The acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, observed about the Resurrection: “It is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.”
In the individualistic society we are living in many are shocked by suffering and death. My daily experience at Mater Dei Hospital constantly teaches me this hard reality. Suffering and death are destructive because they ruthlessly destroy, or even try to annihilate, the love for life! Unfortunately, the self-centred mentality that has been gradually plaguing our society is erroneously making us believe that we can defeat the horrendous realities of illness and mortality on our own. It is even endeavouring to make us substitute the Trinitarian God with empty optimism, devoid of any reference to a personal God whose extraordinary loving agenda is to save us from our distorted selves!
Christ’s resurrection, which the universal Church jubilantly celebrates today, is a call and a remedy for the post-modern egocentric way of living. The New Testament doctrine is crystal clear about Jesus’ resurrection. The latter has been the exclusive act of God the Father. The following Scriptural citations, namely, Acts 2: 24; 3: 15; 4: 10; 10: 40; 13: 30. 37; Romans 10: 9 and 1 Corinthians 6: 14 all show the uncontested fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead by God the Father. If, during his life on earth, Jesus “was led by the Spirit” (Luke 4:1) to fulfil his redemptive mission how come then that God would desert him at the very moment he needed him most? Did not the dying Jesus on the Cross two days ago commend himself to the Father when he said: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23: 46)? Did not the Father lovingly receive Jesus’ last and faithful wish which he expressed on the altar of the Cross?
If that was the case then resurrection was not only God’s everlasting victorious response over evil, but also God’s most convincing vindication that a transformed individual is necessarily the result of a self-giving community, the Church, which its exemplar is to be found within the Trinitarian agape. The great Pope Benedict XVI beautifully explained this point in his Easter Vigil homily in 2006.
“The Resurrection is not a thing of the past; the Resurrection has reached us, and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firmly, even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also hold on to one another’s hands. And we become one single subject, not just one thing.
“I, but no longer I: this is the formula of Christian life rooted in Baptism, the formula of the Resurrection within time. I, but no longer I: if we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a programme opposed to corruption and to the desire for power and corruption”.
If, as Pope Francis told us on the fifth Sunday of Lent, “… our resurrection begins here: when we decide to obey this command of Jesus, going out into the light, into life” can we not do that solely by being active members of the Church? Thanks to its proclamation of the Word, the celebration of the Eucharist as well as the various ways of spreading the salvific message of the Gospel, both in words and in deeds, the Church helps us to open ourselves up to that newness which God passionately wants to bring into our lives. It is the Church which can instil in us that much needed confidence so that you and I will never give up when facing life’s troubling waters but keep letting God take charge of our lives. After all, there is no sin he cannot forgive if you and I open ourselves to his loving mercy as displayed to us through the Church.
Do I want to be resurrected with Jesus by letting the ‘We’ of the Church prevail on the shattering ‘I’?
Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann