth.
As we joyfully celebrate the bodily resurrection of the Risen Lord, let us renew our commitment to the cause of life and the building up of a new culture of life.
However, given the present intensity of the battle for life, many have become discouraged. Many maybe tired of the battle.
My dear friends remember the words of St. Teresa of Avila: "Let nothing trouble you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes. God never changes. Patience obtains all. Whoever has God, wants for nothing. God alone is enough" (PoesÃas 30).
Abandon yourself into the loving hands of an awesome God that loves us unconditionally. Allow yourself to be purified. Do not let yourself be consumed by anger, anxiety, frustration, discouragement or resentment. Enter into the dark night of the spirit. Do not be afraid. Allow yourself to be a transparent witness of the God of life.
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Father James Farfaglia is the pastor of Saint Helena of the True Cross of Jesus Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. Father has a hard hitting blog calledIllegitimi non carborundum. He has also published a book calledMan to Man: A Real Priest Speaks to Real Men about Marriage, Sexuality and Family Life. He is a contributing writer to Catholic Online.
