Let us be amazed!
Repeatedly the gospels stress that something extraordinary has occurred.
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. He appears and disappears 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 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. Our lifelong journey is a journey to the eternal Easter in heaven.
When we truly believe, we enter 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.
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.
My dear friends, if we really believe that Jesus has risen from the dead, if we really are an Easter people, if truly who live the Gospel, how then are we to live our daily lives?
Charity is the one virtue that defines us as true Christians. Charity is the greatest of all virtues.
Before his conversion, Francis of Assisi was riding his horse through the countryside. Suddenly he came upon a leper. Despite the ugliness of the terrible disease, Francis was so moved with pity, that he jumped from his horse and flung his arms around the unfortunate man. As Francis looked at the leper, the man’s face changed, and it appeared as the face of Jesus.
Charity, like all other virtues, is something very practical for our daily lives.
As we examine our daily actions, we can ask ourselves these questions: Have I been patient and kind to everyone? Have I been arrogant and rude? Have I been irritable? Have I been harboring resentment against anyone?
Maybe we can begin to change the social atmosphere of many of our cities and towns by being of good cheer wherever we may be. We can respectfully greet one another with proper social manners. The regular use of words such as “hello,” “good morning,” and “thank you,” need to be made a normal part of our public conduct.
Aside from all of this, there are other obstacles to the practice of the virtue of charity. Sad family situations can be very challenging.
The tragedy of divorce and separation leave deep wounds in families that need to be healed. Divisions in families over religion and moral values also cause deep wounds that may take years to overcome. The death of a family member may give rise to difficult situations battles over a contested will or the custody of minor children.
There is never an excuse to hate anyone. We are called to heed the words of Jesus about forgiveness. “But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5: 44)
Charity is the most essential virtue of Christianity. Without this virtue, we cannot call ourselves Christians.
How can we call ourselves Christian, if we are always impatient, angry, grumpy, selfish, resentful and mean?
How can we call ourselves Christian, if we isolate ourselves in our narcissistic Disneyland and ignore the needs of the poor?
Easter needs to shock our system. Pope Francis challenges us to be amazed.
He said: “Let us ask for the grace to be amazed. A Christian life without amazement becomes drab and dreary. How can we talk about the joy of meeting Jesus, unless we are daily astonished and amazed by his love, which brings us forgiveness and the possibility of a new beginning? When faith no longer experiences amazement, it grows dull: it becomes blind to the wonders of grace; it can no longer taste the Bread of life and hear the Word; it can no longer perceive the beauty of our brothers and sisters and the gift of creation. It has no other course than to take refuge in legalisms, in clericalisms and in all these things that Jesus condemns in chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew.
Let us lift our eyes to the cross, in order to receive the grace of amazement. As Saint Francis of Assisi contemplated the crucified Lord, he was amazed that his friars did not weep. What about us? Can we still be moved by God’s love? Have we lost the ability to be amazed by him? Why? Maybe our faith has grown dull from habit. Maybe we remain trapped in our regrets and allow ourselves to be crippled by our disappointments. Maybe we have lost all our trust or even feel worthless. But perhaps, behind all these “maybes,” lies the fact that we are not open to the gift of the Spirit who gives us the grace of amazement.
Let us start over from amazement. Let us gaze upon Jesus on the cross and say to him: “Lord, how much you love me! How precious I am to you!” Let us be amazed by Jesus so that we can start living again, for the grandeur of life lies not in possessions and promotions, but in realizing that we are loved. This is the grandeur of life: discovering that we are loved. And the grandeur of life lies precisely in the beauty of love. In the crucified Jesus, we see God humiliated, the Almighty dismissed and discarded. And with the grace of amazement, we come to realize that in welcoming the dismissed and discarded, in drawing close to those ill-treated by life, we are loving Jesus. For that is where he is: in the least of our brothers and sisters, in the rejected and discarded, in those whom our self-righteous culture condemns.” (Palm Sunday Homily, March 28, 2021)
A prayer that can help us live out the virtue of charity in our daily life is the well-known prayer of Saint Francis.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.