Easter Sunday 24 April 2011

[CENTRO ANTI-BLASFEMIA]

Sunday, 24 April 2011
Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday







ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD

"We bring you the good news that what God promised to the
fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising
Jesus." The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith
in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the
first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition;
established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an
essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross:

Christ is risen from the dead!
Dying, he conquered death;
To the dead, he has given life.

I. THE HISTORICAL AND TRANSCENDENT EVENT

The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event, with
manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament
bears witness. In about A.D. 56 St. Paul could already write to the
Corinthians: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third
day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,
then to the Twelve. . ." The Apostle speaks here of the living
tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his
conversion at the gates of Damascus.

The empty tomb

"Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here,
but has risen." The first element we encounter in the framework of the
Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself it is not a direct proof of
Resurrection; the absence of Christ's body from the tomb could be
explained otherwise. Nonetheless the empty tomb was still an essential
sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward
recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection. This was the case,
first with the holy women, and then with Peter. The disciple "whom
Jesus loved" affirmed that when he entered the empty tomb and
discovered "the linen cloths lying there", "he saw and believed". This
suggests that he realized from the empty tomb's condition that the
absence of Jesus' body could not have been of human doing and that
Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as had been the case
with Lazarus.

The appearances of the Risen One

Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing
the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath
began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the
Risen One. Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ's
Resurrection for the apostles themselves. They were the next to whom
Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to
strengthen the faith of his brothers, and so sees the Risen One before
them; it is on the basis of his testimony that the community exclaims:
"The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!"

Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves
each of the apostles - and Peter in particular - in the building of
the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One,
they remain the foundation stones of his Church. the faith of the
first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men
known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them.
Peter and the Twelve are the primary "witnesses to his Resurrection",
but they are not the only ones - Paul speaks clearly of more than five
hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also
of James and of all the apostles.

Given all these testimonies, Christ's Resurrection cannot be
interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is
impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear
from the facts that the disciples' faith was drastically put to the
test by their master's Passion and death on the cross, which he had
foretold. The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that at least
some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the
Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical
exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized
("looking sad") and frightened. For they had not believed the holy
women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an "idle
tale". When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, "he
upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they
had not believed those who saw him after he had risen."

Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the
disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing seem: they
thought they were seeing a ghost. "In their joy they were still
disbelieving and still wondering." Thomas will also experience the
test of doubt and St. Matthew relates that during the risen Lord's
last appearance in Galilee "some doubted." Therefore the hypothesis
that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles' faith (or
credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their faith in the
Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace, from their
direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus.

The condition of Christ's risen humanity

By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus
establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this
way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that
the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had
been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his
Passion. Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the
new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but
able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ's humanity can no
longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the
Father's divine realm. For this reason too the risen Jesus enjoys the
sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a
gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to
awaken their faith.

Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was
the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before
Easter: Jairus' daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These
actions were miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised
returned by Jesus' power to ordinary earthly life. At some particular
moment they would die again. Christ's Resurrection is essentially
different. In his risen body he passes from the state of death to
another life beyond time and space. At Jesus' Resurrection his body is
filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in
his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is "the man
of heaven".

The Resurrection as transcendent event

O truly blessed Night, sings the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil, which
alone deserved to know the time and the hour when Christ rose from the
realm of the dead! But no one was an eyewitness to Christ's
Resurrection and no evangelist describes it. No one can say how it
came about physically. Still less was its innermost essence, his
passing over to another life, perceptible to the senses. Although the
Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the
sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles' encounters
with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the
mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history.
This is why the risen Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but
to his disciples, "to those who came up with him from Galilee to
Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people."

II. THE RESURRECTION - A WORK OF THE HOLY TRINITY

Christ's Resurrection is an object of faith in that it is a
transcendent intervention of God himself in creation and history. In
it the three divine persons act together as one, and manifest their
own proper characteristics. the Father's power "raised up" Christ his
Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son's humanity, including
his body, into the Trinity. Jesus is conclusively revealed as "Son of
God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection
from the dead". St. Paul insists on the manifestation of God's power
through the working of the Spirit who gave life to Jesus' dead
humanity and called it to the glorious state of Lordship.

As for the Son, he effects his own Resurrection by virtue of
his divine power. Jesus announces that the Son of man will have to
suffer much, die, and then rise. Elsewhere he affirms explicitly: "I
lay down my life, that I may take it again. . . I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again." "We believe that Jesus died
and rose again."

The Fathers contemplate the Resurrection from the perspective
of the divine person of Christ who remained united to his soul and
body, even when these were separated from each other by death: "By the
unity of the divine nature, which remains present in each of the two
components of man, these are reunited. For as death is produced by the
separation of the human components, so Resurrection is achieved by the
union of the two."

III. THE MEANING AND SAVING SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION

"If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain
and your faith is in vain." The Resurrection above all constitutes the
confirmation of all Christ's works and teachings. All truths, even
those most inaccessible to human reason, find their justification if
Christ by his Resurrection has given the definitive proof of his
divine authority, which he had promised.

Christ's Resurrection is the fulfilment of the promises both
of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life. The
phrase "in accordance with the Scriptures" indicates that Christ's
Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.

The truth of Jesus' divinity is confirmed by his Resurrection.
He had said: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will
know that I am he." The Resurrection of the crucified one shows that
he was truly "I AM", the Son of God and God himself. So St. Paul could
declare to the Jews: "What God promised to the fathers, this he has
fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written
in the second psalm, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you.'"
Christ's Resurrection is closely linked to the Incarnation of God's
Son, and is its fulfilment in accordance with God's eternal plan.

The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ
liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to
a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates
us in God's grace, "so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin
and a new participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption so
that men become Christ's brethren, as Jesus himself called his
disciples after his Resurrection: "Go and tell my brethren." We are
brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that
adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son,
which was fully revealed in his Resurrection. Finally, Christ's
Resurrection - and the risen Christ himself is the principle and
source of our future resurrection: "Christ has been raised from the
dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . For as in
Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." The risen
Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that
fulfilment. In Christ, Christians "have tasted. . . the powers of the
age to come" and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of
divine life, so that they may "live no longer for themselves but for
him who for their sake died and was raised."



Catechism of the Catholic Church, n° 638-655







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