The Fundamental Truth: the Resurrection

Little meditation for Easter Tuesday (translation of a talk in French in Radio Esperance)

In the Early Church, the newly baptized used to meet on Easter Tuesday at Saint Paul Basilica on the way to Ostia.  Saint Paul, the great tireless Apostle, spent his whole life after his conversion to bear witness to the Resurrection of Christ.  This is the reason why the Church encourages her new faithful to be witnesses too.  The crucial point of the Apostles’ preaching is the Resurrection of Christ, and so it will until the end of times.   “If Christ be not risen again, Saint Paul says, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain.”

“The Resurrection, Dom Guéranger says, is the fundamental truth and the supreme fact that certifies the entire mission of the Son of God on earth.”  It is not enough to believe in Christ crucified, which by the way does not require faith, even though it is well an article of faith; we must also believe in the Risen Christ.  “The whole energy of Christianity, Dom Guéranger adds, is contained in the dogma of the Resurrection.” 

The Church wants to transmit this energy to her newly baptized.  She tells them:tyou have been baptized in the death and Resurrection of Christ. Now, go! Go into the world whom you do not belong to! Go and bear witness to the truth!  There are still in the world so many souls plunged into darkness.

After the example of Saint Paul in today’s epistle, the Church makes us hear the voice of Our Lord in the gospel: “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the third day; and that penance and remission of sin should be preached in His name among all nations.”  The preaching of Easter message is a necessity in order to answer the call of our vocation of Baptism.  It is also a duty of charity toward those who do not know Jesus Christ.

We may be blamed for doing proselytism!  This reproach can even come sometimes from the mouth of “shepherds” of souls.  But are they really shepherds, according to Our Lord’s heart, those who attempt to refrain the Church’s mission of evangelization? Let us not be mistaken by idle words!  Let us rather hear the voice of Christ, the voice of the Church!  Many souls are lost for not knowing Jesus Christ the only Savior.  Can we keep for ourselves what we have received?  Can we refuse to share the gift of faith and the grace of salvation?  

“The Lord gave them the water of wisdom to drink, says the Introit of today’s Mass.  She shall be made strong in them, and shall not be moved.”  Let us drink to the fountain of grace in order to strengthen our souls.  Let us receive the water of the Sacraments, the water of doctrine in order to be wise, not according to the false wisdom of the world, but according to Jesus Christ, the uncreated and eternal Wisdom!  Founded on the rock, that is Christ and fed by His Body, we can be the witnesses of His Resurrection. Surexit Dominus vere, yes, the Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!