FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
Saint Paul writes: “Remember the Gospel I preach: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead” (2 Tim 2:8). The Resurrection of Christ is the central mystery of our faith. We profess in our Creed: “On the third day, He rose from the dead.” We believers in the Crucified and Risen Lord proclaim the Good News (Acts 13:32-34), the news of “first importance” (I Cor 15:3-4): the Lord is risen! And therefore, we are Easter People and Alleluia is our song!
THE UNIQUE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
The Resurrection of Christ is intimately linked to his incarnation and the fulfillment of the incarnation. It is utterly different from other “resurrections” the same Lord had done (and later on, some saints did by the power of God). Those who were raised up from death went back to their earthly and finite life, and later on, they died with finality.
The resurrection of Christ is absolutely unique. Jesus came back to life, not to an earthly life, but to an incorruptible and glorious divine life. How beautiful and consoling the description of death by St. John the Evangelist: “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father” (Jn 13:1). Our Savior rose from death by his own power and will, or by the power of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, but a power which is also Jesus’ power.
After Jesus’ passion and death on the cross, the first disciples were depressed, sad, demoralized (remember the two disciples of Emmaus). With that understandable negative attitude, the apostles could not invent at all a resurrection that would then be “fake news.” The first disciples’ faith in the resurrection followed a gradual process. The whole process starts with the empty tomb (cf. Jn 20:2, 6-8; cf. CCC 640). The fact of the empty tomb is immediately followed by about ten apparitions of the glorious Jesus to the apostles which confirmed and strengthened their faith in the Risen Lord: He is the same crucified Lord, now gloriously different but the same Jesus, God and man. Through this gradual process, some disciples doubted then but thereafter strongly believed in it.
To strengthen our faith in Jesus’ Resurrection, we have most credible witnesses. In the first place, the apostles and other disciples. These proclaimed the Word, centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus, in an incredibly bold and joyful manner. Peter and John are asked by the Jewish religious authorities not to talk about the name Jesus. Peter answers them:We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard (Acts, 4:20).
How did the first Christian communities show that they had experienced Christ’s transforming presence? Simply by being faithful to Jesus and his Gospel: “They remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to fraternity, to the breaking of the bread, and to prayer… They shared their food gladly and generously, praised God and were looked up to by everyone” (cf. Acts, 2:42-47).
With the first disciples, millions and millions of Christians through centuries have proclaimed in words and deeds that the Lord is Risen! Thank God, we are among these disciples, and know that the best way to show our faith in the Risen Lord – yesterday, today and always – is “the faithful following of Jesus” (J. M. Pagola). We are witnesses of the Resurrection. We have experienced the presence of the Risen Lord; we are utterly convinced by faith that He lives, and that we are asked to give testimony: to tell the world of his love.
OUR ENCOUNTER WITH THE RISEN LORD
We believe in the Resurrection of Christ because our merciful God has donated to us the amazing gift of faith! Faith in the Risen Lord is a personal encounter with him.
We are asked by our faith in Jesus to be witnesses of his resurrection, to be able to say “I have seen the Lord,” that is, I have experienced an encounter with the Risen Lord. Our faith is not mainly a doctrine or a morality but the paschal experience: the personal encounter with Jesus in the Church Sacraments, in the Eucharist, in the poor, in communitarian and personal prayer… Above all, in love – the love of Jesus in us: “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). And with Jesus’ love, we are able to love all: “We are well aware that we have passed over from death to life because we love one another” (1 Jn 3:14). We should not live, then, for ourselves “but for him who for our sake died and was raised” (2 Cor 5:15).
As believers, we are committed to be witnesses of the Risen Lord in our world: a world of irrational consumerism, growing atheism, gender ideology, climate change ideology, transhumanism, populist nationalism, injustice, violence and inequality. For this awesome task, we need to pray always, and be compassionate. But we are sure of one thing: Christ wins!
Our living faith in Christ’s resurrection and in our own resurrection grows more fervently – like the faith of the first disciples – gradually, little by little, like the grass in the field. It grows by practicing love in concrete good deeds: an act of kindness, a sincere smile, a silent presence, a gesture of loving concern, a humble word of consolation, a prayer of petition, an act of detachment.
Pedro Reyero OP, who was a zealous and fiery charismatic, connects marvelously the resurrection of Christ with the three theological virtues: the virtues of faith, hope and charity are seeds of the resurrection of Jesus in us. He told us in a Retreat: “In faith, God illumines our misery – our sins – that scandalize us and take us to humility. In hope, God takes us to look for the goods of heaven and not for the goods of the earth; God helps us to reject idols. In charity, God heals our selfishness to make us new men and women for others. This is the way of the Resurrection.
Easter calls us to a new, renewed life, which means death to sin and alive in love. If I really want to live a new life, and walk in the newness of life that leads to the glory of heaven, then I truly believe in the Resurrection of the Lord and in my own resurrection. We are citizens of heaven. Here on earth, we are pilgrims who one day shall depart to our Father’s home.
Truly, we are Easter People and Alleluia is our song!
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